Intro
Continuing the release train, we have the Malevolent Masks Rivals deck to review as well! This one is all about the mask upgrades, which are…weird. In terms of theme, I think they’re pretty well on the mark here. A given fighter can only wear one mask at a time, so you are either breaking your previous mask to don a new one or spreading your upgrades around to multiple fighters. However, I do think things start to get clunky mechanically very quickly. We’ll have to see what you think, but I feel like there’s going to be a lot of paradoxical “need upgrade to score glory, but need glory to put down upgrade” moments with the deck that leave it too open to variance in your draw sequencing. Anyway, to avoid teasing ahead too much, let’s jump into the deck!
Thank you to Games Workshop for providing us a free preview copy to share with you today.
Objectives
We kick things off with our first surge in Audacious Aspect, a hybrid which scores for either a friendly fighter with a mask upgrade holding an objective with an odd value or your warband holding two or more objectives not in your territory (don’t know where this language went, but it’s more concise than what they wrote on the actual card). As you might expect from my preamble, I think you’re generally looking at the second condition of this card first, which is sort of in line with the old [
Horrors in the Dark] as an option for “invading” hold warbands. Spiteclaw’s Swarm and Grymwatch first come to mind in this respect, especially since you could pair it with [
Extraordinary Revelation] in Championship (until the end of the season, at least). If you are leaning into the masks as well, this could potentially really trivialize the score, but relying on the sequencing is a bit of a tough ask in the early game, so you want to make sure your warband is going to be capable of the second condition.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Next up is Completed Pact, the 3-glory bomb of the deck, which scores if there are more surviving friendly fighters with mask upgrades than there are surviving enemy fighters. This one screams horde warband to me, particularly one with resurrection potential like Exiled Dead. You could potentially pull it off on like a flex Sepulchral Guard or Grymwatch as well, but of course the current ping meta can put a damper on your plans more quickly than you’d like. Tough sell for me.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Death’s Visage is either a kill surge for a friendly fighter with a mask upgrade taking an enemy fighter out of action (note that it does not have to be via attack action) or making your third or subsequent successful attack action in the same phase. If you’ve played a lot of Hexbane, you’ll know that [
Due Process] only really works because it’s got the hybrid condition. Sure, you might make enough successful attacks in the round to score it, but the backup if you miss is incredibly important for the consistency of the card. Three successful can be a lot to ask even if your dice are average unless you have a lot of ways to make more attacks (scything, reactions, gambits, etc.). You’re also somewhat subject to draw order here, as drawing this in the 3rd round will sometimes mean you can’t possibly make 3 successful attacks due to either having too few targets or too few friendly fighters remaining. I think this almost makes the kill surge angle more attractive here, which is concerning given that it requires you to already have an upgrade down.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Domino Dominance is next, scoring after a power step if you have an inspired friendly fighter with a mask upgrade. If you inspire easily, this could be some nice passive glory, but continues to butt up against the issue that you need to have scored something to put down the upgrade in the first place. For this reason, you’re probably looking at warbands with access to fantastic faction surges that can inspire very easily, which is actually a remarkably small intersectionality on a Venn diagram. The best I can think of is Exiled Dead, since they have so many fighters who begin inspired while the wizards can inspire with relative ease. Pandaemonium is also a decent option since they get to start one fighter inspired and have some bonkers faction surges. Thanks to the erratum, Looncourt may fall into this category as well, although they’ll likely require some form of interaction to grab that surge glory. Getting that seed glory is much easier in Championship, but then you start to run into the issue of not wanting to fit as many masks, so definitely something of a trade-off there. It definitely has the potential to be automatic in the late game, but not being likely to score a surge in Round 1 (for most applications) will ding the value here for me.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Feast of Violence is a dual surge for making your third or subsequent Range 1 or Range 2 attack in the same phase and each of those attacks being made during a different activation step. This seems pretty solid to me actually. Being agnostic to whether you actually hit is quite nice and, for the most part, the game is fairly interactive at the moment. Warbands like Wraithcreepers immediately come to mind as a good option here, in particular due to the value of being able to throw out a mid-activation reaction attack with a card like [
