Beastgrave brings many changes.
A quick update while I work on an upcoming special article. Games Workshop today announced a new restricted list, read about it here.
Your new restricted cards are:
Burst of Speed
Warning Shot
Acolyte of the Katophranes
Calculated Risk
Sorcerous Scouring
Sorcerous Flourish
Upper Hand
Sphere of Aqshy
Spiritbond
Archer’s Focus
Well of Power
That’s a sizeable but much needed additions. Magic (and ranged play) to an extent was playing around far too freely. Now they’ve finally got some restrictions to play around with! Really happy to see Upper Hand and Acolyte of the Katophranes up there but a shame no Prized Vendetta.
Big losers are the previously top 4 warbands: Stormsire’s Cursebreakers, Mollog’s Mob, Ylthari’s Guardians and Thundrik’s Profiteers.
Cursebreakers are still strong but now actually have to think about what they need to focus on to win. Mollog now has to choose if he wants a reliable objective deck or dedicate to becoming a murder machine. Guardians are hurt by magic restrictions while Profiteers find most of their tools hit.
Hard control takes a big blow with most of their easy universal score immediately objectives being restricted along with Acolyte of the Katophranes. Sitting back and doing nothing is going to be difficult again.
Big winners? Godsworn Hunt and aggro in general. Thorns of the Briar Queen too as most of those cards weren’t used by then. Overall I feel the game is back at a level playing field and I’m really happy! It’s going to get even better when Beastgrave comes out.
So there you have it. Remember you can find the new update on the Warhammer Community page here. Time for me to change some decks around and warm-up those crits 😉
Can You Roll A Crit? 
Great news 🙂 very healthy for the game
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100% agreed!
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Again, the most exciting thing is that GW is actively balancing Underworlds! Letting the meta grow stale, especially with potentially NPE decks at the top, is death for a game.
I can’t help but feel that certain cards are only restricted because of their use in certain warbands. Spiritbond on Mollog is the obvious example; its a very good card, but horrendous when used on the toughest model in the game, who has tough minions who can hide.
My greatest hope for Beastgrave is for the introduction of per-warband restricted ratings, much like Netrunner used to have different “Influence” values for the various Runners and Corporations, which was used to buy powerful cards during deck construction. Under such a system Mollog or Cursebreakers might have only 4, or even 3 restricted slots, while less powerful crews like Ironskull’s Boyz might have 6 or more.
Obviously this doesn’t replace the current system, but adds a second layer allowing for finer granularity.
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I’m wholly against warband-specific BAR lists. Too much work and way too subjective.
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To clarify I don’t mean separate lists, just changing how many cards from the central list a warband is allowed. It would be another part of the BAR list document.
It would be disingenuous to say that all warbands are on the same level. Certain faction cards are amazing, or are direct copies of restricted cards. This would introduce a handicap mechanic.
While a good player can win with anything, its a lot harder to win a tournament with the Eyes of the Nine than it is with Thundrik. 🙂
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I figure if newly restricted cards are in my decks that proves I’m good at evaluating cards?
Have fun with your pre-release copy of beastgrave (I assume thats the special article), looking forward to the coverage
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Haha perhaps.
Nah that’s not the special article but it’ll still be a good one (:
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First time i dont agree with you. This BAR-list is a huge BS, especially the timing of it. Just a month ago they started to sell Power Unbound. More than half of the cards are just trash, and now with the new list, a lot of the other cards will never be used again. why should I include cards like Upper Hands or Spiritbound in my decks?
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I disagree on the never be used again part. I’m working in a lot of those new restricted cards into my decks because they’re too good not to.
Upper Hand is behind Ready for Action in terms of best card in the game as it works when no successes are rolled and works at any range.
Magic decks now have to build more on magic instead of just adding it to everything.
Spiritbond is still really good and will probably go back into my Profiteers.
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This BR really hurts my profiteers deck. Do you think they are still playable in the same way they were before (aggro style, a lot of score immediately objectives)? Or should I make a total different deck with a more control approach?
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Kinda but you have to dedicated everything to objectives. The approach is up to you and how you play.
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Do you think Skaven have a decent place now? I know Skaven was your thing and you did very well with them, up until the first BAR list came out, then you moved on. Do you think they can come back now with all the new tools since the first BAR list and now having the additions to the BAR list mostly affecting the top contenders?
I feel like you could build a “Skritch is the Greatest” type list again, albeit it would have different tools.
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Spiteclaw’s Swarm is still viable, especially after the new restricted list. I’m just done playing with them as I’ve done everything I can with them.
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Hey, thanks for this article.
I am a New player and your content is really helpfull to understand the game and the meta.
I plan to stick on one warband (Steelheart champions), do you think this warband will still be playable at beastgrave?
Thanks !
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No worries dude, glad my content is useful to you!
Should still be playable in BG but I’ll have to wait and see until it’s out to make a full judgement however.
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The BAR list is going to become a problem, as the game expands with new seasons, Warbands, and card packs we see a glut of new universal cards added to the pool players can choose from. As this continues, and the BAR list adds more and more cards to it, it is going to become very difficult to navigate when building a deck. I haven’t looked at the new list yet, but how many cards are on it now, I’m going to guess in the region of 30+.
The game needed something to balance the cards and help to keep the game from growing stale, that is not even up for question. BAR, while it works, is not future proof and can not accommodate the games product release.
At some point GW are going to have to either add in a cycle system, where previous seasons are no longer allowed (this might make a lot of people rather annoyed), or change deck building to something like half of the objective and power deck must contain faction specific cards, and do away with the restricted list, but keep the banned list.
As it is now the deck building aspect of the game is daunting, imagine telling someone who has just bought into the game that they need to also keep an eye on this ever growing database to make sure that their deck is legal while also showing them the extent of the card library.
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I think the restricted list is fine currently at 41. Especially when you consider that there are +1,100 cards in the game.
Deckbuilding isn’t daunting with the many deckbuilders out there that easily help with deck construction. Plus other games have much bigger restricted/limited lists.
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