Deck Guide: Gareth Davies's Exiled Dead & Beastbound Assault

Introduction

Hello, my name is Gareth Davies and I have an Exiled Dead problem. I recently won six games in a row (no losses) at the Grand Clash in April 2024 with this warband paired with the Beastbound Assault Rivals deck. Firstly, I want to state my intentions. I took The Exiled Dead to the Grand Clash this April 2024 and made this write-up not because they are the best warband in the game, but because I love them. Before going into nitty gritty of card picks and mulligan strategies, I want to talk you through my close relationship with this unique warband.

[Editor's Note: Gareth piloted this deck to 2nd place, only missing 1st place on the Glory Differential tiebreaker. -Jerod]

I was first introduced to the game less than a year ago by a friend in June 2023. I played a couple of games with Skittershanks Clawpack and Kainans Reapers. After those matches, I wanted to get myself a warband, I looked through every warband (on UnderworldsDB of course) and found Deintalos and his crew. The rest was history. Since then, more than 90% of the games I have played using The Exiled Dead. I have paired them with every rivals deck, I have played them aggressive, flex, passive, and NON-STOP.

Who Are the Exiled Dead?

From a first look The Exiled Dead area seven fighter death warband with some powerful action economy. However, they are truly the only two fighter warband in the game; it just happens to be that those two fighters, Deintalos and Marcov, occupy 5 and 2 hexes, respectively. In 99% of instances, Deintalos (and his zombie limbs) are only going to make either a move or attack action, and all of them are only doing one of these things. Deintalos’ arms (zombies) are Coyle, Bault, Vlash, and Ione. This is the order of best to worst in my opinion, offering 2 damage, cleave, knockback 1, and nothing, respectively. Marcov and his buddy Regulus can do ANY action or superaction on activation, this gives a lot of choice in what they are going to do. Double charge, guard Marcov and charge Regulus, barge Marcov and charge Regulus. Regulus charges a lot, even if he has a charge token he may charge. As you can see, they are interesting, to say the least. Operating unlike any other warband in the game.

Difficulty Level

So, The Exiled Dead are hard to play, and I would not generally recommend them for beginners. However, if you are still interested after that disclaimer, then I welcome you to the club. I have attempted to make a simplified list of “to dos,” which is the “right” or most optimum decision to make. Often in other games they are called heuristics, it is essentially decision points already known to be the best thing to do 90% of the time (some credit to LSV and Marshall at LR). This should ease the initial pain of learning The Exiled Dead significantly.

Heuristics for The Exiled Dead (from most important to least)

  1. If Marcov can make an attack (without charging), then you should do this through the puppeteer action.
  2. If Deintalos and his zombies can make 3+ attack actions you should attack.
  3. In the last activation of a round if Marcov has no move tokens you should charge through the puppeteer action.
  4. If you are playing against an aggressive warband you should use a longboard.
  5. If you are playing against a passive warband you should position straight up.
  6. You should always choose to go second in the first roll off to decide who goes first. This increases your chances of a double activation (last activation + first activation).
  7. If there is a charged fighter in range of being surrounded by Deintalos and his zombies, then you should move up around that fighter.
  8. You should plan for 1 additional attack than required for a kill in the case of 1 defence dice. You should plan for 2 additional attacks than required for a kill in the case of 2 defence dice.
  9. You should always plunder to a cover token if you are able to.
  10. You should make sure that after a move action with Deintalos there are no opposing enemy fighters able to charge him. This is the zombie wall in action.
  11. If the opposing team has a fighter able to deal 3 damage, put Marcov out of initial charge range.

The Beastbound Assault Deck

Whilst The Exiled Dead have amazing pairings with so many Rivals decks, (Voidcurse, Breakneck, Force of Frost, Toxic Terrors, etc.) Beastbound Assault is a great starting point and will be sorely missed after rotation. It comes with easily scorable objectives and useful gambits. The upgrades are lacking significantly and unfortunately, we are forced to run some upgrades to make Deintalos and Marcov “Denizens”.