Deadly Vengeance] to help with the activation restriction, which I think they definitely needed to have to prevent something like a three-fighter scything or a Danse Dynamic from instantly scoring this. I think most warbands that don’t rely too heavily on Range 3+ ought to like this. Not quite an automatic inclusion in Championship (it probably is in Nemesis), but should cycle quickly on the builds where it really fits.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Hooded Stanger scores in the end phase if you have one or more friendly fighters with a mask upgrade in enemy territory for 1 glory. You jump instead to 2 glory if that fighter also is not adjacent to any enemy fighters. As much as I have been moaning about needing masks to score objectives, I think this one seems decent. The in enemy territory and lack of adjacency parts should be pretty controllable, especially with so much Cold of the Void play right now, so really just having the mask and being able to play it will be the critical part here. While there are certainly hordes that could get value here, I think it is most appealing to elite aggro bands, especially they will often be able to control whether they take the final activation of the first round. Krushas, for example, could scoop some seed glory off an easy surge, then just hold that mask upgrade until the end of the action phase and pick whichever fighter seems to have the best shot of meeting the 2-glory score. In the later rounds, more glory means you’ll have more masked fighters potentially capable of scoring this with (hopefully) fewer surviving enemy fighters to be adjacent to. Worst case, cycling it for 1 glory should be relatively trivial, although you once again are losing some value in Championship since I don’t think you’ll want to take a ton of masks there.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Slaughter Satisfied is a surge for more enemy fighters being out of action than there are surviving. We’ve typically seen this as a 2-glory end phase card that gets bypassed in deckbuilding due to its matchup dependency. It’s especially problematic against 4-fighter bands, as it needs you to drop 3 of them just to score. Furthermore, resurrection bands such as Exiled Dead or Sepulchral Guard, while they might keep feeding you glory, will likely outpace this card for most of the match. In any case, it is borderline unscorable in round 1, or, in cases where you are scoring it that early, you’ve basically already won the game. The only aspect of it that is appealing to me is that it’s a surge you can score even after you’ve tabled your opponent (or even if you’ve been tabled), which is a rare thing for aggro these days. With the combination of the charge out rule and ping damage, many aggro contests result in one warband being tabled by later round 2/early round 3, which can actually brick otherwise easy surges such as [Due Process] or Involuntary Interdiction, whereas you would still be able to score this card in that scenario. Still, if that is the role you need from your surges, I would probably opt for Prevention over Cure instead, since you can at least conceivably pull that off in the first round.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Solid Spread is a 1-glory end phase card for having one or more friendly fighters in each territory, which you may recall Eyes of the Nine already has in-faction in [
Eyes of the Master]. Given how difficult this tends to be, I might’ve liked to see this bumped to 2 glory as a universal. Yes, larger warbands with movement efficiency such as Exiled Dead or Reapers could make use of this, but it can be a surprising amount of work in practice, and it feels especially bad to be bricking 1-glory cards late in the game simply because too many of your fighters have died. Just too many variables on this one and too easy to deny with a single push card.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Our next mask-based objective is Stoic Appearance, which is another 1-glory end phase scored if a friendly fighter with a mask upgrade holds an objective. While this is nice passive if you are leaning into the masks, it’s still a higher barrier to entry than something like Unwitting Guardians, which just required a feature token and ran off voidcurse, which is easier to obtain than a mask upgrade. You always start the game with one cursed fighter, can achieve more easily via both gambits and upgrades, and have the benefit of not being driven back to stay on the token. It’s playable, but there are a lot of other 1-glory scores you’d prefer to take first.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Totally Overpowered is our next card, scoring 2 glory in the end phase for holding 2 or more objectives while more than half of the enemy fighters are either wounded or out of action. Given the current state of ping in the game and the general slant toward elite warbands, I think this one has actually got some legs. This is especially true on warbands that have casters who also want to hold objectives, as you can sometimes set yourself up for this with just a single Abasoth’s Avalanche. While it can be awkward in the later stages of the game to make sure you have 2 fighters available to hold those objectives. The second condition actually becomes easier as the game wanes on. It’s not quite [
Path to Victory], but I think I do like it as something of an evolution on [
