Warhammer Underworlds

Warhammer Underworlds is a Specialist Game released by Games Workshop, situated in the shadowy city of Shadespire, where warbands battle in the streets for glory or to gain "shadeglass", a substance that can confer eternal life. It combines the easy-to-pick-up nature and deck-building from X-Wing with the setting of Age of Sigmar, an unholy fusion of the two most addictive hobbies to grace nerddom. Geedubs banked on this being a competitive tournament game, with contests already being planned even before all the factions were released, and their gamble paid off big time.

The first block, Shadespire, began with Stormcast Eternals and Khorne Bloodbound (as was the standard with early AoS) with all the bitz needed to play the game. In November the first wave of expansions launched, releasing skeletons and orruks. In February the second wave brought Fyreslayers and Skaven. April of 2018 saw the closing of the first block with Vanguard Hunters and Blood Warriors, with confirmation that the second block, Nightvault, would include the Sacrosanct Chamber, spoopy ghosts, and rules for magic; on the horizon are shroomy biggies and squiggies, grots, chaos barbarians, elf-tree-elves, dakka dwarves, and Just As Planned boys. A third block was released in 2020, titled Beastgrave. 2021 saw the release of the fourth block, Direchasm, which followed the lore consequences of the Broken Realms event. Next block, Harrowdeep, takes place under Ulgu's sea, followed up by Nethermaze block.

The game has a budding but dedicated competitive environment with regulated lists, banned cards and all that. As it stands, the game is fairly balanced apart from a few bottom-tier Warbands that need some real skills to make work properly. However, any good player can make a semi-competitive list work with a little elbow grease and luck. You can learn the basics here

Be aware that all models up to Beastgrave are officially out of production and cannot be purchased anymore. Not just the cards, but the models themselves are gone. This will make it hard to be a collector for this game if this trend continues into later seasons.

The Setting

Oh no, I hate it when a Skeleton Lich-Overlord screams broken mirrors out on me and my friends!

At the edge of the Desert of Bones in Shyish, the Realm of Death, was a great city called Shadespire. The people living in it had managed to create some sort of magical mirror-like substance called "Shadeglass", which let the souls of their dead live on in mirrors put up everywhere around the city, keeping their knowledge and powers safe for future generations to use for the city’s betterment. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with Nagash, who wasn't fond of once again getting cheated out of his (imagined) tithe of death. So, to get back at those arrogant Shadespirers, he threw the entire fucking city out between the Realm of Shadow and Light in the endless void, trapping everyone inside to live out an eternity of kinda-torment until they petition themselves to him voluntarily. An unliving husk is left of Shadespire in Shyish, but the actual city, now out in the nothingness, has become impossibly vast, but fragmented and all messed up, so you never know if you can find that favorite In-And-Out Burger you love so much after you leave it.

To the surprise of no one, the destruction of Shadespire inspired legions of looters to ransack the physical ruins for Shadeglass and other riches. Unfortunately, anyone who goes just a bit too far into the city will find themselves with a one-way ticket to Shadespire for an eternity of bloodshed. With nothing better to do, the different Warbands caught in Shadespire fight it out to the bloody death for kicks - they can't die permanently anyway, as the city resurrects them within days.

The Beastgrave block shifts the setting, as a crack in reality caused by the Necroquake allows the O.G warbands to escape the city. Unfortunately, this leads them to the titular Beastgrave, a sentient and malevolent mountain in the Realm of Beasts that has a habit of luring in adventurers in the hopes of consuming them.

While the setting and the idea of "Warbands" might cause a few of you Mordheim players to awake from your eternal slumber, be warned that the Warbands aren't customizable at all. These guys are not your dudes, they are unique characters with names and such, so if you wanted to make your own guys, this isn't your game.

...Unless Proxy. In a friendly setting, theres nothing stopping you converting up some Savage Orcs to be Garrek's Reavers, or Magore's Fiends as some Mercenary Knights with loyal doge. Perhaps your Farstriders are actually Dorf Ironbreakers with drakefire pistols instead of stupid crossbow-pistols, or turn Spiteclaws Swarm into lizardmen. As long as you (and your opponent) know who's what and what's who, anything is fair game.

The Game

The game is played between two players (with a possibility for up to four players) on hex-grid boards, with the goal of gaining as many Victory Glory Points as possible before the end of the game. You gain Glory Points by either killing enemy models or by achieving Objective Cards, which you draw before the game starts. This means that you can win a game even if your entire Warband is killed off. The only thing that matters is gaining more Glory Points than the opponent.

A game is three turns of four activations each, for a total of twelve activation per person. If this sounds quick, it's because it fucking is: two players who know the rules can easily play a full game in twenty minutes or less. In tournaments, a match is almost sure to be three games in a row and tournaments are intended to be best of 3.

At the start of every game, the players roll off and the loser chooses how to place the first hex-board, with the second player placing the other board in such a way that the hexes connects properly and at least three hexes are connected. Board placement can have a drastic effect on the game, as each board side has its own starting positions and such. Then the players roll off again, the winning player choosing who is placing their models on the starting positions on their own board side first.

The players take turns doing Activations; four Activations each per Turn. An Activation lets you do one of these Actions:

• Move a model. Each model can only move once per Turn. There are tokens to indicate which models have moved.
• Attack an enemy model within reach. For each friendly model in base contact with the enemy model apart from the attacking model, the attacker hits easier (presumably as his bud holds the enemy down to the curb while your attacking models winds up his stompin’ boot). Ranged attacks go through models, but not terrain, which can make certain models a real fucking pain in the ass when they get Inspired and have Supporters on their attacks.
• Charge an enemy model, which is a Move followed by an Attack. Models cannot be activated after Charging, so use it wisely. There's also little tokens to indicate what models have charged.
• Guard with a Friendly model. This allows your model to use both Dodge and Block on the Defence die, which can help a lot if your’re a fucking human with 2 Wounds and one Dodge, which is like half the Khorne Warband. Models lose Guard if they charge in the same turn.
• Draw a Power Card. Generally don't use this; you get new Power Cards each Turn and your Activations are precious. This is nearly mandatory if you are running a SCE katophrane deck, as you will want to get your gribbly hands on to those relics.
• Discard and draw an Objective Card. Again, don't do this unless you're boned. Still, this is remarkably more useful than the other Draw option, since you can't replace your Objective Cards ever, and they win you the game if you have the proper set.

After each of your Activations you may play Power Cards which come in different flavours: Ploys, which are free and do all sorts of interesting shit after playing them, like moving guys around or stealing the enemy's Glory Points. The other Power Card type are Upgrades, which cost Glory Points (put doesn't remove them - They still count as "Victory Points" even if used to buy an Upgrade), and are permanent upgrades to your models. Ploys make or break the game; have as many Ploys as you can (up to half of your deck) in the Power Deck and choose them very carefully. After you have played a Power Card, your opponent may do the same, then you can play one and so on, until both calls. With this, the opposing player gets to Activate. Some cards are also Reactions which are played like magic the gathering as a counter or response to certain enemy actions, their power cards or things that have happened to your dudes.

Each model is unqiue and have an INSPIRED MOOOOODE! When the model's Inspire requirement is met, you flip the card and use the profile on the other side which usually includes new attacks and better stats. For some Warbands this is just a nice little bonus, but for others, like the Reavers, it's their entire thing and what you should build your decks around.

Deck-Building

Two Objective Cards.

So that's pretty simple, but this is where Warbands and deck-building comes into it.

Each player has two decks; a Power Deck of 20 cards (or more) with at least 50% of your cards being upgrades and an Objective Deck of at least 12 cards as of Harrowdeep. A large amount of the cards available are Neutral and usable by everyone, but there's a good amount of Faction Cards that only the specific Warband can use.

The Objective Deck is the one that will win you the game, since it has the collection of cards that will award you Glory Points. Your choice of Objective Cards is crucial for your gameplan, and ideally you should have a combination of high-risk, five Glory Points cards and the easy-to-claim one Glory Point cards to tackle those situations where RNG fucked you over.

The Power Deck is the one where your Ploys (aforementioned God-cards of Awesome, dagger symbol) and Upgrades (eh, gear symbols) goes. They should help you achieve your Objectives obviously, but some are just so good that they should be in all decks if you can make them fit. Cards like Confusion (switch two models in base contact) and Sidestep (Friendly model moves one Hex) are awesome to help you get into bashing range without using Activations on Move Actions. Generally, anything that gives some additional movement fucking rocks. Only half of your deck can be Ploys. Starting with Nightvault, Spells are also added as a part of the Power Deck.

If you need advice, GW put some example decks up on their website based on dev team recommendations and decks that won major tournaments.

GW has decided balance will be maintained by a banned and restricted list. Only three cards are banned, but restricted forced a big hit on aggressive warbands. Unlike other restricted lists you can only choose three (previously five) cards from the whole restricted list. Good luck with that.

Warbands

Each block consists of at least eight Warbands. The two first Warbands can be found in the block's starter pack, with the rest being released over time. During the block or season, as each year a new block is released, can include new tiles, terrain and extra card packs

Shadespire Block

Shadespire Block

Steelheart's Champions

Steelheart's Champions

The first Stormcast Eternal Warband and tied for the smallest group currently in the game with the other Stormcast Warbands. Liberator-Prime Steelheart and his two roadtrip buds went to Shadespire to find a cure to the increasing hollowness that plagues Stormcasts when they get reforged, and they're not even gonna try to get out of the city before they have it!

The melee-oriented Stormcast Warband is among the tougher and slower Warbands, and all their attacks hits fairly easily and hits like a bullet train. Their Inspire comes into play when they successfully roll a Shield or Critical on defense, which causes them to gain Nurgle-like toughness and additional attacks... But you'll need to strike a precarious balance because before that, even your four Wound won't save you from attacks; and with only three models, each casualty will severely hurt your board presence and ability to gain Glory Points. Another issue is that Steelheart McLanternjaw, the leader of the Warband, ironically is the least useful model, with no specific role to fill in.

