Welcome to another in Goonhammer’s series of Embergard review articles! This time we’re taking a look at the two brand new warbands.
Our Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard coverage:
- Embergard Core Rules & Unboxing
- Embergard Deck Reviews Part 1 – Blazing Assault & Emberstone Sentinels
- Embergard Deck Reviews Part 2 – Pillage and Plunder & Countdown to Cataclysm
- Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard Warbands Review – The Emberwatch & Zikkit’s Tunnelpack (this article)
The Warbands of Embergard
Included in the Embergard Core Box are two new warbands that are both classified as Flex archetypes from Games Workshop. The first is a trio of Stormcast called the Emberwatch (who I will forever be trying to call the Emberguard) which are a warband of mixed specialists. I heard someone call this the D&D Party approach and I absolutely love that. The other warband are the mad engineers of Clan Skryre, Zikkit’s Tunnelpack. These zany rats are loaded up with warpstone bombs, drills, and … Freddy Krueger hands(?). Sure, why not. This is actually more accurate to my personal experience with D&D groups, to be honest.
These two warbands are the first showing of Games Workshop’s approach to warbands in this new edition of Warhammer Underworlds. The fighter cards have been slimmed down to the point that the only words on them are the fighters’ names. All the details that would have been present on the fighter cards in the past now resides on the warband’s warscroll. This is where you’ll find the inspiration mechanic and any warband-specific special rules.
First up are the brave Stormcast, loyal to Sigmar and ready to… steal rocks? I’ll admit, the lore of Underworlds isn’t my greatest strength but we’ll just go with that.
Relevant to their inspire ability, core abilities in this edition of Underworlds are any abilities that are marked by the Underworlds skull icon that all fighters and players have access to. These are the abilities that you will be using during the action step of a turn. The rulebook outlines your options as move, attack, charge, guard, and focus. It’s worth noting that focus is an action that the player takes, not a fighter, so there’s no way to for focus to trigger an inspire. Straight away, you can see that this warband is incentivized to invade the opponent’s territory. That’s a pretty common trait with many of the Rivals decks that come with Embergard, so these Stormcast should be able to find a use for any of them as a pairing.
Alone I Stand! is a repeatable push. If you line things up right, you’ll get three hexes of extra pushing throughout the course of a game which is nothing to scoff at. I’m already picturing playing against an opponent’s Emberwatch with a Take and Hold approach and me realizing that saving a push to knock them off of a treasure token right before end phase scoring is going to be harder than I planned. Whether you’re setting up for an inspire in the following turn, moving onto a treasure token, or staging a fighter for some attacks without needing to charge, this is going to be a useful ability.
All three of the Emberwatch’s one-shot surge abilities emphasize their well-rounded nature. Vanguard Dash is a frankly terrifying amount of battlefield maneuverability that doesn’t even saddle the dashing fighter with a move or charge token. The only drawback is you have to do it after your own action step, so this newly placed fighter has to weather one turn’s worth of attention from the opponent before they can do anything. Deadly Sentries feels the least impactful to me of all the warscroll abilities, but if you need it you’re going to really appreciate it. Just having it unused also forces your opponent to consider the range math for every one of your turns. Perhaps it’s obvious, but when I read it the first few times I assumed it was limited to a ranged weapon – it is not. Ardorn, Farasa, and Yurik can all go Stretch Armstrong and slap someone two hexes away with their more damaging melee attacks. The Raptors of Sigmar is going to come in clutch so many times. Whether it’s to get just that extra required nudge of damage to take out your target, or if you’re saving it in your pocket to pull out when an inconvenient Stand Fast pulls your target out of lethal damage range, this will give the normally-two-damage limited warband some extra reach when it matters.
In terms of their fighter stats, we don’t have a lot to go off of comparison wise. They’re slower than the Skaven (mostly) at 3 move but are substantially hardier at 5 wounds a piece. A total of 15 wounds vs the Skaven’s 16 might seem worse off at first glance, but the better save profiles make up for it with every fighter starting on 1 block and both Ardorn and Farasa moving up to 2 block when inspired. The bounty is split up in a way that I assume most three-fighter warbands will mirror with the leader giving up 3 glory and the other two fighters each offering up 2 a piece.
Honestly, there’s nothing too surprising about this trio. It doesn’t come as much of a shock, but the Stormcast in the introductory box feel average in every way. They’re not bad at anything, but it doesn’t appear that they particularly excel at anything either – which is perfectly fine. This means they can be a wonderful canvas to apply your own take for any Nemesis deck brews, and I’d wager they’ll be able to handle any single Rivals deck thrown at them with relative comfort.
The fact that a good number of objectives in the new decks key off of making attacks, and some from the Take and Hold, Flex, and Mastery deck all key off making attacks when standing in particular places, increases the impact the Emberwatch’s ranged weapons will have. In fact, that’s probably the first build I would take with them – a pairing of Emberstone Sentinels and Pillage & Plunder, with a focus on the former.
