My friend… something is lurking in those corridors. Behind the corners, hidden under piles of amber, everywhere. I can’t see it, I can’t hear it. But I can feel it. A silent menace hangs in the air…
Today, I will be reviewing the new pre-constructed deck for Warhammer Underworlds - Silent Menace. It will be released along the Headkrakka’s Madmob (you can read my review articles of the warband and universal cards), so quite a busy time for us! But at the same time we all love getting new shiny things to play with, so let’s get into the review!
The contents
In this card expansion, we’re presented with a preconstructed, universal deck. In theory, we could take it out of the pack, choose a warband, and go play. This is a cool idea and I’ve been really curious about this release. So, let us dive into the review. We’re given 12 objective cards, 10 gambits, and 10 upgrades. All brand new to the game.
While rating the cards I will be following the 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 a use for it, but in general, most often you’ll be better off with other picks.
Universal Objectives
Advancing Swarm - I like it. It’s a decent card for a fast aggro who wants to charge you anyway. It’s a good pickup for teams like Wild Hunt, Garrek’s Reavers, Magore’s Fiends, probably Hedkrakka’s Madmob, etc. The key issue I’m having here is the fact that if you lose some fighters this can brick. But if you’re playing an aggressive warband this might be a good card for you.
Rating: 2
Brutal Attrition - Might be decent for an elite aggro warband. Yet, for one glory this is a fairly tall ask. You can easily find an easier objective awarding 2 glory that is easier to do.
Rating: 4
Cold-Blooded Killers - not a bad objective. Goes well with aggressive warbands and you’ll likely be able to score this fairly reliably. It’s weaker than cards like Bold Deeds or Cruel Hunters, but it doesn’t require anything extra. So it might be a thing to consider if you’re expecting to do a lot of killing.
Rating: 3
Demolish the Opposition - this is a niche pick, which could be pretty good to counter the strategies that rely on running into enemy territory. If all of them run into you to score things like The Hunt Advances or Bold Deeds you’ll be able to cash in 3 glory as well. Downsides? It’s a 3rd end phase card. And it’s easy to be denied. Countering a 3 glory card with a single fighter is huge.
Alternative condition is an almost-annihilation. So again - a pretty tough task.
Rating: 4
Forbidding Strike - more like… forbidding score conditions. It’s a two glory surge, which in itself is amazing. But to get it you’d need to successfully kill an enemy fighter that was holding an objective and do it in your first activation in this round. So if you’ll be forced to go first this round and it’s the 1st round of the game... you’re not scoring it. Two glory surge is a tempting thing for sure. But the likelihood that you’ll score this is very low.
Rating: 4
Impending Doom - if you have big mobility you could try scoring this. Since we’re looking for an enemy fighter to be adjacent, it’s a little bit more tricky than simply charging in the right spot. You’d need to have an enemy already adjacent to your friendly fighter. This can happen if his charge has failed, or you can arrange it with a sidestep or distraction. Another trick to use is Countercharge (or a Blindside if it’s you who is charging in). Gitz can score it very easily. Overall it’s not bad, but I’m not a fan.
Rating: 3
Killing Strike - this is another “forbidding” surge objective. This one is easier - you “simply” have to take an enemy fighter out of action in your first activation of the round. It’s easier than Forbidding Strike, but it’s also worth 1 glory. It’s still too restrictive. But I have to say that I love the art on the card.
Rating: 4
Martial Adept - This is essentially a new version of Singled Out. What is nice is that this is a hybrid card, which can come in handy. The other condition is asking to have two attack action upgrades on one fighter and it’s pretty much a dead condition. Overall it’s not your first or second choice card, but can be a very decent filler.
Rating: 3
Orchestrated Kill - if you’re playing something that has good access to supports (you’re a Drepur’s Creepers or Gitz player) or uses a decent amount of support tech like Blindside, Bonded this might be one of the better kill surges around. It’s very situational otherwise.