Path of Order], especially when supported by ping cards.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Victorious Veils scores 1 glory in the end phase for having three or more surviving friendly fighters with mask upgrades. If you score it in the third end phase, you get a whopping 3 glory. Odds you score this in round 1? Basically 0 unless you have some insane draw luck. I think you’re only taking it for the potential third end phase score, but again the range of warbands that you’d want to take this for is fairly limited. You almost exclusively, again, are looking at this for the horde warbands with resurrection mechanics in my opinion. Very few warbands can bank on having 3 fighters alive in the end phase even by the end of the second round, let alone the third. Since you’re almost never scoring this in the first round, can potentially score it in the second, but for subpar payout, and only scoring it in the third on very specific builds, I am not a fan.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Our final objective is Vision of Success, a surge either for a friendly fighter with a mask upgrade holding an even number objective or holding three or more objectives, at least one of which is not in your territory. As was the case earlier, you really want to be sure you’re capable of achieving the second condition if you take this card, since you can’t necessarily bank on having the mask upgrade down early enough to trivialize the first condition. Sepulchral Guard and Starblood Stalkers come to mind as potential fits, since they typically want to be holding 3 with one in enemy territory anyway. Again though, if you go for the mask upgrades, you can potentially turn this into a really excellent surge late in the game.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Our Favorites
- Mark: Audacious Aspect
- Aman: Hooded Stanger
- Zach: Audacious Aspect
- George: Domino Dominance
Gambits
The first gambit in the set is Funnelled Soulstuff, which heals each friendly fighter with a mask for 1 while dealing each other friendly fighter 1 damage. By rule I think you actually cannot play this unless you have at least 1 fighter to damage with it, which is awkward enough that I feel like it deserved a heal(2). Now, healing multiple fighters for 2 would be a lot, but I think I’d be a lot more interested in the card if it allowed you to heal(2) a single friendly fighter with a mask upgrade and deal 1 damage to any other friendly fighter. As written, this is just too awkward to line up for too little ceiling.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Hooded Rush is a [
Sidestep] for an upgraded fighter that bumps to a 2-hex push instead if you have a mask upgrade. Pushes are always good and this one is not so terribly difficult to access. However, given that Slinking in There exists as a significantly better “Sidestep+,” I don’t think it would’ve been unreasonable if the 1-hex push didn’t have the upgrade condition.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Maskborn is a really interesting design space for a card, allowing you to temporarily resurrect a fighter onto a starting hex in your territory to make a single action. They are then taken out of action after the next surge step (so after that same power step). This means you don’t get a proper activation with them, just that action. While the obvious thing you’d want to use this for is to make an attack with a deadly fighter who was taken out earlier in the game, you would still be relying on your opponent being in your territory (or at least within range from the nearest starting hex), which can make this a little bit of a 50-50. A more interesting application might be on a warband with resurrection. For example, in games where Skritch dies early, you can start to get to a point where the one or two little torpedo Skaven are also dead, leaving you relatively toothless. With this card, you can temporarily reanimate your leader, revive that beefed up Hungering Skaven, and let him put in some overtime. Certainly, there are 1 or 2 mask upgrade actions that might work here, but I think attacking or resurrecting is likely the most value you are going to get out of it. It is situational, to be sure, but the ceiling is pretty high.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Next up we have Possessive Crouch, which allows you to choose a friendly fighter to give a guard token, then stagger each adjacent fighter (friendly or enemy) if the chosen fighter had a mask upgrade. I typically enjoy a solid guard token gambit and this one does have some upside at least. While the stagger can be a bit tough to access, it can actually be quite valuable when facing warbands like Pandaemonium or negating the defensive bonus on a Time Freeze. This could work nicely with a Clawpack stagger build as an alternative choice or supplement to [
Sweep the Leg], especially since you do have a way to create a 3-Dodge fighter, who can be just silly while on guard. It’s no [
Desperate Caution], but it’s at least got some legs. Like most guard gambits, it will most often feel useful in cases where you don’t intend to charge with your fighter afterwards, but it’s perfectly usable in Nemesis even if it will almost certainly not cut it in a Championship build.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Revealed Aspect presents you with a choice: draw one power card or WALL OF TEXT. Sorry, this one’s not actually that bad on text, it’s just funny the disparity between the simplicity of one option and the complexity of the other. The “complex” option basically lets you take an upgrade off one fighter (regardless of whether they are out of action) and put it back into your hand while giving them a different upgrade from your hand or discard pile. Drawing one is kind of meh (see my article on Salvage), but this second option is fairly interesting to me. While this mostly seems designed around maintaining your mask economy and distribution, I think the particularly interesting angle here is on builds that have powerful upgrades that break after use. The first thing to pop into my head, of course, is [
