Warhammer Underworlds Battle Report: A double dose of Ephilim's Pandemonium

 A hatrick, as for the third week running I managed to go and play a game of Underworlds in The Outpost!

So that means another opportunity to get the grips with my warband and deck for the upcoming tournament in Halle, now less then two weeks away, and obtain some much needed points for my T3 placement.

 

 

And what more brutal training then facing Peter not once, but twice with his Ephilim,s Pandemonium, a really scary warband with ranged magic all along the line, and pretty accurate Hammers attacks to boot.  Past Adepticon, 5 or 6 of those ended up in the top-10 as well, so this would be a serious test for my little fish.

 

 

Setting up for the first game, we went through the whole motion of the Pandemonium's pre-round sequence, before I took first turn.  Fuirann immediatly charged in, but failed to hit on Spawnmaw, as Tammael and Duinclaw followed suit.  They had more success however, taking out Flamespooler and first blood to the Soulraid.  The first round ended with a 2-0 on the board for Elathain's.

Peter immediatly restored the balance though in the second turn, as Fuirann was taken down by a combined assault of two Changers.  Teaming up on the two smaller Changers however, Tammael and Elathain scored some more points though on his half.

But Elathain himself was the next to fall, hammered by a magical barrage from Ephilim, who I must say failed every gambit spell he undertook this game.  This definitly had an impact, as you will see later on in the second game.  But even with that, the Pandemonium overtook the Soulraid, putting a 7-7 on the scoreboard and a very empty looking battlefield to go into round 3.

In that final round, Spawnmaw was swiftly despatched, putting a heavily boosted Ephilim against a wounded Tammael, Duinclaw and the Spinefin.  

As I knew I couldn't take the wizard out, a dance began to set it up for scoring some other objectives.  Ephilim downed Tammael, and then assaulted the brave Duinclaw.  Duinclaw survived though, and as such I could play Doom and Gloom to score heavily, and ended the game with a 14-10 victory.

On to the second game, where knowing what that wizard could do, I placed the boards and deployed hyper aggressively, gunning to take down the wizard before he started boosting up to much.  The plan was to take out the two smallest one immediatly to play some upgrades myself, then rush Ephilim early in the second round.

It started well, with Elathain himself rushing Kindlefinger and taking him out, but on the other side an already boosted Fuirann failed her starting line charge once again, and basically the plan stalled right there and then.  Especially as Ephilim brought his minion back in play, and froze Fuirann to the spot after wounding her with magic.  If she moved, she would die, simple as that.  Never the less, the Soulraid led by 5-4, but this would be the end of my glory parade against the Tzeentchian's.

The second round saw Elathain swiftly fall to shots of magical lightning, as at least Fuirann managed to take out Apo'Trax in front of her, one activation to late.  She herself quickly followed suit though.  Next, Tammael was magicked down, meaning I would need to take on a wizard and three demons with only my menagerie, and with all their ranged powers nowhere to run.  The score now read 10-12 as there was a lot of points gained by both sides this turn, but I couldn't imagine what more to do then some damage control.

A last desperate assault by Duinclaw failed to make a dent though, and with only a single wound on him my only hope was that he would survive two more activations of the Pandemonium.  I had Doom and Gloom in hand again, so if Duinclaw survived I could put that down as Spinefin would park himself next to Ephilim, a Shifting Currents in hand would guarantee this even if the wizard would move.

But alas, the final attack was the attack to many, and the brave crab fell to the demonic horrors, leaving only the sole little fish as a witness to the magical barrage, ending the game at 10-19 as I didn't manage to score a single card in the final round.

Still, I think with these guys, especially when they are combined with Force of Frost, it is a good plan to try and take out Ephilim as soon as possible.  Sadly, fickle Fuirann decided otherwise on this, but one up and one down wasn't to shabby for the evening.

I doubt I'll make it to the weekly gathering next week, so this is how it will stand for Halle, high hopes of not finishing last at least, and hopefully boosting my T3 rating again a bit as my points from 2020 are melting to a low point now.