Rating: 3
Promise of Destruction - I like the design of this card. It can find a home in decks for Wurmspat, Starblood Stalkers, Hedkrakka’s Madmob, but also can work with magic-wielding warbands. In addition, it can be scored by your fellow Thorn’s player, who has previously played Maddening Cackle and scored Treacherous Foe while at it. While very cool, it’s also a very situational card.
Rating: 3
Stinging strike - this is the third surge that can be scored only in your first activation of the round. It’s also the easiest one - you don’t even need to kill an enemy fighter. Still, it can interfere with your game plan too much and if drawn during the round it will remain a dead weight until the start of the next one. I appreciate the effort of creating a new design space, but this one isn’t a great idea.
Rating: 3
Untouchable Swarm - this is a bad objective. The optimal number of fighters to score this is 4, which incidentally means that should you lose one you won’t be able to score this at all. If you have more fighters you either need a way to add them a charge token or to lose some guys before the round in which you would like to score this. Oh, and you have to make sure no one dies in the round when you do actually would like to score it. It’s just too hard.
Rating: 4
Universal Gambits
Acidic Strike - that’s a cool way to destroy a key upgrade on a beefy fighter. Weaker fighters will most likely get killed - effectively removing all of the upgrades they’ve had from the game. It’s a very nice card, but I don’t think I would play it on Mollog or Hrothgorn unless I’m expecting meta full of hard-to-kill fighters.
Rating: 2
Hidden Sting - so this is - more or less - a Fighter’s Ferocity packaged into a ploy. It might be a decent option for your crit fishing builds or simply for any warband where you’re expecting enough multi-dice attacks. But even there it’s not super reliable. I would prefer a way to deliver my ping damage in a more controlled fashion. Yet… more ping damage is a welcomed addition.
Rating: 3
Hypnotic Buzz - a more limited Distraction. The effect on its own is very strong. The limitation of the 2 hex range is quite restrictive, yet this is a very useful tool to disrupt your opponent. It’s a fairly nice balancing act for a distraction - you’re still getting the powerful effect, but it does require some setup from your side.
Rating: 2
Maddening Drone - this card is very situational. In many cases, you’ll not want to play this to not hand the opponent an easy inspiration for his fighter. However, this can be good to play on an inspired fighter that gains a lot from his inspiration. In that case, this could be a very good defensive option or could mess your opponent’s plans by removing a bit of movement from his fighter. Overall this is a fun card, but I don’t think it’s versatile enough to see play.
Rating: 3
Membranous Wings - This is almost Spectral Wings or Outrun Death. Those are better because you don’t have to charge to gain the benefit. On the other hand, Membranous Wings persist until you’ll make a charge, so in theory, are a bit more resilient to disruption. You can play this and withhold charging until you’re happy with the opportunity. And you’ll not lose the benefit from the ploy.
Rating: 2
Spiritcomb - I like this take on the healing card. Instead of rolling the dice and getting some crazy healing numbers, like in the case of Ferocious Resistance, you can reliably heal two wounds on a voltroned fighter. Or one wound on any other model. It’s not super powerful but what’s more important - you’ve got full control over it. That’s great if you’re running stacked fighter and you want to keep him alive.
Rating: 2
Strength of the Swarm - if you can get support during an attack in a reliable way, then this is an extra dice. It’s an okay accuracy option that could use an easier condition to make it work. However, if you could get 2 or more supporting fighters you’ll also get +1 damage. And that is making this card far more interesting. The only trouble is that there aren’t many warbands who can get two supporting fighters without working hard for it. This card has some potential, I just don’t see a candidate to unlock it. New Ossiriach warband might be the one.
Rating: 3
Swarming Advance - this is a fantastic tool to reposition your fighters. Center of Attention that works only on 2 friendly fighters, but has no range limitation instead. With clever positioning, you could use it either to advance your fighters closer to the enemy or to claim some objectives. Very powerful effect.
Rating: 1
Swarming Strike - This is a nice accuracy option. It’s gaining value with the amount of dice you roll. It could also combo nicely with some other cards that require having a supporting fighter. Overall, this is probably a worse option than playing more traditional +dice cards.