Hatred of the Living], which you often only discard when it will save Kainan from dying. However, if you live, then play this card, you can potentially grab a lower-value upgrade off him, fish [Hatred of the Living] back out, and hand it back to him to reactivate the re-rolls and potentially even get more value out of the damage reduction later. Another cool play would be to grab a “resisted” false gift upgrade out of your discard and recycle back to one of your friendly fighters. You could even just swap between a couple of them between activations, for example attacking with the Perfect Blade then swapping it out for a defensive buff or such. One mega-niche combo I have to mention before I move on is that you could swap a mask onto an OOA fighter that didn’t have one, then use Maskborn to have them take one last gasp. I think this will generally be best on suicide aggro, as you can throw a weapon or other high-value upgrade onto a fighter, torpedo them in, die, then effectively “recycle” that upgrade onto a different fighter. It’s no secret that not all upgrades are created equal (especially in Nemesis), so I think it’s also very possible you might have an out of action fighter with a higher-value upgrade that you can easily swap out for a lesser one that’s in hand or discard, especially if you have something that’s restricted to only that OOA fighter. I love the flexibility on this card and even the floor of just a bit of deck thinning is a nice backup. It may not be the most powerful card, but I think it may be one of the coolest card designs I’ve ever seen in this game and it heavily rewards cerebral playstyles.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Scrabble in the Dirt allows you to grab a Malevolent Masks gambit out of your discard pile, add it to your hand, then discard a different power card. As hilarious as I think it could be to recycle one of our last two entries, doing so at the cost of an additional power card is a bit painful. I love the [
Plunder the Graves]-esque effect, but given the restriction to only matching symbol gambits, I think this one would’ve been far more intriguing without the requirement to discard.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Shuddering Violence allows you to trade a stagger on your fighter for granting them +1 Dice at Range 1 or 2, stacking on a re-roll as well in the event the chosen fighter has a mask upgrade. This again definitely fits the mold of suicide aggro, taking the extra accuracy with the reduced defence to increase the likelihood of a fighter-for-fighter trade. However, another funny angle here would be for Mollog, since he generally wants to take some damage for inspiration anyway and can absolutely bonk something if he is able to get both +1 Dice and a re-roll. This is obviously strictly worse than many +1 Dice (or more) gambits in the universal pool if you’re not leaning on mask synergies, but given that you are forced into this synergy in Rivals and Nemesis, there’s decent potential to really juice up your accuracy when you go to make that critical attack. That being said, even once Nethermaze rotates (which has two of the best +Dice gambits we’ve ever seen in [
King of the Deeps] and [
Corrupted Companion]), I think there will still be plenty of preferable accuracy gambits in the universal pool for Championship.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Taking Over allows you to immediately make a mask upgrade action with a friendly fighter that is equipped with one. Cheating ahead a bit, a few of the mask actions are quite powerful (a round of full re-rolls on attacks, +1 Damage on Range 1 and 2, etc.), but the cost of taking an action to make them is significant. However, making them for “free” greatly increases their value, which makes it a natural pairing with the deck as a whole. Still, I don’t love the idea of a gambit that will very likely be unusable in early part of the first round. The spike potential is there, but again you are very much at the mercy of your draw sequencing and ability to score that first glory point to get the mask down, if you are even planning on leaning into the mask synergy in the first place.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Unexpected Arrival allows you to swap the positions of two friendly fighters with mask upgrades. This is a cute [
Bound by Fate] analog, and I like that they’ve not got a range restriction on it, but talk about depending on draw sequencing yeesh. You need to have two friendly fighters with masks on the board, then also have this card in hand, then also have a reason to actually use it. With similar cards in the past, I’ve often found that, if you are positioning your fighters well in the first place, then you don’t often feel the need to swap them once the gambit is in your hand. Yes, it can potentially open up a riskier charge (after which you could teleport to safety), but I think, in practice, this will end up feeling too situational. Some niche play you could do to circumvent an [
Ill-prepared] or set up for a Hooded Stranger score, but I’m not sure those edge cases will be enough to merit inclusion.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
The final gambit in the set should be reminiscent of [
