It’s another Underworlds preorder day! That means Goonhammer has coverage for a deluge of Games Workshop releases that will be coming your way soon. It feels like we just did this recently, but that’s the new edition rush for you. There are four boxes, each containing four revamped warbands and themed to one of the Age of Sigmar Grand Alliances. We also have two brand new warbands in the Jaws of Itzl and Grandfather’s Gardeners as well as two brand new Rivals decks with Reckless Fury and Wrack & Ruin. That’s 18 warbands, 2 decks, and a lot of new rules to cover!
Before getting into the reviews, if you’re reading this on November 23-24, the World Championships of Warhammer are underway right now, and this year the Underworlds event has streamed coverage! Check it out over on the Mortal Realms YouTube channel. The hosts for the stream are Davy from the What The Hex?! podcast and Mike (aka Fishmode) from the Spent Glory blog and Underworlds Underground podcast. These two are genuinely wonderful dudes with a solid grasp on the game and a great way of explaining what’s going on. Check it out!
When covering the warbands, I’m going to take a look their fighter cards and accompanying warscrolls to go over what sets them apart compared to their contemporaries in the pool of 33 Organized Play legal warbands. If you want to check out the other items being covered today, you can find those articles here:
Despoilers and Daemons: Chaos Warbands
Revenants of the Realms: Death Warbands
Heroes and Hunters: Order Warbands
The Jaws of Itzl and Grandfather’s Gardeners
Rivals Decks: Reckless Fury and Wrack & Ruin
Brutes and Bandits: Destruction Warbands
Knights, pirates, and Orruks – oh my! Brutes and Bandits contains a wide assortment of Destruction warbands which are both brutal and cunning.
If I had a nickel for every warband of weirdos who thought they were knights, I’d have two nickels. Unlike the Grymwatch, these little grots aren’t flesh eating monsters. I think. I’m pretty sure they eat mushrooms, right?
The quest mechanic for this warband was a little awkward in the past, requiring you to reveal certain objective cards and do other stuff that doesn’t matter anymore so let’s forget I brought it up. The current implementation is cute, and wraps up the whole thematic “grots on a quest” idea alongside some powerful incentives to get those quests done. Some of these quests will be easier to complete than others, but for the most part the rewards feel in line with what’s being asked of you. You’re never locked into a quest and can swap to another any time before a friendly fighter uses a core ability, but once you declare you’re attempting a quest that’s it. There’s no way to go back to attempt a second go at one.
To really cash in those quest rewards, I Dub Thee… allows you to nominate one Loonknight in particular as your special fighter for the round. The dubbed fighter is able to contribute above and beyond what the rest of your warband can toward completing these quests. You’re limited to only ever dubbing three times during the course of the game, so plan them well.
The first quest is Conquer da Realm. Unlike the others we’ll see shortly, this offers no stat bonus to your fighters but it’s also (in theory) the least risky to perform. The timing on completion is generous to you, because you can do it immediately after your own action step which doesn’t give your opponent time to respond. Use a ploy to push a fighter onto a treasure during your opponent’s power step, follow up on your turn by declaring the quest (maybe dubbing a fighter) and complete it with a move or charge onto another treasure token.
Go Forth and Wallop is the first of these quests to offer your dubbed fighters a bonus. In this case it’s movement which can help the stubby little legs of your grots. Since this warband has a full 7 fighters in the roster, you’re going to be taking up all of the starting hexes in your territory. As such, you’ll be starting fairly close to enemy territory with at least a couple of fighters. If you’re clever with treasure token placement during setup, you can try and stage for both this and Conquer da Realm at the same time to set up two turns of completed quests in a row with a bit of luck.
The next quests are Slay da Horde and Slay da Scary Fing which are both variations of each other. The former is supposed to be ideal when playing against, you guessed it, a horde warband. Some other stinkin’ gits, zombies, or Skaven are all potential candidates here. I think the goal was to reward you for slaying multiple little enemy fighters, but the way it’s worded it will also complete for slaying one mid sized or larger bounty fighter. Consider it extra flexibility when fighting against elite warbands. On the other hand, Slay da Scary Fing does require a single enemy model with 2 or more bounty to be slain, so if you’re up against the Sepulchral Guard or Zargbag’s Gits, you are unable to complete this quest. Take a look at the saves and health values of your opponent’s fighters to see whether you’re going to be better off chasing that +1 attack dice or grievous bonus on your dubbed fighters first, then aim to complete the appropriate quest.
