The new edition of Warhammer Underworlds has been revealed, and in a few weeks’ time we’ll be heading into the depths of Embergard to plunder its treasures with nothing but a fistful of dice and a deck of cards.
A new edition means changes to things you’re familiar with. We’ve highlighted a few of the overarching changes to Warhammer Underworlds and, while the core experience remains the same, there are major revisions which promise to make the game you love even better.
Previously, your warband was defined by two things: its Fighter Cards and its unique deck of Ploys, Upgrades, and Objective cards. This has now changed.
Fighter Cards remain, and you still flip them when a fighter inspires. The Design Team has retuned the stats for every fighter in the game, and there is a new stat: Bounty, which signals how much Glory you earn for killing them. Decks, however, are now all universal in the new edition, and a warband’s unique rules are now defined by their Warband Warscroll. This ensures a warband’s unique rules are preserved no matter which deck you use.
One side of this card features lore and an atmospheric shot of the miniatures. The other side is all business, encompassing that all-important Inspire condition and your Warband Abilities – another new mechanic.
Some of these abilities, such as Alone I Stand! for the Emberwatch, can be activated every battle round, adding a signature twist to each warband. Other abilities might be powerful, once-per-battle abilities with various trigger conditions. The lighting bolt icons mark some of the Emberwatch’s abilities as Surge abilities – this means they can be used immediately after their conditions have been met.
While the Emberwatch are all about taking the fight into enemy territory with powerful attacks, Zikkit’s Tunnelpack engages in perilous behaviour befitting the Clans Skryre, with Warp-charged and More-More Power! granting bonuses at the risk of injuring or killing your own fighters.
The skull on the explosive Kaboom! marks it as a Core ability – you’ll be familiar with most of these, as Move, Attack, Charge, and Guard are all returning alongside the new Focus. These work the same as in the previous edition, where they were called Actions.
Focus is designed to give you an out when you just don’t have a card you can play – a situation known as a “bricked hand”. To Focus, simply discard any number of cards from your hand and draw a replacement for each type, as well as an additional Power card. While this is a very powerful move, it comes at a cost: using it too much will leave players without enough Glory to score or Power Cards to play.
FOCUS
Taking stock of the situation, the warband quickly changes tack.
You can discard any number of cards from your hand. Then draw a replacement card of the same type for each card you discarded. Then you can draw 1 additional Power card. You have Focused.
There has been a change to Critical successes during the Attack sequence. Previously, a single Critical could nullify any number of non-Critical success rolls – which could be painful if a player had poured a lot of resources into a key roll. Critical rolls are now counted as successes along with relevant Hammer, Swords, Shield, and Dodge rolls.
That doesn’t mean Critical rolls lack purpose: they can trigger weapon abilities as well as the new Overrun and Stand Fast abilities, unlocking richer tactical opportunities.
Overrun
If an Attack roll contains more rolls of (Crit) than the Save roll, after the target is driven back or slain, the attacker can use the following ability:
Overrun: Push the attacker 1 hex. That push must end in the hex the target was in.
Stand Fast
If the Save roll made for a target contained more rolls of (Crit) than the Attack roll, then the target can use the following ability:
Stand Fast: The attacker’s weapon has -1 Damage for that Attack and the target cannot be driven back.
Warhammer Underworlds is also inheriting the Underdog concept from Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Spearhead. Determining the Underdog is simple – it’s the player with fewer Glory points. This breaks ties for the first-turn roll-off in battle rounds two and three, and grants access to certain special abilities.
For example, the Healing Potion Ploy allows the Underdog to make an additional roll for healing, while Hidden Paths lets you redeploy your fighter without the burden of a Move token.
The Underdog
If one player has fewer Glory points than their opponent, they are the underdog. Certain abilities can only be used if a player is the underdog.
Games of Warhammer Underworlds are now only fought over one board. It puts you into the thick of combat faster, and there’s less to carry to games with you. Boards are still double-sided with different features on each side, and two different layouts per side are pre-determined by the rules so your territories are easy to reference.
Territories
During ‘Setting Up’, players determine their territories. The player’s territories are two opposite sides of the battlefield as highlighted in red and blue below. A player’s own territory is friendly territory and their opponent’s territory is enemy territory.
The hexes that are not highlighted in the diagrams below are neutral territory. The number of hexes that form neutral territory changes based on the orientation of the battlefield.
There are plenty of other changes designed to make things cleaner, clearer, and better for everyone. The game language has been streamlined, ensuring the hyper-specific terminology used in the last edition is used as sparingly as possible. Timings and sequencing have been cleaned up: big infographics explaining steps and reaction windows are a thing of the past. Uncommonly used rules like Barge and Magic dice are gone, replaced in many instances with unique warband abilities.
All this has shrunk the rulebook from around 50 pages to just 16, making Warhammer Underworlds easier to learn and play than ever.
We’ll be covering the different play styles of the revamped Rival Decks next week, and before that Battle Report presenter Nick, an Underworlds obsessive, will be telling you all about what he loves about the new edition.
Finally, if you want a first look at Warhammer Underworlds in action, there will be a special live stream broadcast this Friday.
Warhammer TV presenters Nick, Josh and Ed will be playing live matches in the catacombs at Warhammer HQ in Nottingham. Tune in from 6pm BST on the Warhammer YouTube channel.
