A major change to the game came about in the last year which will be important for both new players and returning players alike: formats, or ‘ways to play’. In short, you can now play three different game formats, each with their own deckbuilding rules – Rivals, Nemesis, and Relic (which contains Championship and is the format’s main use). There exist a few other formats, some of which I covered in my Multiplayer Games article, and some more which I’ll cover in another article in the future, but the main ones are those three. Let’s take a look at each one below.
If you prefer your info straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s a WarCom article covering some of the same things and here is a link to the official rules for each format (scroll down the the Organized Play section at the bottom).
Rivals
Rivals is the most basic format, and the best introductory way to play the game for new people. In the Rivals format, no deckbuilding is required (or allowed) – you simply use a ‘Rivals’ deck, which is pre-built, and play with those cards. You should have 12 objective cards, 10 upgrades, and 10 ploy cards in a given Rivals deck. In most cases, you will be using the warband-specific rivals deck that comes with the models – those with the faction symbol in the corner. The newer warbands even have a summary card that lists the deck’s included cards so you know what’s in a given deck. Playing with the faction’s own deck is generally the smoothest way to play and what I recommend for beginners, as the cards will reference your specific fighters and their specific abilities, and generally works well with what your models are able to do.
There are, however, ‘Universal Rivals Decks’ in existence as well. Found in seasonal core boxes (such as Toxic Terrors, found in the Wyrdhollow box) as well as sold in separate card packs (such as Voidcursed Thralls), these are able to be used by any warband. Simply open the card pack, shuffle the decks, and run them with your usual fighter cards. This requires a little more thought though, because not every warband pairs very efficiently with every deck. They all can be played, but you will have a harder time winning in some cases if you don’t have the optimal number of fighters, or the best keywords to make use of the cards’ conditions.
The place the universal rivals decks shine best is when you are using an older warband. Warbands from the first season (Shadespire) and the second season (Nightvault) did not come with enough faction cards to make a full rivals deck, as this format didn’t exist yet and had not been something the designers considered at the time, so you actually don’t have the option to use their faction cards in rivals. You can click the links above to see my review on those seasons’ warbands and what universal rivals decks I recommend with them. In Beastgrave, the third season, warbands began to be released with enough cards to make a full deck, so you do not need to use a universal deck with these warbands if you don’t want to. However, the Beastgrave decks have somewhat conflicting goals and don’t always synergize internally as well as a more modern deck, since this format was still not an official way to play and the design team didn’t put those cards together with Rivals in mind. From Season 4 (Direchasm) onward, the faction decks are much smoother and can generally be played competitively.
Another use for the Universal Rivals Decks is variety of play. Since there is no deckbuilding in the Rivals format, you may find that you are looking for more ways to mix it up and change how your warband plays – perhaps you only own a few warbands, and/or either you or your opponent isn’t trying to take the step up to Nemesis and begin deckbuilding. Taking a different Rivals deck with your warband can be a great way to spice things up and make games more interesting. If you have played a bunch of games with Ephilim’s Pandaemonium and want to try something new, you could always replace their faction deck with the Seismic Shock Rivals Deck, for example, which will feel familiar as you’re using the same fighters, but different because you now have new objectives and power cards to work with.
Nemesis
The Nemesis format is the next step up from Rivals, and is the most supported format for tournament play at official Games Workshop events. Nemesis introduces an element of deckbuilding into the game – no longer are you using a single preconstructed Rivals deck to play. In Nemesis, you will combine two Rivals decks with the cards of your choosing to create a Nemesis deck – one of which must be your faction specific set of cards, and the other being a Universal Rivals deck of your choosing.
I wrote an article about deckbuilding strategies for Nemesis which can be found here, but I will cover some basics for this discussion as well. Your deck must include exactly 12 objective cards, and no more than 6 of them can be ‘Surge’ (score immediately) cards. While it isn’t required that you take 6 surges, it’s generally the smartest move. Your power deck must be a minimum of 20 cards, no more than half of which are allowed to be gambits. You can take more than 20 cards, but again the general recommendation is to take 10 upgrades and 10 gambits.
The benefits of playing within the Nemesis format are many – a chance to flex your creativity and build a deck that suits your personal style, an opportunity to drop some cards from your Rivals deck that are just difficult to make use of, a smoother gameplay experience (things ‘just work’ and you can actually play all your cards), and more opportunities for glory. Some factions struggle in the Rivals format and get a nice competitive boost in Nemesis as well, which can help level the playing field and make more players feel like they’re ‘in it’ for a given game or event. There is a concern for ‘the rich get richer’ in some sense as well, but overall the competitive flavor of the game is much better in Nemesis than in Rivals.
One thing for newer players to consider is that you have several Universal Rivals Decks to choose from, but not every one of them with mesh as well with your chosen warband. There are some combinations that work better with certain fighters, certain faction objectives, etc that make some pairings difficult to succeed with. Over time and experimentation you’ll begin to learn what might or might not work well, but if you’re interested in the opinions of others you can see my season articles linked above, or check out this Rivals deck review from Handful of Dice, this podcast episode from What the Hex, or this nemesis deck library from BattleMallet for helpful tips to get you started.
