Welcome to the second part of the review of the newest release for WHU - the Crimson Court. This time we will be focusing on the universal cards that were released with this expansion. If you’re interested in my warband review you can check it here.
The Cards
While rating the cards I will be following system as below:
1 - a very powerful card. You should take it in nearly every deck. A staple.
2 - a very strong card that you should consider taking. Might not always make the cut, but should usually contend with other options.
3 - a situational card that might prove to be good in certain situations or with proper card support
4 - a weak card. You might find use for it, but in general most often you’ll be better off with other picks.
Universal Objectives
Channelled Hunger - that’s quite a long list of requirements for a single end phase glory point. I guess vampires could score this if they wanted to hold objectives. But in general this is pretty weak.
Rating: 4
Disastrous Hunt - with the increased number of hunters in the game this might be pretty doable. But still you’ll often face warbands without enough hunters in it to be able to score this. It is also a bit of a problem when you run into dominant warbands like Mollog’s Mob, where there’s only one hunter that is not very likely to even die. Overall very meta dependent.
Rating: 3
Dominant Display - if you’re playing aggro warband then this is an objective for you. If you can secure a primacy counter just follow your game plan and run in to crash your opponent's house to score this.
Rating: 1
Fatal Underestimation - kill a supported enemy fighter. Situational and as I will often say in case of the kill surges - there are easier ones to take if you want to play with those objectives.
Rating: 4
Levelling Strike - another kill surge that has over-the-top requirements. If you have the kill pressure to kill high wound targets just take something for primacy or easier kill surges. And if you’d happen to run into Mollog, Hrothgorn or Krusha then you can just recycle this.
Rating: 4
Magical Mauling - this is a strange one. As it is now the only way to score this requires inspired Averon Stormsire with +1 spell damage upgrade or alternatively that fist upgrade from Seraphon pack or Headkrakka supported by Great Strength type of card. Overall not worth it.
Rating: 4
Not So Fast - first condition is very difficult to fulfill - even for my beloved Profiteers as Drakkskewer ruins everything. Second condition is by far easier. If you play Hrothgorn or your meta is full of quarries then this might be worth considering. But even then only barely.
Rating: 3
Season of Famine - if you're a vampire player who decided to stack those hunger counters then this card is amazing. It allows you to double-dip on having 10 hunger counters and score 5 glory off that fact alone. For the rest of the world it’s not something you’ll easily score. Or score at all for that matter. 10 hunger counters is not a small task.
Rating: 3
Skin And Bones - scoring this is very difficult unless you’re up against some horde warband that has been very careless with their stronger fighters and allowed you to kill them off easily. Even then that’s a lot of work for one glory.
Rating: 4
Supreme Confidence - so you have to hold an objective in enemy territory, have a primacy token and discard it. Effectively this is an end phase objective unless you’ve taken some power cards that let you discard the primacy token. Overall not worth the effort.
Rating: 4
Universal Gambits
Blood-Soaked Ground - ever wanted to feel like Khagra, but do her thing better? Take this one. Kill a fighter holding on an objective and play this. You’ll not only flip that objective but you’ll also get a spent glory out of it. Interestingly enough this also works on your fighters. Might be a nice option for denying an objective, although I would rather see it in builds that want to kill for glory or disrupt objectives. Denying objectives while you’re playing hold warband yourself is not the best move you could take unless you’ve made a kamikaze run into opponent’s territory just for that purpose.
Rating: 2
Bountiful Bait - this is an odd one. Most often your fighters won’t have a hunger on them and this won’t do anything. If you’re a Crimson Court player this could be a cool option. But even then you have to have fighters who are having those counters and are not bloodthirsty. If the card is conditional even for a prime hunger warband then it’s not great.
Rating: 4
Claim To Supremacy - this can be nice for hold objective warbands. It will probably bait disruption tech pretty well if played towards the end of the round. Otherwise aggro warband can simply reclaim the token while doing its own thing. Still this can be nice for an extra glory for you.
Rating: 3
Invincible Aspect - effects of this gambit are really nice. Heal (2) and primacy token on a gambit spell? Yes please. Trouble is that there are very few wizards who can even try to cast it. And even less of them who could add some reliability to this. But even they would have a difficulty getting this to go off.
Rating: 4
Irresistible Hunger - it’s nice for hunger builds. You’ll get a hunger counter out of it and an ability to reposition enemy fighters. This can be used to either bring your target into attack range or to simply pull it off the objective he was holding. If you can get those two hunger counters then it’s really good as 2 hex pushes can’t be mitigated as easily as a single hex one. Note: rating is 1 grade lower for non-hunger lists.
Rating: 2
Magnificent Aspect - inspiration on a gambit spell. Fairly limited in range and as with the previous Aspect - very difficult to cast at the moment. These kinds of spells require some help to be considered for inclusion into the lists.
Rating: 4
Momentary Match - this card looks fun at first glance. But when you read it again and then start to think about situations where you would use this the list gets very short. You could use this to boost your slow fighter’s speed for an activation which makes sense, but it depends on an opponent to bring a fighter who is actually faster than yours. Taking Spectral Wings often is a much better option. Another possibility is to increase odds of surviving a key attack - by either boosting your defense or wounds characteristic. While a defense bump might be nice, the wound increase has a temporary nature and your fighter is still probably going to die after this effect wears off. Only good thing about it is that you’ll deny kill surges and claim primacy tokens if your fighter dies from the wounds later on. This can be pretty useless in a lot of matchups though. Still - very fun concept.
