Spin me right round.
Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave is here and it’s bringing more than just season 3! Today I’ll be going over the new twists to competitive play: Rotation and the new FaR list. Before I get into the teeth of it, read up on the whole thing from the Warhammer Community site here.
Rotation
So what is rotation? Basically Warhammer Underworlds has a new format for competitive play: Championship format. This entails that you can only include 6 Surge/score immediately objectives in your deck AND only the current and previous seasons’ universal cards are in-use. The latter part is rotation.
As you can see with the above images, you faction fighters and cards will always be usable. Currently only universal cards released during Nightvault and Beastgrave are legal in competitive play. Any Shadespire cards reprinted during those 2 aforementioned seasons are still usable too (like the Hold Objective cards and Sidestep for example).
These 2 men are the masters of rotation
Boards have also been rotated out.
So far it is just the Shattered City Board Pack which contains the Animus Forge and Arcane Nexus. For a reminder of boards check out my article on them here. The Shadespire core set boards have not been rotated yet as they were re-released when the Nightvault core set was launched and so count as a season 2 release.
But what about those who don’t care for competitive play? Well there’s some good news for you.
New Formats
Beastgrave brings more than just new cards, it introduces 3 new formats to play!
As the above image shows we have Championship format which is the current main way to play the game. Championship format uses Rotation, a Forsaken and Restricted list as well as only allowing 6 Surge/score immediately objectives in your objective deck.
Alliance is the team format. Features similar rules to Championship format but with no shared cards between the 3 players in a team. Honestly I’m not a fan of the last part. I love team events but the UK Team Championship 2018 did it best where 3 players couldn’t use the same warbands but were allowed to use the same universal cards if desired. I’m totally fine with 2 vs 2 games were a shared board is used by all 4 players allows none of the same cards to be used between teammates but in 3 vs 3 Alliance format I find it too restricting. Plus becomes impractical if events go above having teams of 3 players.
Relic is where the shackles of rules are broken. No restricted list, no rotation, only a Forbidden list. Perfect for players who play more than just casually and want to use their whole collection competitively.
Forsaken and Restricted List
The BaR list has changed into the FaR list! Forsaken is the new banned. Names aren’t the only thing that has changed. Rotation means the list needs to be updated.
Forsaken List
Goodbye Upper Hand. Your ambiguous ad over-powered effect has let you joined your other Forbidden brethren. No longer do you need to worry about asking opponents to roll defence dice.
Restricted List
The Restricted List has been reduced to 3 cards from 5 (Tome players currently in panic mode). It makes sense seeing as we’ve lost a huge chunk of Restricted cards. Makes deck building tougher but more interesting at the same time. I love it. But wait, there’s more!
Fired Up, you are free now! Yaaaaaay! It’s nice to see this return and it’s certainly a welcomed sight for the Shadespire warbands.
Archer’s Focus is back too. I think this is fine. Eyes of the Nine are especially pleased to have this back.
Lethal Hex Placement
Another change is that lethal hexes cannot be placed within 1 hex of each other. This is a small but needed change as it helps deal with particularly problematic and negative board setups. It would have been ideal to be included in the core rules but I’m more than happy to see it implemented already.
That’s it for now. No FAQ or Erratas for now but I’m sure they’ll come soon. Really happy with these changes to the game, making Beastgrave even more competitive. Only 3 restricted cards is aa huge thing, not to mention the change to lethal hex placement. So sharpen your deck building skills and ready those crits 😉
Can You Roll A Crit? 
Ace! Love all the changes. Go for it GW!!! I love all that you are doing with this game. Keep em coming!!!!!!!’
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Hey John, one question is in my mind. How are the warbands and cards handled from the Dreadfane set. Are they allowed on competitive tournaments at the moment?
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GW did an article on it. Legal where you can buy it but check the TO first
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Ok thanks, do you have a link to that article, I can’t find it.
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Gord:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/07/31/growing-your-games-night/
Here’s the relevant paragraph:
“ This set marks the introduction of two new warbands – Ironsoul’s Condemnors and Lady Harrow’s Mournflight – in a special debut release. They will be available to the rest of the world a bit down the line, and in the meantime – to keep things fair – you will only be able to use them in Grand Clashes if Dreadfane is available in that country, so be sure to check the event pack. They’ll be usable in any of your friendly games and might even be legal in your local clash – if in doubt, check with your local organiser.”
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The power unbound cards and boards were supposed to be the same ones as in the original shadespire set for those who couldn’t get it. Does it mean that the universal cards and board from the original shadespire box are still valid?
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Power Unbound? You mean Echoes of Glory? The boards are still valid, they’re mentioned as legal in documents and in the article.
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My apologies, I got confused. I wanted to refer to echoes of glory. Echoes of glory originally contained the universal cards for the shadespire initial bands, and the boards too. Does it mean that we can still use the original universal cards for the original shadespire bands and boards?
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The article says Shadespire boards are legal.
Echoes of Glory contains universal cards from Nightvault, not Shadespire. Only universal cards that have been reprinted in Nightvault or Beastgrave are legal for Championship play.
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Understood then! Thank you very much! From shadespire then, keep the boards and the bands and the rest of the cards to a box in the basement!
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For now at least, yeah haha. Now worries (:
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seriously…archer focus back ??? this a the opposite of theire main rules since the first restricted list (Awaken weapon as exemple) which is restrict all the universal attak reroll…
Warband with Range have already an advantage (Chosen axes VS thundriks for exp) with the range and they boost them again???and if they add a reroll of cc attak (a new awaken weapon which I doubt) they will restrict it again?? makes no sense to me…
and what about the cancer card => crown of avarice..which we see in 99.99999% of the deck in tournament…need to be at least restricted or even better banned…
for the boards…we bougth it at a very expensive, they were great boards and now we can not play them in tournament -_- ….
apart from that all changes are good for the game and the metha.
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Awakened Weapon effects all attacks while Archer’s Focus is just for range 3 attacks. Will have to see how it does but I don’t think it’ll break the game being unrestricted.
Dunno what’s happening with Crown of Avarice.
I don’t like boards being rotated out but I can see why they have been. They’re no longer available and tied to Shadespire. I still would have liked the Shattered City board pack to remain tho.
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Great article. Hey, is there a list of cards circulating anywhere which identifies Shadespire universal cards that have been reprinted…so we know we can keep you using those cards. thx
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Thanks, it’s currently just the cards reprinted in the core set. The online deck builders like the GW one shows them.
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Puh!
The universal cards from the leaders pack are gone too I guess, right?
Not particular fond of this.
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Yeah they are gone too
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OK, thanks!
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