Welcome to another Warhammer Underworlds preorder day. The Knives of the Crone warband comes swooping in alongside the Realmstone Raiders Rivals deck. If you want to read about the new deck, you can do so here. This article is all about the latest elf-filled Mastery warband! I’d like to express thanks to Games Workshop providing this warband for review.

The Knives of the Crone are an Order warband and the first Daughters of Khaine warband to be Organized Play legal in the Embergard season. Their inclusion brings the options for Order warbands to 11 – three more than any other Grand Alliance. The total number of OP warbands is now a whopping 35.

The Knives are considered to be a Mastery warband, likely due to how their warscroll is primarily just one ability that takes the whole warscroll to spell out. As usual, “Mastery” doesn’t give you much information on how they actually play aside from “they’re going to do something a little weird” so let’s take a closer look.

With a warscroll that makes me initially think of Grandfather’s Gardeners due to its layout, the Knives of the Crone have four different boxes on their warscroll but it’s really all just different aspects of Rituals of Prophecy and the corresponding Prophecy Table.

Even their Inspire condition is tied to the prophecy mechanic and requires a fighter to use the Visions of Blood ability (which we’ll look at a little later) to trigger a Foretold Wisdom (which we’ll look at sooner than later). On first read none of that makes sense but keep it in mind. The slight spoiler version is that these fighters will inspire after a successful attack… sometimes. It’s vaguely like Ironsoul’s Condemnors, where you’re going to be doing attacks and if the dice favor you even more than usual, you’ll get to flip a fighter over.

The Rituals of Prophecy rule sets up the three times in a game when you are guaranteed to make a prophecy roll – at the start of the first Action step of each round. Since there are three rounds in a game, that’s three prophecy rolls no matter what else happens while playing. You’re going to wind up getting more rolls, but let’s look at what the rolls actually are first.

Foretold Slaughter is the first listed option, and it’s also going to be the most uncommon result to turn up naturally when rolling dice. It requires two swords and each attack dice only has swords on one face, so an individual dice (yes, I know singular is die but the Underworlds rules call a single one a dice so cut me some slack) has a ⅙ chance of rolling swords. Your reward for getting this rare outcome is… critical grievous on your next attack in this battle round. Critical weapon effects are not something I ever want to count on unless I can heavily stack the deck (er… dice?) in my favor. I want things like a re-roll or rolling four or more dice in the attack before I put much weight on the existence of any critical effect. Getting ahead of ourselves and looking at the fighter cards, only one fighter natively has a four dice attack. The rest are mostly two dice with the uncommon three dice showing up on one uninspired side and one inspired side for two different fighters. Being able to foretell slaughter is uncommon, but so is actually committing it. If you’re in a position, typically in the late game, where you have one fighter stacked with additional dice or re-roll granting upgrades, you can leverage the additional damage and become more threatening than their fighter cards would otherwise imply.

The next prophecy is Foretold Wisdom, which requires two hammers. Each attack dice has two hammers, so the chances are double that of getting a sword which means Wisdom is going to be more common than Slaughter. The effect itself is an exciting one because it allows for objective deck manipulation. This isn’t something that we’ve seen in any of the 34 other warbands in the Embergard season. This kind of top deck manipulation can tuck away objectives that you aren’t ready to score yet, help you dig deeper for that one key objective you are in position to score, or just let you take a peek without bottoming the card and prepare for what’s coming ahead. In theory, this could lead to building a slightly chunkier objective deck with more situational cards with the intent that you filter through and score what’s appropriate at the time. In reality, it’s probably best to keep the deck fairly lean and focused and just use Foretold Wisdom to become even more reliable (and inspire your fighters).

The final prophecy is Foretold Protection, which is achieved through any mix of flanked or surrounded results. It’s effectively the same rarity as achieving Foretold Wisdom, since each dice has one of each flanked and surrounded, so you’re still looking at two faces per dice counting toward this outcome. Protection, in this case, means the option of re-rolling one of your save dice when you make a save roll. Two things that I feel are worth pointing out here. First, the benefit is the opportunity for a re-roll. You aren’t able to bank the re-roll and save it across multiple attacks. The first time you have to make a save roll, your foretold protection is immediately consumed whether you choose to make the re-roll or not. The second is that the way I am reading it, multiple Foretold Protection instances will stack for your next save roll. The caveat is that per the Underworlds rules, you can’t re-roll a re-roll, so you’ll only benefit if your fighter has multiple save dice. Once again peeking ahead, this is always the case for your leader and only the case for your other fighters when they are inspired. And, considering the entire warband is on dodge, any re-rolls are going to be welcome here.