I think the correct play for these quest will be not declaring any or dubbing any fighters until the last moment – stage fighters on treasure tokens to set up Conquer da Realm, start to invade enemy territory to set up Go Forth and Wallop, go ahead and start killing enemies for Slay da Horde or Slay da Scary Fing. Scoring the easiest one you can first will get the ball rolling by inspiring your fighters to perform the next one, which is going to be made even easier if they’re in position to do so already. Give extra consideration to which one is easiest to inspire Grinkrak as well, because each quest has a different route for him and you’ll only be inspiring him once, so the fastest and easiest route should be sought.
Grinkrak GALLERY
Seven fighters, 1 glory a piece. No surprises here. The majority of these gits have an average move speed, with Grib on his nontraditional bouncing mount being a little faster (with fly!) and Skolko & Pronk hobbling around behind their shield being a little slower. The save values are surprisingly good for a seven fighter warband with every fighter starting on 1 shield (aside from Kevin Snorbo on 1 dodge) and five of the fighters inspiring to double dice saves. The health values are about what you’d expect from a warband of gits where most of the fighters are vulnerable to getting one-shot by anyone but the weakest of fighters.
Also surprising are the attack profiles. Nothing on par with real bruisers like Morgok, but five of the seven sport genuinely useful weapons. Grinkrak has, despite the weapon being taller than many human sized models, only a range 1 attack but it’s hitting at a decent H2/D2 uninspired and gains another dice when he flips.
Grib is your heavy hitter. You’re going to want to think carefully about when you want to commit him because he’s the most mobile fighter you have, has a helpful range of 2, and hits the hardest of anyone else at a base 2 damage with grievous. Grib will need some accuracy help, whether from Slay da Horde, ploys, or fellow gits standing next to his target. Remember that his grievous won’t stack with the one granted from Slay da Scary Fing, so maybe dub another git when attempting to complete that quest.
Skolko & Pronk benefit from not having any special fighter card rules now because they can just keep shooting turn after turn, and with a range of 4 they can cover quite a large portion of the board. 2 swords for their attack stinks, but having cleave makes it not quite as horrible if you can go after shield targets.
Your other ranged option is Snorbo with his poisoned mushroom blowgun. His range is one shorter than the slingshot pair, but it starts out more accurate and becomes substantially more accurate when inspired. Plus that stagger will really help you other gits out – particularly Grib.
Snark, Nagz, and Burk are your other fighters in this warband. They’re all pretty inaccurate fighters. The tradeoff they make is that Snark can hit for 2 damage while Nagz and Burk both have an additional save dice. All three are pretty interchangeable, so feel free to sacrifice them to the quest gods.
I’m far more excited to take these goblins out for some games than I would have predicted. I tried a few in the previous edition (RIP Fearsome Fortress), but I think I like this version of the Looncourt more. Quests are a fun mini-game of basically additional objectives to score, albeit ones that don’t reward glory. For deck pairings, you can just look at their quests and find decks that also want to do those things. Emberstone Sentinels combined with Countdown to Cataclysm can set you up for an invasive Take and Hold strategy that also provides you with four strong weapon upgrades to help boost the weaker gits’ attack options.
A blast from the past, Morgok’s Krushas used to terrorize the game when they first came out. Due to rules updates and gradual power creep, they lost their boogeyman status and wound up just being average fighters that gave up too much glory. Their new revamped rules really emphasize their Strike role, and I think we’re due for some more Ironjawz brutalizing people in the game. But in a good way!
The Krushas like to fight. They like to hit and they’re fine with being hit, although they’d probably prefer most to be attacked but missed. Once one of your fighters has accrued 3 Waaagh! tokens, they’re able to spend them to inspire.
Waaagh! Energy explain how these tokens are acquired. Any time a Krusha attacks, or any time a Krusha is the target of an enemy attack, they’ll gain a token. It’s pretty reliable generation considering neither your attacks nor your opponent’s attacks need to actually succeed – they just need to try their best and that’s good enough for Gork and/or Mork. The wording also means that any power cards that have your fighters making attacks out of sequence in the power step are also going to count. Hooray!