The SC cards are pretty simple - Not bad, just simple. Your opponent will often know what your decks are about the moment you place just one set of gold-plated buttcheeks on the board, but that might necessarily be that much of an issue. It just means that the Champions are a very steady Warband that can take a beating and still work towards their goals.

They are tough, but slow, and warbands like the Orruks, Orcs, Orkz, DA BOYZ with access to a lot of cleave can cause a lot of trouble.

Garrek's Reavers

Garrek's Reavers

No Stormcasts without the cannibals in red! They don’t even say why they’re there; maybe Bloodbound just appear spontanously where Stormbois go, like a really sick sort of intestinal disease that usually follows a McDonalds menu? The Reavers is widely considered one of, if not the most difficult Warband to pilot currently in the game... But when they get rolling, they get fucking *rolling*!

The Reavers have five models, varying from pretty okay to absolutely awful. They’re all pretty fast and get faster yet when Inspired, and has a model for every situation - the issue is, they fall like flies to even the slightest attack, with two of the Reavers literally having 2 Wounds and 1 Dodge (which is the worst defense in the game), and the others are only marginally better. However, this is also the Reavers’ trump card, because when any three models in the game are taken Out of Action, *all* Reavers become Inspired, which turns them into some of the most dangerous models in the game! Saek and Garrek himself gets particularly nasty, with very powerful attacks and high movement. When this is combined with the frankly fantastic Reaver Upgrades and Ploys, this Warband goes from weedy to scary in no time. There's a mixed bag included Axe-Chain-Man with the power of axes on a chain allowing ranged melee attacks and Stabbins McGee who can make lots of attacks. By having 5 Speedy Khornezales grabbing objectives is easy, but they drop like flies. When playing, don't under-estimate Arnulf or Targor just because they are your weakest guys. Inspired and with a few standard upgrades, Arnulf or Targor can become killing machines capable of one-shotting most fighters with a little luck. The beauty of Garrek's Reavers is that playing clever can make even the most daunting matchup winnable, and a single deck build can give you thousands of possibilities.

Reaver Decks

• Aggro Reavers: How a warband of Khorne-worshipping mortals who come back to life should play - Fast and hard! Aggro Reavers aims to start the game by attempting to kill as many enemy models as possible before Arnulf and Targor eventually dies by a stiff breeze, which should allow you to become Inspired. Then you pile on the upgrades on Saek, Garrek and Karsus and go to town. These builds are meant to burn like crazy, with loads of easy-to-use reactionary Ploys and great Upgrades that allow your golden boys to reave havoc; most games you'll end with an empty Power Deck! This is not an easy deck to run however, as it requires you to weigh the sacrifices you are going to have to make to be Inspired - if you're not careful, you'll just bloody yourself, like punching yourself in the nose.
  • Karsus Unleashed: A variant of the Aggro Reavers that puts most of their Upgrades on Karsus. He's got a Range 2 attack as well as an "attack-everything-within-Range-1" attack, both which benefit massively by Upgrades like Great Strength (+1 Damage to all attacks). Place him somewhere were he gets support from the other models and let him go to town from a safe distance.
• Objective Reavers: Believe it or not, Khorne cultists play a fairly strong Objective game. The Reavers are fast and have quite a few models with allows you to cover most of the board quickly. With the addition of the Move buff from Inspired and Ploys like Sidestep (Move a friendly model one Hex) or Sprint (Next Move is doubled), the Khorne guys are among the fastest Warbands in the game. Only issue is that they aren't very tough compared to other Objective decks, so more bashy Warbands can ruin your day by throwing your bare-torsoed-ass around.

Ironskull's Boyz

Ironskull's Boyz

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!! The 'Ardboyz representing green power. These guys have been stuck in the city for a while(decades) after a looting spree gone wrong. At first the leader, Gurzag Ironskull, did not like it one bit but after the years has grown rather fond of the place. What with an endless cycle of battle and bloodshed, this place is actually rather nice for an Orruk.

These guys are one of the simpler teams to play and is great for beginners. They are tough as hell, have alright movement and hard hitting power from 2 of the 4 members. They inspire simply by taking damage which is rather easy as only a few combos can one-shot these monsters of melee (EDIT: Obviously this was before the COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED power creep in the last expansion block. Now they can die on turn 1. Not that they really care.). Most of their unique Ploys are made to essentially break the game; making extra moves and attacks, making moves after attacking or attacking after moves and so on and so forth. Combining these Ploys in one Activation can cause you to play an entire Turn in a single Activation, clutching a win from defeat at lightning speed! Almost all their objectives focus on them hitting enemies, so don't include all of them in one deck. The orcs aren't suited for Objective play either; they just don't have the movement to claim a lot of Objectives in time.

Their main weakness is Hakka and Basha, whose damage sucks up to several colors of chode, even after they're Inspired. However, with some clever use of Upgrades they can get alright. They are also very predictable to play against, predictable in their unpredictability in a sense. While their Ploys can mess up the game, that's what they have to play with mostly. This isn't that bad though; you've still got 17 Wounds with good Defense, so whatever the enemy can throw at you, you can probably take it in stride.

Ironskull's Boyz used to be a tournament winning warband, and were able to stomp down any other warband in its heyday. Now Ironskull's Boyz is consistently considered one of the worst warbands in the entire game in Championship Format (the standard card rotation system that GW's rule writers have implemented). This mainly comes from their inspire condition being a little outdated (taking damage to inspire is easy, but automatically puts you on the backfoot), their faction specific cards being extremely basic, and from Hakka and Basha being absolute shit. Gurzag can still do well on his own, and he is genuinely a good fighter compared to a slew of others; however, his own strengths are not enough to make up for the weakness of the rest of his deck.

Orruk Decks

• Grind-Out Orruks: With four tough-as-nails boyz that actually like to take damage, you've got no reason not to throw them into the fire and let them roast. The main difference between you and most Warbands is that you can take it; they usually can't! This deck-type needs a keen eye for opportunities and openings to exploit, as well as a tactican's mind to utilize your Ploys and Upgrades well. For example, don't burn Power Cards on a dude who's probably gonna die soon, and never think that even Basha or Hakka can't do their share; even a single Wound of Damage can make a great difference. This deck uses Brutal but Kunnin' (Make a Move after an Attack), Kunnin' but Brutal (Take a guess), 'Avin' A Good Time (50/50 chance of making an extra attack) to squeeze the most value out of each dude, as well as upgrades like Daemonic Weapon (Dude gets a nasty-ass attack) and 'Ard Head (Hakka or Basha takes a permanent -1 Damage) to boost Basha and Hakka to true killyness.
• "You On Da List?": Also called Board Orcs or Bouncer Orcs, this is a deck based on three Objective Cards that can give fucking 8 Glory Points by the end of the game, with the same requirements basically! These three are Denial (Enemy models didn't end on your board), Contained (Enemy models ended in their Board entirely) and Conquerors (All your models ended in the enemy board), which, as you can imagine, can win you almost any game immediately. Here's the issue - Almost all players who've lost to this before will do everything they can to stop you, Sprinting to the end of your board side to ruin your life. This is why you'll want to make like Blood Bowl and wall the fuck up at the No-Mans Land between the boards, hopefully stopping any intruders. Your deck should also be filled up by defensive and supportive Ploys and Upgrades like Great Toughness (+1 Wound), Unkillable (When Gurzag is killed, 50/50 chance he lives), Healing Potion (Heal 1 or 2 Wounds) and 'Ard Head (Hakka or Basha takes -1 Wounds) to increase your staying power. Note that most of the Nightvault Warbands have a hard counter for this: the Thorns of the Briar Queen can pass right through you, the Eyes of the Nine can summon their Horror into your starting hexes, and Zarbag's Gitz can make mass moves on top of the fact there's twice as many of them as there are of you.

Sepulchral Guard

Sepulchral Guard

The remains of several of Shadespire's unfortunate inhabitants, now turned to the service of Nagash in the hopes that he will forgive their insolence (and put them out of their misery). Their boss was once the last Lord Marshal of Shadespire.

Skellington Skwad weighs in with 7 dead guys; there's Spear McGiblets the leader who, despite the cool models armor and spear, needs to hide like a bitch boss at the back because only he can resurrect your dead undead. Did we mention that re-animating two skellymans makes him Inspired? Put simply if you play this band you will activate Boss Skellington most of the 12 actions, and striking the right balance between moving your squishy guys forward to let them get krumped, bringing them back in their more powerful form and actually activating them to have them do shit will win or lose you the game.

There's 2 hero guys, basically skeleton warriors - a mace dude (The Prince) and the sword dude (The Champion) - these guys can actually get shit done and benefit from the better upgrades. They can be resurrected by Spear McGiblets which as is normal (for animated necromantic skeletons) Inspires them. Then there's the remains of Farmer Maggot with his kick ass scythe. This can hit all adjacent foes giving you some area of attack. Finally there's 3 petitioners which at the moment are the worst models in the game - move 2, piss poor attacks. In fact most of your dudes attacks and defence are rubbish, however the upgrades let you take extra attacks or let you get support on actions even if you don't have the models in the right place.

Arena Mortis: Beastgrave was strange for many players, as Sepulchral Guard and the rest of the Shadespire warbands were no longer in print due to GW's season system. This sidegame, which gave mostly non-competitive cards that were made for Arena Mortis that you could include in your regular warbands, were chock full of cards which had keywords that directly benefitted the Sepulchral Guard warband. Not only that, but it gave a buffed/changed version of McGiblets. If you want to play Sepulchral Guard, try your damndest to get Arena Mortis: Beastgrave before it is out of print, because it will totally change your entire warband.

By having 7 models combined with McGiblets' ability to move 2 other skeletons allows you to zerg your opponent and capture objectives. Just be aware that the skeletons are pretty squishy and most warbands won't have much trouble smashing through them - just as well they get back up! Building your deck with the right mix of upgrades and reactions and knowing when to play what to get the most mileage out of your bonebags isn't easy but is really satisfying when it does work.

