Call It Shadespire!

Decision: Should You Play Well Guarded? TL;DR: Yeah, probably.  High-model count warbands, especially those with good movement tricks, gain extra utility from Well Guarded, but it's relatively simple for anyone to score. Factor: Warband Jumping off from our last article , we'll continue to look today at positioning objectives - ie. those that simply require some of your models to be in a specific place to score.  With Extreme Flank landing on the restricted list, it's almost certainly worth it to examine some other positioning options.  Well Guarded presents one good option for folks who are looking to add more positioning objectives to their deck without dipping further into the restricted list.  Of course, the first thing you should consider when deciding whether or not to add Guarded into your deck is how well it works for your warband.  Warbands with higher model-counts and higher movement rates will find this objective significantly easier t...

Decision: How Should You Place Your Board to Optimize Skirting Danger? TL;DR: Most of the time, choose Board #2 (from the images below).  If you're running a defensive long board setup, choose Board #10 instead. Prelude: Warbands With Extreme Flank landing on the Banned and Restricted List, we thought it might be useful to examine another position-based objective: Skirting Danger. While it's certainly possible to question whether you should play Skirting Danger at all, that's not what we're going to be examining today.  However, some consideration must be paid to which warband you are playing before you go throwing this card in your objective deck all willy-nilly. Where Extreme Flank rewarded large warbands, Skirting Danger is best used by smaller ones.  Each model you have to line up on an edge hex requires either A) a starting hex that's on the edge or B) actions to move your models.  Warbands with more than 4 models therefore require careful posi...

Decision - Should You Play Quick Thinker? We here at Call it Shadespire! were not initially planning on putting out a post today, because of the upcoming holidays.  However, rather than leaving everyone without our rapier wit and precise analysis, we've decided instead to go ahead and make today's post extra-special.  Therefore, today we'll be looking at a blast from the past - Quick Thinker - and deciding whether or not you should play it.  TL; DR: Of course not, walnut; it's banned.  

Decision - Should You Play Coordinated Attack? TL; DR:  Gitz and Chainrasps should definitely consider it.  Guard and Skaven might pick it up, and the other warbands should probably pass. Factor: Warband Obviously, Coordinated Attack favors those warbands with a lot of models over those with just a few.  None of the Sigmarite warbands are likely to benefit very much from playing Coordinated, and the benefit for Orks, Dwarves, or Fiends would be pretty limited.  Eyes of the Nine should also probably steer clear, as swarming around an opponent isn't really their style.  The two 5-model warbands can both benefit from Coordinated Attack, but Skritch's fuzzy friends probably reap more reward from it than Garrek's Reavers.  Unfortunately for the Reavers the kill-and-die indiscriminately playstyle rewarded by their inspiration condition doesn't mesh well with this particular upgrade.  Skaven, on the other hand, can almost always generate a few ...

Decision: Which Leader is Better - Gurzag or Fjul-Grimnir? TL; DR:  Fjul-Grimnir is probably slightly better, and his value goes up significantly when you factor in his access to cards.  But Gurzag is still #1 in our hearts. Prelude: Melee Bosses Anyone who's been playing Shadespire for a while now has no doubt seen both Gurzag Ironskull and Fjul-Grimnir bandied about as two of the best single models in the game.  For what they do - smash heads - that's likely true.  When reading this article, please keep in mind that we're really only looking at these two axe bois in terms of what they do; Stormsire may well be overall better than either one of them, but he doesn't really fulfill the same purpose in your warband.  Let's try not to compare apples and orcges. Factor: Base Stats Both units have fairly similar base stats.  They share a 1-shield defense, and Boss Choppas and Latchkey Axe are identical.  Gurzag has a pretty clear advantage ...

Decision: Should you play Great Cunning? Author's Note: Bottomdecking is a new series of short articles where we examine bad choices that are made by reasonable people - please note that this is not meant as an indictment of any person, it's the cards that are bad, not the people.  Mostly, Bottomdecking articles are a fun way for me to cut my workload while I'm busy with real life stuff (Trauma Nursing Core Competencies, in this case), and hopefully cause a couple of people to chuckle along the way. TL;DR: Absolutely not. Factor: Tempo Tempo effects like the one on Great Cunning crop up in almost every game that has a turn-based system; the idea being that getting two effects before your opponent can get one is a good thing.  Generally, that's true.  An example of a good tempo card would be Time Trap - so good, in fact, that it got banned.  Those of you familiar with that other game are probably aware of what might be the greatest tempo car...

Decision: Should you play Flickering Step? Author's Note: Bottomdecking is a new series of short articles where we examine bad choices that are made by reasonable people - please note that this is not meant as an indictment of any person, it's the cards that are bad, not the people.  Mostly, Bottomdecking articles are a fun way for me to cut my workload while I'm busy with real life stuff (Trauma Nursing Core Competencies, in this case), and hopefully cause a couple of people to chuckle along the way. TL;DR:  Nope. Factor: The Odds There are plenty of cards in Shadespire that allow us to push a friendly fighter 1 hex.  So, if we are choosing to play Flickering Step, we must assume that the purpose is to push more than one hex.  Unfortunately, the odds of that happening aren't great.  On eight dice, you are going to roll 2 or more criticals slightly less than 40% of the time.  In terms of reliability, that places Flickering only slightly b...

Decision: Should you play Irresistible Prize?   TL;DR: Gitz should consider Irresistible Prize highly, as they benefit in multiple ways from its inclusion.  Cursebreakers probably have the next strongest reason to select it, though any defensive deck can benefit from the "snaring" property of Prize.  Dwarves, especially those that include Supremacy or the like in their deck, should also probably pack this ploy.  Finally, all hold-objective decks should be thinking about including Prize, as it works directly toward their goals. Factor: Objective Tokens The most obvious use for Irresistible Prize is to move your models on to objective tokens.  This is of great use to hold-objective type decks, as it can be used both to set up scoring positions when you are short on movement (attn: Sepulchral Guard) and to put your models back on objectives that they have been pushed off of.  This tactic can also be useful for  non-objective focused Dwarf dec...