This deck aims to combine the movement shenanigans that the Emberwatch bring to the table along with a suite of ploys and upgrades to ensure they can get anywhere needed on the battlefield. No treasure token is out of their reach, which is great because they’re going to want to be standing on those treasure tokens and plinking away with their bows and throwing knives. If the enemy gets close enough, all the Stormcast have more potent melee weapons they can bring to bear. Between their warscroll ability Raptors of Sigmar, Gloryseeker, and Great Strength they can threaten to hit harder than their 2 damage would first imply.
Lurking close behind the Emberwatch are Zikkit’s Tunnelpack. These guys are also here to steal rocks, but it appears they’re better equipped to do so with all the explosives and drills.
Befitting a scraggly band of cowardly rats (positive connotation), none of these little guys are going to inspire before they get to see one of their “buddies” get punched in the face. Look, don’t lie to me and say you’ve never had a coworker that was so annoying your day wouldn’t become better by seeing them get punched in the face. One thing that’s important to note here is that the damage or slaying of the friendly rat must occur during an action step – that means if your opponent uses a power card to damage one of the Tunnelpack, nobody is going to find that particularly inspiring.
It’s always tempting to do direct comparisons between similar things. It’s human nature, and perhaps rat nature. If you compare More-more Power! To Alone I Stand!, they don’t quite feel on par with each other. Simply using More-more Power! is going to result in a 50% chance of your fighter exploding regardless of the outcome of their action. This is very much a push your luck system, and you had damn well better have a reason for wanting to use it. One of the most common I can think of will be revving up inspired Rittak to give them another chance to rocket off in a 5 range, 3 damage charge which certainly has potential to be an impactful play.
Skitter mimics Vanguard Dash in that it offers maneuverability, but it’s not quite the board-spanning teleport of the Stormcast’s option. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worse, though. Skitter grants a move token after use, which some objectives care about so it’s a way to sneak one more onto your fighters. On average, the Skaven move further than the Stormcast, so getting a free move off means more area of the board covered. Warp-charged has slightly better odds than More-more Power! does – there’s only a 33% chance of it backfiring and doming a rat for 2 damage. There’s nothing stopping you from combining the two to get another charge off with Rittak and improve his odds of landing that juicy attack in the process. Just don’t count on him being around to see the fruits of his labor. Finally, we have Kaboom! which continues the trend of ending ability names with exclamation marks. This is marked with the skull icon which flags it as a core ability, so this will take up one of your turns to use unlike all the other warscroll abilities in this box. It’s unfortunate that this ability will shine the most when facing a high model count warband that really wants to stack up, which is just completely the opposite of the Emberwatch. Also, take note that it doesn’t restrict damage to enemy fighters – Tik Tik is indiscriminate in their wrath. It’s still a decent shot at putting some damage onto a chosen model, and the fact that you get a move before popping the rat (what a horrible phrase to have to type) can help finagle them into a more favorable position.
On the whole, these Skaven will need to be up close and personal with their enemy if they want to do any fighting. Only Zikkit and Nitch have any reach beyond what’s standing next to them. The good news is that at 4 move, they can scurry around the board fairly well – even if you have to wait for Rittak to inspire before they find the gas pedal on that mono-wheel of terror. The fighters are more specialized than the Emberwatch are, and depending on your opponent each of them will be more or less valuable. Against a small model count, elite force you might want to use Tik Tik less as a bomb delivery and more as a “distraction Carnifex” – a plainly visible threat that you present to your opponent. Your opponent has to make the decision on whether to attack the rat. If they do make that choice, it offers zero bounty and Tik Tik’s injury/death will inspire one of your other fighters. If they don’t take the bait, you can continue moving Tik Tik until you choose to fire off that timely Kaboom!
As for inspiration, you really want some of these weirdos to inspire. Zikkit becomes substantially more durable in going from 2 dodge to 2 block, Rittak goes berserk by jumping from 3 move to 5 move, and Krittatok becomes a fairly reliable source of 2 damage.
Normally I would grab the two unused decks and build something out of them, but I really want to do more with Pillage & Plunder, so I’m going to pair it up with Countdown to Cataclysm. Those both feel very fitting for Zikkit’s Tunnelpack!
Delve, baby, delve! This is a very greedy deck which I felt was appropriate considering the risky abilities of the Skaven themselves. A whopping 18 glory awaits you in this deck if you can get those treasure tokens flipped over. The deck also packs a bevvy of weapons so you can upgrade the dinky attack profiles of your fighters, including Tik Tik! There’s a tiny bit of added synergy in that your Cataclysm tracker will go up the first time one of your fighters is slain every round, so even if your opponent doesn’t want to hit you, you can do Skryre things and pop your own fighters. Plus you can engineer a situation where Tik Tik has the surge Tik Tok. It’s too good to pass up.
Wrap Up
Alright folks, that’s it for the warbands in the Embergard Core Box. It’s also the last article for this busy pre-order day. I hope you all enjoyed Goonhammer returning to Underworlds in force and getting to share these new toys with everyone. I can’t wait to take these warbands and decks out into the wild and get some games in! Hopefully I’ll run into you at an event or LGS somewhere – if I do, please don’t hesitate to say hello.
Also, stay tuned for more Underworlds. I’ve only scratched the surface of what I want to talk about with this shiny new edition and more will be coming – soon!
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.