The Chosen Axes

Garrek's Reavers

Dwarfs Fyreslayers - expect 4 short, choppy bastards mixed with fire as well as typical stunty grumbling about painting orange. The Fyreslayers of the Vostarg lodge failed an oath of theirs to keep the city safe, and even after hundreds of their number have fallen trying to dispel its curse they're much too stubborn to know when they're beat.

Fyreslayers are supposed to be similar to the Stormcast Eternals but with the ability to specialise in either offense or defense. They are very slow but get inspired from holding objectives. Oddly enough, the massive axe does not count as a ranged weapon, and can only reach one hex...

In championship format, this warband is considered by most players to be the absolute worst warband. Though The Chosen Axes are on average the hardest hitting warband, and have an extremely easy inspire condition, their main weakness is their aforementioned lack of speed. They can only move 2 hexes without upgrades and are entirely melee fighters. Sure, you can upgrade their speed, but you're essentially cramming your deck with cards to make sure your fighters can just keep up with all the other warbands, not to outpace them.

A guy in Europe has managed to pull off multiple tournament wins with these guys lately, beating Shadeborn, Exiled Dead, and other modern big hitters

Yes-yes!

Spiteclaw's Swarm

Skaven - a mini-swarm of 5 ratbois here for the looting. Expect speed and trickyness but to die easier than the skellybones. There'll be ranged attacks and bonuses for outnumbering or supporting against single models.

They get inspired whenever a ploy is used on them. They have two named characters, while the remaining three are more expendable. If they die, one of the three can automatically be brought back a turn (and a ploy allows for another to come back as well in that same turn).

Spiteclaw himself is an ass kicker, and by staying alive he can essentially mop up any damaged fighters while you aggravate your opponent with an endless supply of fighters.

The Farstriders

Now with 200% more Dakka.

Another band of 3 Stormcast Eternal, with a greater focus on ranged combat. All three of them have their trusty sidearm to plink at the opponent with impunity.They're not as completely OP as they sound, though: plinking does little damage unless boosted by gear/ploys and for them Inspiration only strikes when they end an action phase in enemy territory. Their cards generally either encourage more aggressive play of going forward, bring the fight to the enemy and treat shooting as a bonus; or hang back and pewpew like little bitches with empowered shots but woe if the enemy manages to close the gap. Middle ground is hard to pull off with the limited amount of both minis and cards. One of their funniest strategies is forcing your opponent to advance towards you, only to hit them and drive them back, followed by a riposte so that their attempt to set up an upcoming attack is wasted.

Eternal battle, just what we needed!

Magore's Fiends

The Stormcast version of the Reavers - choppy and armoured. Four strong; three Fantasy Khorne Berzerker equivalents (the boss Magore and his two pals Ghartok and Zharkus) and Riptooth (aka Doge), a Flesh Hound. They start out rather slow, but become inspired whenever they make a succesful attack which boosts both their speed and their damage. Magore is pretty much a powerhouse once inspired (3 base damage that can be boosted to 4 or 5, he can take an Orruk out in one single blow), Riptooth is faster and more vulnerable than the others but can be surprisingly vicious, and both Ghartok and Zharkus can punch back whoever fail to hit them as a reaction for free.

Fiends Decks

A very aggressive warband, There are 3 broad ways on how to build their deck:

• Blood for The Blood God! - Overused battlecry aside, this version focuses on killing as much as you can, boosting Ghartok and Zharkus and letting them go to town on anything coming nearby with Magore and Doge in support. Basic, straightforward and absolutely unsubtle: Kill them all, Khorne will know his own!
• Skulls for the Skull Throne! - This variant focuses less on pure slaughter but rather on boosting Magore and having him claim the enemy leader's skull for mucho glory points, while the three others keep the rest away. Slightly harder to pilot than just all-out aggro.
• Sic 'em! - This one includes upgrades for Riptooth and tries to take as much advantage as possible of his mobility and the fact he can drag opponents around after chomping on them. Hardest to pull off, but having Doge drag one of your opponent's minis away from the objective he needs to win in extremis or in range of your other madmen is just hilarious.

Nightvault Block

Nightvault Block

Thorns of the Briar Queen

Ten thousand YEAAAARS will give you such a crick in the neck!

A once-great death mage, the Briar Queen was condemned to an eternity of imprisonment in the depths of the Nightvault when she failed to conquer Shadespire for herself. Nagash, being the asshole that he is, found it most amusing to unleash a former enemy of the Mirrored City against the interlopers trying to claim its secrets. According to the Nighthaunt codex, Nagash actually lets her out of the city on missions, and she mainly stays in Shadespire despite being able to leave due to her grudge against the city.

Like their fellow undead, this Nighthaunt warband consists of 7 spooky ghosts. All of them have the unique ability to treat lethal hexes as normal hexes and can move right through blocked or occupied hexes as well. The Briar Queen herself is a level 2 wizard, and with four wounds and 2 dodge she can take a beating. Varclav the Chained comes with the ability to push all the generic Chainrasps (plus the other guy who's basically a slightly stronger Chainrasp) up to two spaces, and conveniently enough they get inspired any time they're next to an enemy.

They favor an aggressive playstyle blending both objective play and eliminating enemies thanks to their mobility boosts and method of inspiration, and while the individual Chainrasps are somewhat weak they're good at dogpiling enemy fighters since they can slip right past anything in their way- the whole premise of the Bouncer Orcs deck falls apart against them even before their ploys, spells, and upgrades come into play. Using Varclav's ability is a must- he should be close enough to the front lines to push the little ghosts forward while smacking any targets of opportunity, but not so close that he becomes a prime target himself. Any cards with a pushing effect (e.g. Earthquake or your own Howling Vortex spell) will also help you close in on the foe for an easy inspiration. As for ploys, you've got a mix of debuffs like Maddening Cackle (which de-inspires fighters and keeps them from becoming inspired again), buffs like Spectral Chains and Endless Malice, and a few other pushing effects.

Break all the curses!

Stormsire's Cursebreakers

Knight-Incantor Averon Stormsire was chosen personally by Sigmar to investigate the curse of Shadespire in the hopes of breaking it, for the irascible mage’s knowledge of unbinding and banishment is extraordinarily comprehensive. Stormsire has long studied the negative effects of the reforging process, and his grim demeanour has only grown more intense as the troubling implications become clearer.

Another trio of Stormcasts, this time from the Sacrosanct Chamber and consequently full of magic. They become inspired by successfully casting spells, which is a good thing because they have a lot of spells. Stormsire himself comes with a ranged magic attack by default, while the other two come with a self-buff spell that allows them to re-roll failed attacks.

Their deck is primarily offensive, and focuses on both upgrade that increase the power of the Cursebreakers and spells for shitting out lightning everywhere. With only three models, Empathic Conduction's healing will be a game-saver, and if you want to zap enemies left and right Cry of Thunder and Chain Lightning are both solid multi-target attack spells.

Eyes of the Nine

Just as planned!

A goodie-bag of Tzeentch: a leading Magister, two Kairic Acolytes, a Blue Horror, and a Tzaangor. They get inspired by successfully performing ranged attacks (with the exception of Tzaangor K'Charik, who is inspired when someone next to him casts a spell, and the Horrors, who don't get inspired at all.) This Inspire condition is harder than it sounds, as the ranged attacks are terribly difficult to actually pull off. The Kairic Acolytes Inspired aren't that much stronger than they are uninspired, so it's good to use them to bait your opponent rather than rely on them. The Magister Vortemis the All-Seeing is rather squishy with only 4 wounds and 1 dodge, but his ranged attack power is high and he can summon a Blue Horror on any starting hex that splits into a Brimstone Horror pair when it dies. (Yes, this includes the enemy's starting hexes too.) As an added bonus, the Horror can be re-summoned any time it's been slain with all of its upgrades intact, making it a constant threat as long as Vortemis is around to bring it back. The Tzaangor is a pretty standard beatstick, and one of the Acolytes has Cleave to deal with tougher targets.

The Eyes of the Nine's deck is strongly control-oriented to take advantage of their good speed and summonable Horror, with plenty of cards that shift the positions of fighters around. And what kind of Tzeentch-themed army would they be if they didn't supplement that with hard-hitting spells?

There are some very interesting warband specific upgrades for your fighters, yet your guys are so brittle that there's no logic in upgrading them. Your band should keep a Mollog's Mob proportions of upgrades - all of them on the leader or the horror.

Nine gits! NINE!

Zarbag's Gitz

The largest warband yet, with NINE FIGS! Seven grots and two squigs! While they're about as resilient as you would expect a grot to be (read: not very), all of them but the Squigs have a special rule that lets them move as a reaction if an ally started a move next to them. With the right positioning and a bit of forethought, the entire warband can be moved with only one activation!

Most of Zarbag's Gitz become inspired after they score at least 3 Glory Points, with the exceptions being the Squigs and Snirk Sourtongue.

Zarbag is squishy for a leader, but he's still a Wizard and hits fairly hard when Inspired. Snirk Sourtongue is a bit of an oddball compared to most fighters- he becomes inspired after any activation(foe or friend alike). When inspired, Snirk gives up the ability to perform all normal actions, but can zoom across the board while pushing and damaging anyone in between him and his target location. The Squig Herder is tankier than the rest of the Grots, and since the Squigs are inspired as soon as he dies your opponent can be forced into a position where killing him can actually be more troublesome than letting him live. The rest of them...well,they're Grots. One has a net and can debuff enemies, but apart from that they're unimpressive.

Zarbag's deck needs to get glory points quickly in order to build up their momentum, but their sheer numbers work in their favor when the Inspiration kicks in and the support bonuses are almost a certainty. Their Ploys help shore up the low offensive power of their individual fighters.

Mollog's Mob

A Bat Squig, a Spiteshroom, a Stalagsquig (think a Squig crossed with a stalagmite), and Mollog himself make up this warband. All Mollog the Dankhold Troggoth wanted was to nap in peace, but the other warbands keep waking him up. Needless to say, he's really cranky now and if they won't keep it down he'll make them keep it down.