Rating: 3
Symbiote’s Call - I like how versatile this card is. You can use it as a push card to put one of your fighters on an objective. Or you can flip the objective token that’s within 1 hex from you. What’s cool is that this is working both offensively and defensively. So depending on your needs you can have another Feed the Beastgrave tool, or a tool to counter-flip one token.
Rating: 2
Universal Upgrades
Augmented Limbs - Flat +1 attack dice bonus for your range attacks? Yes, please. Becoming a quarry might be another bonus, rather than a downside. Fantastic card for all melee fighters and a great substitute (or supplement for!) Strength of Terror.
Rating: 1
Chitin Scimitar - three fury attack with two damage and a cleave is a very solid attack profile already. Additionally, we have a rule that allows us to re-roll one dice if there were no successes in the roll. That’s not very likely to turn the attack around, but it surely can have an impact. It’s a cool option to give it to one of your weaker fighters and grant them a very good attack profile.
Rating: 2
Chitin Spear - second chitin weapon. It has a fairly standard stat line for spears - range two hits on two hammers and deals two damage. Very standard and solid. On top of that, it has the same rule as Scimitar - you can reroll one dice if there were no successes in your roll. Very decent weapon. I like it slightly more than the scimitar because of the extra range.
Rating: 2
Collector - I don’t think I would ever want to sacrifice one of my upgrade slots for that card. The concept is fun and flavorful. But in reality, the cost of having to use one of the upgrade slots for this card is already too high. And this card works mostly on big boys. The most value you’ll get from this is if you’ll be able to equip it very early on. Later in the game, you’re very likely going to have enough glory to simply place your upgrades as needed. And that renders this card useless.
Rating: 4
Extruded Snare - this is the third net upgrade in the game. This one is not restricted to hunters only, which is great. It’s very useful if you want to play a control game and would like to shut key enemy fighters down.
Rating: 2
Regenerative Cycle - this is a very interesting design. Healing your fighter at the cost of discarding power cards is.. intriguing. I think it’s fairly balanced - it takes more than a single card to nullify the efforts of your opponent who is trying to kill your guy. The price to heal is fairly high, but at the same time - it’s better to lose some of the power cards than keep them in your hand and lose your key fighter. The cool thing about this is that you can repeat healing for as long as you have cards to discard. Draw-based big boys could feel a degree of safety thanks to this card. Overall though it’s very situational and I don’t believe it will see the play. At least not as long as we have heal (2) ploys in the game. Those are far more efficient.
Rating: 3
Savage Soldier - oh... my... god… Put this card on your fighter along with one more upgrade and you’ve just got yourself +1 attack dive. Have 3 other upgrades instead and you’re also having Cleave and Ensnare… This is super scary. Put this on a strong fighter you would like to beef up and there’s no escaping his blows. Rippa with this and Bonded is a nightmare. His Snarlfang bite is becoming very accurate as well. Also, do note that cleave and ensnare have no range limitation. My turret Hrothgorn is happy. Very strong card - especially in the meta where stacking upgrades is often the most optimal strategy.
Rating: 1
Silent Armour - another Silent Relic - this time around it’s armour. Its built-in reaction is neat - being able to remove the guard token can significantly increase your odds to hit, or at the very least allow you to drive your target back. Unfortunately, there are quite a few effects that provide guard status without the token. However… 2+ relic bonus on this card is an extra wound. And that is amazing.
Rating: 2
Silent Ring - yet another Silent Relic! This one offers a reaction that can help refill your hand with cards. It’s a decent little thing to have. Might come in very handy in To The End decks, or could help drawing that one card you needed. Set bonus on this one is… +1 dice for range 1 attacks! It’s insane how much accuracy there is in this season! I love it!
Things are getting interesting with those Silent relics, especially now, when we have 4 of those already…
Rating: 1
Swift Soldier - speed bonus based on the number of upgrades… while pretty clever in design, it’s just too slow and weak in the meta where we’ve got so many +2 movement ploys. I don’t believe it’s worth taking.
