It feels like a lot of time has passed since the arrival of a brand new revamped Warhammer Underworlds. It also, IMO, feels like the game didn’t get the fresh hyped restart it wanted.

With that said, the game is still doing well (to my knowledge anyway!) and I still enjoy playing it too. With that in mind, I always enjoy a new warband dropping for the game, as well as new decks.

Today, one of each is up for preorder. On the warband front is the Knives of the Crone, a Daughters of Khaine force ready to tear up Underworlds. Alongside them is a brand new Rivals deck, Realmstone Raiders, of which is a Mastery deck.

Our thanks to Games Workshop for sending both to us to unbox and review for you folks. You can preorder both items now, and if you fancy saving some cash and helping us out you can preorder through our affiliates over at Element Games. 

Before we get stuck into the reviews you can watch the unboxing of both below, with a look at the completed models at the end of the video as well.

With the introduction out of the way, let us take a closer look at both products, starting with the Knives of the Crone.

Warhammer Underworlds Knives of the Crone

Unboxing and Assembling

Since the first edition of the game dropped, their are two things which have stayed true since the beginning. The first one is that the sprues the warbands come on are coloured plastic, allowing you and your opponent to assemble your minis and play immediately, without painting them, as both of your warbands (so long as you aren’t playing the same warband that is) will be a different colour of plastic. 

In this case, the Daughters come on a deep purple coloured sprue.

The second thing that has never changed is that these models are easy-to-build kits, requiring no glue to assemble. 

Straight off the bat, I want to get this out of the way. I didn’t really enjoy building these models. And here is why.

Easy-build kits are all well and good, however from experience I have always had issues when it comes to ‘thin’ models. The Daughters fall in to this category. 

You see, whilst I try to ensure that I have clipped and removed any access bits of sprue, I always find with some of the push in connections that they are a bit of a fiddle or tight fit. I’ve built so many Underworlds models and I’m talking from experience when I say some of them require the balancing of parts of the model and a third arm (Genestealer Cultists have the right idea) to assemble some of these Underworld warbands. Azphel, for example, the crossbow armed character from this warband requires you to balance two parts so that a third part can fit and push in over the top, locking all the parts into place.

Some of you may be thinking that you’ve never experienced issues with the assembly of some of these models, however I can guarantee someone will be reading this and nodding along, hopefully agreeing with me. 

When you are pushing some of the tight parts together, you have to apply pressure, which is something little arms and legs don’t take too kindly too. I’ll admit right now that I snapped part of Kaerna’s head piece, and had to use glue to repair. I almost snapped at least 3 ankles. 

If I were new to the hobby, I would be frustrated by easy build kits such as this. I honestly think it would be easier to have a traditional kit. 

With my rant out of the way, I have to admit that I do really like the sculpts. Following the announcement I was a little underwhelmed, however having them in my paws they’ve really grown on me. They do have a fair bit of character. I’m really looking forward to putting some paint on these ladies. 

Knives of the Crone Mechanics

This is, simply, a Mastery warband, thanks to it’s mechanics and the stat cards for the 4 fighters. Being only 4 models with the lesser end of wounds, you can already begin to imagine how careful you’ll need to be when playing games of Warhammer Underworlds. 

In the same breath however, after seeing the fighter’s cards, they do pack a bit of a punch. Perhaps just falling short of being deemed an alternative Strike warband.

Before we look at each of the individual fighters, let’s see how the warband works. 

The warband card shows us that the team main abilities for these models are Visions in the Blood and Rituals of Prophecy. 

Rituals of Prophecy is the main rule here and is broken down in to two sections. One is a series of rules on how to use the second section, which is a small table of buffs. 

At the start of the first action step in each battle round you can choose to make a prophecy roll, which is done by rolling 4 Attack dice. Depending on the results on said 4 dice, this decides what happens next:

• If the roll contains 1 result which matches a combination of results in the Propechy table, then you can that buff.
• If the 4 dice give you the right icons to match 2 from the table, then both buffs become active. 
• If the roll contains 3 of the same symbol, then you can simply pick one of the prophecies to become active.
• 4 of the same symbol means you get to choose 2 to become active.
• If your roll includes a crit, then you can choose which symbol this represents.

So, you are probably wondering what buffs are on offer? Well…

• Two Crossed Swords – Foretold Slaughter – The next time you pick a melee weapon as part of an attack, you gain the Critcal Grievous special rule
• Two Hammers – Foretold Wisdom – You get to view the next Objective card from your deck, and get to choose to either leave it where it is for you to draw, or slip it to the bottom of the pack.
• Two Supports / Two Half Supports / One Half and one Full Support – Foretold Protection – The next time you have to make a save roll you can immediately re-roll 1 of the save dice.

