Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. This time, I’m going to dive into one of the new mechanics that was introduced in the Spitewood expansion – Aqua Ghyranis Feature Tokens. These new feature tokens add a little twist to the game by introducing additional potential glory and healing, but they also have a few other uses that are a little less obvious.

Before we look at those use cases, let’s quickly review the rules for the Aqua Ghyranis Feature Tokens. Also, that’s going to get tiring to type over and over so I’m just going to call them AG tokens from now on.

The obvious and potentially most important value that these tokens offer are an additional three glory. Scores in this edition of Underworlds have had much tighter margins than in the past. Control of AG tokens, both your own and the opponent’s, can result in up to a six glory swing which is game deciding in many cases. The heal has been less impactful in my experience, but it’s a nice-when-it-happens boost.

Aside from those two effects, the AG tokens also impact the game just from being feature tokens. While there are many effects that care specifically about treasure tokens or cover tokens, there are also many effects that only care about something being a feature token. The introduction of AG tokens brings the number of feature tokens on a board up from five to seven which is a substantial increase and gives many of these effects a nice boost in power.

On another note, there’s currently a little uncertainty on when these tokens are used. According to the booklet that comes with Spitewood, the two sides of the AG tokens correspond to the different boards – Embergard’s and Spitewood’s. To me, this makes it sound like it’s intended to use these tokens on both of those boards. However, at Worlds, it was ruled that only the Spitewood boards would use the AG tokens. If a player won the roll-off and chose the Embergard board, the AG tokens set left aside and not used. Until we get an official answer from GW, I guess it’s up in the air. I’m continuing to use them on each board because that’s what it seems like was intended and because the rulings at Worlds are specifically called out as being only valid for that event. Maybe this changes, maybe not. In either case, the upcoming notes will still be applicable any time the AG tokens are used.

Rivals Decks

First up, let’s look at individual cards in each of the decks and pull out ones that talk about feature tokens. In the past, these cards only had the five treasure/cover tokens to trigger them, but now that boards also have two AG tokens kicking around, there are more potential ways to make these cards do their things.

Emberstone Sentinels

Unsurprisingly, the only Take and Hold deck right now mostly cares about treasure tokens and many of its cards spell that requirement out. It means you won’t be able to score any of your objectives by substituting an AG token for a treasure token, but there are still two power cards that can benefit from these new feature tokens.

The first is The Extra Mile. In my earlier article about push and teleport cards, I mention how this is essentially a severely limited version of Sidestep. Even with these restrictions, The Extra Mile sees play in some Nemesis pairings with the Emberstone Sentinels deck because it allows for a little extra reach on your fighters to secure remote treasure tokens. Conveniently, AG tokens also tend to be tucked away in the far edges of your opponent’s backfield and this can help an otherwise out of range fighter reach that juicy pool of glory and healing.

More commonly seen in decks is Settle In. When your scoring is gated behind staying in one spot, being able to pick up a guard token that prevents drive back and makes that fighter a little more durable goes a long way. This will typically be used to ensure scoring something like Supremacy or Iron Grasp (worth three and two glory, respectively) but if those have already been scored by the time you draw Settle In, it can also be used to snag yourself a glory and a heal off of an AG token.

Pillage & Plunder

This is another deck that innately cares about the feature tokens on the board. One of the big drivers of this deck is delving. Going by the rules in the rulebook for delving, AG tokens are perfectly viable delve targets, so their inclusion means there are now seven tokens on the board which can be delved instead of the usual five. Sure, the other side of an AG token is still an AG token so it’s not really changing the game state any, but it does count as delving which is all some objectives care about.

Claim the Prize just requires one of your fighters to delve and doesn’t care what they’re delving. This means the AG tokens are perfectly viable targets. Typically, the enemy AG token is going to be tucked pretty far away and not be any easier to reach than a treasure/cover token in enemy territory, but it’s at least one more potential landing spot and makes this difficult to block surge even harder to prevent.

Speaking of hard to counter objectives, Delving for Wealth is the other restricted card in Pillage & Plunder. It, like Claim the Prize, doesn’t care what your fighters are delving as long as they do it three times. Again, this likely won’t be the main route to scoring this objective but there are a few niche cases where it can come in handy. For instance, delving AG tokens if you’re up against Deadly Synergy in order to never hold a treasure token which can block them from scoring Closed Down.

Share the Load is another commonly seen objective, but this one doesn’t even care about delving. The fact that both sides are guaranteed to have an AG token in their territory means that even if you “win” the roll off and are stuck with only two treasure tokens to place, you will always have at least three feature tokens in your territory. Assuming your plan involves feature tokens in any way whatsoever (and given that this is in P&P, it will) then this easy to score objective becomes even more reliable with AG tokens in play.

The weapon upgrade Burrowing Strike doesn’t gain a ton from the inclusion of AG tokens, but being able to bump the accuracy up a notch is welcome. It even gives a fighter stationed on an AG token a bit of reach so they can still contribute to the fight without abandoning their post.

Countdown to Cataclysm

While there are no cards in the Countdown to Cataclysm deck that care about generic feature tokens, it’s still probably the most impacted deck from the inclusion of AG tokens. The cataclysm tracker itself goes up by one value for each feature token your opponent does not have a fighter on, so the tracker climbs so much faster than it previously has. In many cases, this is beneficial – it makes your pings from Improvised Attack, Sunder the Realm, and Total Collapse more reliable while also making Utter Conviction’s save value skyrocket.

On the other hand, because your tracker is climbing up so fast, it can make scoring more difficult for the deck. Wreckers becomes even harder to score when your threshold for damaged/slain enemy fighters keep climbing with the tracker. Collateral Damage can even become unscorable if your cataclysm tracker caps out – once it’s at the highest value, it can’t increase which means this objective can never be scored.

