Blackpowder’s Buccaneers and the Illusory Might deck are both up for pre-order this weekend. We’ve already seen what the ogor pirate Blackpowder and his menagerie can do, and now it’s time to see what’s inside this new pre-built deck.
We’ve also got a few rules and balance updates for Warhammer Underworlds to download below, alongside some designer commentaries.
Illusory Might is a new Rivals deck,* which means that you can use it straight out of the box with any of the existing Warhammer Underworlds warbands. Want to unleash Magore’s Fiends from Shadespire upon Harrowdeep? Or just looking for a new way to play Xandire’s Truthseekers from the core box? Illusory Might is just what you’ve been looking for.
Overview
As the name suggests, Illusory Might is a deck largely built around Illusion upgrades. Unlike regular upgrades, these don’t cost any glory when you equip your fighter with them. However, they only last until the end of the current action phase – or until that fighter is chosen as the target of a gambit or suffers damage.
This means you need to plan a little more when you equip an upgrade in order to get the most out of it. Take Phantom Fists, for example. Who wouldn’t want to give their fighter a pair of giant ghostly gauntlets when the time is right?
You can take advantage of the ephemeral nature of Illusion upgrades with objectives such as Illusory Prominence. After your upgrades are broken and in your discard pile, help yourself to some sweet, sweet glory. Additionally, you can score Illusory Nemesis by playing lots of Illusion upgrades at the same time or if your opponent plays just the one.
This is a great card in two cases – whether you’re using the Illusory Might deck yourself or you’re expecting to play against it a lot.
Bring It Back
There’s bound to be a point in a game where you’ve used your favourite Illusion upgrade, but you wish that you could use it again. How can you rescue it from the ignominy of your discard pile? Simple, use Phantom Retrieval to get it back.
Meanwhile, a gambit such as Phantom Denial can really mitigate the fragility of your Illusion upgrades.
Even better, this will cause your opponent’s gambit to be discarded! We hope that wasn’t part of their grand plan.
Play Style
The Illusory Might deck rewards smart play, but you have to be proactive with it. There aren’t any objectives that reward sitting back and scoring passively – you’re going to have to get into your opponent’s territory and really take the game to them. If you do, you can score big with objectives such as Lengthening Shadows and Descending Tide.
But how do you get into enemy territory in one piece? Phantom Shield can certainly help with that, while Shadow Mover gives some speed to even the slowest of fighters, helping you to rush across the battlefield into position.
However, it’s not so straightforward for your opponent to stop you, and we couldn’t end this preview without talking about one of the more left-field objectives in the deck – Shadow Match.
Just when your opponent thinks they’ve got you sussed, score this and prove to them that it was just an illusion.
Lastly, there are also four fresh downloads for Warhammer Underworlds aficionados, including the official errata, rules for the Championship format, and designer commentaries on both the Relic and Championship formats.
For the most part, changes are quite small – they include clarifications to when the Inspire steps take place, balance updates to a handful of warbands, and updates to the Forsaken and Restricted card lists.
Illusory Might is available to pre-order this weekend. Sign up for our newsletter to ensure that you don’t miss any of the latest information coming from the depths of Harrowdeep for this season of Warhammer Underworlds.
* Not tried the Rivals format yet? Learn more about it in our handy guide.