The Mortal Realms are littered with the work of legendary architects who love nothing more than to build a honking great castle – the Varanspire, the Crimson Keep, the Silver Tower… the list goes on. The ravenous root-halls beneath the Gnarlwood might not seem like prime fortification real estate, but this may soon change thanks to the Fearsome Fortress Rivals deck, coming to Warhammer Underworlds.
Overview
First things first – the Fearsome Fortress deck contains no spell gambits, which means it’s usable by all Underworlds warbands, whether they love magic or loathe it. Rooted firmly in a Control play style – which prioritises dominance of the game board over aggressive combat – this deck tasks the player with manipulating feature tokens.
These special hexes have a variety of helpful and harmful effects, such as the defensive boons of Harrowdeep’s Gloom tokens or the Gnarlwood’s staggering Snares. The gambits found in Fearsome Fortress typically want your own fighters to be stood atop them – but now that all feature tokens begin with their objective side face-up, you’ll need to Delve your way up the board, flipping feature tokens as you steadily move your defensive line towards the areas you want to control.
Luckily, enemies who get close to your fortified fighters will suffer a sharp shock from a number of painful Trap gambits, like Bound Spirit or Gnarlwood Tusks. These are handy both for durable warbands like the new Sons of Velmorn and for large swarms like Skittershank’s Clawpack, who can shore up their individually weak fighters with multiple defensive boons while supplementing their damage.
Several of the deck’s upgrades further incentivise control of the midfield, with abilities that only activate when away from each side’s territory. You can’t claim glory cowering at the rear, after all.
As these forward fighters naturally become priority targets, upgrades like Siegemaster and Stalwart Sentinel will help keep them alive and in cover. The latter is especially important, as it protects your fighters against being pushed away from their defensive positions.
Once you’ve laid claim to solid positions up the field, you’ll be able to scoop up plenty of glory. Objectives like Conquered Domain and Proud Castellan reward you for seizing those vital frontline feature tokens – a prize worthy of Grinkrak the Great himself.
Of course, there’ll be times when you just can’t quite reach a cover tile, or the stagger gained from standing in a snare tile is too risky. That’s when it’s time to unveil your greatest trick…
Just become the wall. No piling up bricks, no tumbling off, no need to stay in place – pick your beefiest fighter, from Gorlok to Gorehulk, and turn them into a moving bastion of muscle and metal. Walking Wall combos with almost everything this deck does, allowing access to on-demand healing and even tactical pushes for lagging fighters with cards like Healing Ward and Take Your Positions!
This deck can be used right out of the pack thanks to the ultra-accessible Rivals format, where you can get started in minutes by combining one pre-made deck with almost any warband you wish. For more of a deck-building challenge, you can combine the defensive strategies of Fearsome Fortress with a warband’s own personal deck in the Nemesis format, or pick and choose from all your favourite cards for Championship’s limitless deckbuilding metagame.
Whichever you choose, add a new defensive edge to your games of Warhammer: Underworlds when Fearsome Fortress goes up for pre-order soon. We’ll see you in the root-halls!