Obviously Mollog himself is the centerpiece of the warband; he's a 7-wound monster that can charge with a move token, hits like a truck, and hits every fighter next to him at once. And when he's inspired by taking at least 3 wounds, he can charge if he has a charge token too (but not both a move and a charge token at the same time or if he has two of one token type). While the Squigs can't be given attack upgrades or even hold objectives, they still play a role in distracting and harassing anyone who might try to whittle down Mollog's health. The Bat Squig can move through occupied hexes and treats lethal ones as normal hexes, the Stalagsquig can't move but isn't set up until the first activation of the first round and can be placed on any empty hex including objectives, and the Spiteshroom hits all adjacent fighters at once like Mollog and inflicts damage to everyone near it when it dies.

If you haven't figured it out yet, this warband's success hinges almost entirely on Mollog's survival, so it's a good thing its deck has a fair number of ploys that mitigate his vulnerability to being outranged or outnumbered. The squigs also get some good benefits out of ploys as well, such as being able to respawn a Stalagsquig after it's been beaten or allowing said Stalagsquig to hold objectives.

Some decks were absolutely ridiculous for this warband throughout Direchasm, as you could fill your deck with extra wounds and damage boosts. The card Ferocious Resistance made it so that no matter how many wounds Mollog had taken, he could potentially heal all of them, effectively making Mollog so powerful that he could absolutely beat the fuck out of any warband on his own because he can just attack over and over and over again. Thankfully, Mollog was recently nerfed in a rules change, where he can no longer attack over and over again in the same round.

Godsworn Hunt

Chaos is really working overtime, this time with Darkoath barbarians.

The Godsworn Hunt acts somewhat like a combination of the earlier Chaos warbands- they've got a wizard and ranged attacks like the Eyes of the Nine, the strength in numbers of Garrek's Reavers, and the offensive clout of Magore's Fiends. While not quite as durable or hard-hitting as the Khornate warbands and lacking in the magical potential of the Eyes, their versatility lets them adopt a variety of strategies. Godsworn Hunt fighters become Inspired after receiving an upgrade, which makes them tricky to use early on but allows them to snowball rapidly once the glory points start coming in.

The leader Theddra Skull-Scryer is a level 1 wizard best suited for casting spells from a distance, while heavy hitter Grundann Blood-Eye is somewhat frail but fast enough to keep his distance before going in for the kill. Shond Head-Claimer also acts as a brawler, and he gains Cleave when Inspired. Jagathra carries a javelin, which she can only use once per game but deals a lot of damage when she does so, and archer Ollo has good movement to extend his threat range. Finally, Grawl the hunting dog is quick and good at supporting allies and blocking enemies.

The Godsworn Hunt has a special mechanic in their objectives called Oaths- they work like normal objectives, but award one extra glory point by revealing them to the opponent in the previous action phase. They can help get you enough points to gain an upgrade (and get someone Inspired by doing so), but on the other hand the opponent will now know how to block you from scoring as well.

Due to their role in the deck, Godsworn Hunt players will want to have a lot of upgrades available and spread them around to everyone. Fortunately, their Ploys help in acquiring upgrades and make the upgrades themselves more effective.

Chaos Gargant

Not technically an official warband, a Chaos gargant was added via a free card that came in the white dwarf. Driven mad by the city's shifting shenanigans, the gargant rampages through Shadespire. He is meant to be taken down by both players, and the amount of health he has depends on the number of players he faces. When he loses enough wounds, he gets inspired.

Ylthari's Guardians

Ylthari's Guardians

The Necroquake woke up this warband of Sylvaneth, and like Mollog they aren't too thrilled about being interrupted from their magic slumber. They become Inspired by any effect that would heal them, regardless of whether it actually removes wound tokens.

Another all-around warband with a solid blend of melee and ranged options. Ylthari is a flexible mage that can sometimes heal herself after casting spells (and conveniently Inspiring her, boosting her movement to 5). Anhslaine the archer comes with a reaction that allows a bonus attack after defeating an enemy, making her useful for thinning hordes like Zarbag's Gitz. Gallanghann is a melee tank with 4 wounds and 2 block, and Skhathael hits hard and gets Cleave when Inspired.

As you'd expect from their Inspiration condition, their deck comes with a ton of options to restore your warband's health; even some of their objectives trigger only after healing a certain amount. Of course, being healed usually means you have to take damage first and it's still possible to get hurt more than you can heal from. Ylthari's Guardians were extremely good and at their best when they were released, but weakened considerably when Beastgrave was released because the way the "heal" keyword worked in the game was changed, thus weakening this warband's potential. It's still a fun warband to play, but keep in mind that the rules are slightly levied against you unless the keyword changes again.

Thundrik's Profiteers

Thundrik's Profiteers

The Katophranes left behind many valuable artifacts, and the Kharadron Overlords are here to find them.

The lynchpin of the Warband is Thundrik himself. He's a reliable ranged fighter, and he can put some distance between him and his foes by temporarily converting hexes next to him into lethal hexes. More importantly, he can Inspire a fighter of your choice each time you score an objective, which makes keeping him alive a high priority. Dead-eye Lund is a strong ranged fighter with Cleave, and the knockback on Enrik Ironhail's gun can make sure that anyone not killed by his 3 attacks can't trap him in melee. Khazgan is a flying melee fighter with a backup ranged attack, and Garodd is...just average, pretty much.

Their decks are best served by "score this immediately" objectives to ensure quick inspiring, and have a bunch of ploys and upgrades that focus on damage output.

Beastgrave Block

Beastgrave Block

Grashrak's Ravagers

Grashrak's Despoilers

Beastmen warband, consisting of a Bestigor and four Ungors lead by a Bray Shaman. They have come to revel in the unending carnage that Beastgrave grants.

One of the starter warbands for round 3, this warband has a pretty decent mixing of objective, killing, and territory based objectives with a few odds and ends, so you could play them a lot of different ways. The Shaman starts off with a one-use token that lets any fighter reroll one dice in an attack action. He can get more tokens for every enemy fighter that dies, and hoarding them can ensure a victory when things come down to the wire and spending them every attack can keep you in the game if you're worried about falling behind. This factors into their inspire mechanics, as the entire warband inspires when two enemy fighters are out of action. This can be rather difficult if your up against any warband with less than four fighters, especially any of the stormcast, with a person who knows what they are doing. If you don't know what warband you will be fighting, it might be better to build more on objectives than killing fighters.

You shine brightest in Rivals and Rivals+, where your warband objectives and a handful of your gambits are some of the strongest in the game on their own. Rejoice! You can dominate a format!

Skaeth's Wild Hunt

Skaeth's Wild Hunt

A warband consisting of Kurnothi, a new race that's essentially a combination of Wood Elves and Non-Chaos fauns & centaurs unrelated to Ungors and Centigors. Skaeth's warband has come in hopes of finding the Beastgrave's heart so it can be killed once and for all.

The other starting warband for round 3, and like the first they have a nice mix of options for objective cards, making a lot of possible play styles. And this is one of the fastest warbands, with every fighter having at least 4 at the start, 2 having 5, and the rest go up to 5 after inspiring. They gain that at the end phase if they have a charge token, they do not inspire right after charging. Each fighter can gain something different from inspiring, so don't just go charging whilly nilly and make it easy to pick your fighters off since they're not all that tough until they inspire. As a nice bonus they have a wizard who is NOT their warband leader which forces a new kind of tension on the opponent - shall I kill the leader, or the spellcaster?

The Grymwatc

The Grymwatch

Flesh-Eater Courts warband. Includes the first female Ghoul, in case anybody wanted some mental scarring.

Fluffwise they are knight souls trapped in ghoul sexy bodies. Crusading in their minds, eating dead meat in reality feasting in Valhalla. Each phase if your leader is on board you may return one of the shitty ghouls young knights back in the game in a semi-random fashion using the scatter token. The biggest focus of this warband is keeping control of your territory and keeping the enemy where you want them too be. Several objective cards deal in having control of the objectives in the enemies territory or not having anyone but you in your territory, which is also how you inspire. Using ploy cards to move around and using the leaders reviving mechanic to grab objectives in the enemies territory can make moving around a lot faster and help to grab the objectives you want. Aggro warbands are a pain to deal with though, and using board set up to make the neutral zone as small as possible can make holding your own territory a bit easier.

Ironsoul’s Condemnors

Ironsoul’s Condemnors

One of the warbands for the "Dreadfane" starter set. Now released outside USA in the Champions of Dreadfane box set. Mirroring their liberator companions, Ironsoul's Condemnors are a 3 model warband with "the Leader", "the shield", and "the heavy". Ironsoul's condemnors' twist from steelheart's champions is that they have knockback EVERYWHERE. Things are gonna go flying. Their inspire condition requiring a critical hit seems doable, but not having any control on the inspiration timing is pretty spooky, and the inspiration gives some pretty nice perks.

With some strong unique warband cards, only melee attacks, and no magic, they are pretty straightforward. Bring in lethal hexes and you will probably be able to send your opponents flying into deathtraps from across the board! Also one of its fighters, when inspired, gets an area attack with cleave and 2 damage rolling 2 dice on hammers, what a beast!

Lady Harrow’s Mournflight

Lady Harrow’s Mournflight

One of the warbands for the "Dreadfane" starter set. Now released outside USA in the Champions of Dreadfane box set. Lady Harrow's Mournflight is a 4 model warband, but they are the exact same as the easy to build banshees set. Each model has a variety of statlines and inspiration bonuses, but all the models look pretty similar, so good luck memorizing who gets what. They did get the same ability as their smaller less choppy counterparts, and their inspiration mechanic is moving through an enemy. With solid stat lines across the board and a very reliable inspire mechanic, these girls lend themselves to being reliable and deadly. With decent wound counts, high movement, and powerful unique warband cards, these girls probably got the better end of the stick in the dreadfane box set. Even though Lady Harrow's team can hit hard, they also got some strong objective-focused cards as well.

Oh and have fun remembering about the inspired Anguished One's special ability.

