Games Workshop dropped a pile of freebies on us players last week, which included the warscrolls and fighter cards for 13 returning warbands. These warbands have all been recently released in the previous edition of Underworlds, so if you’ve been keeping up with the game in the last year or so, there’s a chance you have some of these models kicking around. You’re in luck because combined with these new (free) rules, they’re fully ready to take into this new edition of the game.
I’m going to take a look at all of these new fighter cards and accompanying warscrolls, plus share my first take of a deck for at least one of the warbands in each of the grand alliances. These will be first draft decks since I haven’t had a chance to take all of them out for a spin yet, but can at least serve as a starting point. If you want to check out the other grand alliances in this release, you can find those articles here:
Chaos Warbands
Death Warbands
Order Warbands
Destruction Warbands
Destruction received three warbands’ worth of cards in this release. Daggok’s Stab-ladz were routinely bemoaned in the previous edition for not quite being good enough to get past their awkward rules. Mollog went from the bane of the game to outclassed back to a healthy middle ground. Zargbag’s Gitz are the obnoxious little twerps that always make me put a caveat when I say the game is played with warbands between 3 and 7 models in size. I think they also have rules.
First up are these ladz who were one of the rare duds of late first edition Underworlds. It was a shame, because while I’m not usually a huge fan of the Kruleboyz aesthetic in general, I thought these looked pretty neat. Let’s check in on how they were ported over to this new edition as a Mastery warband.
First off, we have an inspiration ability keying off of Krule Stab. If you stab, you inspire. Easy enough an Orruk could do it!
Now to look at Krule Stab itself. It’s a reaction any friendly fighter can make provided they have no charge tokens and they’re adjacent to a non-vulnerable enemy. You get a 50% chance to inflict 1 damage to that enemy. It’ll require some careful positioning and willingness to get up in the thick of things, plus a dose of luck. The Stab is a literal coin flip on whether it will land or not, but it has a lot of useful applications. It can soften up an enemy that charged into you, it can serve as a deterrent for ranged 1 enemies to charge into your fighters who haven’t charged yet, and you can punish enemy fighters who charge early in a round simply by moving next to them and stabbing them repeatedly over the course of the battle round. My understanding of how this work is that every one of your fighters who is eligible to perform this ability at the end of your action step can do so – rolling the attack dice enough times will eventually get it to land in your favor.
Schemin’ Gitz is an interesting ability for sure. I like this take of their scheming ploys from the previous edition. Essentially, every ploy in your hand has two functions. You can either play them as they are printed, or you can discard them to fill up this Schemin’ tracker for +1 move, counting enemies as surrounded, and getting +1 attack dice. The flexibility here is appealing, and they will never had a dead ploy in their hand – worst case, it can be turned into a movement boost or accuracy buff. I don’t feel like it’s going to get used all that often because it’s a steep cost just to get +1 move, but the ability to have it on demand any time you want is strong. This is the kind of ability that will scale up very nicely if any decks come out with substantial card draw in them.
The first of their trio of once per game abilities is Two Against One, Ya Git! which is a simple but effective surge. After your action, you can push a friendly fighter 1 hex. Sidestep is a staple card if you have it available in your pool, and this is effectively a second copy.
Thief of Kunnin’ is up next and allows you to draw power cards equal to the number of damaged enemy fighters. Again, a straightforward ability that is as simple as it is useful. These ladz want power cards to fuel their schemin’ and also just because power cards are good. Using this to draw a single card is still a decent investment, but there are circumstances where you’ve been rolling hot on Krule Stab and can net 2-3 power cards in one go.
Alright, I guess they can’t all be bangers. Nasty Poisons is last and least. It’s a 17% chance per enemy fighter to deal a damage to them, provided they’ve already been injured. Spreading damage around isn’t usually an effective tactic because enemy fighters are typically as effective at 1 health as they are at full, plus you’re denying yourself the bounty glory by keeping them around. This is one of those abilities that will get used every game and yet rarely do anything.
Daggok’s Stab-ladz are 4 fighters, each sporting 4 health. They’re not the quickest ladz around and most of them are only moving 3 hexes, aside from Grakk who must have decided armor would only slow him down. Fortunately, if you can get a Krule Stab off, each of the fighters will inspire up to 4 move. Their defensive stats aren’t anything to write home about – Grakk is again the odd Orruk out who sits on 1 dodge while the others have 1 block, and both Daggok and Jagz inspire to 2 block which is rather solid.
