Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. I’m approaching Underworlds with a focus on improving gameplay, building communities, and occasionally painting some models. This article will talk about the concept of Organized Play legal warbands, serve as a reference for which warbands are currently considered Organized Play legal and which are not, and include information on where to find these warbands if you’re interested in obtaining one or more of them for yourself.
What Is Organized Play?
Organized Play is more than just Games Workshop’s way of talking about tournaments. For Underworlds, it’s the environment that Games Workshop is trying to cultivate into a balanced and healthy meta with quarterly updates. It’s also, I imagine, the collection of rules that they take into consideration when designing new decks or warbands. The Organized Play document can be found under the Warhammer Underworlds downloads section of the Warhammer Community website and, among other things, lists all the warbands that are currently considered Organized Play legal. These are the warbands that are going to be allowed in any organized event like a league at your FLGS or a clash/grand clash as well as casual pick up games or game nights.
Other Warhammer systems have the concept of Legends units – models that exist and are given rules, but aren’t considered valid choices for your army in events or elsewhere unless you clear it ahead of time with your opponent. Nothing in Underworlds carries that official Legends label, so we’re left with a set of Organized Play legal warbands and… the other warbands. The “not Organized Play legal” warbands. They are, in everything but name, the same as Legends, so I’m just going to refer to them as such. These are the older warbands that existed in the first edition and, technically, were given rules in the transition to the new version of the game. However, they are not rules that will be updated* and likely are not considered when releasing new content.
*There were mentions of eventually updating and re-releasing some undisclosed number of these “Legends” warbands at a vague point in the future back when Games Workshop was teasing the new edition, but there’s no telling when/if that will happen.
These two categories of Organized Play legal warbands and Legends warbands are what we’re going to delve into here. Let’s start with the OP legal ones and see what your options are as well as how you can procure them for yourself.
Organized Play Legal Warbands
These are the warbands you’re going to have available as options in every environment, and also the only ones allowed in organized events. A portion of the community, which includes me, has taken to considering these as the “default warbands” due to them being the only ones allowed in events like the World Championships of Warhammer, the Games Workshop Opens, and other qualifying events for the WCW (including the Maryland Goonhammer Open – stay tuned for more information!).
Unlike some other Games Workshop games, the legal warbands aren’t all released in convenient individual boxes. This can make tracking down that one warband you want to play with a little tricky depending on which one it is. Despite promises made during the release of the edition, not everything that is currently OP legal is available to buy from your FLGS or local Warhammer store. I hope this gets addressed sooner rather than later, but it’s been about four months now and it hasn’t been brought up again. I’m keeping my fingers crossed but not getting my hopes up too high.
There are four release categories for warbands in Warhammer Underworlds and they are as follows:
Embergard Box Set: This is the first product released for this edition and will serve as the starting point for new and returning players. Along with two warbands (consisting of models, fighter cards, and warscrolls), it contains the required board, tokens, and dice as well as four Rivals decks. They’re in a big board game-sized box.
Grand Alliances Boxed Sets: Shortly after the new edition came out, Games Workshop released four boxed sets which each contained four warbands. They are themed to represent each of the four Grand Alliance factions in Age of Sigmar. These boxes contain the appropriate models, fighter cards, and warscrolls. These are also in the larger sized GW boxes. Fortunately, they’re also fairly commonly parted out on eBay so if there’s only one of the four warbands in a box that you’re interested in, you can probably find it or split a box with a friend.
Individual Releases: Probably the most accessible form of release for someone interested in picking up a warband, these are warbands that are simply released in a box containing nothing but their models, cards, and warscroll. The box form factor has changed in the new edition, so they’re no longer the ones hanging on pegs in the shop – they’re thinner, wider boxes that fit on shelves better and are standardized to be the same dimensions as boxes that Kill Teams or 40k/AoS units come in.
No Re-Release; free digital rules: These warbands were some of the ones released late in the life of the previous edition, so GW decided to give them an updated set of rules that are available for free online. This was great for people transitioning from the first edition to the second because that meant they already had a roster of eligible warbands to go with. The downside is that the physical models have not been re-released in over a year at this point, so you’re going to have to dig into older edition releases or hunt around from third party resellers like eBay. I’ll include the names of their original releases to make hunting them down easier if you’re into that.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the options available. I’ll break them up by Grand Alliance with the latest releases at the top of each of the lists. There are also Goonhammer articles on each of the OP legal warbands when they were released, so I’ll include links to those if you want to get my initial takes on each of them when they were new. If you want to skip reading the list, seeing the warbands, and getting links to more information you can just check out this super fancy chart.