Seriously, print out all special abilities of your members with a big font and hold them in front of your eyes when playing this band.

Rippa's Snarlfang

Rippa's Snarlfangs

Despite the Gitmob being squatted, we still got a trio of new wolf rider models!

Rippa Narkbad is an exiled Grot from a tribe of wolf riding Grots who is convinced that one of Gorkamorka’s legendary axes is hidden within Beastgrave. He’s accompanied by his two closest mates and they all ride on venomous wolves called Snarlfangs. Their warband is very fast and with the extra attacks of the wolves, can chew pretty quickly through every kind of enemy, specially horde warbands as the wolf doesn't have to target the same enemy that the gobbo. It must be noted that the wolves attacks are very random, so you'll be having tons of FUN all match. It plays as one of the most aggressive warbands, having incredible mobility (5 when inspired) and a high number of attacks that let you do tons of damage.

Raw firepower of this warband is deadly to every opposing force. A solid counter is to stack a lot of 'after an attack action' reactions. After you get hit by a rider any such reaction can be used to block the agressor from following the first attack with his wolf's jaws.

Hrothgorn's Mantrappers

Hrothgorn

A big and hungry ogor, but don’t let this fool you; it's actually a 5 man warband plus a trap.

Hrothgorn is called Mollog 2.0 yet that is an incorrect statement. Mollog's Mob is a one member warband with a couple of liabilities standing back in your field, just waiting to die while Hrothgorn's Mantrappers is an actual 5 member warband in which everyone has a specific role to handle and they are all capable of actually achieving something before getting killed.

Watch out for 3 and 4 player games. Hrothgorn has a tendency to be seen as a mighty threat and everyone tends to team up to kill him first giving you a hard time having a fun, balanced and friendly game with your buddies. In reality Hrothgorn is not a god. He's powerful on offensive, yet has no movement shenanigans forcing you to think before acting and giving you a hard time if the opponent decides to stay back. Don't get lured into the trap yourself!

The good thing about Hrothgorn's threating presence on the battlefield is that when he's the target of attacks you can actually use your gnoblars much more freely than you would assume. You can setup traps and position them for when the real hunt begins. Bushwacka, Quiv, and Luggit & Thwak are Hrothgorn's friends. They all serve a specific mechanical purpose, and all synergize to make Hrothgorn as effective as possible. Meanwhile, Thrafnir the Frost Sabre is a strong fighter, but is mainly there to backup Hrothgorn's damage output.

Hrothgorn has the Hunter keyword, and all enemy fighters have the Quarry keyword as long as he is alive. Use this to your advantage when you are building a deck, and keep an eye out for cards that promote upgrading Hunters and killing Quarry.

The Wurmspat

Wusrmpat

A Nurgle sorceress called Fecula Flyblown (yay for the first female Nurglesque model in the modern era) accompanied by two Putrid Blightkings and a Retchling. One of the Blightkings has his anus hanging out.

Their main gist is that they are tough, as in really tough, if they receive damage, they are capable of reducing it 1 point for every shield rolled up to a minimum of 1 damage, and then they have cards to discard that last damage point or heal, so you can keep laughing at your opponent trying to kill your guys.

They are also the first band to include "cycle" cards. These are like longstanding effects to the field that buff your warband, from extra movement to less attack dice for adjacent enemies that last until you play a different cycle card.

Wurmspat fall into a Cycle themselves in the meta. They shine their brightest at the end of a season when all the cards are out and you have time to deck build, but struggle in the early season. This is because a 3 fighter warband just doesn't last that well like they did in Shadespire and Nightvault (Mogrok being the exception). Having fighters that are survivable is a good gimmick, but not a strong one without cards that can aid in their damage output AND defenses.

Morgok's Krushas

morgok

Orruks come in for a second round, this time they aren't bad like their first iteration, where Hakka and Basha were as dangerous as a fucking gobbo. Now they all have five wounds and can annihilate an attacking fighter with a strong defense characteristic.

As you can expect, it's a full aggro faction that hits hard and has direct objectives with little cunnin', but lotts of brutal.

It's main mechanic are the Waaagh! tokens, wich are earned after an action in which a boy has made an attack action. If a boy has 2 Waaagh! counters it can inspire. The tokens can also be used to get some buffs like extra attack dice or pushing fighters around.

Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven

daughters

Revealed at GAMA, this 5 grrrrrrls band stars Morgwaeth, the titular Hag Queen and leader, a Melusai Blood Stalker, a Sister of Slaughter and two Witch Aelves.

An aggressive warband with low health, that's pretty difficult to pilot. Not recommended for new players, even though they have some of the best minis of Underworlds.

They all automatically inspire during the third and final round, but can inspire earlier so long as Morgwaeth is alive and an enemy fighter has been taken out of action. This is a different take on Thundrik's Profiteers form of inspiring, where you don't have to focus on objectives after killing, but may struggle to get the kills in the first place. Since all the fighters are fairly weak, they struggle to get over the early game hurdle. Generally, you may want to focus on inspiring either Khamyss or Kyrae first, followed by Lethyr, Morgwaeth herself, and then Kyrssa. You can build your whole warband around that order, but you can also take a different direction and try to inspire Lethyr earlier. Lethyr is special because when she is inspired, she can possibly commit to the deal damage step twice after an attack. If you stack her with enough upgrades, you can make her into a little monster destroyer... Provided she doesn't immediately die. It's usually safer to stack upgrades on Khamyss who will just use two different attacks in a single activation or Kyrae if you need to be really defensive. Kyrssa is just Arnulf from Garrek's Reavers (the dude who wears a bellend helmet) but has an extra dodge when inspired, so that should tell you how useful she is. Not a lot.

Direchasm Block

Direchasm Block

Myari's Purifiers

Myari's Purifiers

Lumineth Realm-Lords warband. These knife-ears have traveled to Beastgrave with the hopes of cleansing its heart and returning it to a peaceful non-cursed mountain.

Every fighter inspires if all of their dice during a roll are "successes." This means that the attack, defence, or casting roll can fail, but still has successes on the die.

The Purifiers individually all have really decent attacks and strong defences, and all have abilities that enhance their qualities. Swordmaster has increased chances of dodging ranged attacks, your hammerbearer can't be knocked back, your archer can do extra damage on crits and has the longest base range in the game, and your leader is a really strong caster. What rounds this entire warband off is that they all have an Aetherquartz token, and can spend it to reroll a die in any of their actions.

The Dread Pageant

The Dread Paegant

Slaanesh mortal warband, including what appears to be a Slaangor. When they heard of a sentient mountain in Ghur, they eagerly jumped at the chance to discover brand new sensations. Now they thrive off of inflicting pain to Beastgrave itself.

These fighters inspire if there are a total of six or more wound counters across all living fighters. This means that you have to avoid killing your targets early on to make your fighters especially deadly later. This also means that fighting warbands like Zarbag's Gits really sucks.

Your leader and your Slaangor can heal or damage themselves by one wound after attacking, which can make inspiring easier if you are willing to be a little risky. Your archer and spear girl are a lot squishier, but they are extremely useful if you want to move your opponent out of position or if you want to hit multiple fighters at once.

Khagra's Ravagers

An undivided Chaos warband with two sisters and leader models surprisingly. Classic armour, and some nice leather boots. They seek to corrupt Beastgrave as the final step in their path to glory. Also, the first female Chaos Sorceress seen in a long time. And you even get a big boy who is doing a great Slambo impression.

All your fighters are decent and tanky, including your Chaos Sorceress! Despite being hard hitters, you are going to have to play the objective game in the weirdest way if you want to get the most out of them. You need to use your warband's special "Desecrate" mechanic to inspire. Desecrate enough objectives, and your warband inspires at the cost of preventing someone from being able to hold the objective. The downside is that if an enemy is standing on your desecrated objective, it loses its desecration. If your opponent has a board with more objectives, then you are fighting an uphill battle. If your opponent has a ton of fighters, then you are fighting an uphill battle.

If you do manage to inspire, your fighters can really clean shop.

NOTE: A recent rules change changed their inspire condition so that they only have to Desecrate TWO objectives, rather than three. This makes the warband a lot stronger.

Starblood Stalkers

A Seraphon warband, led by a Skink Priest named Kixi-Taka, with three Skink hunters and an Oldblood to lend some saurian muscle. These starborne are tasked by their Slann to seek out Beastgrave’s heart and destroy it before the slaves of Chaos can corrupt it for their own needs. It also includes the best Chameleon Skink model possible.

All the fighters in this warband are useful, which is not that common in a warband of this size. Each Skink is capable of supporting the others because of their Skittish mechanic, and can turn defensive as quickly as they attack. The Oldblood hits like a truck with two attacks in one action. Kixi-Taka can punish anyone trying to play the objective game or trying to prevent you from playing the objective game. And your Chameleon Skink is ridiculously fun, capable of shutting down the most mobile warbands and the warbands that need to move as much as they can in one swoop... If he can hit.

The Crimson Court

A warband that served as a sneak peak for the revamped Vampires. A four vampire band with an aggressive play style and a “Bloodthirst” mechanic.

All your fighters have 4 wounds, movement value of 4, and attacks with damage of 2 by standard. That's a pretty solid set of starting attributes and since you have four vampires you can threaten pretty much the whole battlefield! And what a threat that is - the winged guy can, for example, easily become a range 6 flying shock trooper with damage 3. Oh, and you have spellcasters. Not one, but two!

The "Bloodthirst" mechanic means you receive one Hunger token at the start of each round (including first). Hunger is a mechanic that existed since the start of Direchasm, but it required you to focus your entire deck into the mechanic potentially at the cost of the rest of your warband's mechanics. You lose them as an optional reaction for putting an adjacent opponent out of action. Cards can also be used to change the amount of Hunger tokens you have. If you drop your Hunger tokens to 0 by the end of the round you inspire. What makes this warband unique is that if your fighter has 3 or more Hunger tokens, they become "Bloodthirsty", which gives you a different set of buffs than when you are Inspired. You can build an entire deck around raging bloodthirst, and you can potentially win a game without inspiring once. If your fighter has three tokens while inspired, he uninspires immediately.