Critical results on the prophecy rolls function as a wild card and can be used to help nudge the prophecy in whatever direction is most beneficial for you at the time. Rolling crits, unsurprisingly, is good!

The last twist for this whole prophecy nonsense is that you get a bonus if you roll more than two matching symbols. If you get three, you’re able to pick your prophecy at will regardless of which symbols are shown. If all four dice match, you get to take your pick of any two (different) prophecies. Lucky you!

Due to the fact that there are (effectively) only three dice results for each dice and you’re rolling four of them, you’re always going to unlock at least one prophecy each time it gets triggered. There’s a little more control over what you’ll be getting due to the inclusion of wild cards with crits and the fact that any 3- or 4-of-a-kind results let you choose the effects regardless of what the dice themselves say.

Visions of Blood is the next effect to look at on the warscroll. It’s a short one, but quite impactful for how the warband will play. Instead of being limited to three rolls in the game, you also get a bonus Rituals of Prophecy roll any time a fighter makes a successful attack. It’s also the key to inspiring your fighters if you can get a Foretold Wisdom off of it as well. These lines of text, more than anything else in my eyes, push this warband into wanting to be aggressive. If you’re not making attacks, you can’t have Visions of Blood.

This warscroll doesn’t provide a lot of tools. Many warbands offer what are effectively extra ploy cards in your hand from turn one which give you some flexibility and reliability. Given that the entire prophecy mechanic is based on rolling dice, there’s not a lot of reliability here; nor will you find much flexibility because the effects are, for the most part, out of your control (barring using your critical wild cards or getting a 3- or 4-of-a-kind roll).

Let’s turn our attention over to the fighter cards now and see if they offer enough oomph to make up for what I initially see as an anemic warscroll.

Knives of the Crone Fighters

As far as leaders go, Kaerna Vix is… fine. Average health, a decent 4 move, and her save being 2 dodge is not something I’d brag about but it can do some work especially if you’re able to reliably have a re-roll and/or pack any guard tech. The whole schtick of this flavor of elves is the lightly armored, glass cannon archetype so we’re not too far off base. Maybe picking up an extra hex of movement when inspired would be nice but I’ve found 4 is perfectly adequate for the somewhat smaller playing area that Embergard’s board brings.

Offensively, I’m a little more let down. Uninspired, she has a neutered version of the “leader stick” – it doesn’t have the flexibility of a longer range at less damage, nor does it gain anything on the range 1 profile to make up for the lack of flexibility. I mentioned it in the Foretold Slaughter section above, but I’d really expect more of these fighters to have a higher amount of dice on swords than a lower amount on hammers. It’s going to be tricky to trigger critical grievous with her 2H attack. Inspired, she can fish for those crits a little more reliably, but being able to deal 3 damage with Kaerna is still not something I’d want to bank on even when she’s inspired.

At 2 bounty, you’re not particularly incentivized to protect her over any of the other fighters. Ditto because none of the warscroll abilities are keyed off of your leader, so let’s see if she stands out from the rest of her team in any way.

Starting at 1 dodge but otherwise very similar to the leader’s defensive profile, Krieta is going to want to inspire quickly to fully upgrade into that 2 dodge. The importance of Foretold Protection is becoming more and more obvious as we get through these fighters. Interestingly, she also gains fly when inspired. That big flapping cloak isn’t just for looks!

Krieta sports the type of weapon profile I would have expected based on a warband who’s only offensive boost is by granting critical grievous. At four swords, you’ve got a pretty swingy attack that will gain substantial accuracy with any flanking you can pull off while also benefiting strongly from Foretold Slaughter. That’s good, because at a base 1 damage her uninspired side is less “glass cannon” and more “glass spitball” unless you can spike a critical result. Inspired, she natively picks up an extra damage while still benefiting just as much from Foretold Slaughter by retaining 4 dice.

Mimicking Kaerna, Krieta is also worth 2 bounty when slain.

Tazari again sports the same 4 health and 4 move common through this warband so far, as well as 1 dodge for the save like all the non-leaders have. He also upgrades into a much better 2 dodge once inspired. Like his fellow cloak wearing compatriot, Tazari also gains fly when inspired for a bit of extra maneuverability.