Rating: 4
Final Thoughts
How do I feel about this deck? I think in terms of card value it’s a very mixed bag. Objectives are very disappointing. In fact around 3rd of the objective deck has been rated 4. There are maybe 2-3 cards that are worth consideration in some specific cases. The rest is simply a filler you won’t be looking at 99% of the time.
Things get better with gambits. There are no straight bad cards there. Some are so situational, that you’re not very likely to see them in play, but they’re all playable. Most of them are fairly strong actually.
And then we have upgrades - this is where we have a true goldmine. This pack is filled with amazing upgrades. We’re getting here heaps of value. Only in this deck, we’ve received 3 brand new + attack dice upgrades. That’s insane! Luckily those are all limited to range 1… I guess no one loves Mollog (except Mike from Steelcity). We’re also getting extra wounds and 3 solid weapon upgrades. All that condensed into 10 cards. It makes me wish designers have invested some of that power into objectives instead.
How does this deck work from the perspective of its intended purpose? Can we take it out of the pack, grab a warband and go play? Well… technically speaking yes. You can play it out-of-the-box. But will it be fun? Here’s where things are getting hairy…
The deck has a few issues:
This deck is purely built for aggro playstyle. Nothing wrong with aggro, I like chopping. But not every warband will be able to use those cards well. Choose wrong and some of your cards will be dead (I’m looking at you Untouchable Swarm and Stinging Strike). That’s not fun. And it’s difficult to figure which warband should be playing those cards.
The objective deck has 16 glory in it, but there are only 5 surges. This can lead to a bricking hand.
Three out of 5 surges are the “your 1st activation of the round” surges. Those are mostly terrible. You have only 3 activations in the entire game where you can score them. They are a dead weight in your hand otherwise. So.. out of 5 surges, 3 are pretty much dead. One of them is straight unplayable, the other two are difficult, as you don’t get any real options to re-do them in that round. This leaves us with 2 fairly decent surges to work with. That’s a guaranteed brick and in most cases about 2-3 glory less in your deck. While I appreciate the efforts to find new pockets of freshness in the game, this particular idea is not the right one to explore further. I’m having strong negative feelings towards those surges and I hope they’ll not bleed into any further releases.
Some of the end phase objectives are pretty tough to get going (or nearly impossible…) or require glory to work.
I’m trying to work out what would be the best warbands to play this deck with and it’s not an easy one. I would’ve expected that I will grab anything I feel like playing and just have a blast. But the way this deck has been constructed is forcing me to look at 4-5 man warbands who more than happy to go aggro. And that’s Magore’s Fiends, Garrek’s Reavers, and pretty much whole Direchasm except Starblood Stalkers. Skaeth’s Wild Hunt could also work here. So yeah… that’s not a very wide selection. My impression is that this has been mostly considered with season 4 warbands - pretty much all of the 4-fighter ones could make this deck “work”. But even with them... I don’t think you can have much fun unless you’ll simply forget about your objective deck. You’ve got a good set of tools to unleash the carnage - just go and have some fun killing other fighters!
Now, this deck has been advertised as having a strong Silent People theme. Has it captured the insectile, aggressive nature of those people? Maybe a little bit - and mostly thanks to card names and sometimes their artwork. What I was expecting was to get more cards around silent relics. Or cards that actively support the whole “swarming” idea - so cards that help get supporting fighters and benefit from getting that. We have got only a glimpse of that. And we haven’t learned anything about Silent People or monsters like Ur-Grub.
To summarise my thoughts - I would like to applaud the idea of making theme decks that could be used to play the game a little bit differently. Or to pull them out and play with a new player to have fun. I think this is a sound idea and could prove to be very fun in the future. I’m hoping similar decks will not repeat the mistakes that were made here.
But with this particular deck, those mistakes are serious enough to stop people from treating this as a pre-built deck. Instead, this will be considered as a release with many very strong cards in it. Very strong aggro cards. Other playstyles gain very little from this release. But if you’re interested in being at least a bit aggressive - this is a card pack to look for.
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