In order to upgrade quickly, no matter if you're aiming for inspiration or bloodthirst, you need to murder people in mortal close kombat. Keeping your players in the best possible places and choosing who's the one to strike the killing blow become a really important tactical decisions. A truly aggressive and versatile warband.

Storm of Celestus

The Storm of Celestus is trudging through Shadespire (wasn't that three seasons ago?) to destroy Sigmar's enemies and discover the secrets of Nagash's city.

One of the two warbands introduced in the "Warhammer Underworlds: Starter Set." Similar to the Champions of Dreadfane box, this warband was included with Drepur's Wraithcreepers, and use the Easy to Build Castigators w/ Gryph Hound sprue. The box also came with a couple of new cards, boards, and a rulebook.

Stormies are the fifth Stormcast Eternals warband, but are the first with more than three fighters. Your fighters inspire by using their ranged attack successfully. These guys hit a lot harder from ranged than the Farstriders, but the trade off is that they can only fire once a round. Turns out firing the equivalent of magic grenades from an arblast comes with a reload time. The Gryph Hound Inspires with a successful attack, and has a special ability that can give adjacent friendly fighters a guard token if they are being attacked in melee.

Generally, the Storm of Celestus hits hard but is super defensive compared to the far more offensive warbands of the Direchasm season. Storm of Celestus is pretty good, but the other warbands can pretty easily close the gap when fighting these fellas.

Drepur's Wraithcreepers

Four hunters who were so proud of their hunting skills that they attracted Nagash's attention after death, forever cursed to wear the visage of their steeds and hunt in the name of the Dead God!

The third Nighthaunt warband and a warband with a very punny name. Drepur's Wraithcreepers are one of the strongest warbands released in the Direchasm season. With 2 ranged attacks on everyone except for The Patrician, and the super easy Inspire condition of just being in range of attacking an enemy fighter, these guys are no joke.

Though these guys can't move through lethal hexes without taking damage like their other Nighthaunt friends, they still keep most of the movement gimmicks of the Nighthaunt warbands. What makes them especially good is The Patrician. The Patrician is your technical fighter, who can move any friendly fighter a hex after an opponent's power step. Despite only having the standard 3 movement (which goes up to 4 when Inspired), this means that your fighters are deceptively mobile. The Patrician meanwhile has an Inspire condition that promotes being aggressive: All your OTHER surviving friendly fighters are in enemy territory. This means you can keep the Patrician in your back pocket in case of emergencies while your stronger fighters all rush in.

These guys are strong. Go annoy your friends with how tough and silly these undead hunters can be.

Hedkrakka’s Madmob

A third Orruk warband, though this time it’s Bonesplitterz. Lead by the self-titled “Gob of Gork” Hedkrakka, these savage orruks have arrived in Beastgrave to hunt the biggest monster of all; the mountain itself. A warband with a caster and a ranged fighter alongside two strong melee fighters makes this warband very wall rounded. This warband takes advantage of the Hunter and Quarry mechanics introduced back in “Beastgrave,” but is entirely suited to playing for Primacy. Hedkrakka himself got rolled into this because of his little friend: a snake. They all lack toenails, despite savage orc/orruks historically having claw-like nails.

Primacy is a mechanic that has been around since the beginning of Direchasm, but Hedkrakka's Madmob cranks it up. Basically, if you have more objectives than your opponent, killed a fighter with no wounds in one attack, or killed your enemy's leader, then you get the Primacy token. At the end of the round, whomever has the Primacy token gets a spent glory, effectively making it so that the Madmob could get 3 extra glory to pull ahead. Primacy is powerful, and is only a part of the game if at least one player has cards that mention Primacy. The double edged sword is that a player who has no Primacy cards can still get Primacy if it is in the game.

Unlike most warbands, the Madmob actually wants to lose Primacy, and have cards that promote losing Primacy. After getting the Primacy token, you can inspire one fighter if Hedkrakka is still alive. So if you have cards that let you get rid of it and get bonuses for doing that, only to get it again later, then you are messing up your opponent's card rotation. These savage orruks are suprisingly complex, and they become especially strong when inspired.

Kainan's Reapers

Ossiarch Bonereapers warband. Made up of one Mortisan Executioner and five Mortek guards with varied weapons. They were sent to Beastgrave to collect the Bone-tithe from the Silent People, a lore only faction in Direchasm. They can't find the Silent People and get trapped in Direchasm, but they don't care since they can collect the Bone-tithe from the other warbands trapped in there with them. These guys are very much sticking with the one piece of the greater whole that the bonereapers are centered around, as almost all the morteks have a reaction that lets another mortek move after them as long as they didn't move before and end adjacent to them. And most of the morteks attacks gain damage if they have supporting morteks and roll the support symbols in their attacks. Stay together, and earn victory, all for Nagash.

Like Mollog's Mob and Hrothgorn's Mantrappers, Kainan's Reapers are essentially a Big Boy warband, where your leader is your "Big Boy." You inspire by having three or more Bone-tithe counters, which you gain by taking an enemy out of action or by by playing cards to gain them. You can also spend your Bone-tithe counters to power up your cards or your attacks.

Kainan is a level 1 Caster, but you may never want to use his spells when you see how heavy a hitter he is. Like Hrothgorn, Kainan's warband works very well as a whole, and can survive without Kainan being alive. Like Mollog, Kainan can hit like a truck. By spending two Bone-tithe counters, you can add one damage to Kainan's attack. Without any upgrades, that means Kainan can make a 4/5 damage attack uninspired/inspired that's very likely to succeed.

Elathain's Soulraid

The first Idoneth Deepkin warband. Composed of three spooky sea-aelves, a crab and a mean-looking fish with some huge fins. The crab was especially notable as it was promptly memed upon during it's reveal, even to the point where GW acknowledged it's popularity in a Warhammer Community article

The Soulraid's fighters on their own aren't especially powerful. All the fighters have okay defence, low wounds, and only basic damage. What makes them powerful is their insane mobility and, to everyone's surprise, the fish!

Each Aelf fighter can either double move if they only have one move counter, or charge if they have one move counter; however, they can only do this during the first and third round. Since everyone but the Crab has a movement of 4 (and the Crab can use Scuttle to move a hex closer to a friendly fighter that just moved), that means your fighters can be up and down the board in a single round.

Your entire warband inspires for the second round if they're not out of action (a special distinction because you can bring your Namarti Thrall back to life if it died). They lose their ability to double move, but they're considerably more powerful. You can also play a warband specific card to inspire in the Third round if your opponent doesn't discard two cards.

Your fish is your tech-piece. It has no move characteristic, a single dodge dice, one wound, and no attacks. What makes it special is that at the end of your opponent's power step, you can place a token on a hex and then move your fish onto that token from anywhere on the board in your opponent's next power step. Also off the board. The fish cannot be taken out of action. It doesn't yield glory when it gets killed, and you just move it off the board. You can put the fish back on any token you place later in the game. You can also choose to not set up the fish in the beginning of the game if you want to ensure that you finish setting up first.

What makes this fish great is that your attack and defense rolls still count as being assisted. You can practically guarantee a hit on any given fighter, and your opponent's only response is to either get out of the melee or try and get rid of the fish for no benefit. This is especially great when you can force your opponent to attack the fish in a last ditch attack in the fight, which makes him really funny.

Harrowdeep Block

Harrowdeep Block

The Fifth Block of Underworlds takes place in Ulgu, and at the bottom of the sea. This saw the introduction of Grand Alliance specific cards, so you get more cards that are not universal, but are usable on a wide choice of warbands. Where Beastgrave and Direchasm favoured very aggressive warbands and limited the power of defensive warbands, Harrowdeep seeks to reinvigorate defensive play. This was done by removing the lethal hex placement rule which allowed a player to set up combos and create chokepoints to gloom hex placement, which is a new type of hex that gives a fighter successes on a roll of a double support on their defense die, regardless of if they have no supporting fighters next to them. Control warbands, AKA the warbands that want to hold objectives, were put in a limbo state. Objectives start the game as flipped hexes and are only revealed and considered objectives when a fighter without a charge token Delves. Delve is a new term that occurs in the power stop where you can forgo play a card to flip a feature token into an Objective and vice-versa. On the one hand, this means you can play a warband like Zarbag's Gitz with their card Infestation and score the card at the end of the first round if you hold the only objective that's open for five glory. On the other hand, it also means that warbands like Khagra's Ravagers and Chosen Axes will struggle to inspire because the time it takes to hold an objective or desecrate one is much londer.

Speaking of inspiration, the Underworlds rules team gave inspiration its own step rather than let it automatically proc when you fulfill the condition. When you have fulfilled the condition, regardless of if it is altered after the power step, you will inspire your fighters during the Inspiration Step. This is done after the power step that takes place after an activation. So, if you are playing Chosen Axes and held an objective, even if your opponent played a card that would move you off it during the power step, you would still inspire because you fulfilled the conditions. The polite conversation and discussion about the Inspire step stems from the actual wording. The inspire step itself only occurs after an activation during after said activation's power step. This meant that if you are playing Elathain's Soulraid or Morgwaeth's Blade Coven, who automatically inspire when it's the second and third round respectively, have to wait an entire activation in the round they are supposed to be inspired in uninspired before they are actually inspired. Thankfully, this was all fixed and is noted in the Errata section of this article.

Further kind understanding from the community comes from GW's announcement that the amount of warbands per block would seemingly be limited to four warbands. Many hoped this was a misunderstanding, because it also would've meant that there are far fewer cards and cards rotate out a lot faster, and it will almost definitely turn off new players from Underworlds when their cards become obsolete in a very constrictive amount of time. This ALSO was later found out to not be the case, as noted in the Nethermaze section of this article.

Da Kunnin' Krew

Revealed alongside Xandire's Truthseekers at GenCon, this Kruleboyz warband features two Mork-y orruks, a nasty looking hobgrot, and two grots. These guys have a relatively easy Inspire condition based on their portfolios: Either three enemy fighters must be out of action, or they support or are supported by a friendly fighter during an attack action.