Illusory Find], with Unveiled Ambitions allowing you to search your deck for a mask upgrade, then reveal it and add it to your hand. A notable difference here, if I am interpreting this correctly, is that you don’t have to reveal any other cards in your deck and you can grab any mask you want, not just the first one you come across. As I mentioned previously, there are a few masks that have some very powerful effects, so it might not hurt to be able to access those as soon as possible. I like the fact that it also rewards you for knowing what is left in your deck. The inherent problem you run into, as I’ve described already, is that it doesn’t allow you to actually give them to your fighters much sooner, since you’ll still need glory to equip the upgrade. Maybe it would have been to powerful to both search the deck for one and allow you to give it for free, but I think if I’m choosing between the two effects, the free upgrade would have been the more appealing one to me.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2
Our Favorites
- Mark: Revealed Aspect
- Aman: Taking Over
- Zach: Maskborn
- George: Revealed Aspect
Upgrades
Since they are so central to the gameplan, I actually considered going through this section first, but ultimately decided to keep the normal article flow. In any case, our first upgrade is Dark Humour, which is not a mask itself but does have some synergy with them. Basically, it is [
Champion’s Fortitude] with the upside of being able to make a reaction to push the attacker 1 hex if you have a mask upgrade and rolled a crit in defence. Notably, you can still make this reaction even if the attack succeeded, and of course the re-roll can help you access the crit. I like this in the context of the charge rule as well, since somebody may charge into position such that they will be able to keep swinging/shooting and you can potentially shove them out of range. Conversely, you can also use it to pull an attacker in to set up a supported attack of your own in response. That being said, you still need to roll that crit, so I think you’re probably only looking at this if you have access to multiple defence dice. It’s not impossible to pull off, I just tend not to like defensive critical abilities, they’re just too hard to bank on. The high floor of a defensive re-roll is still solid (just ask the Wurmspat), just don’t lean too heavily on pulling off that reaction too, it’s likely to happen only once a game or so.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Displacing Figurine is next, granting the equipped fighter an action to teleport to an empty objective token, give them a charge token, and break the card. If you’ve read my other articles, you’ll know I do not rate teleport actions highly at all, some of which either give you a move token or no token at all instead of a charge token. It can be ok in the late game if you just want to disengage and hold a token for scoring/tiebreaker, but that will be extremely situational. Regulus could potentially leverage this during a Puppeteer action, but I think you’d generally rather he just make a charge action.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Envy’s Shroud is our first mask upgrade, granting you +1 Wounds but at the steep cost of preventing the equipped fighter from having any other upgrades (besides putting on a new mask). It’s pretty rare that you have a fighter where they literally need no other upgrades than an extra wound. Given the penalty of this being that fighter’s only upgrade, I honestly think this would’ve been fine at giving +2 Wounds since it seems like you would only ever give this to a fighter you expect to give a different mask to later. I think, even on the mask-heavy builds, you might struggle to fit this one.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1.
Menacing Posture allows you to push 1 hex toward a fighter you just pushed via action. The most common scenario here would be after driveback from an attack action, but there are other actions (even in this deck) that allow you to push fighters such as [
Quintok’s Unseen Hand] or [
Poisonwarp Metalith]. Free pushes are always nice, but I don’t love the forced directionality of this one. Stick to cards like [
Dowsing Limb], [
Duellist’s Speed], and [
Temporally Aligned] instead.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Our next mask is The Echoguise, which allows you to swap the equipped fighter’s feature token with any other feature token. You also gain a slight defensive buff of the double support symbol for the rest of the round. This one is ok and certainly has some synergy with cards like [
Nine Fates] or any of the Paths of Prophecy number stuff, but the best usage of this is likely to be disruption. You can stand on a cover/blocked token and swap it with an objective your opponent is trying to hold. For this reason, Fearsome Fortress and Daring Delvers builds seem like the most logical pairings, but you could also use the plunder reaction (should you remember to use it) to get some extra tokens onto the board. If hold objective becomes more popular, maybe this card starts to see play, but I think it’s another that will largely be too situational. Note also that you have to use the swap tokens part of the action if you want to access the added defensive buff, which may not always be something you want to do. I would have preferred if that part of it would have been optional.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