These brutes are Ded ‘Ard and can show it off by spending those hard earned Waaagh! tokens. Your choices here will really depend on what you’re facing on the other side of the table. A stagger token can help your fighters follow up on the target foolish enough to come at you, but if your orruk is left hanging in the breeze with more attacks likely coming their way, a guard token can slightly increase their survivability. Moreso after they’ve inspired if they are anyone other than ‘Ardskull thanks to the extra save dice. I feel like most of the time, the correct choice is going to be just taking the stagger and then only if you’re already inspired or can guarantee 2+ attacks into the target.
Shut It, Pipsqueak! brings Magic: the Gathering counterspells into Underworlds. Spending one Waaagh! token gives you a 50% chance to completely negate a ploy that your opponent is trying to play and spending two tokens bumps it up to a fairly reliable 75%. Do note that the requirement says you have to remove the tokens from a friendly fighter, so you can’t pull one off of Morgok and another off of Thugg, for example. The fact that you have this ready to go at any point is no secret, and somethings the threat of it going off will be as effective as actually using it. If you know your opponent has some particularly impactful ploys, make sure you have two tokens banked at all times.
Get a Move On, Ya Gitz! is their last warscroll ability. It’s a nice push for up to two of your fighters at the cost of giving Morgok a charge token. There’s nothing saying he can’t do it if he already has a charge token, so he can even bellow that out after he’s gotten stuck in himself. Your fighters are durable enough that in most cases, I think it’s safe to hold this for the second round if you can. Just don’t wait too long because if Morgok dies before it gets used, it’s a dead spot on your warscroll.
I am certain both sides would be offended by the comparison, but the Krushas have fighter stats comparable to those of Stormcast. Large health pools, decent saves that inspire to great saves for ⅔ of the warband, and an average move means they’re going to be able to hold their own in a fight against almost any other brawlers out there. The bounty split of 3/2/2 also doesn’t incentivize your opponent to go after any of them in particular other than your leader, but he’s already a target due to Get a Move On.
Morgok’s missing some reach that many leaders have, but he makes up for it by being extra accurate on his attack and then gaining grievous when inspired. Being able to constantly land a 3 damage hit will one shot many fighters in the game and put a serious dent into the rest. Thugg has a similar profile, if a bit less accurate when uninspired. When inspired, there’s a little better than a 50% chance to trigger his critical grievous weapon ability. That’s worth keeping in mind if you can get him cleave or another helpful weapon runemark because only one can be applied at a time. ‘Ardskull is our last Krusha and he foregoes the extra armor of the others for a bit more reach. He starts with the “Leader Stick” profile and bumps the damage on both modes up by one when inspired. Brutal is also hanging out on the range 1 option, for what it’s worth.
These look fun. There’s a lot of strong synergy with the new Reckless Fury deck – it has objectives for fighters to have both a charge token and a guard token, which Ded ‘Ard can help you with. There are multiple cards that care about fighters having charge tokens and all three of these fighters want to be charging, plus Get a Move On can toss an extra out onto Morgok which helps score yet another objective in that deck.. Blazing Assault feels like a no-brainer second deck to pair in, but I think Emberstone Sentinels could have some play as well. Sharp Reflexes can bump ‘Ardskull up to 2 save dice, Agile allows for a save dice reroll, and sprinkling in some hold objectives can work as long as you’re not trying for something like Supremacy. Just remember you only have three fighters, so once one goes down it’s going to be hard to hold multiple treasures.
Every time I played against these in the previous edition, my opponent would patiently explain how the movement shenanigans worked. I would listen, try to understand, and then once the game began my eyes kind of glazed over. Their new Flex implementation still feels tricky and rewards thoughtful positioning, but now I think I can at least play them without getting a headache.
The inspire condition is straightforward, but won’t be a walk in the park to pull off. It’s helped by both Mannok and Torka having reach with their sticks so they can poke over the heads of the little grots while still maintaining the benefits of flanked/surrounded. Also, if your opponent charges in to try and kill your minions in melee, they have to weigh the risk of flubbing the attack and being sitting ducks for a retaliatory strike that will greatly enhance your team.