Pretty cool abilities. Nothing ground breaking, but decent abilities that will help the warband.

Visions in the Blood allows you another chance art the Prophecy table. This ability kicks in immediately after a friendly fighter has a successful Attack action.

The only other ability on the card is of course the Inspire mechanic.If Foretold Wisdom is foretold after a friendly fighter’s successful Attack action as a result of the Visions in the Blood ability, then that fighter Inspires. A little wordy, but OK. 

So, what about the 4 fighters? What are they like? 

Kaerna Vix – This is your leader, and she’s pretty good, as you can see by her stat card. Would have liked her damage to increase when inspired however.

Krieta – Almost like a little mini Crone. She has the same movement, which is a little surprising. Gets a nice number of Attack dice, and speaking of her melee prowess her damage goes from 1-to-2 when inspired

Tazari – Has the option of two weapon profile, one which has a little range thanks to her spear, whilst the other trades that bit of distance to extra damage. Her basic stats are the same as the previous two which is cool. Once Inspired her weapon profiles basically blend in to one.

Azphel – The main, ranged, damage dealer with a 3 Hex shot. Has 1 less health than the ladies in the group. Gains an additional dodge dice when inspired. 

I mean, they are…fine..really. Nothing particularly outstanding. My initial gut feelings, when compared to other Elite warbands, these may be the trickiest to use. With that said, I do feel like these could be a lot of fun to play games with. 

As is the way with Underworlds nowadays, that’s it for the box, but we do have a Rivals deck to check out next…

Realmstone Raiders – Rivals Deck

The Rivals decks that come out alongside a warband tends to lean in to whatever that warband is. So in this instance we have a Mastery deck in the Realmstone Raiders, so this deck should suit the Knives of the Crone down to the ground.

As always however, any Underworlds warband can use this deck.

Let’s start off by looking at the deck’s mechanics…

Immediately after the first successful friendly melee Attack in an Action step, you can raid a number of times equal to the Bounty value of the target you are fighting. To Raid, you basically reveal the top card from your Power deck. That card is now ‘raided’. If the reveled card is an Emberstone Card, you can either use it, or place it back at the top OR bottom of your Power deck. 

If it is an Emberstone card then it gets the following additional rules:

• Emberstone Ploy – You can play this Ploy immediately
• Emberstone Upgrade – You can equip this upgrade immediately if you have the Glory available to do so. 

Should the revealed card NOT be an Emberstone card, then simply put that card on the bottom of your Power deck.  

Objective Cards

As you can imagine, scoring with this deck relies heavily on the above mechanic, as well as treasure tokens and the use of your Emberstone cards. Interestingly, no Objective card is worth more than 2 Glory, however this is well reflected in how you score them. It 100% feels like a ‘score early and quickly’ style deck, which really favours the heavy on attack, light on defence of the Knives of the Crone for example.

I’ve found some objective cards this season to be a little over complicated, whilst this deck isn’t, which I really like. 

Ploy Cards

As you can see, there are some very tricksy cards here, ranging from raiding at range to denying enemy fighters movements. 

The Emberstone Ploys could be a little situational, but thanks to the deck’s mechanic you could find more opportunities to make use of them. 

Upgrade Cards

IMO this is my favourite part of the deck, as it includes some very tasty upgrades, as well as a number of regularly seen relics, such as 1 pip of additional health. 

Brightstone Vigour could be a fun card to pull whilst you are raiding, potentially saving the life of one of your characters. 

Their is a really nice mix here of cards, thanks mainly to a good selection of easy to read and action objective cards and some fun upgrade cards. Add in the fun Raiding mechanic, and this for me is probably one of my favourite Rivals decks so far. 

Summary

They’ve had a warm-ish reception from what I have seen online, but I have to say the models for the Knives of the Crone have certainly grown on me, expeditiously so since spraying them. You have to ensure you take your time when assembling though, and do not apply too much pressure on the minis, otherwise you’ll be reaching for the glue.

The stats of them are OK. They feel to me like the upper level of difficulty. Elite in squad size, and in the nature of there defence, they could take some practice and patience, however my immediate impression is it’ll be an enjoyable experience. 

I strongly believe the accompanying preorder, the Realmstone Raiders Rivals deck perfectly goes hand in hand with how the Crone worshippers work, and will produce some great combos. They are certainly a warband and Rivals deck combo I’d like to try out ASAP. 

Whilst being a Mastery deck, my gut really fancies using this deck alongside my Sarus Warriors, so I’ll probably give that pairing an outing very soon.

Both are solid purchases if you are into Underworlds, in particular the Rivals deck. 

Now to convince GW to ditch easy build kits…

Our thanks again to GW for supplying both products to unbox and review, and a further reminder that you can PREORDER RIGHT NOW from our affiliates over at Element Games.