My Third Warhammer Underworlds Tournament - Agents Clash 2023

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On the 11th November 2023, 24 players gathered at the Gamer's Guild in Redhill for the first tournament arranged by Pete and Robin, the Agents of Sigmar. In previous tournaments, I had taken pure Aggro warbands, which I had enjoyed playing but the dice had failed me. This time I wanted to play something with Flex. As I have a large Nighthaunt army for Age of Sigmar, I decided to take Lady Harrow's Mournflight, which I combined with Force of Frost (to make my Ice Scream deck). This deck could be used for control of objectives, but equally be aggressive if necessary.



The tournament would be played out as five best-of-one games. I liked the idea of this format, as I would get to play more players than in a best-of-three tournament.


Game 1


In the first game, I was drawn against Martin with Garrek's Reavers with Tooth and Claw. I won the roll off and decided to place boards first. I off set Martin's board by placing mine (the Shattered Tower) so that the blocked hexes were in the way to disrupt his charges in the first turn. Additionally, I  set up towards the back of the board. My intention was to expend the first turn trying to Inspire, pick up a couple of my objectives Inescapable Hunger and Fleeting Memories and then maybe, kill a couple of his fighters.  This game went really well. My objectives came out of my deck in a nice order, I killed all his fighters, as they were hindered by the bottleneck produced by my blocked hexes. In the end, I lost only the Screaming Maiden and I scored all my objectives, except from Bitter Embrace. The game finished 21-2 in my favour. I did feel bad for Martin as his warband could do very little to stop mine from scoring. I was glad it was a best of one, as I am not sure Martin would have enjoyed the second game. He was a really good sport.


Game 2


In the second game, I was drawn against Dan with Skabbik's Plaguepack combined with Voidcursed Thralls. I was now on the heady heights of table 1. The game was an even affair the whole way through. Unfortunately, for me, few of my Surge objectives were drawn early in the game and those that did I found difficult to score. This was because Dan was trying to hold objective tokens, which prevented me from scoring some of my Surges, namely Glacial Cool and Stranglehold.  I drew Dominion of Death at the start of the second round, and unfortunately this bricked up my hand.  As such, I started playing heavily into Aggro with my warband. This worked well. Early in round 1, I had took out Rabidius Skench (the 3 damage Plague Censer bearer) and as the game progresses I got through the other Plague monks  (Poxlix and Rikkit) and the Skabbik (the leader) leaving only Itchitt (the Plague Burner rat) and the Skritter (the worthless minion) remaining. At the end of the game, I had killed four of my opponent's fighters and scored just five of my objectives for a total of 11 Glory. My opponent had only killed one of my fighters, but had managed to score seven objectives for a total of 11 Glory. Dan had a fighter on an objective, winning him the game.  It was during this game, I realised that I did not like one of my objective card, Bitter Embrace, as it was just too difficult to score. Overall, a good game but an annoying defeat.


Game 3

In the third game, I was drawn against (another) Dan with Gryselle's Arenai with Tooth and Claw. In this game, I lost the roll off for board placement. As such, I placed my defensive board (Soul Refractor), which my opponent, aligned straight on. I deployed with all my fighters at the back of the board and Dan placed his towards the front of his. The first turn saw all, but one of the Arenai charge into my half of the board causing wounds on most of my fighters. I, in return, managed to kill Gryselle with the combined attacks of Lady Harrow and the Widow. In the Second round, Retaria, the Entangler, moved into hex adjacent to three of my fighters and attempted a Scything attack. Fortunately, my two dodge fighters all survived due to the lack of Crits in any of the attacking rolls. Annoyingly, I forgot about Lady Harrow's inspired push reaction, which would have allowed me to get away from the attack. It was at this point, I realised that staying to fight these Aelves was a bad idea. I used the Widow's inspired teleport ability to move her into my opponent's half of the board, ultimately, stopping him from scoring Hurricane Force.  Triaxial, the Aegis, then charged in and proceeded to kill Lady Harrow and the Screaming Maiden with the persisting Spinning Flourish and some handy crits. The Anguished One was left along with the Widow. To score a number of my objectives, I need two surviving fighters. So, I played Soaring Spite, I moved to the back edge of my Opponent's board. The second end phase, again saw my throw away Bitter Embrace, I was winning 10-9. I drew into Tide of Malice, Inescapable Hunger and Dominion of Death. In the third round I needed to use my activations to keep my fighters away from the aelves. Unfortunately, in the third activation, Kalexis, the Silvered Blur, equipped with a bunch of ploys. Charged six hexes and killed the Anguished One. I could no longer score any of my objectives. The game was 10-11 against me and I could no longer score any of my objectives. The game ended 10-11 and a loss. In this game, I should have been more defensive, but ultimately it came down to one dice roll.