These aren’t Daggok’s Block-ladz, so let’s see how well they can stab. Daggok himself has the typical “leader profile” with his weapons at R1/H2/D2 and R2/H2/D1, but inspiring grants him an additional attack dice and an additional damage on his range 1 attack. Going up to a 3 hammer, 3 damage attack is solid on a fairly durable body (that also wants to shank you if you’re standing next to him). Grakk is the other fighter with some reach, sporting a R1/S3/D2 grapple attack as well as a R2/S3/D1 to reach out and touch someone. Once inspired, the only thing that changes is his range 2 attack gains a point of damage and brutal which is a nice change! Hurrk and Jagz are the close-range only stabbers here, with Hurrk sporting a R1/H2/D2 that inspires into an extra dice and Jagz rocking a R1/S3/D1 critical grievous attack that picks up an additional damage once inspired. All told, your fighters can fairly reliably land their hits and two of your fighters either flat out deal 3 damage or can threaten it with nice rolls. Pretty effective stabbing.
I don’t know if it’s their preferred style, but I think doing a Take and Hold gameplan could be interesting. If you can get onto tokens without charging, you can just stab enemies who try to get close to you to knock you off. Schemin’ Gitz can give them the extra little push of movement needed to reach further tokens, and they have the flexibility to pivot into a more “apply knife to enemy” style gameplay as well when needed. My first draft would look something like this.
Alright, it’s clobberin’ time! Or something along those lines. I wasn’t around for the early days of Underworlds, but my understanding is that Mollog was a terrifying beast that could thump anyone and everyone he wanted to. Through various rules changes and an update to his warband, things went up and down for the trollog but let’s see how the current iteration fares. To the surprise of some, Mollog is not a Strike warband – rather, it’s a Mastery style one.
This warband is incredibly focused on Mollog himself, to the point that the inspire condition for all the fighters is based on how much damage Mollog has taken. Once he reaches 4 damage taken, the entire warband will flip to their inspired sides.
Always Lurking is a special rule for the Stalagsquig, and it’s written in a fairly opaque way. Deploying the Stalagsquig is clear – it can go in any empty hex that’s not occupied by a feature token or an enemy’s starting hex, so feel free to dump it in enemy territory if you so desire. The last sentence is the awkward bit, and best I can tell it’s saying that you cannot remove Stalagsquig from the battlefield unless it is slain (so no teleports or confusion effects), you cannot push Stalagsquig, and you cannot move Stalagsquig. This is how I’ve been playing it and it’s one of the items I’m hoping GW addresses soon.
Once again playing into the focus of Mollog, Tag Along allows him to drag one of the little minions along with him when he moves. This can be a handy built in flanking option, a way to block an adjacent hex to protect Mollog, or just reposition to throw your opponent off.
Unnatural Hazards is a style of ability I’m growing fond of. You get a menu of three different options to pick from at the start of the first action step in each round and that effect applies throughout that round. Options here are Nasty Critters which helps bump up your accuracy by turning a flanked situation into a surrounded situation, Tripping Hazard which also boosts accuracy but in a different way contingent on your opponent’s fighters entering hexes nearby your minions, or Watch Out, They Bite! that fulfills a similar role to Tripping Hazard, but replaces the guaranteed stagger token with a 50% chance of dealing a damage. If you’re able to keep your minions tagging along with Mollog, I’d start out with Nasty Critters to really boost those impactful swings of his. The ping option has some potential against warbands where the 1 damage can help tip your attacks into a break point (4 health fighters can then get one-shot from an uninspired Mollog) but it’s a 50/50 chance of even occurring.
Let’s start with the big guy here. Mollog has a whopping 7 health, the highest of any models revealed so far. He’s on 1 block which is fine, but not anything amazing. A speed of 3 means it’s possible to try and play keep away from Mollog if your gameplan isn’t hampered too much by doing so, but any pushes or speed boosts to him will make it more challenging. Befitting his status, he’s also worth a massive 4 bounty to the opponent if he dies – this means there’s an actual gameplan around focusing down Mollog, so be wary of leaving him too exposed. If he goes down, not only are you losing your key fighter but you’re also nearly giving up an Annihilation worth of glory which is massive.
The minions, befitting their minion status, are much less imposing. They each possess 3 health and a single save dice of varying flavors. Bat Squig, unsurprisingly, is the most mobile with both fly and 4 move (5 when inspired). Stalagsquig is the least mobile, with 0 move and rules that (probably) prevent it from ever moving or being pushed. Spiteshroom’s in the middle, matching Mollog’s pace at 3.
Offensively, Mollog is your heavy hitter. R1/H2/D3 with brutal and R2/H2/D2 are definitely above average stats for an uninspired fighter, and inspiring adds icing to the cake with grievous on his range 1 attack and brutal on his range 2. It’s not the most accurate attack in the world, but being able to hit for 4 damage with zero power card support is massive. You’ll want to make sure every swing is as accurate as possible with ample flank/surround and various accuracy boosting power cards. The minions definitely let Mollog hog the spotlight, but they’re no slouches either. Uninspired they’re a variety of 1 damage profiles, but each squig jumps up to 2 damage once inspired. They’re not going to outpace Mollog, but they can put in work if they’re ignored.
