When Warhammer Underworlds first launched, I fell in love immediately. Myself and the rest of the team played a fair amount of it too. We built some decks, painted and played with a variety of different Underworld warbands. All was great.

Skip forward a few years, and we’ve had a hideous amount of new ‘starter’ boxes, and a plethora of new keywords shoved in to the game. Every six months we’d have a big box, a couple of new warbands, then BAM another big box.

Yes, the introduction of Rival Decks did peak my interest, but by then I was playing less and less of it as I was tired of the release schedule. The spark sadly had wained. I couldn’t even tell you what the last big box was (turns out with some cheating it was Wintermaw, which I actually reviewed and enjoyed, yet never returned to post review).

That brings us to the present day. GW have decided to hit the big reset button on Warhammer Underworlds and give it a big refresh, which IMHO is long overdue.

I know the scrapping of the old cards, and that some of the old warbands won’t be legal in official tournaments and such as angered a fair amount in the community (although all warbands will be getting free downloadable cards, thus be playable) I for one am happy. The game needed a review, in particular the amount of keywords available, and a bit of TLC.

The biggest news was that the new box, Embergard, would be the only ‘big box’ for 12 months. Cue fan-fare from my house! It means we’ll just have new warbands and Rivals decks in the next year, instead of another big box.

Our thanks to GW for sending us this box to review. You can preorder Embergard RIGHT NOW. If you decide to use one of our Element Games links it’ll help us out massively and save you some cash Vs the RRP price.

Unboxing Warhammer Underworlds Embergard

Warhammer Underworlds Embergard is, for the lack of a better term, the launch box for the brand new edition. We have brand new snazzy art on the front of the box, which is joined by a refreshed logo for Underworlds. So far, so very nicely presented.

Inside the box we have a ton of content, which includes:

• A Rulebook
• Two brand new warbands
• Tokens
• Dice
• Two Warband Cards (one for each side)
• 4 Rival Decks
• Double Sided Gameboard

In fact, you can watch me unbox this box below:

Please note, the video may still be uploading when this article goes live. If the video does not show it should do very shortly, so please refresh in a few moments. Apologies for this.

Let us now break down some of these components, starting with the brand new warbands.

The Emberwatch

The Stormcast Eternals have had a few warbands in Underworlds, however this one is quickly becoming my favourite, massively in part because of the models that represent them.

I would have put money on the Stormcast in this box to hail from the recently opened chamber to coincide with the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar, however that is not the case. Instead GW have gone back to the Vanguard chamber, giving us some shooty-yet also-punchy Warriors of Sigmar.

Each of the three models is full of character, and were very easy to assemble (although I did add a little bit of glue on Farasa aka the Ninja-Stormcast on her chest to keep the mini together, which you shouldn’t normally use with every model in this box being easy to build kits).

I’ve so far only painted the one, which you can see below, although she does need a little bit of work to finish her off (including that cloak, but she’s getting there!).

Minis aside, each warband now comes with, well I guess you could call it a summary card. It includes all the mechanics for how your warband Inspires, as well as special rules that your warband can do. This frees up the actual character cards to just include the fighter’s stats, giving the rest of the card chance for your some very slick and high resolution shows of that fighter. As always the inspired version of that particular character is shown on the reverse.

To inspire this warband your model simply needs to begin an activation within enemy territory and use a Core ability. The warbands main ability is called Alone I Stand! and is usable in the last power step. It basically grants you a free 1 hex move for your fighters, allowing you to sneak into position at the end of the game.

You also get three more abilities for your warband, which can all only be used once per game each:

• Vanguard Dash: Allows you to ‘teleport’ one of your fighters to an empty hex.
• Deadly Sentries: Grants +1 Range to an attack
• The Raptors of Sigmar: Can be used immediately after a fighter’s succesful Attack action. Inflict 1 damage on the target.

The rulebook advises that this warband can (and should really) be used aggressively, and thus work best with an aggressive Rivals Deck.

Zikkit’s Tunnelpack

Some regular watchers/readers will know that I am a massive Skaven fan, so seeing them in this new box brought me all kinds of joy, which was only heightened when I saw the set of minis.

