I took my Exiled Dead to a Siren Games Championship Event! Here’s how it went.
Siren Games was hosting a tournament on the 18th of January and I had just built an Exiled Dead deck, and since it was one of my best ones yet which can potentially stand against the meta (unlike Sepulchral Guard, which crumpled under the force of aggro), I decided to take them.
As you can see, this is an aggro deck with a pretty low glory ceiling. I will go over this deck more in a future article but for now I will describe the tournament.
This was a Best of 3 Championship tournament with three matches, and my first one was against Tristan and his Grymwatch. He was running Daring Delvers and wanted to get into my territory and stay on feature tokens for exploration counters. Luckily for me, my deck hard-countered the Grymwatch as they couldn’t inspire with my lightning zombies swarming his territory.
I won the roll-off for boards in the first game and chose to deploy second. I placed the Stricken Swamp in the standard setup with no offset. I deployed Marcov at the back hexes and my leader and the zombies closer to the front. For my first activation, I charged Regulus into the bats and managed to hit. However, I hadn’t realized that they had 3 wounds and were still alive. During the round, I managed to finish the bats, Gristlewell, and the Royal Butcher. Tristan charged Duke Crakmarrow into my zombies for his last activation but missed, and I surrounded him for my last activation.
After winning the roll-off for round 2, my leader used his Danse Attack and took Duke Crakmarrow apart. At this point, my opponent conceded as he decided he couldn’t score anything else with only a couple ghouls left. The final score for game one was a staggering 18-2.
In game 2, Tristan chose the second board. I placed the Profane Larder and then he placed Visceral Coil to long board me. This caused me to not have enough room for all my zombies and Regulus up front, so I put Marcov, my leader, and Regulus in the back, and the zombies took the front. I don’t remember the first round that well, except that I managed to kill Gristlwel and a Crypt Ghoul, and all my zombies were in his territory by the end of the round.
In the second round, Tristan called back his missing Crypt Ghoul in the back of my territory, where Marcov was standing, so I first used Marcov’s Puppeteer action to charge the ghoul in the back. There was an objective at the very end of the board, and Marcov charged onto it (and missed). Regulus charged another Crypt Ghoul next to an objective in my territory and missed as well. For the remainder of Round 2, my zombies kept pushing deeper into Tristan’s territory while the Night’s Herald at the back kept attacking and missing Marcov. In the second-to-last activation, the Night’s Herald got Lurking Horror and another +1 dice upgrade, knocking Marcov off the objective. I seriously considered getting back onto it but decided to keep advancing my zombie horde closer to the Duke. Tristan moved the Night’s Herald onto the objective at the end, and I played Center of Attention on Regulus, standing between both Crypt Ghouls in my territory to drag him off. However, Tristan countered that with We Must Go Deeper.
At the start of the third round all my zombies were surrounding Crakmarrow. For my first activation, I killed him and now only had to kill Valreek and the 2 ghouls. With the help of Conquerors Circlet, my zombies caught up to Valreek, who had escaped into no one’s territory, though only Coyl and Deintalos were in range. On my third activation, I did kill Valreek and won the game with a score of 14-6. The final glory difference was 24, which put me at first place.
My second game was the one I dreaded the most: The Gnarlspirit Pack. My opponent was Sebastian and he was running a Tooth and Claw deck. His playstyle was an aggressive, charge my territory one.
Since around 75% of my rolls last game were crits, I wasn’t feeling too lucky this time. I ended up losing the roll off and Sebastian placed a board the standard, no offset way. I didn’t need objectives except for Blood In The Deeps and Stealthy Advance, so I threw a token next to where I would put Marcov and another one in no-ones territory.
For my first activation, I moved around to help score Forbidden Lore (and to delay my inevitable demise from his rush). For his first activation, he charged me with Lupan, killing a zombie whilst staying at a safe distance. For my second activation, I thought it was a good idea to start moving toward his board. It wasn’t. My zombies started dying faster than the popularity of Sudden Revelation when Gnarlwood came out. I couldn’t revive the zombies, as that would end my dreams of scoring Forbidden Lore (since they respawn with no move tokens). In the last activation, my leader got charged by Sarakkar while trapped, but I got a much-needed crit. In the last power step, Sebastian played Center of Attention on one of the fighters, which let me score Sleepless Sentries and Forbidden Lore.
