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
Brutes and Bandits: Destruction Warbands
The Jaws of Itzl and Grandfather’s Gardeners
Rivals Decks: Reckless Fury and Wrack & Ruin
Heroes and Hunters: Order Warbands
Order feels like such a grab-bag of different factions. With Chaos, everyone has something to do with one of the 4 (well, 5 now I guess) gods. Death, that’s an easy one – stuff’s dead, undead, or using necromancy. Destruction is a bunch of homicidal greenskins. Order? We’ve got normal humans, lightning humans, multiple flavors of elves and dwarves, and space-faring lizardmen. Sure… why not.
First up in the “normal humans” category, we have Hexbane’s Hunters, a Strike warband composed of witch hunters. Hexbane was strong in the previous edition of the game from the moment they were released until the final events being played. The vast majority of this strength was due to their faction deck, which had objectives that would score if your opponent had the audacity to try and play the game as well as potent power cards that could help control the battlefield. How are Hexbane and his buddies doing now with the removal of faction decks?
First of all, Hexbane has a weird looking warscroll with the inspire condition stretched across the top. I’m glad the designers are fine with playing around with the layout of the cards just to make stuff fit better.
All of your humans are Agents Azyrite and the dogs are both minions. The intricate, individual inspire conditions for the warband are gone and now it’s easier to keep track of – any human dying will inspire another human. If Pock dies, the dogs also inspire.
Tools of the Trade can help at the start of the game if you’re either unable to score some early glory or have a very upgrade heavy hand. Getting upgrades out before they’d normally be able to be online can help secure the early game, which can help you snowball into a better position. Imagine a quick Keen Eye of Great Strength coming down just because you lost one of your fighters.
Further punishing your opponent for killing your Agents Azyrite is Marked for Vengeance. This is a thematic mechanic that your opponent is going to have to keep in mind when taking out your fighters. Do they try to land the killing blow with a weaker fighter, giving you incentive to leave their better fighters alone? As the Hexbane player, it’s not a requirement that you go for the marked fighter, but having a reroll in the attack and being able to either remove all move/charge tokens or draw a power card is a strong incentive to do so.
Tight-knit Pack exists to make sure the warband adds up to 7 bounty, no more and no less. It also means the first of the dogs slain offers no reward to the opponent, so they’re less likely to aim for the dogs early on. You can use this to your advantage by using them to move block, provide flanked/surrounded, and generally get in the way.
Loyal Hounds is a great way to do the previously mentioned dog tricks – you get two turns for the cost of one, as long as all you’re doing is moving one hunter and one dog. There are already a few surge objectives that want you to have multiple fighters with move tokens doing certain things and this would let you score those on your first turn of the game.
The final ability for the Hunters is Ward of Martyr’s Blood. This ability is present on some other warscrolls and within the decks, and I have been surprised by how effective it is. Turning off cleave when someone attacks Pock or negating an otherwise lethal grievous comes up more often than I initially expected it to.
Hexbane and Aemos are each worth the most bounty at 2, Bridget and Pock are 1, the second dog slain is also worth 1, and the first dog slain is worth 0.
Being normal humans, the hunters here all have move 3 while Ratspike and Grotbiter are a bit faster at 4. The extra speed for the dogs will prove handy in getting into position to score objectives and support their hunter buddies.
For saves, the warband runs the gamut from terrible (Brydget, the dogs) to average (Aemos, Haskel) to “why are you as hard to injure as a Stormcast with a shield” (Pock). Each of the single dodge fighters bumps up to 2 when inspired, but nobody else gets an upgrade. With only 14 health across the entire warband, it’s a bit on the low side. Haskel and Aemos each have 3 while the remainder of the fighters are in the danger zone of being one-shot by many attacks. Nothing terribly new for the warband here, though.