They are all just…so much fun, especally Tik Tik and Zikkit himself. They shout Skaven. I mean, who else would create a small doomwheel with a warp grinder at the front?

Again, the models were easy and super fun to assemble, as you can see below. I cannot wait to get some paint on them, and intend to continue with my normal Skaven scheme.

Again, just like the Stormcast, you get a very handy little card taking you through some lore introcuding the Tunnelpack-ers and their special rules.

Your Skaven inspire when they take damage. Specifically, when one of your fighters either takes damage or is slain, you then pick another of your fighters and inspire them. Very straight forward, as your Skaven will be taking damage!

The main warband ability is called More-More Power! You can use it immediately at the start of your Action step should each one of your fighters have a Move or Charge token. You can pick one of those fighters, and remove the Move/Charge tokens from them. At the end of the Action step you must then roll a dice. On a crit or hammer, sadly your fighter dies. A very Skaven ability…

Like the Stormcast, you also get three once per game abilities, which are as follows:

• Skitter: You can use this immediately after your Action step. You can pick a friendly fighter who hasn’t got either a Move or Charge token, and then move them.
• Warp-charged: Another very Skaven ability. You use this as you pick an Attack action. That Action gets the following keywords; Cleave, Ensare and Brutal. After the attack has been resolved you must roll a dice. On a crit or crossed swords your model takes 2 damage.
• Kaboom!: This one is a lot of fun, and can only be used on Tik Tik (for reasons which will become apparent). You pick Tik Tik (so long as he does not have a Charge) token and Move him. You then roll a number of Attack dice equal to battle round number for each fighter within 2 hexes. If you roll any hammers you deal 1 damage. Crits however, deal 2 damage. Once you have finished dishing out damage, unfortunately Tik Tik is removed, as he cannot get away from his own bomb blowing up…

The general idea behind this warband is to throw your weaker fighters in to the fray early on, get them killed so that your stronger fighters can inspire. Ideally they should be paired with treasure/objective grabbing decks or aggressvie decks.

Tokens, Board, General Gubbins

Previously the box came with two double sided game boards. The playing surface for a game of Warhammer Underworlds was two of said boards pushed together.

Now you just have the one double sided game board which, well, reduces the playing field by 50% ensuring that you’ll be stuck in to combat a heck of a lot sooner in most cases.

You also get a refreshed token sheet (which is REALLY easy to punch out, as I accidentally show during the unboxing video) and dice. If you haven’t played Underworlds before then you’ll need to know they are unique to this game system, which hasn’t really undergone much change, aside from far less crit abilities.

You do also get some quick reference cards for choosing territories, as well as setting up the game and core abilities, which is a very nice touch.

The Rulebook

I found the previous rulebooks for Underworlds to be, well, OK, when it came to talking you through how to play Underworlds. I am pleased to say that this is the most comphensive rulebook so far when it comes to teaching you about playing the game.

Well constructed flow charts and clearly defined gameplay mechanics are easy to locate, read and work through allowing new players, returning veterans and currently Underworlds fans to run through beofre embarking on there first game of the new edition.

Everything is clearly explained, including the keywords, territories of the board and what each and every token does.

You play Underworlds in one of two ways. You can play it with one of the pre-built Rivals decks or using the rules for Nemesis Deck-Building. Yes, creating your own decks is back, for those craving more of a deck building exercise akin to many other card games.

Nemesis Deck Bulding is a little different. Instead of being able to draw from any current cards, from any Rivals decks, you instead can only choose two Rivals decks. You then create the deck of your dreams from the cards which come from those two chosen Rival decks only. Whilst this limits your creative freedom, it does help GW to balance the game out from a truly competive angle.

Both versions of using the decks again are clearly explained within the rulebook.

Wrapping up the book is a little bit of lore focusing on the location for Underworlds, as well as some background on the two included warbands. An Index is included right at the end for easy reference, and speaking of which a quick play reference sheet is on the back page.

The Rivals Decks

Over to the Rival decks, of which you get four in this box, which in my oppinion is great value.