On that topic, Pain in the Knee further wants you to use the minions in the warband to score flanked with Mannok and Torka, because then they’ll count as full surrounded results on the dice. Mannok and Torka already have decent accuracy, so this increases the chances of landing hits substantially. The minions don’t offer this benefit to each other, so keep that in mind.
Spending your own turns carefully moving your minions into place for these supported attacks sounds like a real bummer, so use A Kunnin’ Plan to push all your minions at once to get into position! The timing is “after an action step” so you’re able to use it after your opponent’s action step to set up for your upcoming turn, greatly assisting your positional needs to inspire your fighters and also to just land painful hits.
Dirty Tricks gives me the vibes of Age of Sigmar 1st edition things. You’re not riding an invisible horse or talking in a silly voice, but you are going to play a shell game with your opponent. You have to have at least 3 power cards in your hand in order to use this ability, and you’re going to wind up revealing all of them to your opponent no matter what the result of the mini-game is which kind of stinks, but the upside is that if you win you get to fix the dice to whatever results you want on an attack or save roll from either player. What?! That’s insane. Got the enemy Wielder of the Blade bearing down on Mannok and you don’t want to die? Just turn all their dice rolls to misses. You really want to push an opponent off of a treasure token so you can sit on it? Okay, Krookgrin suddenly rolled 3 critical hits. Heck, use it to score Branching Fate from the Blazing Assault deck by turning Mannok’s dice rolls into a critical, a hammer, and a support to still land the attack and also score a surge objective. Even if you lose the mini-game, you’re going to get an additional power card in your hand which is a pretty nice consolation prize. It’s just not quite as good as literally rigging the dice.
A similar defensive effect can be granted by Murk Lurkers. You have a few fighters that go up to two save dice, and this increases their odds of a successful roll nicely.
The bounty split is 2/2/1/1/1, with the emphasis on your larger fighters. Everyone’s moving at a constant 3 which is average, but might make it a little difficult to get exactly where you want to be for those valued flanked/surrounded situations. Mannok and Torka are, unsurprisingly, the tougher fighters in the warband – Mannok has the health advantage, but Torka (when inspired) has the save advantage. The grots aren’t amazing defensively, but why would you expect anything else? Gikkit and (inspired) Krookgrin make good use of guard tokens and, should you deign to use it on them, Murk Lurkers.
Offensively, both Mannok and Torka are rocking “Leader Stick” profiles that improve upon inspiring. Mannok picks up extra accuracy in the form of another dice and ensnare on his range 2 attack while Torka boosts his damage by one, making him the most damaging fighter in the warband. Gikkit and Krookgrin are both inaccurate melee fighters, but Krookgrin can hit a little harder (assuming he lands an attack). Shank, ironically, won’t be shanking anyone since the only weapon profile present is a ranged one. This grot might want to hang back and use that sling, but I feel like Mannok and Torka would rather he be up front assisting them.
This warband truly is a Flex archetype. Their main warscroll abilities are to be more accurate, get hit less often, and push – every gameplay style can benefit from those types of abilities. A Take and Hold with a more counter-charge approach sounds appealing. Have your grots be the ones making the initial forays out onto treasure tokens, preferably ones that are within charge distance of Mannok and Torka, so you can force your opponent into a decision. Do they engage with you on your terms and let the bigger orruks inspire, or do they ignore the grots on the treasure tokens and let you score your objectives?
The big ol’ pirate is back, and he continues to have swag. This Mastery take on Blackpowder’s Buccaneers has you balancing the generation and spending of swag tokens with the massive 8 health Blackpowder while a monkey with a knife runs interference.
This is probably the simplest inspire condition yet. Spend three swag, inspire. Sounds good to me!
Generating swag is explained under Loot and Plunder. You’re always going to start with a single swag token, so Gorlok’s blunderbuss is half loaded from the outset. You’ll have to make successful Swashbuckle attacks to build up your reserves, and the majority of these fighters aren’t particularly accurate so try to set up for flanked/surrounded situations, utilize stagger, or have trusty Blackpowder himself do the job. Every fighter in the warband has the Swashbuckle weapon ability on their melee weapon aside from Shreek – I guess a pick pocketing parrot is too far fetched in this world somehow. Maybe if it were a raven…
The other three abilities on the warscroll involve spending swag tokens to amplify Gorlok’s ranged attack. They’re also the only way you have of spending swag tokens, so if Gorlok goes down before spending 3, the rest of your fighters won’t be able to inspire. If that happens, don’t worry – you’re probably going to lose anyway given how much of your warband’s power is housed in Gorlok.