Chaos
Grandfather’s Gardeners (Individual Release)
Dread Pageant (Grand Alliance Chaos: Despoilers and Daemons)
Ephilim’s Pandaemonium (Grand Alliance Chaos: Despoilers and Daemons)
Gorechosen of Dromm (Grand Alliance Chaos: Despoilers and Daemons)
Khagra’s Ravagers (Grand Alliance Chaos: Despoilers and Daemons)
Zikkit’s Tunnelpack (Embergard Box Set)
Spiteclaw’s Swarm (No re-release; free digital rules): models were most recently released in the Rivals of the Mirrored City, but were also originally released as a standalone box in Shadespire era
Thricefold Discord (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released in the Deathgorge boxed set
Death
Crimson Court (Grand Alliance Death: Revenants of the Realms)
Grymwatch (Grand Alliance Death: Revenants of the Realms)
Headsmen’s Curse (Grand Alliance Death: Revenants of the Realms)
Kainan’s Reapers (Grand Alliance Death: Revenants of the Realms)
Sepulchral Guard (No re-release; free digital rules): models were most recently released in various versions of the 2023 starter box, but were also originally released as a standalone box in Shadespire era
Skinnerkin (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released in the Wintermaw boxed set
Thorns of the Briar Queen (No re-release; free digital rules): models were most recently released in the Rivals of the Mirrored City, but were also originally released in the Nightvault boxed set
Zondara’s Gravebreakers (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released as an individual box in the Deathgorge era
Destruction
Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz (Individual Release)
Blackpowder’s Buccaneers (Grand Alliance Destruction: Brutes and Bandits)
Da Kunnin’ Krew (Grand Alliance Destruction: Brutes and Bandits)
Grinkrak’s Looncourt (Grand Alliance Destruction: Brutes and Bandits)
Morgok’s Krushas (Grand Alliance Destruction: Brutes and Bandits)
Daggok’s Stab Ladz (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released as an individual box in the Deathgorge era
Mollog’s Mob (No re-release; free digital rules): models were most recently released in the Rivals of the Mirrored City, but were also originally released as an individual box in the Nightvault era
Zarbag’s Gitz (No re-release; free digital rules): models were most recently released in the Rivals of the Mirrored City, but were also originally released as an individual box in the Nightvault era
Order
Jaws of Itzl (Individual Release)
Hexbane’s Hunters (Grand Alliance Order: Heroes and Hunters)
Myari’s Purifiers (Grand Alliance Order: Heroes and Hunters)
Thundrik’s Profiteers (Grand Alliance Order: Heroes and Hunters)
Ylthari’s Guardians (Grand Alliance Order: Heroes and Hunters)
Emberwatch (Embergard Box Set)
Brethren of the Bolt (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released in the Wintermaw boxed set
Cyreni’s Razors (No re-release; free digital rules): models were released in the Deathgorge boxed set
Farstiders (No re-release; free digital rules): models most recently released in the 2023 Starter Set, but were also originally released as an individual box in the Shadespire era
Ironsoul’s Condemnors (No re-release; free digital rules): models most recently released in the Barnes & Noble version of the 2023 Starter Set, but were also originally released in the Nightvault box set and again later in the Dreadfane bundle
Going Forward
Judging from what Games Workshop has said during the release of Embergard and how they’ve been releasing warbands since then, my guess is that we’re going to continue to get new warbands released individually, which is fantastic for people who just want to pick up what looks interesting to them. There shouldn’t be another core box with two warbands, a board, decks, etc. Embergard was stated to start the new cycle of not having seasonal core boxes and it was stated that the Embergard box itself would remain the starter box for the entire edition (however long that is) which continues to be good news for players who want to pick and choose their purchases and not feel beholden to buy a large boxed set just for a portion of the contents.
Games Workshop does have a history of repacking and updating old warbands to be released in bundles of four – not only have they done it with the four Grand Alliance boxes that came out at this edition’s release, but they also did it near the tail end of the previous edition with Rivals of the Mirrored City. I could definitely see another similar box picking up some of the Legends warbands, given them updated rules, and releasing them later on in the game’s lifecycle. This is less ideal if you just want a portion of the box, but between the Warbands of Embergard product that (with admittedly somewhat limited availability) allowed players to pick up new rules for models they already had as well as the free digital rules, it means you could get away with reusing your existing models or picking up warbands of interest off of eBay, Facebook, MySpace, or whatever.
The articles teasing us about the new edition before it was released also mentioned the concept of warband rotations, but that hasn’t been expanded on since then. We’ll definitely be getting new warbands, potentially getting revamped old warbands, but perhaps some of the currently Organized Play legal warbands will rotate out of OP-legal status to make room for others? I’m sure this will ruffle some feathers, but I think it has potential upside. A smaller field is less for a new player to have to try and become familiar with, it allows for a smaller and more focused field for balance updates, and keeps things fresh. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have no shortage of options with the 34 currently Organized Play legal 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.