The Deck 

https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,H97,H103,H104,H108,H111,H112,H114,H116,H119,H122,H123,H124,BA2,BA3,BA6,BA7,BA10,BA11,BA12,BA15,BA17,BA20,BA21,BA29,BA30,H128,H109,BA27,BA1,BA19,H126,BA31&format=nemesis

Images courtesy of underworldsdb.com.

Objectives

Gambits

Upgrades

Mulligans Decision Making

Again, we’re back to heuristics for Mulligan, making our decision-making process much easier. For Objectives, if you have either Meat Locker or Effortless Teamwork in your opening hand, then throw it back. This gives only a 33% chance of drawing the other if you have 1 in your opening hand. Effortless Teamwork is an easy score as long as Deintalos does not die. Meat Locker is free if the opposing warband is dead and amazing versus passive warbands. Although, they are just too hard to score consistently in round 1. A good objective hand would have some surges that require us to have an opponent to fight, e.g., alternating strikes, loyal allies, and unexpected end. However, do not fish for these and end up with objectives that you cannot score.

For Powers, we’re also keeping it simple. If you have 4 upgrades, throw the hand back. If you have 4 gambits, you keep it. If neither of these but do not have Overly Protective or Helpful Little Finder, then mulligan. These are key as the cards to draw through your deck and find the good Power cards.

Playstyle and Boards

You must vary your playstyle depending on the opposing warbands. Against a passive opponent (Sepulchral Guard), you must play aggressively with Marcov to force action. If, instead, you are against an aggressive warband, then I have good news for you. The Exiled Dead are the anti-aggro aggro warband to beat all other aggro warbands. You position zombies up front with Regulus able to charge someone if needed. Then you wait for the opponent to charge one of your fighters, which is essential to their gameplan. Surround that fighter with Deintalos, give them a hug, and see the opposing warband melt away like snow.

As previously highlighted, longboard against aggressive warbands to limit space and make the zombie wall easier. [Align] straight up against passive warbands so you can get at them a bit faster. The boards I took to the event which are useful are Frost-wracked Ruins, and the Cursed Oubliette. The former offering a nice defensive board for Deintalos behind the blocked hex with Marcov at his side. The latter being a better longboard and good offensive board to get everyone into enemy territory fast.

How to Beat the Exiled Dead (and Match Ups)

Beating The Exiled Dead is simple in a way. You have two clear choices. 1. Farm the zombies for glory so that you cannot lose (above the glory ceiling of The Exiled Dead player), and 2. Kill both Deintalos and Marcov (it is more important to kill Deintalos). I recommend you pick one of these gameplans and formulate everything around that. It is also important to remember that charging into The Exiled Dead is not a good thing to do; you are essentially sentencing your fighter to death. Ask yourself, is my fighter dying worth Ione's temporary removal from the board?

Good Matchups (for The Exiled Dead)

  • Aggressive range 1 warbands with no (or limited) flying are a zombie snack, as previously discussed.
  • Other horde warbands (Zarbags, Briar Queen). They give out a lot of glory and do not have accurate or high-damage attacks to threaten Deintalos.
  • Passive warbands with low damage output. No major threat to multiple attack actions.

Bad matchups for (for the Exiled Dead)

  • Warbands with all flying fighters (Drepurs, Headmans, Ladyharrows). They fly right over your zombie wall and kill Deintalos.
  • Warbands with scything attacks that deal 2 damage (Kainans). They farm your zombies too hard and too easily.
  • Ranged fighter warbands (Hexbanes). They do not need to charge into you and can ping off your fighters as you advance upon them.
  • Voidcursed Thralls: it has the potential to shut down your whole warband and must be played against carefully.

Conclusion

It has been a wonderful journey together, Deintalos, but I am going to have to ask for a break. It’s not you; it's me. No, please don’t get upset. You know I will always come back to you. For now, I am shelving The Exiled Dead and will attempt to learn how to actually play Underworlds in a more traditional sense. However, I hope that I have inspired some of you to give this strange mistake from Games Workshop a chance.