Offensively, the warband has a healthy mix of ranged and melee combatants. Haskel and Brydget start out with very similar profiles for both melee and ranged, but Haskel outshines her in accuracy for both once inspired. Pock still has a crossbow with a cartoonish bomb strapped to it, but it seems to have lost a lot of its stopping power and now only hits for 1. Aemos and the dogs are both limited to range 1 attacks, with Aemos being substantially more accurate and hitting for 2 damage compared to the dogs who only bite for 1.
Games Workshop wasn’t lying when they classified this warband as Strike. They’re quite focused on attacking, they gain benefits from dying, and the fighters are fragile enough that dying will come naturally. I’m not quite sure what to make of this implementation. I feel like it still has potential, but a lot of it will be hinged on how well you can exploit the Marked for Vengeance ability and what upgrades are available to take advantage of Tools of the Trade. Reckless Fury has some synergistic upgrades with Blades of Wrath wanting to go on a fighter that’s going to be slain, Utter Ignorance letting a fighter stick around after it would normally die, and the ploy Lost Legacy which allows you to return a slain fighter’s upgrade to your hand. Blazing Assault has multiple easy to score surge objectives plus plenty of expensive, powerful upgrades. Countdown to Cataclysm also rewards you for your fighters dying and has a wide variety of objectives to suit different builds.
Returning as a Flex warband, we have some elves cosplaying as Avatar: the Last Airbender characters. I’ve never been able to get over how ridiculous their hats and topknots are, but I will admit these rules intrigue me a little.
Rolling all successes on a save or attack roll can be tricky, but considering all the fighters (sort of) start with only one save dice, it’s a touch more reliable – you’ll either make your save and inspire, or you won’t and you’ll get hurt. This is going to increase the value of rerolls for this warband, even above how useful rerolls normally are. Stagger effects and upgrades that let you reroll attacks and saves will be high priority.
Aetherquartz Reserve grants each of the fighters their treasured aetherquartz token at the start of the game. Each fighter gets one and only one. It’s going to be up to you whether you have the fighters hold onto the aetherquartz and benefit from their passive buff or spend it to try and fish for a success on either an attack or save. Some of the fighters have a better passive than others, and some fighters benefit more from inspiring than their peers do. Finding the right time to break the crystal so you can benefit from it without wasting the passive buffs, but also not waiting so long that your fighter is slain while holding a crystal will be the balancing act that needs to be mastered.
Myrari’s benefit is Blinding Corona which brings him up for 1 dodge to 2 dodge. That’s nice, because 1 dodge is a miserable save. The phrasing of this ability does mean that if you choose to spend it to reroll a save, you’re still going to benefit from having the +1 save value and the reroll.
Bahannar is Enduring as Rock, preventing him from being pushed by any enemy abilities. This negates drive back, grapple, as well as any pushes that the opponent may try to bring into play from warscroll or power cards. Bahannar is a wonderful “stand here and don’t move” piece with the crystal in hand.
Impeccable Aim grants Senaela enhanced accuracy on her ranged weapon. This will be an easier decision than most on whether to spend the aetherquartz or not – do your opponent have targets you want to shoot that are on dodge saves? If not, go ahead and spend this to fish for a success to inspire.
The last ability is Masterful Stroke and this is for Ailenn. It’s another accuracy enhancer which actually helps her inspire even easier than if she didn’t have it – four of the six faces of the attack dice will be successes while her targets are flanked.
Myari’s Purifiers have a fairly average 15 wound total, with bounty split out 2/2/2/1 across the fighters. Being elves, they’re on the faster side of average with the lone exception of Bahannar who just really thinks rocks should be emulated in all ways. As mentioned before, they all start on a single save dice which isn’t great – Bahannar and Ailenn are on shield while Myari and Senaela are on dodge. Only Bahannar picks up an extra dice upon inspiring, which makes him the tankiest warband member.
Myari is sporting a less accurate, but longer ranged version of the “Leader Stick” and has a versatile pair of options once inspired. Bahannar wields the more typical version seen across many warbands, starting at R1/H2/D2 or R2/H2/D1 – inspired, he keeps the same values but tacks on grievous to be a hard hitting threat. Ailenn prefers to go for accuracy over damage, adding cleave and an extra attack dice on her inspired profile. Senaela is rarely going to do much good with that inaccurate and weak melee profile, but the range on her bow is top notch – inspired, she can stand in the center hex of the board and shoot anyone.