Rating: 4
Narrowing Passage - if played early on this can be very strong as it can kill a key upgrade that your opponent needed to start snowballing his game. If drawn later on its power falls off dramatically. It’s even worse if the opponent has no quarries. Killing upgrades is usually a good idea, but having no control over which one goes away is suboptimal.
Rating: 3
Punching Up - this is a very fun card for any warband with wound 2 fighters. For one activation your small guy suddenly gains a point of damage and an attack dice. He’s also becoming a hunter. This can be a very unpleasant surprise to any 3-4 wound fighter in range. Strong fighters could use it as well, but it becomes very difficult as there are plenty of wound 2/3 fighters in the game making higher wound models an unlikely target for this ploy.
Rating: 3
Taste for Power - if you have a primacy token you can make your entire warband more hungry. You’d only want to do it if you’re aiming at stacking hunger counters - this means that effectively this is a Crimson Court card, as those guys might want to do it and have the punching power to secure a primacy token.
Rating: 3
Universal Upgrades
Armed to the Teeth - you can give your fighter an extra quality to their attack action - depending on its range it will be a different thing. It’s a nice option to give your archers cleave or add an ensnare to Mollog or Gorath. Trouble is that it’s too situational and range 1 getting Knockback makes it not that useful. I might consider it for a ranged build, but I’m not sure this would make the final cut.
Rating: 3
Awesome Appetite - heal one wound and gain a hunger counter each time you kill an adjacent fighter. I don’t think I would take it even in a vampire deck.
Rating: 4
Famished Familiar - this is a much needed piece of tech that could help casting those double-channel spells. It also works for spell attack actions. I like this more than Innate mechanics. The trouble this card has is the very high cost of taking the reroll. Hunger counter is fine, but that point of damage on top of it is killing the deal.
Rating: 4
Master Of Ways - if you have a primacy token to spare you can teleport your fighter to get hold on objective or to bail him out of bad position (assuming you’ll get time to do so). This costing an action and a primacy token makes it rather expensive and slow. And can cost you even more glory if you’ll lose that fighter while having primacy token. Not great.
Rating: 4
Preybound - if you’re expecting to have many quarries and your fighters have more than one defense dice then this might be useful for you. Otherwise hard skip on this one.
Rating: 3
Preyscent - this can be quite hilarious if you’ll stick it on a fighter who went deep into an enemy territory. He can start distracting fighters who are in range. Very limited range diminishes the power of this upgrade though. Hunger based option is much stronger, but it will work only on vampires. And typically you’ll not want to have a hungry vampire closer to you.
Rating: 4
Silent Helm - this is very nice. Not only is it a strong defensive option, but also it is a part of a new set - Silent Relics. I must admit that I’m having a soft spot for things like Tomes or Avatar. So I’m really curious what those silent relics will bring to the game. For now - helm is worth having even as a single item. Changing first of your opponent’s crits into a normal success can be devastating for his odds to hit you. There’s also the benefit of a re-roll once you’ll stack more pieces of the armor. Overall very nice value.
Rating: 2
Soultooth Dagger - Now this is a cool one. Not only does it turn your fighter into a hunter, but also offers ~50% chances for a 3 damage attack. Pair it with Vampiric Might and you can see Krusha sweat a little. Very cool option for many warbands.
Rating: 2
Starvtion’s Grip - this is pretty neat for vampires. It’s also useful for other big fighters who could get that one hunger token from things like Hungry Advance. Add this one and the opponent is not removing them from attack range with push ploys. Worth considering for those big guys. Others will probably skip it.
Rating: 2
Tremendous Maul - it’s nice. Fairly accurate range 2 attack with a decent damage. If you’re able to obtain a primacy token it will usually mean that this attack profile will be rather on the weak side to be useful though. And if you really want to have cleave there are probably better options to get it. Not worth taking for the attack profile itself - we’re having Soultooth Spear, Amberbone Spear and Larval Lance as much better alternatives.
Rating: 3
Summary
So this is it - all 30 universal cards from the latest set. Again we’re observing a very high number of hunger related cards... which is not surprising for cards from a vampire box. Card pool is now getting fairly saturated with hunger based options and… well still I can’t see playing hunger games with anything other than Crimson Court. There are some small tricks you could want to tap into - like getting some ploys similar to Hungry Advance, so you’ll get 1-2 counters to fuel Ferocious Resistance or Starvation grip. But in general opting for hunger based cards might not be good enough to stray away from traditional builds for most of the warbands. We might see some more hunger cards and this state of things might still change. But for now those hunger based cards are mostly good for the vampires - and even they will not want to use many of those new cards.
Overall new objectives are rather underwhelming. Big winners here are aggro warbands who got another decent 2 glory end phase objective. Back in the Beastgrave aggro was severely lacking those, now the situation has improved a lot and we’re actually starting to have a choice. This makes me happy - we need more chopping in the game! Also vampires can’t complain - Season of Famine is very nice for a hunger stacking build. Rest of the objectives will rarely see the play.
When it comes to power cards - things are more exciting here. We’ve got a few gambits that will see play - Blood-soaked Ground is neat and Punching Up will get a few people excited about the mischief they can make with their gitz or beastmen. However the best treats are hidden in the upgrade pool this time. Soultooth Dagger, Silent Helm or Starvation Grip are very nice tools that you might want to incorporate into your list. You might also find some specific cards that will satisfy some of your corner case needs. Overall though this set is saturated with rather poor cards in general. It feels like the universal section of the release is again focused on expanding the hunger related gameplay, but it also sees an inflow of primacy related cards. This might be a groundwork for Hedkrakka and his savage band of orks as they seemed to be very keen on getting those primacy tokens. Still - this expansion is worth buying to get a very interesting and quite strong warband. Those few good universal cards are but a cherry on the top.
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