Again have to reiterate that ANY deck can be used with ANY warband. So you can try some wierd and wacky combinations.

Each Rivals deck has a unique symbol on each card, so if your cards get mixed you can easily re-organise. You do also get a card which lists exactly what cards you get in that deck to make it even easier to re-sort out.

As before, you have two core types of cards. Objective cards which are basically your ‘missions’ and score you Glory points upon completion, and Power cards which are a combination of cards which grant you special/bonus rules and upgrade cards that you can spend your Glory on to attach to your fighters.

GW have done away with the artwork seen previously on these cards, and have replaced them with real models, albet it with a fair amount of Photoshop. I do admit, they do look very nice. I was a fan of the artwork however, and would have liked them to stay, and just keep the model imagery to the fighter and warbands cards.

Emberstone Sentinels

This deck is all about grabbing objectives and treasures in enemy and neutral territory, so expect your objective cards to require a lot of positioning and holding objectives.

The rest of the cards in the deck reflect this, so I’m seeing a fair amount of movement cards, as well as abilities to shift around treasure tokens. The upgrades focus on durability, to help you hold those objectives.

I’ve chosen a few examples below:

Pillage and Plunder

This one could be a little trickier to use, but rewards the players who manage to make the most of this deck.

Similar to the previous deck, this one requires you to move to feature tokens and then use the Delve action to flip them. The downside to Delve is that it gives your fighter Stagger, however there are some cards within this deck to counter this

There are some tasty damage dealing cards in this deck as well however. Again I’ve picked out some of my favourites below:

Blazing Assault

Grabbing treasure and objectives is fun, however, sometimes you just want to kill stuff, and that is where this deck comes in.

This is your aggressive deck, and it really wants to be paired with a warband that just wants to Charge at anything and everything. The cards in the deck help with this by focusing on movement, accuracy and damage.

This was the first deck I tried, paired with the Stormcast, and I feel it is the most straight forward one to use. However you really do need to be trying to Charge at every moment, so it isn’t a deck for those who want to place a more reserved game:

Countdown to Cataclysm

By far the most interesting deck in the box is this one.

It is a very unique deck, in that it really comes alive in Battle Rounds 2 and 3. It has a very interesting mechanic in which you have a little extra card to track the incoming cataclysm. As you progress on the track your cards become more powerful, hence the cards becoming more alive later in the game.

To move up the tracker you are strangely almost wanting your fighters to be slain, as well as trying to stop your opponent from grabbing objectives and treasures. This is probably not a deck to play within your first few games (haven’t tried it myself yet!) but I can totally see this being a very fun deck to play. I love it when you get little mechanics, such as the Cataclysm tracker, as it adds another element to your games.

Summary

I’m really happy that Underworlds is back with a shiny new edition, and I’m pleased that GW have taken this opportunity to revise the game for a new edition.

Less keywords is a big one for me, as well as the fact that the rulebook is so much clearer in what they do, which is something the older rulebooks I didn’t feel were very good at.

I like the introduction of Rivals decks, however giving them clear playstyles is brilliant. Without having experience with the deck you can now know at a glance which should work OK with your warband. The four in the box are all quite different, offering and rewarding different objectives and upgrades to suit the deck’s playstyle.

The miniatures are fantastic, and I really like what they have done with the fighter cards. By moving all the Insprire and Ability text to an overall warband card is a smart move, allowing your fighter cards to be clean and concise, showing you just the important at a glance stats, such as your Wounds, Movements and Attacks.

Having just the one board did concern me at first, however it seems to work really well, and helps speed up the game. Movement seems even more important now, and you don’t have the mass amount of wasted space now because of the changes to the board size. Now you can almost certainly have a game on your coffee table!

I’m really looking forward now to the new warbands and Rivals decks, and it’s completely revitalised me with regards to getting more games in. I have my eye on attending one or two Underworlds tournaments next year if I can.

Thank you for checking out this review, and our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us this box to review. Embergard is up for preorder now. If you preorder through one of our Element Games links it’ll not only help us out, but also help you to save money vs RRP too!