Arena Mortis is the new expansion for Warhammer Underworlds, and it changes the way you claim glory in Beastgrave. This fast-paced game for 3-6 players will require different strategies to be successful – join us as we take a first look at the rules.
Choose Your Fighter
You can select a fighter from any warband to enter the Arena Mortis. Depending on how many starting Wounds your fighter has, you can then give them a number of upgrades.
Do you go with Mollog the Mighty but with no upgrades or choose a fighter such as Khamyss who only has two Wounds but can select three upgrades? Or do you pick Snirk Sourtongue and aim just to cause maximum carnage?
One thing to remember in Arena Mortis is that you don’t get to select which upgrade(s) your fighter receives – you shuffle your upgrade deck and then pick the top card(s). Plus, there are no duplicate upgrades in the Arena Mortis.
This means that you’re much better off taking warband-specific upgrades such as Embittered Survivor for Rippa’s Snarlfangs rather than the universal Great Fortitude.
Death is Not the End
One of the most significant rule changes in Arena Mortis is the fact that death doesn’t mean the end of your game. Now everyone can enjoy the same thrill that Grymwatch players feel when they bring a fighter back from the dead! Every turn, you have the opportunity to bring your fighter back. Then, whether they were out of action or not, they get an upgrade. So in a three-player game, which has nine rounds, your fighter will have at least nine upgrades at the end of the game!
You’ll also notice that you now have two power steps in each of your turns. This is because you can only play Reaction cards in other people’s power steps, and you just get to play a single card in both of your own steps.
Action Stations
After you’ve played your first gambit, it’s time to activate your fighter. We recommend sending them after whichever player is currently winning, as the Headtaker rule means that you get to claim one of their unspent glory tokens if you take their fighter out of action.
Of course, that means that if you’re winning, you’ll have a big target on your back.
For the Glory
Speaking of winning, you don’t have an Objective deck in Arena Mortis – you'll be scoring most of your glory points by killing enemy fighters. There aren’t any objective tokens either. Instead, Arena Mortis uses six Mortis Lens tokens. If you’re holding one of these in an end phase, you gain a glory point, and they each have a unique ability too. For example, The Blood Spectralus makes your attacks even deadlier.
Or claim The Wasting Nexus to cause wounds to all of your enemies.
Finding the right balance between claiming the Mortis Lenses and killing opposing fighters is one of the keys to being successful in the Arena Mortis.
Arena Mortis is available to pre-order from Saturday, and we’ll be taking a look at the cards from the expansion later in the week. In the meantime, if you’ve not already gotten into Beastgrave, now is a perfect time – grab the boxed set today.