Listen, you’re not going to take Mollog and not use his big ol’ club. Some form of Strike plan is likely to be in the cards. Blazing Assault also happens to sport a wide variety of movement enhancements and push power cards, helping to get the trollog into position to take advantage of his powerhouse of an attack profile.
Trading quality for quantity, we have the largest warband in Underworlds’ history. Tallying up to 9 fighters, there aren’t even enough starting hexes on one side of the board to support these little guys! Let’s look at these Take and Hold grots.
This is my favorite implementation of the Gitz’s inspire mechanic. You’re pushed to score glory by the nature of the game, and your squishy goblins are going to absolutely be dying while you do that. At some point, you’ll hit the middle point of the “glory go up, gitz go down” graph and they’ll all inspire.
Barely Worth It is also a clever way of handling having 9 fighters while every warband has a total of 7 bounty. They simply make the 8th and 9th kills not worth anything. Clever, GW!
Another rule to make a 9 fighter warband function, Squig Herder causes the two squigs to deploy alongside Drizgit during the setup stage of the game. The squigs can’t start in starting hexes, nor feature tokens but they have no restrictions about being deployed into neutral or enemy territory. I’m not sure putting your fragile, decent damage fighters right on the front line is a great idea but it’s at least possible to do.
Scurry is a surge ability that helps this massive warband gain action economy by allowing multiple move actions during one turn. Some folks have correctly pointed out that, as worded, there’s nothing stopping you from daisy chaining a pile of goblins and infinitely moving around the board to get wherever they want, but I think it’s safe to say there will be an update to reign this in. In the meantime, it’s still an effective way to reposition, get onto tokens, block charge lanes, and provide flank/surround support for your own fighters.
Your three archers also have Spiteful Volley which again helps gain action efficiency by letting two archers shoot in one turn. They have to be within 3 of each other, but there’s no restriction that you have to attack the same target, so volley away even if the first shot slays their target!
Spinnin’ is another ability limited to a specific model. This time it’s Snirk, the ever spinning, ever chaotic bundle of death. To simulate Snirk’s danger zone, you have the ability to inflict 1 damage to any fighter that is pushed, placed, or enters a hex adjacent to him. Note that while this doesn’t specify enemy models, it’s still a surge and by their nature surges are optional. You don’t have to kill your own goblins with it, but I’m not going to stop you if you really want to.
Snirk must be a really special little guy, because he also gets another rule – Overconfidence is short and sweet. Snirk can’t have guard tokens. He’s too busy spinning.
First off, I’m sorry for putting so many fighter cards here. This warband is plain silly.
Luckily, we can summarize them pretty effectively. Your three “fancy” goblins (Zarbag, Drizgit, and Snirk) have 3 health each while every other model has a measly 2. Every fighter has a move value of 3 whether inspired or not. They’re all only worth 1 glory (with the Barely Worth It caveat above). Their saves start off below average, with only Zarbag and Snirk having two dice. However, once inspired, it’s surprisingly decent – every fighter aside from Drizgit goes up to 2 dodge while Snirk goes to 3 dodge! Makes sense why he can’t have a guard token now.
For weapon profiles, Zarbag has an impressively accurate ranged attack with his evil eye to go alongside his fairly standard melee attack. They both jump up to even more accuracy once inspired – Zarbag can give many Stormcast a run for their money when it comes to applying the beat down. Drizgit and his squigs all share the same profiles on their melee attacks – R1/H2/D2 that inspire into an extra dice. They’re reliable whacks that can get the job done. Speaking of getting whacked, Snirk starts out with the inaccurate but painful R1/S2/D3 that gains a dice upon inspiration. He’s going to need a little hand in hitting (or some luck!) but it’s going to be felt when he does. Finishing out the large warband are four fighters that all have range 3 profiles. Prog’s is a little more accurate, but Redkap, Stikkit, and Dibbz can all benefit from the Spiteful Volley rule to fire off multiple times in one turn.
I’ve yet to play with or against these guys in this edition of Underworlds, but they seem to be equipped to continue playing their role as a prime Take and Hold warband. Movement economy, attack economy, and a surprising quality to their fighters when considering they have so dang many of them has me hopeful that they’re going to put up a good showing in future events.
That’s it for the Destruction warbands from last week. Check out the coverage of the other grand alliances if you want to see what else was given free rules!
Chaos Warbands
Death Warbands
Order Warbands
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