Offensively, Tazari manages to have a better weapon profile than the leader of the warband which isn’t very common, especially considering he isn’t a hulking troll being lead by a little goblin. The range 1 profile mirrors Kaerna’s range 1 attack, but Tazari can also reach out and poke someone with a range 2 melee attack. It trades out the typical 2 hammer, 1 damage profile for 3 swords which is reasonably close in terms of accuracy, but also helps to trigger Foretold Slaughter since it’s one more dice being rolled to fish for that critical result. Inspiring does lose this third dice option, but a range 2, 2 hammer, 2 damage attack isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I kind of wish he would have kept the 3 sword profile instead of 2 hammers just for the extra warscroll synergy, but the final profile is certainly a respectable weapon.

Unsurprisingly, Tazari is also a 2 bounty fighter which means all of your melee fighters are going to be fairly interchangeable and your opponent isn’t particularly rewarded for going after one over another.

One of the first things most people noticed is that Azphel is the only model with shoes in this warband. That certainly was a choice by GW, but I’ll leave it there and move on.

Azphel’s the most frail of the bunch with only 3 health. Otherwise it’s the standard profile for this warband of of 4 move and 1 dodge, with inspiring bumping the save up to 2 dice instead. Unlike Tazari or Krieta, he didn’t bring a fancy feather cloak on this trip to Embergard, so he won’t be flying any time soon.

Azphel is the warband’s only ranged combatant. He technically has a melee attack, but given that it’s the same damage but with fewer dice than his ranged attack, it won’t be your choice too many times. Maybe if you’re desperate and trying for something that specifically requires a melee attack (such as an objective or crossing your fingers to trigger Foretold Slaughter), but otherwise stick to the better crossbow shot. Uninspired, it’s fine but once inspired rolling 3 hammers is a solid profile at 3 range. Fortunately, Visions of Blood doesn’t require a successful melee attack, just any successful attack, so you can lean on the better profile to flip this fighter.

Corresponding with the lower health and fact that he’s too much of a coward to show his toes, Azphel is only worth 1 bounty.

Deck Pairings for Knives of the Crone

As for deck pairings, the Knives of the Crone’s prophecy mechanic, inspiration, and one of the prophecy results all center around making successful attacks. My first inclination is to try an aggressive deck that (with a little luck) can cause these elves to hit above their weight class.

For Rivals, I’d grab Blazing Assault despite the albatross of Annihilation hanging around the neck of that deck. The power cards available in this deck continue to prove to be a solid list of bangers, even if the end phase objectives aren’t the best. It also presents the most additional dice / dice re-rolls of the existing Rivals decks to get the most out of Foretold Slaughter to help this warband punch up a little better. With any luck you’ll be able to use Foretold Wisdom to tuck Annihilation to the bottom of your objective deck and save it for the end of the game.

For Nemesis, I’d like to continue to leverage the Blazing Assault power cards but also shore up the weakness of objectives with another deck. Pillage and Plunder would help shore up the objective suite from Blazing Assault while also offering additional re-rolls through Brash Scout plus access to another Guard ploy to help keep your fragile fighters around longer. My first take is something like this. Good ol’ reliable Countdown to Cataclysm has absurdly reliable end phase scoring, more stagger tech and some useful pings. Despite being kneecapped by the Forsaken and Restricted update a few months ago, Reckless Fury can still offer enough incentive to a hyper aggressive plan be a good pairing with Blazing Assault as well.

On the whole, I feel like this warband is a little weaker than the average among the 35 Organized Play legal warband options. I don’t want to do too many direct comparisons, but when I line them up against other four fighter warbands they don’t stack up favorably — even if you limit it solely to looking at the other elf options. The Knives of the Crone are not unplayable (far from it!) but I foresee their rather sparse warscroll and average fighter stats holding them back. Time will tell, and I fully expect to see them win some event somewhere. It feels like any time someone writes a warband off as nonviable, they win a tournament. Dread Pageant and Sepulchral Guard have done it very recently. Maybe Knives of the Crone will win at the Maryland Goonhammer Open?

Speaking of the Maryland Goonhammer Open, tickets are available now! It will be in Baltimore on July 6, 2025. There’s an invitation to the World Championship of Warhammer on the line along with a bunch of other prizes – and it won’t just be podium placers who can walk away with swag! Check out this post for more details.

If you haven’t already, check out my write up for Realmstone Raiders – the latest Rivals deck that is also on preorder now.

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