The Eternal Smile is another mask, with this one granting you an action to get +1 Damage at Range 1 and 2 for the round (except on scything). Again, the penalty of an action here definitely stinks, but this is a pretty solid effect, especially for a voltron fighter like Mollog who doesn’t mind burning an activation to use it. As with all the masks, it is worth noting Regulus here as well. It feels a bit like a universal version of the Sharpen action from Headsman’s Curse (except you can only use it on yourself). This is one of the cards that is really enabled by Taking Over, should you happen to draw it. Note also that, if your fighter dies and you resurrect them (through Maskborn or some other means), the effect will still persist until the end of the round. Something that may need to be clarified via FaQ is whether this effect can stack if you perform it multiple times in a round, but my gut says it maxes out at the +1 Damage.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Now for what is, in my opinion, the strongest of the masks, we have The Frostbitten Veil, whose action grants the equipped fighter full re-rolls on attacks until the end of the round. If Mollog liked our previous card, then he loves this one. There is also no Range restriction, so warbands like Storm of Celestus or Profiteers could also make great use of this. I often find it difficult to use an entire action buffing myself, but I think this is a rare case where it can be worth it to do so. Not every warband can afford to burn the activation, especially for fighters who may not live long enough to actually make use of the buff, but this has potential to be a pretty remarkable accuracy bonus.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Next up is The Howling Hood, which allows you to push an adjacent fighter (friendly or enemy) up to 2 hexes, then stagger them. I think you’ll generally prefer to use this on enemy fighters to improve accuracy and/or disrupt positioning, but it could also be a nice way to relocate a charged friendly fighter that you are unable to activate to get onto a token and/or out of harms way. Overall, it would have a lot more value if the charge out rule didn’t allow you to make a move action (or just didn’t exist at all!), but I still like the potential applications here, especially as a combo with Taking Over or Maskborn.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Unassailable Stance gives you -1 Defence (to a minimum of 1) in exchange for allowing you to succeed on both Dodge and Shield. Basically, you only ever play this card on warbands that have a lot of single Defence die fighters for a small defensive buff. Warbands like Krushas can just ignore the downside here, but you do have to weigh whether you’re actually getting all that much benefit. If I need a defensive upgrade, I’m probably taking Dark Humour first, as the re-roll will help my odds significantly more.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3, Universality: 1
The final upgrade in the deck is also our final mask in Vytrix’s Eye. Very confusingly, this gives you an action which lets you make an attack action at 3R/2H/1D with cleave and grievous. I guess they didn’t want you to be able to charge while making this attack, but they’ve printed at least as powerful range 3 attacks as this on fighter cards in very recent history (looking at you, Wyrdhollow core set). I would have no problem with this being a standard attack action upgrade, it would’ve been totally fine. You might have to take this one in Nemesis just because you will need the mask synergy, but I’m not exactly excited about it.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Our Favorites
- Mark: The Frostbitten Veil
- Aman: Displacing Figurine
- Zach: Unassailable Stance
- George: The Frostbitten Veil
Conclusion
In the end, I’m not sure this playstyle fits with how the game of Warhammer Underworlds actually works. Would you rather have 1 upgrade on your last fighter or 3? Obviously, it depends on the quality of the upgrades, but the masks aren’t like Mortis Relic levels of powerful or anything, they’re pretty on-par with a standard upgrade. Furthermore, the fact that so many of the objectives require you to have masks down to score, but you need to have glory to play the masks, feels really awkward unless you’re playing something like Hexbane’s Hunters or have other cards that allow you to drop free upgrades. Of all the Rivals decks that needed a way to play an upgrade for free, it was probably most critical for this one and they didn’t give it a gambit for this purpose. Why you’d put one of those in Illusory Might (where half the upgrades already played for free), but not here is a true mystery. I could see warbands with powerful faction cards making this deck work sheerly on the synergy of their own Rivals deck, in combination with some of the universal cards here that actually don’t lean into the mask keyword. Exiled Dead could maybe leverage Puppeteer to take advantage of some of the mask actions, and I already hinted at horde resurrection bands working to some extent with the deck, but I think many of them have better pairings elsewhere. While I don’t think they really have the faction decks to support reliable Nemesis play, Mollog or Hrothgorn could notably burn an action to access something like full re-rolls for the round without it feeling too bad, as could a 3-fighter warband such as Krushas. Overall, I would be very surprised if this made a significant splash in the Nemesis meta. There’s some decent tools for high-level play here if you have the reps in, but I do think the synergy of the deck is a little off. However, due to the lack of plot card, I think what will generally happen instead is that you’ll see play for a few of these cards (maybe even a mask or two) in Championship that don’t require you to actually lean into the synergy, just stick to the ones that have universally good effects.
Still, thanks for reading and best of luck on YOUR (Malevolent) Path to Glory!
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Written by: Mark Breault
Edited by: Aman Khusro
