Skaeth’s wild round-up.
Welcome to the first tournament round-up of 2020! Today we’ll be going over a tournament I played at back in November. This was on the weekend Rippa’s Snarlfangs went up for pre-order. The delay is due to work so just working through my backlog.
This tournament was at Dark Sphere Shepard’s Bush, a gaming megastore located in central London, with 10 players in total. The place is huge and local to me (double yay!). I had my Grymwatch semi-painted but went with Skaeth’s Wild Hunt as Grymwatch are boring to play while Rippa’s Snarlfangs and the cards in their expansion aren’t released.
Now a question that may be on your mind is why I’m still even bothering to go to store tournaments. The reason for this is to keep my skills sharp and to win with every warband. It’s something that keeps my playing as well as honest. It also helps show that every warband is competitively viable. It’s a shame that Grand Master codes complicate things but at least the trade-off is people will know I’ll be constantly switching things up and not sticking with the same warband to farm codes. Anyway, back to the round-up.
Decklist
Playstyle: Flex (Aggro and Control)
As hold objective play was super popular at the time I went for an aggro and control flex deck with Skaeth’s Wild Hunt. They do aggro really well and wanted to go objective disruption with them. It’d be difficult due to the limited card pool but it’d mean countering me would be difficult too.
Objective wise I went with a lot of your standard cards: Fired Up, Keep Them Guessing and Path to Victory. Aggro was covered by the strong faction objectives such as Run Down and Run Through. Soulbinding is an easy but equally hard objective, still scoring 1 glory immediately for a single spell was something I couldn’t pass up. Calculated Risk closed it out as my restricted card.
The power deck has a lot of spells for Soulbinding as well objective disruption. Imbue with Life and Abasoth’s Unmaking can ruin the opponent while Restless Prize and Mirror Move do too (with the latter helping to score Kurnoth’s Snare). Sitting Target messes up dodge fighters while Snare and Pit Trap allow for explosive surprise damage.
Upgrades mostly boost damage with Tome of Offerings and Trophy Belt allowing for deadly stacking on Skaeth. Vicious Darts and Blessing of Vytrix are for Karthaen which make him more reliable for spells. Vicious Darts is also great due to having innate Ensnare.
The deck does have a main weakness: pure aggro. Hopefully it would be rare. In London. The home of Underworlds aggro in the UK.
Beastly Combat Key:
Round 1
Patrick and his Zarbag’s Gitz were my first opponent. He won boards and placed the Shattered Refractor first. I then set the Ruptured Seal wide.
The first round went pretty evenly. I charged around with Skaeth last to ensure Keep Them Guessing and deny Patrick his objectives while also scoring Purifying Rites. In round 2 Skaeth had Trophy Belt and Tome of Offerings. He charged into 2 Gitz thanks to his Scything attack, killing them all with crits while scoring Run Through and Run down. This netted me 8 glory off of 2 kills. Skaeth died shortly after this but I was too far ahead now. Final round had me mop up the remaining Gitz to put me on an 18/12 win.
For game 2 I won boards and placed the Shattered Refractor. Patrick set the Shrine of the Silent People in wide configuration.
Things went well for me first but Patrick was able to kill Skaeth via Shadow Step with Snirk as well as capturing 3 objectives thanks to canny card usage. Taking an early lead in glory, it was difficult to keep pace. My objectives were starting to brick and attacks where failing. By the 3rd round I had managed to get some more kills but couldn’t catch-up to the Gitz and lost 12/14.
Going into game 3 we only had 10 minutes left on the round. Patrick won boards and placed the Shyishian Stardial. I set the Molten Shardpit in wide configuration.
With basically only 1 round to play I had to be precise. Patrick got some early glory but Skaeth got a kill with a charge. Patrick moved onto all 3 objectives. In the final power step before the last activation I played Sitting Target. Sheoch charged the Grot who had been pushed onto objective 3. With multiple crits he killed his quarry and scored me Ritual Kill. In the last power step I managed to push Patrick off another objective and narrowly score Fired Up to win 5/4 as well called it due to time. Not how we wanted it to end but gotta respect the clock.
Round 2
Andy and his Steelheart’s Champions would be my next opponent. Andy won boards and let me place first. Unsure what to expect, I played it safe with the Shattered Refractor. Andy then placed the Shrine of the Silent People wide.
The game started well for me first taking an early lead. The Stormcast moved up while I mad safe charges. Then in round 2 they hit. Playing super aggressively, the Stormcast smashed into my Kurnothi and obliterated them. I was too close now and couldn’t withdraw safely. I managed to kill Brightshield but by then only Sheoch was left. I was wiped out in phase 3 but I thought it’d be fine as I was ahead on glory 12/6. Then Andy scored a few objectives, namely Denial and Annihilation. Thus I lost 12/15. Yikes.
Winning boards I knew I couldn’t catch Andy’s aggro so I let him place first. He set the Shattered Refractor. Knowing he lacked mobility cards, I set the Molten Shardpit in diagonal configuration.