Round 2 began with the most important roll-off of the day (for me) since all my zombies were within the attacking range of an enemy, and my leader was in imminent danger. I managed to win the roll-off with 2 crits but then screwed up 2 or 3 of the 5 attacks I made in that activation. Kheira was killed, which scored me Appalling End, and Sarakkar was staggered because of my leader’s spell attack action. Next turn, my leader died. I gave Coyl Dark Parasites so I could go try and avenge my leader, but then Sarakkar got 2 +1 Wound upgrades, and I realized Coyl was already uninspired, meaning he didn’t get the Overload effect which gave him +1 damage if the target is staggered. I charged Sarakkar anyway and somehow Coyl’s attack went through with the Grievious, leaving his leader with 2 wounds. This caused Sebastian to charge Marcov sitting in the back, but Marcov dodged the attack. Marcov then used Puppeteer to force Regulus to kill Sarakkar. In the next activation, Sebastian attacked Regulus with Gorl but missed. I then attacked back with Puppeteer, but missed as well. Marcov got a second move token which let me score Force Dynamic in the end phase.
In round 3, I drew Sudden Demise, Blood in the Deeps and Flame Wisps. My plan was to bring Gorl to low HP then use Marcov to ‘cast’ Flame Wisps to finish him off. My plan went wrong after the first activation, when I missed my attack into Gorl with Regulus and then Gorl ran away to charge my zombies who stood in enemy territory. I started moving towards Lupan, but he charged away as well. Luckily, I had everything perfectly positioned for a last activation double-charge: Regulus would bring Gorl to 1 wound, and Marcov would crit Lupan for 3 damage killing him. That would score me Sudden Demise after I Flame Wisp Gorl, as well as Blood in the Deeps and Lengthening Shadows. Well, when I tried that plan, Regulus did his part perfectly, but Marcov didn’t land the crit for Grevious (to be more accurate, he missed completely). That was fine, I could still Flame Wisp Gorl and get all the glory. So I roll the 3 die, and that’s when Marcov decided to use his crit he needed and miss-cast the card. The chances of a not successful Flame Wisps ‘cast’ by a wizard is around 7.8%! The first game ended 19-13 for Sebastion, which wasn’t bad.
In Game 2 I positioned the boards offset 4, so my zombies could crowd the GSP when they entered my territory. For my first two activations I moved around to score Forbidden Lore, while Sebastian drew power cards. I was getting bored so I decided to start moving toward his territory, at which he reacted by charging Lupan backward, to kill a zombie. For the final activation, I surrounded his 4 fighters. but then I made a crucial mistake. I forgot Kheira didn’t charge. Let’s just say I didn’t have many zombies after that activation. In the end phase I scored Forbidden Lore.
In round 2, I retreated with my leader but Bault and Coyl had to be left behind. Bault got crushed, and then I gave Coyl Dark Parasites and charged Gorl with him. Somehow, Gorl got oneshotted which was nice but not enough to earn back the glory I lost from dying so many times. The other beasts started moving toward my territory after killing Coyl. This was a pretty boring end to this round because I kept getting charged and reviving my zombies.
In the last round, Coyl was planning another charge, but kept dying forcing me to revive him. In the third activation he finally got the charge off, killing Lupan. The final score for this game was 27-9 (I died a lot of times).
My final game was versus the Wurmspat. They were using Tooth and Claw, and I knew how annoying they can be if given defensive upgrades. My plan was to let them in and surround them to take them apart one by one.
In game 1, that strategy worked pretty well. He couldn’t inspire Round 1 cause I kept reviving myself and I had all 3 fighters in a group.
In Round 2, I started killing them off and at the end, only Sepsimus was left alive.
In the final round, my leader and his minions ran away into his territory to score Lengthening Shadows and Forbidden Lore. Marcov was left behind to score Sleepless Sentries, which he did without dying somehow. The game ended in a 14-14 tie, AND both of us were on one objective (I had Marcov and he had Sepsimus). I won by roll-off, where I rolled 2 crits and a single support while my opponent rolled just a double.
In game 2, a friend of my opponent told him that he should longboard me cause it’s effective. After positioning my fighters the same way as my game against the Grymwatch, I camped at the back in Round 1 to score Forbidden Lore and Force Dynamic. My opponent then charged my fighters with Mighty Swing and Ghulgoch, but missed 3/4 attacks. For my final activation I grouped around him to take him apart next round…
In Round 2, the first thing I did was take apart Ghulgoch. After that I gave Coyl Dark Parasites and charged Sepsimus, but he blocked it. For activation 3 I used Danse Attack to try again, and managed to kill Sepsimus. For my final activation I started closing in on Fecula, who was alone on an objective token in my opponent’s territory.
In Round 3, I killed Fecula in 2 activations. The first one I used Danse Attack but it went wrong and she survived. When she tried to run away I pinged her with Quickroots and then charged her with Coyl, who succeeded in his mission.I forgot the final score for this game, but it was a very close one!
After the games we had an award ceremony. First we voted for best painted, my Exiled Dead got 1 vote and the winner was Morgok’s Krushas with 3 (or 4!).
For the final rankings, I got 2nd place! This was my second major in-person tournament so I think I did pretty well. Sebastian, who I played in the second game, took first.
Thanks to Tristan and the people at Siren Games for organizing this event! It was really fun, I hope to be back there soon!
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