Edge of the Knife

This deck brings Behind Enemy Lines, another objective that gets easier to score with the introduction of AG tokens. The very nature of this objective requires you to invade the enemy territory anyway, so using an AG token to score it is even more tempting – gain one glory now, then potentially one more at the end of the round if your opponent can’t stop you.

Hunting Grounds

One of the decks packed in the Spitewood box also has the most indirect interactions with AG tokens. There are six cards here that care genetically about feature tokens, which is nearly as many as all the rest of the decks have combined. Between these cards, as well as some others not mentioned here (such as Pinned!), there’s reasonable merit for placing your own AG token a little closer to the opponent than usual to serve as tempting bait.

Hands Off! is convenient because you’re typically going to want to drive your opponent off of feature tokens if they’re trying to stand on them anyway. For some warbands and game plans, they’re going to naturally want to do this. Against an aggressive opponent who doesn’t care about feature tokens, the introduction of AG tokens gives them a reason to want to. Otherwise, you’re limited to working pretty hard to drive enemies back onto a token just so you can drive them off again.

Usurped does technically get better when there are more feature tokens on the board, but the criteria for scoring it is still so narrow that it’s not worth taking. Literally the only way you can score this is if your opponent has a fighter on a feature token, you attack with an adjacent fighter, and you are able to roll enough critical hit results to trigger an overrun. This is too unlikely and requires too much setup and luck to really be worthwhile, even if there were another handful of extra feature tokens scattered around.

The deck also has three ploys and one upgrade that care about enemy fighters being adjacent to feature tokens in your territory – Hidden Snares, Poor Footing, Secrets of the Realm and Hidden Traps can have a surprisingly large amount of reach if you assume there are three to four feature tokens on your side of the board. Each feature token creates a little seven-hex bubble and that results in far fewer safe places for your opponent than it seems at first.

Warbands

Rivals Decks aren’t the only things that get a little boost from the introduction of AG tokens. Many warbands also feature warscrolls that can benefit from having more feature tokens on the board. I’m breaking them up by grand alliance, so let’s dive in.

Chaos

Alright, so this isn’t the strongest start but Chaos doesn’t have anything right now that cares about AG tokens. Khagra’s Ravagers and the Dread Pageant are very particular on caring about treasure tokens. The Blood of the Bull has delve synergies, but only for delving treasure tokens so they can’t benefit either.

Death

Zondara’s Gravebreakers

Speaking of delve synergies, Zondara’s Gravebreakers surely don’t mind having more places to dig up. The aptly named Gravebreakers ability triggers when “a friendly minion delves” so it’s perfectly fine to send Pikk over to a well of magic water and have him dig up Toyle. This gives the warband more places to be able to park the zombies to perform these useful delves, resulting either in raising slain fighters or drawing more cards.

Destruction

Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers

Everwinter Ambush doesn’t technically fit in this list. In fact, it gets worse with the introduction of AG tokens. Thrafnir can’t be placed in a hex with a feature token, so  your opponent can place their own AG token to block Thrafnir from starting in a certain location. It’s an edge case and probably not enough reason to get your opponent to move the AG token even closer to Hrothgorn himself, but it’s worth keeping in mind when playing as or against the Mantrappers.

Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz

Borgit, like Zondara, brings another generic delve synergy. Your fighters inspire when they delve, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re delving a treasure, cover, or AG token. There’s some potential here in running one of the weaker goblins in the back field of your opponent’s territory to camp on their AG token for scoring purposes, but you can also get a “free” inspire out of it.

Order

Thundrik’s Profiteers

The warband is slow as hell, but By the Code gives them a much needed boost to maneuverability as long as they end the push on a feature token. I can’t imagine this ability will be used to secure an AG token very often when they’re so often taking Emberstone Sentinels or other hold decks, but it can be done and if knowing little edge cases like this can come in handy once every dozen games, it is still worth thinking about.

Starblood Stalkers

Kixi-Taka already has a very strong ability in The Diviner. Being able to inflict a damage without any dice rolls or caring if the enemy is vulnerable is quite threatening and it can be used up to three times in a single game. As I mentioned up in the Hunting Grounds discussion, each feature token creates a little seven-hex bubble of danger when Kixi-Taka is on the board. Adding AG tokens to the mix – your own and your opponent’s – creates even more hazardous areas for your opponent to try and navigate around.

Xandire’s Truthseekers

Re-rolls are good, and Raptor’s Eye (along with a conveniently placed Taros) can grant it for your fighters when the enemy chooses to stand on an AG token. Technically, Xandire’s Truthseekers also can use Seeker’s Strike to flip any feature token, but there’s zero reason to do this to an AG token since they’re identical on both sides. Maybe you really prefer the “jar of magic water” look over the “bathtub of magic water” look. I won’t judge you.

Shadeborn

Gloomweb Hex is another seven-hex bubble that can take advantage of AG tokens as well. It makes it much harder for the opponent to position their valuable fighter somewhere where they can’t be hit by this ability and made susceptible to a deadly elf dive, even if that target isn’t intentionally standing on or near a token.

Feature Creep

Aqua Ghyranis Feature Tokens have a fair bit of impact on the game even outside of their bonus glory and healing. Some warbands and decks picked up a little boost merely from the existence of more feature tokens in the game. Keep a look out for any future warbands or decks that come out and pay close attention to whether they mention feature tokens, treasure tokens, or cover tokens – you never know when something will turn out to be slightly better or worse than it appears at first glance.

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