Your leader, Mannok, can have a friendly fighter make a move action as a reaction to another friendly fighter completing a move action. Your other orruk, Tuffskull, can support friendly fighters from 2 hexes during an attack action away rather than being adjacent to the target. The Grots Gikkit and Shank automatically count as two supporting fighters on their own rather than a single supporting fighter. Krookgrin the Hobgrot spends a glory to give a friendly fighter with the new Minion keyword an attack action with an extra die, which in this case are Gikkit and Shank, which upgrades to TWO friendly fighters make an attack action with an extra die when he inspires.

The fighters themselves favour a lot of movement, and in many ways do Elathain's Soulraid's job of creating supports better with arguably better defense dice on average; however, the drawback is that your fighters aren't doing nearly as much damage and your minions are probably going to get one shot with their low wounds. The faction deck is interesting, but you have to have a wide range of universals to make this warband really work its magic. The abundance of the new Grievous keyword helps a lot (which adds +1 damage to an attack on a crit) but is not necessarily reliable.

Xandire's Truthseekers

The other warband teased a week after Da Kunnin' Krew was Xandire's Truthseekers, and they were officially revealed alongside Da Kunnin' Krew at GenCon. So it's officially the sixth Stormcast Eternals warband, and the fourth with unique models. The Truthseekers are weird because they are strictly average in terms of strength when uninspired compared to other Stormcasts, and not much better when inspired. Meanwhile, your inspire condition is that any of your own fighters are out of action except for Taros the bird (while Taros inspires if Stormrider the Vigilor is inspired).

Since you ideally want to keep your leader and maximize inspiration potential, you probably want Dhoraz Giant-Fell to be your sacrificial lamb if you have to make that decision. This is because you won't lose your leader and you will inspire your ranged fighter alongside her companion fighter.

Each fighter except Taros has a special ability when they are dealt damage that will take them out of action, and they are all unique. Xandire herself will heal 2 wounds to a friendly fighter, Dhoraz will push a friendly fighter within 2 hexes 2 hexes, and Stormrider makes a 3+ range attack action. These are all very situational, and they're kind of pity points for losing one of your fighters in a Stormcast warband. Taros's unique ability is being able to be pushed 3 hexes after a friendly fighter's move action if they finish that push within 2 hexes of the fighter that had moved, and he counts as supporting from 2 hexes away. Neat.

Luxa, depending on your build, is arguably the most useful because of her connection to Taros and because of her attack block. Her bow, when inspired, is 4 range attack action with cleave and ensnare, 3 dice hitting on smash, but only dealing 1 damage. If she takes an enemy fighter out of action with her bow, she can make another attack action. Though the warband specific cards favor balance and melee heavily, as well as insane amounts of healing that would make Ylthari fanboys rage, you could potentially build your warband to a point where Luxa is a sniper without equal, but the cards that buff ranged damage are few and far between. Try to add Grievous to your bow if at all possible to maximize potential.

Blackpowder's Buccaneers

Teased during Warhammer day, we got a fucking ogor pirate with a monkey and parrot. The warband itself is another Big Boy warband, where the leader has 6+ wounds and the other fighters are a lot weaker and serve a support role. The inspiration mechanic for Blackpowder himself, as well as his big gun attack, revolves around discarding swag tokens. Discard two swag tokens, and Blackpowder inspires! But how do you get swag?

Well, your gnoblars, parrot, and monkey all have Light-Fingered, which means that when they attack an adjacent fighter with an upgrade and succeed, then they break an upgrade that that fighter is holding. After breaking an upgrade, gain a swag counter!

Now this is... hard. Your fighters all have a decent chance of scoring a hit, but not an amazing chance. This means that you are not only banking on your very weak fighters to get yourself ammunition and for your big boy to inspire, but also that your opponent has upgrades on their fighters in the first place. Unless your opponent was using Illusion Upgrades, your opponent needs to have gained glory to get themself some upgrades in the first place. Probably meaning that you are behind. There are also only two cards in the entire deck that can give you a swag counter, which means you'll be digging through cards for the chance of getting a swag token.

Your little dudes aren't the worst, though their damage profile puts them on par with the weakest fighters from seasons 1 & 2. What you need to know is that Peggz the Gnoblar (take a guess which one this is) is by far your weakest fighter, with a melee attack and the fewest useful keywords. His attack is a range 1 attack that only gets an extra die when inspired. Kagey the Gnoblar is far more useful because he can Fly, has a range 3+ attack action, and is pretty good for controlling objectives. Shreek the Parrot is better than Kagey, because he is far more mobile, has more dice, can move alongside Blackpowder, and gets supports from a distance from Blackpowder; further, his attack has Grievous (+1 damage on crits) and gets Stagger (remove guard tokens) when inspired. Finally, Mange is your go getter. Though many expected Mange to be a Beast like Shreek and thus being unable to get attack action upgrades or hold objectives, Mange is strictly a companion. Whenever a minion (so, the Gnoblars) move, he can push himself 3 hexes as long as he is within 2 hexes of the moving minion. He also has Grievous and gains Ensnare when Inspired on his attack action, meaning he has a pretty great chance of hitting and dealing okay damage when in the thick of things. It's a shame that ALL the little dudes have only 2 wounds and do poor damage. Kainan could annihilate these guys blow for blow.

But they're fucking awesome anyways. They have yet to receive a warscroll for AoS, but a "leaked" version has Blackpowder breaking artifacts when wounding in the combat phase. Yo-ho motherfucker.

The Exiled Dead

A completely original faction revealed with Adepticon 2022. The leader of this force is Deintalos, a necromancer who was somehow exiled from the realm of Shyish because his methods were too extreme for even Nagash. His crimes? He decided to perform mad science a la Doctor Frankenstein and resurrected a bunch of zombies using electricity and machines instead of good-old magic.

While your many minions are quite flimsy, they all start out Inspired, which is a pretty sizeable boost for an early charge. While he also has his own understudy who more closely adheres to traditional necromancy, this understudy only has one zombie he can control separate from Deintalos' electric cavalcade.

Your big boon here is that you can activate 5 out of your 7 fighters in one activation, every activation (and you can double tap in one activation if you run a very hard to cast spell card). Deintalos and all the Conductive zombies (Bault, Vlash, Coyl, and Ione) can all make a move action or all make an attack action (charge tokens still lock you down, though). THEN you can return one of your Conductive zombies back to life within two hexes of Deintalos and not adjacent to an enemy fighter, albeit uninspired. With all of your minions inspired at the start, you will be moving up the board really fast, smacking out just about any fighter you want. Marcov (the crouched gremlin looking fella) gets the same exact trick with his armoured zombie, Regulus. And unlike Deintalos, this action with Marcov allows for charges if there are no charge tokens on the fighter you use.

Essentially, if Deintalos dies you are dead in the water unless it happened in the very late game. It's a good idea to keep Marcov in the way back as a pocket support if Deintalos does die early so you can still utilize the combo between Marcov and Regulus.

Mirror matches are a glory filled slaughterhouse. Expect your game to be down to the wire based on how often your zombies keep killing each other and getting back up again.

Nethermaze Block

Nethermaze Block

The sixth block of Warhammer Underworlds was revealed on April 2022. The Nethermaze is a pit that lies below the Harrowdeep, ruled by shadowy masters that channel the power of a magical artifact called the Liar's Moon. The Liar's Moon is a very tempting steal for those who know of it, but escape can be just as tempting a lure for those lost within the Nethermaze...

Metawise, nothing changed outside of boards. There are no new token types, and insofar only a couple new card mechanics that echo the usage of Map and Silent Relic cards. The good rub from this release is that the earlier panic about how seasons would only have cards from at most eight warbands to be viable in Championship format disappeared, because Gee-dubyah clarified that they were just cashing in on box sets. Direchasm is so far still Championship format viable in Nethermaze; further, new Rivals decks are being introduced in White Dwarfs so you're not stuck with just two themed decks and warband exclusives.

The Shadeborn

One of the warbands introduced with the block, the Shadeborn are Morathi's special agents. As it turns out, the masters of the Nethermaze are actually defectors from the Daughters of Khaine who might potentially seek to threaten the recently-ascended war goddess' powers. Thus, Morathi sent out a pack of Shadowstalkers to quell any potential rebellion.

They are actually insanely powerful, but require a lot of forward thinking. You will not win the game with brute force, but you will succeed when you isolate an enemy fighter and remove them from the board. They have cards that allow them to teleport, swap places, and be considered in cover. Being in cover from a Gloom token or from a card played gives them a lot of defensive utility and tricks to pull off. Once inspired and reasonably equipped, they're practically unbeatable by most warbands. The male fighter here is also a wizard, so there's that.

These are technically models used in a different game that have been reposed, but they're still pretty awesome to look at.

Skittershank's Clawpack

The other warband introduced with the box, these are a bunch of Skaven from Clan Eshin, tempted more by the power of the Liar's Moon.

They gain Inspired and are most powerful when targeting enemy leaders. Enemy leaders are almost always going to keep out of harms way when fighting the Clawpack, because the enemy player probably knows it keeps you on the backfoot. The upside to this is that you have high mobility cards and some staying power cards to keep your fighters alive longer and closer to the enemy leader.

Skittershank and Snyp (your second-in-command) inspire when either the enemy leader is out of action or it has 4 or more wound counters. Mollog, Kainan, Blackpowder, 5 wound leaders, and wound buffed leaders are not going to be safe from their inspire condition. Your other three fighters inspire by the enemy leader being out of action or they just land an attack on them.

You are clearly oriented to take out fighters that just like to tank shots and hold objectives. Skittershank, Snyp, and Kreep all have the Marked for Death ability, which allows you to reroll a single dice when attacking an enemy leader, which is a godsend when you are fighting any Death armies this season. Skittershank has 3 attack dice, 4 when inspired, and Grievous. Snyp stays on 3, but gains Grievous and Cleave; further, he has a reaction ability where he Staggers all adjacent enemy fighters after an activation where he was used, which really helps break Guard focused players. Kreep has a ranged attack that forces enemy fighters to stay still if they don't want to risk taking a wound.