Championship (within Relic)
Returning players from the old days may recognize the Championship format as the only way the game was played for the first few years of Underworlds. In the new framework, Championship is included as a subset of Relic – we will look at Relic as a whole in the next segment but for now I will talk about Championship, which is far and away the most played Relic option.
In Championship play, you build a deck yourself in a similar fashion to the Nemesis format, but you have a much greater card pool available to you. Rather than two universal rivals decks, you can use your warband’s deck as well as every universal card in rotation, with some exceptions. You’ll need to know about Rotation, Forsaken and Restricted (the FaR List), and Plot Lock. Let’s cover these in turn.
Rotation is a concept that means older universal cards are not eligible for use in Championship. It varies how far back in time the eligibility goes, but usually it’s anything release within the last 1-2 years. The Relic Rules Document will specify what seasons are in rotation at any given time. This means that older cards will ‘rotate out’ and can’t be used forever, keeping the game fresh and preventing people who have been playing from the beginning from having an unfair advantage in holding the ‘best’ old cards that are out of print. Championship still can give some players an uncomfortable feeling in that you’ll want to own most every release in order to have access to the largest card pool, but at least you won’t have to reach back to the dawn of time to keep up. And even then, most players these days have no issues with you proxying/printing your own cards, especially in the setting of out of print things. Additionally, the cost of having ‘everything you need’ for championship is lower these days considering universal cards no longer come in warband boxes, so you can skip the models you don’t want and can still have the full card pool available. And really soon it will just be the cards you already bought for nemesis, plus the essentials pack, so not much of an extra cost at all in the end.
Forsaken and Restricted cards comprise a list published every so often (not often enough) that helps to balance the game by preventing a player from taking too many high powered cards. a Forsaken card is a card that is not allowed to be brought in Championship whatsoever. The card is too powerful, or doesn’t work as the designers intended and can’t be fixed with an FAQ or Errata. Thankfully this is rare, but occasionally a card really does need to get pulled from the pool of options for the health of the game. The restricted cards are a cut below these – very powerful in their own right, but not game breaking. You’ll have access to these cards when building a deck, but cannot take more than 3 of them in any given Championship deck, so choose wisely! If you find yourself struggling to pick between a few restricted cards, I tend to lean toward Objective cards as a priority since you’re more likely to see them each game, and then Gambits are you’re more likely to be able to use them when you want to, and Upgrades last, though other opinions exist. You can find the most recent FaR list here.
Plot Lock is a concept that shrinks your card pool a little further – if you take any cards from a Universal Rivals Deck that has a Plot Card (Such as T&C, FF, VT or BNS), you may not take cards from any of the other decks with Plot Cards. This means you can only have one Plot card active in your deck (excepting the cases where you have a warband specific Plot card as well). When constructing your deck, you’ll need to keep in mind which Plot Locked deck you want to take, since you won’t be able to pull from multiple.
Championship is ‘The Ultimate Competitive Miniatures Game’ at its finest – you have the largest set of options, and can build the most competitive deck to face off against the broadest array of threats and the most varied set of playstyles. You have more opportunities to boost the strength of under-performing warbands, and it also is the best format if you want to try different builds for under-performing/older warbands. As mentioned above, older warbands often have conflicting goals within their faction cards. Championship helps you fully lean into one of those goals because the larger card pool not only covers for the deficiencies of their faction deck but also opens up different avenues for them to work in.
Championship also allows you the most access to ‘great cards’ that will help your games run smoothly, your objectives get scored, and the glory pile up. It’s the steepest learning curve and the hardest to dive into, but once you’re ready it can be great fun (and is ‘the original’ Underworlds experience).
Relic otherwise
Aside from Championship. the Relic format also contains other ways to play. The general theme of relic is ‘all your old stuff is still valid’ so you can use any card, any board, with no restrictions. This can make for some wacky combinations and incredibly powerful sequences, but I wouldn’t call it a particularly competitive format and is pretty rarely played outside a few small circles. If you’re looking to use some old stuff you have laying around or just want a barn burner/meme deck, Relic is the place to go.
There exist other formats to play in (Alliance, Solo play, Arena Mortis, and so forth) but the three above are far and away the most common and the ‘main’ or ‘core’ Underworlds experience. For new players I generally recommend starting in Rivals (or Nemesis if they’re experienced deckbuilders from other games), and eventually a move to championship if that scratches their particular itch. For most people, Nemesis is going to be just fine with a lower barrier to entry and still plenty of competitive balance and variety of play.
Hopefully this has provided a little clarity for the newer and returning players out there who are confused about the new ways to play formats in Warhammer Underworlds. As always, feel free to shoot me any questions or comments about any of the above, and until next time, I hope you enjoy spending your glory!
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