Game 4


In the fourth game, I was drawn against Ronan with Skabbik's Plaguepack combined with Voidcursed Thralls. My second game against the diseased Plague Monks. Learning from the game two, earlier in the day, I went on the offense. My first turn was spent trying to achieve two tasks: firstly inspire most of my fighters and secondly kill some rats. Before, I did this the Widow moved through two objective tokens to score Fleeting Memories allowing me to upgrade Lady Harrow with Hollow Hatred for increased accuracy on the charge. The game proceeded really well, being closely fought all the way through. The rats again, occupied the objective tokens stopping me from scoring some of my objectives and allowing them to rack up some Glory. I, on the other hand, went for thinning the Swarm. By the end of the Second round, I had three fighters remaining (the Screaming Maiden having been taken out in the second round after becoming Voidcursed), the Plaguepack, still had two fighters: Skritter (the worthless rat minion) and the Rabidius (the Plague Censer bearer) who was tooled up to the eye balls. In my hand, I had Dominion of Death, Nexus of Terror and Break the Ice. The game was currently, 8-7, to me. I won the roll off for the final round and went first. I immediately attacked the Skritter, charging in with Lady Harrow supported by the Widow. The Skritter was taken out of action, allowing me to score Break the Ice, for the first damage caused, but no glory for the actual kill. I then drew into Tide of Malice. Ronan charged with Rabidicus and attacked the Widow, due to supports from Lady Harrow, she took no damage and then flew away to occupy and objective. The Rabidius stuck again, this time injuring the Anguished One. Not waiting around to be removed from the play, I played Soaring Spite, and the Anguished One moved 8 hexes away into my opponent's territory and onto an objective token. Ronan, then chose to draw objective cards for his last activation. As I had gone first in the final round, I scored all 7 Glory from my objective hand and the game finished 16-8 in my favour. I fun game and a great opponent.  


Game 5


In the fifth game, I was drawn against Mikey with Magore's Fiends and Fearsome Fortress. With a current win:loss score of 2-2, I was keen to win my final game in order to finish in the top half of the tournament. Mikey played Magore's defensively. I lost the roll off for boards, but my opponent, wanted to place objective tokens, so I got to choose board placement (I again went with the Shattered Tower) and then placed objectives. Immediately, I realised it was going to be difficult to score my holding objective cards. Equally, as his fighters did not advance into my territory, it was difficult for me to inspire. The game ended up being a very cagy (not the Gnoblar!) affair. I was not particularly keen to charge into his territory and neither did the Fiends want to come me. Eventually, Riptooth charged my ghosts inflicting no damage, before being killed by my swarming Banshees. I now needed to counter charge, as Mikey was scoring passive Glory for sitting on feature tokens in the centre of the board.  At one point, I used to Call of the Grave and Frightful Aspect to draw Magore into a lethal hex, hoping that now he was close to me he would charge, he did not, instead moving back to his objective in his own territory. On reflection, I should have used these cards before my activation, and then charged in with Lady Harrow and her Cleave. I was, however, trying to get a fighter in range to move through in my order to inspire the Screaming Maiden, so that I could score Tide of Malice. In the end, my remaining uninspired fighter, the Screaming Maiden, made a kamikaze charge into Zharkus and Ghartok. With her demise, I was able to score Tide of Malice in the second end phase. In the third round, I went first and Lady Harrow took out Ghartok and this was followed by Magore healing himself. At the start of my fourth and final activation, the score was 10-9 all, and Magore's held two objectives and I held one. In my hand I held, Ghostly Torment and Frozen Fate. I charged Zharkus with the Anguished One scored a wounding hit, I was now able to score Ghostly Torment. I now hoped that Zharkus would attack back. He did, and Lady Harrow was able to push one hex closer to Zharkus, she was now 2 hexes away, just what I needed for Frozen Fate. In the end phase, I scored 3 Glory and Mikey scored nothing. The game ended 12-10 in my favour. I should state that Mikey had made an excellent board 3D board to go with his converted Khorne Orruk warband, Magork's Fiends.


Finishing Position

I finished the day with three wins and two losses. My Glory difference was +30, as I had scored 70 throughout the day and conceded 40. Together, this was enough for me to finish 5th out of 24, my best ever placing in an Underworlds Tournament. Suffice to say, I was really pleased with the result, I even won some acrylic Tokens!

I intend to keep playing Lady Harrow's Mournflight, as I have found a warband that suits my playstyle. There were a few issues with the deck, I took to the tournament, the biggest being that the objective Bitter Embrace was too hard to score in any of the five games. This two Glory End Phase card kept 'bricking' my hand and may have influenced the outcome of a game or two. I intend to swap this card out for a easier 1 Glory card, which should also make scoring Dominion of Death easier. I also need to learn when to play more defensively, as this cost me in my game against the Arenai. 

Overall, the tournament was great fun, and I got to play 5 lovely players. The tournament was nice and relax but felt very busy with 24 players in a relatively small venue. The best of one format was excellent with around one hour to play a game, which was sufficient, especially with Robin and Pete giving plenty of time warnings. I hope the Agents of Sigmar will arrange future events.

First Tournament - Using Xandire's Truthseekers with Tooth and Claw

Second Tournament  - Using Magore's Fiends with Tooth and Claw

Thank you for reading and if you have any questions drop them in the comments below.

Check out my warbands from other seasons of Warhammer Underworlds:

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