My first gut impression is to take this warband as a Take and Hold style that wants to stay either on their side or in neutral territory, taking advantage of the hard-to-shift Bahannar and having Senaela and Myari provide ranged support from treasure tokens. Something like Emberstone Sentinels augmented with Wrack and Ruin, perhaps?
The Kharadron Overlords are a refreshing take on fantasy dwarves. They still have a lot of that steampunk tech vibe that dwarves in some settings have, but it’s done in just enough of an interesting way to make them stand out while still being recognizable. Plus the masks are cool and floating around with a metal balloon on your back is silly but in a good way. This particular take on the Kharadron are a Mastery warband.
Tying inspiration to scoring objectives almost feels silly, but in a bad way. It’s something every player is trying to do anyway and it’s not like you’re going to hem and haw over whether you should score now or wait until later. Even the talk about trying to strategically weaponize the underdog mechanic doesn’t seem to have been a practical worry. I guess if anything, this might slightly weigh your favor towards the lower value but easier to score end phase objectives, but that could be a dangerous road to go down because it’s limiting your glory ceiling.
‘This is Mine, Fair and Square’ lets your dwarves confidently sit on a treasure token without fear of getting pulled off of it by a scheming Dromm or driven back by enemy ranged attacks. Remember, a drive back is a push! Since the entire warband has ranged weapons, a focus of sitting on treasure tokens and plinking away at the enemy is a plausible build.
Atmospheric Isolation is a reusable ability that Thundrik himself can use any time he uses a core ability. This bubble of pain surrounds Thundrik and dissuades enemies from charging in close. You can also use it when combined with power cards that push to force the enemy to enter the suffering sphere. If you have a push that can go multiple hexes, the wording will even make it so the enemy takes multiple pings from this effect.
Leaning back on the idea of standing on treasure tokens and taking pot shots at the enemy, Custom Aethershot Rounds are a straightforward way to increase both the accuracy and range of one of your fighters’ ranged weapons.
Hail of Aethershot is less of a precise, aimed shot like the above and instead more of a frantic spraying of targets in front of your fighter. The stipulation that the extra target must be within 2 hexes is pretty generous, because that’s going to happen fairly often, especially if your fighters are bunched up around treasure tokens and the enemy is forced to come to you.
The final ability on this warscroll is By the Code, a push that makes me wonder just how badly these dwarves are lusting for treasure. They can more than double the distance they’d normally travel so long as they can dive, Scrooge McDuck style, into a pile of coins. This is fantastic for getting your waddling, plodding, agonizingly slow dwarves into position to start scoring your objectives which then levels them up to be better fighters.
Five dwarves, all slow as molasses. Thundrik and Khazgan are each worth 2 bounty while the rest of the company are valued at 1. Their saves are on the whole fine – only one starts on the dreaded 1 dodge, and when inspired you have your leader at 2 shields with everyone else on 1. A total of 16 health for this warband brings them a little above the “trio of Stormcast” baseline, with it slightly weighted in Thundrik’s favor and the rest on 3 health.
Do you like guns? These dwarves have guns. Thundrik’s got the dwarven gun version of the “Leader Stick” with the upgraded range on the reach profile. When he inspires, all he picks up is cleave but that’s still a nice accuracy boost against many fighters in the game. Lund is the team’s long range fighter, boosting the furthest reach with his range 4 cannon that gains phenomenal accuracy when inspired. Enrik’s very similar, but trades off one range for the stagger runemark on his inspired side. Both Lund and Enrik trade off melee prowess for their ranged weapons and can only hit for 1 damage up close.