Swag Shrapnel is going to be the go-to for clearing out or softening up a clump of enemy fighters. The splash area is quite generous since they don’t even need to be adjacent. If you spend one swag token, you’re looking at a 50% chance of the extra damage and stagger token. If you spend two, it’s a much more appealing 75%.
Swag Blast sounds like a horrendous fragrance name, but it’s also apparently an armor penetrating round. Strangely, this doesn’t have an increased effect if you spend two swagger counters, so only do so if it’s going to help you inspire faster and not leave you high and dry for other special shots.
The final shot is Swag Mortar which can bump the range of the blunderbuss up to 4 or 5 hexes away. If he’s standing in the center of the board, a 5 hex ranged attack can hit anything. That’s some truly massive reach. Vulnerable fighters beware.
A few things stand out here. The first is that while Blackpowder is the highest bounty target of the warband, he’s only 3. The rest are 1, but if you compare Gorlok to other 3 bounty fighters it’s kind of amusing.
The warband as a whole is a little above average in terms of movement. Gorlok, Kagey, and Peggz are the standard 3 but Shreek and Mange help to cover more of the board with their movement, getting into places in a timely manner to offer flanked/surrounded boosts to accuracy or yoink an unguarded treasure token.
The saves aren’t amazing, with only Gorlok on the superior shield and the rest having 1 or 2 dodge each. Any upgrades to boost saves are incredibly useful here on Gorlok, because there’s a big difference in chewing through 8 health with 1 block vs 8 health with 2 (or more!).
Yes, that’s 8 health. Gorlok currently has the biggest butt in Underworlds. Even Mollog can’t compare. The rest of the warband are all on 2 health each, so fully half of the warband’s health is concentrated on one fighter. Any effects to reduce damage or increase saves go a long way in keeping this warband functioning at full capacity.
Gorlok also steals the show when it comes to weapon profiles. A nice, high damage with decent accuracy puts his uninspired self on par with the likes of the Wielder of the Blade and the Gorehulk. Except unlike those two, he also has a gun. The blunderbuss isn’t anything too remarkable, but it does allow Gorlok to remain active and attacking even if the enemy is playing keep-away, plus the swag shots are the only route this warband has to inspiring. Once he’s fired a few enhanced shots off, Gorlok is going to pick up an additional dice on both of his attack profiles, making him even more accurate.
His crew all have their own little support roles to play. Kagey provides the other ranged attack for the warband. I find it funny that it hits just as hard as an unswagged shot from Gorlok. It is less accurate, but it does allow you to generate swag tokens from range. Peggz, Shreek, and Mange all have pretty lackluster melee attacks. Peggz is the weakest of the lot while the two animals are either marginally more accurate or hit a little harder.
Gorlok is such an important part of your warband that whatever decks you choose to build with him are going to have to be able to score primarily off of the big guy. Reckless Fury is appealing for some of the ploys and upgrades, but I question how well this warband can score those objectives. Wrack and Ruin has a few positional objectives that could be scored by spreading out but keeping fighters out of the edge hexes. After some consideration, I think I’d try out some combination of Blazing Assault (nice surge objectives that Gorlok can score), Pillage and Plunder (let the little idiots run around and plunder, plus some heals, weapons, and teleports), or Countdown to Cataclysm (more healing, weapons, and Utter Conviction). Utter Conviction alone is a strong pull into Countdown to Cataclysm, because if you can get it out onto Gorlok and get your cataclysm tracker going, he could be at 3 shields before dying. That’s a lot of pirate to deal with.
That’s it for the Destruction warbands released in Brutes and Bandits. Check out the rest of Goonhammer’s coverage if you want to see what else is in this massive drop of Underworlds content!
Despoilers and Daemons: Chaos Warbands
Revenants of the Realms: Death Warbands
Heroes and Hunters: Order Warbands
The Jaws of Itzl and Grandfather’s Gardeners
Rivals Decks: Reckless Fury and Wrack & Ruin
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