There’s something very exciting happening at the Southern Hemisphere Open at the end of this month. Well, actually there’s a lot of exciting things happening. But one event that has particularly peaked my interest is that the event will be hosting the first Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Grand Clash in the Southern Hemisphere!
Each Grand Clash is well support by Games Workshop with all sorts of cool prizes. The prizes include a massive glass trophy for the winner that you can use to slay your enemies with! proudly display on your shelf. I instantly decided that this was something I wanted to be a part of. There were only a few small obstacles in my way: I didn’t own the game, I didn’t know how to play the game, and had no idea how to become good enough to become supreme Shadespire Champion of the Southern Hemisphere.
Without further ado, I wrote down a list of things I’d need to do to put me in good shape to compete in the Shadespire Grand Clash:
- Buy the game and learn how to play it
- Choose, paint, and practice my warband
- practice in a tournament setting
Step one – Getting the game and learning to play
Step one was easy. $95 for a boxed game is a really accessible price point, and with a birthday coming up it was an easy win. The miniatures all snap fit together, and only took about 30 minutes to be set up and ready to go. If you don’t know what Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire is, you can find out more here.
The shadespire box come with its own guide on how to get started, which coupled with the small rule-set makes learning the game really easy. After playing a few games with the starter set I was hooked. The game mechanics are very elegant, being both simple to learn but with a lot of different options in-game.
Once you’ve learned the basics you can start looking at other warbands you might like to play. There are 8 (including the Starter set) in season 1: Shadespire. Each warband has warband specific cards and additional cards that any warband can use. These are also pretty well priced, and great to pick up for the extra cards and miniatures even if you don’t plan on playing the warband.
Step two – Getting the warband ready
I decided that the simplest way to get into the game would be to start with one of the starter warbands. I wanted to have them all painted up for the Grand Clash, so I decided to go with Severin’s Stormcast. At least this way I’d only have three models to paint!
I then watched some tactical videos (Agents of Sigmar are pretty good), picked up some extra warbands, and began painting my models and building my decks.
In some ways painting was the easy part. Building decks was a whole new challenge with lots of information to digest. Watching videos helped a lot, but what helped the most was just throwing a deck together, playing it, and just slowly changing it over time as I learnt which cards didn’t seem to be as useful as I guessed, and what I felt was missing from my decks.
Step three – practising in a tournament setting
After steps one and two, I wanted to practice in a tournament like setting for the Grand Clash. I went to a small local tourney run by Games Workshop in Fremantle. There I got to meet some great people and play games against different warbands and lists. This was a great opportunity to play under a bit of pressure, and find my warbands (and my own) weaknesses and strengths.
As I started playing I immediately realised there were still cards in my deck that I thought were good, but didn’t really get many opportunities to use them. I noted them down after each game, as well as problems I faced which I didn’t have cards for.
One example was daylight robbery. It’s a card that gives you a 50% chance of stealing your opponents unspent glory. I thought this was a great card when I first saw it, but when I was in game I never had an opportunity to use it. On the other hand, sometimes I’d risk sending a fighter in for a charge, but then would be left hanging there if I failed to connect. Illusory fighter seemed like a good fit enabling me to charge a fighter in, and then return them to safety if things don’t go according to plan.
Most importantly, I got to meet some great people who share my passion for the hobby and want to improve and learn more too (and who I’ll probably be competing with for the trophy at the Grand Clash). I also saw some great painted models, and some really cool display bases for warbands. In fact, the display boards were so cool, it inspired me to create my own for the Grand Clash. You can see my part-finished project below:
What’s next?
First stop is the Grand Clash on the 23rd of this month. If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet, you should really get a wriggle on! You can find tickets for the event here.
Also exciting is the announcement of Season 2 of Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault. We don’t know a lot yet about how this will interact with Season 1 (except that the two are compatible), but it looks like it will be an exciting addition to the franchise. This new season introduces magic into the game – and comes with more board options which will be great for both competitive and multi player games.
I’ll also be looking to setup my new warband after Grand Clash. Severin’s Stormacast have been great for getting into the game, but now I’m looking for something different. Skaven and Garrek’s Reavers are my top two contenders right now, but the new season might bring something more tempting along!
Until next time – Vince
As well as aiming to become the supreme Shadespire Champion of the Southern Hemisphere, Vince has been an avid gamer for 25 years – playing a variety of tabletop games from classics like monopoly and Settlers of Catan, as well as a variety of Warhammer games including 40k, Blood bowl and Underworlds. He enjoys all aspects of his gaming, including the fluff, modelling, painting and strategy.