Krowch't and Skulck are a melee and ranged fighter respectively, and they're mostly just minion fodder. They aren't that useful outside of being good supports and super fast, but they can get the job done.

Hexbane's Hunters

Haskel Hexbane is a witch hunter who managed to wind up in the Nethermaze along with some lackeys and even a pair of dogs to accompany him. Evidently, it's clear that as merely men in a world full of mutants, monstrosities and armored demigods, there's not much chance that you'll be winning games unscathed. However, their cards seem to have extra effects depending on how many of your models are killed.

Gorechosen of Dromm

Dromm, Wounder of Worlds and Arch Slaughterpriest of Khorne has decided to delve into the Nethermaze with the intention of wounding the realm of Ulgu itself. He is joined by Skullgrinder Herax and the Gorehulk, a Slaughterpriest midway through his transformation into a Khorgorath. Dromm comes with the ability to force an enemy unit to charge him in a blind rage.

Gnarlwood Block

Shadespire Block

Sons of Velmorn

The most beloved underperforming warband ever recently (but still better than some extreme flowers from the first few seasons) the Sons are absolutely SEXY models purchased by many just to jerk to how cool the sculpts are and how stylish the whole band is. Seriously, the entire production run of Gnarlwood was purchased by non-Underworlds players who wanted nothing else than to put those sexy boys on their shelves.

Watchout when assembling them tho, one wrong move and they are broken, a few pieces are very fragile.

Gameplay-wise, the warband requires early actions done by the leader in order to buff the weaker guys who unfortunately remain weak after the buff is activated. Other than that they are... normal. You might actually win a match or two just by blinding your opponent with the visual glory of the band.

The trick of this warband is in supporting other members of the band. Inpired Jedran supports his teammates not just when he stands next to the victim, but even just next to his teammate. And the daddy Velmorn supports his sons remotely all around the battlefield, but the price is that he has to move early in the round to activate his supporting skill (which activated as a reaction to his activation). Alternatively, daddy's supporting skill may also be activated using a few cards by giving him a command token he would normally obtain. Remote IT support daddy's support is provided as long as he has the said token (it is removed after each round). The token may occasionally be used for some other card related tricks so you gonna make some decisions from time to time.

Your boys are fragile not just during assembly, but during gameplay as well, inspiring gives them a nice Shields Up skill (that gives guard token for free on crits when attacking) but the reality is the daddy Velmorn will see his sons die in front of him very often. Still, Velmorn is the best daddy in whole of Underworlds - he dies for his sons, witnesses them getting inspired, supports them whatever they do, yells at them, glorifies them, blah blah yada yada yada.

Wyrdhollow Block

Shadespire Block

Erratas, FAQs, and Ban Lists

It would take ages to detail all of the banned and restricted cards in the game, as well as all the cards that have had minor rule changes. You can check the Errata and FAQ lists to find the updates for those cards; however, it wouldn't be too hard to detail which fighters have changed from their original incarnations, as well as major rule changes for the warbands.

Steelheart's Champions

Obryn the Bold: Brawler

Garrek's Reavers

Karsus the Chained: Brawler

Arnulf: Assassin

CHAOS KEYWORD: Khorne

Sepulchral Guard

The Harvester: Brawler

All the Petitioners: Minion

The Warden: Change the Sepulchral Warden’s Inspire condition to read:‘You return a friendly fighter to the battlefield, and you have already returned a friendly fighter to the battlefield.'; Change this fighter’s second ability on both sides to read:‘Action: Choose two other friendly fighters that have no Move or Charge tokens. Make one Move action with each of the chosen fighters.'

Ironskull's Boyz

All Fighters: Brawler

Chosen Axes

Mad Maegrim: Brawler

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Spiteclaw's Swarm

Lurking Skaven: Assassin, Minion

Hungering Skaven: Minion

Festering Skaven: Minion

Magore's Fiends

Riptooth: Hunter

CHAOS KEYWORD: Khorne

Farstriders

All fighters: Hunter

Elias Swiftblade: Assassin

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Thorns of the Briar Queen

All fighters: Flying

All Chainrasps (including the Everhanged): Minion

Varclav: Change Varclav’s action on both sides of the fighter card to read:‘Action: Push all friendly Chainrasps up to 2 hexes towards the nearest enemy fighter. This fighter can only make this action once per round.'

Stormsire's Cursebreakers

Ammis Dawnguard, Rastus the Charmed: Add the following sentence to the Empower spell action on both sides of each fighter card.‘In addition, if this spell is cast, this fighter cannot take this action again in this phase.’

Eyes of the Nine

Blue Horror/Brimstone Horrors: Minion

CHAOS KEYWORD: Tzeentch

Zarbag's Gitz

Prog da Netta: Minion

Dibbz: Minion

Redkap: Minion

Stikkit: Minion

Gobbaluk: Beast

Bonekrakka: Beast

Godsworn Hunt

Shond: Assassin

Jaggathra: Hunter

Ollo: Hunter

Grawl: Beast, Companion; Ollo

INSPIRATION CHANGE: Change the Inspire condition on each card to read:‘An upgrade other than an Illusion is given to this fighter.’

Mollog's Mob

Bat Squig: Flying, Beast, Minion

Spiteshroom: Beast, Minion

Stalagsquig: Beast, Minion

Mollog da Mighty: Change Mollog’s ability on the Inspired side to read:‘This fighter can make a Move or Charge action even if it has one Move token. In addition, when this fighter has one Charge token, it can still be activated, but cannot make superactions.’

Thundrik's Profiteers

Khazgan Drakkskewer: Flying

Garrod Alensen: Assassin

Ylthari's Guardians

Gallanghan of the Glade: Brawler

Ahnslaine, Revenant Archer: Hunter

Lady Harrow's Mournflight

All fighters: Flying

Skaeth's Wild Hunt

Lighaen: Beast, Companion; Sheoch

Karthaen: Change the Hunting Horn Action to read:‘Hunting Horn (Action): Put a Horn counter on this card. When there are one or more Horn counters on this card, re-roll any number of dice in the next attack roll made for a friendly fighter’s Attack action, then remove the Horn counters.'

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Grashrak's Despoilers

Draknar: Brawler

The Grymwatch

Master Talon: Minion

Night's Herald: Minion

Royal Butcher: Minion

The Duke's Harriers: Flying, Beast, Companion; Master Talon

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Morgwaeth's Blade Coven

Morgwaeth the Bloodied: Priest

Kyrssa: Assassin

Lethyr: Assassin

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Hrothgorn's Mantrappers

Quiv: Minion

Luggit & Thwak: Minion

Bushwakka: Minion

Thrafnir: Beast

Rippa's Snarlfangs

Rippa Narkbad: Change the Inspire condition on this card to read:‘This fighter has two or more upgrades, other than Illusions.'

The Wurmspat

Fecula Flyblown: Fecula Inspired: Add the Leader ‘Crown’ icon to this side of Fecula’s fighter card.

Ghulgoch the Butcher: Brawler

CHAOS KEYWORD: Nurgle

Morgok's Krushas

'Ardskull: Brawler

Drepur's Wraithcreepers

All fighters: Flying

The Patrician: Change the Deathbeat reaction to read: 'Reaction: Use this after an opponent’s power step. Choose one or two friendly fighters in friendly territory. Push each chosen fighter 1 hex towards the nearest enemy fighter'.

Myari's Purifiers

Bahannar: Brawler

Dread Pageant

Glisette: Brawler

CHAOS KEYWORD:Slaanesh

Starblood Stalkers

Kixi-Taqa: Priest

Klaq-Trok: Brawler

Otapatl: Assassin

Khagra's Ravagers

Dour Cragan: Assassin

Razek Godblessed: Brawler

INSPIRE CONDITION CHANGE: ‘After an activation, there are two or more Desecration tokens on the battlefield’

Hedkrakka's Madmob:

Wollop da Skull: Brawler

Toofdagga: Brawler

Crimson Court

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Elathain's Soulraid

Fuirann: Brawler

Duinclaw: Beast

Spinefin: Beast

INSPIRATION CHANGE: In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step).

Memes and Jokes

Like a lot of Warhammer games, Underworlds loving community loves to crack wise about the many warbands in the game and the game's mechanics.

• Eyes of the Nine - Eyes of the Nine for many was one of the most disappointing releases in Underworlds, though some diehards love them and can make them work very well.

• 

  Games Workshop themselves doesn't even know the name of one of the fighters in Eyes of the Nine. This is on the official Warhammer Underworlds website.

• 

  For a warband that almost never gets out of the bottom 25% placements, this Italian guy managed to get third over tons of top tier warbands in a 30 man tournament with his (now invalid) deck.

• Nasty Fingies - Sometimes a reveal or teaser for a warband is full of hype. Sometimes it's ruined and memed into the ground for fingerprint marks left behind by the artist.

• 

  Gikkit here was the first model teased for the Fifth Block, Harrowdeep. This would've been really cool if a bunch of fa/tg/uys didn't immediately point out the huge fingerprint mark on the side of his base. This was photoshopped out during the official warband reveal, but /tg/ won't forget.

The Specialist Games of Games Workshop
Warhammer 40,000 (Classic):	Battlefleet Gothic - Epic - Gorkamorka Inquisitor - Lost Patrol - Necromunda - Space Hulk
Warhammer 40,000 (New):	Aeronautica Imperialis - Assassinorum Execution Force - Adeptus Titanicus Betrayal at Calth - Blackstone Fortress - Shadow War: Armageddon Necromunda - Kill Team - Space Marine Heroes - Combat Arena - Space Marine Adventures
Warhammer Fantasy:	Blood Bowl - Man O' War - Mordheim - Warmaster
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar:	Gorechosen - Warhammer Underworlds - Skirmish - Warcry
Board Games:	Chaos in the Old World - Relic