The game was quite slow-paced as Andy spent turn 1 moving up and I couldn’t score much in return. Obryn charged in turn 2 but failed. He was quickly set upon by the Wild Hunt. Phase 3 had Sevrin make a killing charge but not much else. I want able to kill much in return but relied on my passive objectives to pull out a narrow 8/6 win.
Game 3 was going to be tight. I needed to win boards to win basically. We rolled off. With 3 crits…I won the roll-off and let Andy place first. He set the Mirror Well and I set the Wyrmgrave in diagonal configuration. I felt bad but it was my only way to beat such a strong aggro deck that had limited tools for mobility.
Going first I blew Karthaen’s Horn. Andy played Peal of Thunder and pushed Lighaen onto objective 2. Brightshield charged and obliteratedumy Aeleven cat to score Strong Start and Lightning Strikes. Unfortunately now she was stranded on her own. Sheoch charged in with 2 crits, smashing Brightshield into the lethal hex and I reacted with Snare to kill her and score Kurnoth’s Snare. In the end phase Andy scored nothing else while I scored Cry of the Wild, Hunt’s End and Purifying Rites. Phase 2 and 3 didn’t fare much better for Andy. What little charges he could make ended up whiffing or me defending. By the end of 2 I had wiped out the Stormcast. Round 3 was cycling objectives and resulted in a 15/3 win for me.
Round 3
Rob and his Skaeth’s Wild Hunt would be my final opponent for the day. It was going to be tough as Rob is a good player and I had never played the mirror before. Losing boards I set the Living Rock while he placed the Shrine of the Silent People wide.
Being chosen to go first, I started by blowing my horn. Rob then charged in with Althaen who drove back Lighaen into a lethal hex, killing him to score Kurnoth’s Snare and Master of Terrain. After that Rob continued to take my Wild Hunt apart. I managed to get some kills and glory but I was wiped out in round 2. Rob then went on to score Annihilation. Thus I lost 8/19.
For game 2 I won the roll-off and chose Rob to place first. He set the Shyishian Stardial so I placed the Molten Shardpit in diagonal configuration.
Round 1 started fairly well for me. I was able to starve Rob while making some crucial crit defences. Then in phase 2 it all went wrong. My attacks began missing and Rob was now in position to get his warband in to engage. He managed to jump ahead with a few kills and quickly caught up. By phase 3 it turned into an aggro-off. Unfortunately my deck just couldn’t keep up to its deserved kryptonite which resulted in a narrow 12/14 loss.
In the end I somehow managed to come 4th out of 10 which was a pleasant surprise. It was a tough but rewarding experience. I learned a lot and now know what to change. I dipped too much into spells and objective disruption. With the new cards this isn’t such a problem as I can swap out the spells for cards like Distraction and Mischievous Spirits. Sting of the Ur-Grub also gives me more reliable damage for aggro as the warband suffers against elite warbands. Also Survival Instincts would go in because Skaeth died to Snare/Pit Trap in almost every game he was taken out of action. Minor changes in all honesty but just slight tweaks needed to make the aggro matchup less painful as I’m happy with the playstyle I’ve developed for the Wild Hunt.
Rob ended up winning which was a great result as he’s a top player (somehow) from the very tough Reading group. Plus anyone who wins with Annihilation is okay in my book. The tournament was well-run and it’s great seeing another local London tournament again. If you’re down in the area, the Dark Sphere Shepard’s Bush megastore is worth the visit. It’s also HUUUUUUGE, like damn. Really is a megastore for tabletop gaming.
So that’s it for some of my backlog. Unfortunately you won’t see Wild Hunt for a while as I’m still painting them and still have more articles to get through! However the next tournament round-up will be all about my adventures with Rippa’s Snarlfangs. Until next time, keep those crits hot!
Can You Roll A Crit? 
Hi there, thank you for the round-up. For Wild Hunt, I am always undecided which two of the following three upgrades to include in my aggro deck (no space for more than 2 defensive upgrades): (1) Great Fortitude, (2) Hale Charm, and (3) Survival Instincts. I used to have (1) and (2), until I read your comments. So now, I am leaning towards (2) and (3). That’s because (2) can be like +X wounds, where X is the number of not defended attacks which would do more than 2 damage. Also, as you said, Survival Instincts prevents being pushed and therefore prevents a one-shot kill with Snare and Pit Trap. What are your thoughts?
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I’d probably go with 1 and 3 as 2 does little to mitigate lethal hex damage and damage from gambits.
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Thank you for the roundup: I’m currently playing Wild Hunt, it was an interesting read. Looks like the mirror has been a difficult game 🙂
As I’m a new player from Beastgrave, I find a bit difficult to play flex: depending on the objectives hand, it’s very difficult sometimes to have good aggro + whatever plays.
Would you recommend sticking to it, or just starting with a pure aggro strategy to better learn positioning, target priority and the such?
In the case of pure aggro, would you have any deck you would recommend for a pure aggro Wild Hunt? Like the one Rob used in the last match.
Thank you, waiting the next article on the blog 😉
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I’d probably go pure aggro. Riskier but more reliable. Flex has become harder to do now but I stick to it because I’m stubborn haha.
Pure Aggro Wild Hunt work really well. Rippa’s Snarlfangs do as well.
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