Garodd is more of an all-rounder, sporting the exact same weapon profiles as Thundrik aside from missing out on cleave on the ranged attack when inspired. Khazgan, the one floaty blimp boy in the band, possesses a solid melee attack that jumps up to 3 damage when inspired, making him the hardest hitting dwarf in this warband. He still has a ranged attack, but it’s by far the least accurate. Of the bunch.
Given the dwarven love for treasure and trinkets, it feels wrong to deny these guys their treasure tokens. Emberstone Sentinels and Wrack and Ruin would be my first attempt at a deck – the former has plenty of treasure synergy, as well as objectives that can be fairly easy to score. The latter offers plenty of ping damage to supplement the dwarven firing squad as well as more fairly easy to score objectives like Bloody and Bruised, Unsafe Ground, and Low on Options (provided you have some easy-to-play ploys).
Another Strike warband, Ylthari’s Guardians were cursed in the first edition to have amazing models but really niche, dare I say crappy, rules. Things have changed for the better for these tree mechs piloted by elf ghosts.
I believe Ylthari’s Guardians feature the longest inspiration text for any warscroll so far. It’s thematic as hell, too. You’re essentially planting your power cards and as the game progresses, they’re slowly growing until they blossom into inspiring one of your fighters and granting you the card to your hand. With this warband, you’ll typically spend the first round planting three of these seeds. They’ll grow until round 2 when they start to pop into your hand one by one, increasing the power of your team two-fold – one by inspiring your fighters, and another by giving you more power cards to affect the game with. As they start blooming, you’ll plant another set and they’ll eventually bloom near the very end of the game with only a few turns remaining. A nice feature here is that if you’re losing fighters, you’ll get these cards and inspires earlier which could help serve as a catch up mechanic.
There’s really only one ability on the warscroll, but it has different options. You can use one of them per battle round. Most of these abilities will scale based on the number of slain friendly fighters, so as you lose fighters they get stronger.
The Burgeoning allows you to push one of your fighters after your action step. The Reaping grants additional attack dice to one of your melee weapons. Everdusk grants an increase to melee damage. The only one that doesn’t directly care about slain friendly fighters is The Dwindling which is a teleport that must land adjacent to a friendly fighter, but it kind of does still care because more friendly fighters means more landing positions, and if you ever have 3 slain you won’t be able to use this.
I’m particularly intrigued by this warscroll because it looks so simple – you’re only ever going to do one thing with it per round – but choosing the right ability and trying to game the growth counters is going to be a fun exercise.
A total of 15 wounds, with a 2/2/2/1 bounty split feels pretty average for a four fighter warband. All the fighters have an above average move speed which will be appreciated for sure. Save values are really all over the place. Ylthari on 2 dodge with the lowest health pool feels especially exposed while Gallanghann and Skhathael are a little more resilient – Gallanghann especially once inspired. Ahnslaine is going to want to leverage that ranged attack and stay well away from danger with only 1 dodge ever.
Both Ylthari and Gallanghann are sporting the “Leader Stick” profiles, except Ylthari’s ranged profile is a full ranged weapon with a reach of 3. She gains an extra attack dice of accuracy when inspired, while he merely gains brutal – not much of an upgrade there, so Gallanghann’s primarily interested in that extra block when inspiring. Skhathael has an average attack uninspired, and it becomes much more accurate (especially against dodge fighters) when inspired. Finally, Ahnslaine is the warband’s primary ranged fighter, teaming up with Ylthari to reach out and plink away at enemy fighters. Her range of 4 when inspired is a substantial threat bubble on the board.
They’re classified as Strike by Games Workshop, but I’m almost wondering if these are more of a Flex or Mastery warband. They seem like a blank slate where you can utilize a variety of approaches and make them work well. I’m interested to see how other players wind up building decks for the Sylvaneth warband because I feel like any combination of the six existing decks has potential.
That’s it for the Order warbands released in Heroes and Hunters. 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
Brutes and Bandits: Destruction Warbands
The Jaws of Itzl and Grandfather’s Gardeners
Rivals Decks: Reckless Fury and Wrack & Ruin
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