Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. We’re in a point of time where Embergard was announced a little over a year ago and are rapidly approaching its one-year birthday. I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the early coverage the new edition received here at Goonhammer. In particular, there were two teaser reaction articles that I did – one from October 9, 2024 and the other on October 23, 2024 – and the initial review covering the Embergard Core Rules & Unboxing. I remember watching the teaser videos Games Workshop put out multiple times and re-reading each of the Warhammer Community hype articles. It worked! I was hyped.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Without a doubt, the biggest shift that Embergard brought the game was a completely new set of rules. This was a full edition reset akin to what other Games Workshop games experience roughly every three years. Before this, Underworlds existed in a fairly unique state for a Games Workshop game where the rules had received minor tweaks, but had largely remained the same since the initial release in 2017. I’m going to touch briefly on some of the biggest changes that Embergard brought the game and reflect on how I feel about them after playing the game for a year.

The Board

Among all the changes, the shift in how the playing boards were handled is one of the most significant and easily noticed ones. For those of you who have joined the game in the last year (or perhaps have just forgotten the past which is an enviable skill) the previous edition of the game had a very unique mechanic where each player would choose a board and then the two would get placed side-by-side to form the playing area. This was something that grabbed me immediately when checking out the game. I loved how both players had agency in shaping the battlefield and how it could be a unique setup, especially given how many boards there were to choose from. I just went off vibes for a while and even had a memorable game with Goonhammer’s own Greg where we picked options based on which ones looked most like metal album covers.

The cracks started to form for me once I began to delve deeper into how to make the most of board selection. It was a surprisingly intricate choice and it had a massive impact on how the game played out. There were countless games when I was learning where one of the players chose a particular board or orientation and lost the game before turn 1. That’s a thoroughly unsatisfying way to spend game time, whether it’s a friendly pick up game with family or a match at a tournament. One could argue this just meant there was room for system mastery and flexing your skill at the game. This isn’t wrong! Some people really did have a firm grasp on how board selection worked and leveraged it to their advantage. I wound up just defaulting to a couple of the very generic boards once I realized they were the least likely to screw me over.

All in all, I thought the old method of having two boards was an innovative idea but I have since realized that I didn’t enjoy how it was implemented. After spending the last year with only a single board, the number of non-games I have played due to someone unknowingly shooting themselves in the foot during setup is next to zero. I’ll admit it has started to feel a little repetitive, but I prefer it to the alternative of having to lug around a dozen boards or having the feels-bad experience of sitting down across from someone only for them to pull out a board that has since rotated out of being a legal choice. Plus, the Spitewood teasers have already shown us that we are getting a new board and some feature tokens to shake things up.

Pros: Fewer non-games, less time taken up before the game can start, fewer things to carry around, reduced decision paralysis

Cons: Reduced ability for skilled players to express game mastery, fewer cool art designs being introduced, fewer options can lead to feeling stale after a year

Warbands

The other huge shift in how the game was structured is how warbands were handled. The fighter cards had a lot more going on than they do in Embergard. While the very earliest releases were pretty light on card text, by the end of the edition we were receiving warbands that had paragraphs of text split up across multiple fighter cards. In addition to multiple text boxes on fighter cards, their weapons would all have unique names and would often have some flavor text if there was any space left on the card. The contrast between modern cards is quite jarring – I haven’t looked at the old cards in a long time, and seeing them again didn’t exactly make me pine for the good ol’ days. The simplicity of Embergard fighter cards makes them a lot easier to read at a glance.

Some warbands had their own plot cards for when the special rules wouldn’t fit on the fighter cards themselves. These weren’t super common, but did exist – at the end of the last edition, there were seven warbands that utilized plot cards to squeeze some extra unique rules into play.

Speaking of cards, warbands used to come with unique Rivals decks (well… after the Rivals format was established, so the first couple years didn’t). You could use these decks as-is for playing the Rivals format, or you could combine your warband’s deck with another universal deck for playing Nemesis. The cool part about this is that you had 32 full cards to cram in unique effects and characterful abilities for each warband. Having so many unique cards helped each warband feel different from each other. There might be two elite aggro warbands, but one might have a bunch of forced movement and pings while the other emphasizes how durable the fighters are. Plus it was 32 more instances of card art and flavor text for the warbands to shine.

However, this also meant that a warband’s viability was heavily dependant on how good their unique deck was. Many of the warbands were hampered with subpar decks, so you’d need to rely more heavily on the paired universal deck in Nemesis to be able to get anything out of them. It was certainly possible as many strong players proved, but it meant it was an uphill battle that the warbands couldn’t do anything about. This also meant that not only were there around 16 universal decks in consideration for events, but 50+ warband decks as well if you wanted to try and be familiar with anything you could run into. That’s a massive ask for players, but if you didn’t spend that effort it was entirely possible to get caught unprepared when someone whipped out some bizarre objective or ploy. That can still happen, but the mental burden of becoming familiar with 11 decks is a lot less than 60+.

Embergard also introduced warscrolls which basically combine the idea of warband plot cards, unique fighter abilities, and some of the aspects of unique warband Rivals decks. They’re a lot larger than a normal card, so there’s more room to cram stuff on them. That said they’re not as big as 35+ cards, so they can’t fit every bit of flavor that warbands had previously. I do think they hit the high notes for most options, and I like the fact that warscrolls are “face up” information. If you’ve never played against a warband before, you can just read their warscroll and be good to go. You don’t need to wonder what 32 different cards do.

Pros: Cleaner cards, lower burden of familiarity, less reliance on getting “lucky” with having a good warband Rivals deck.

Cons: Loss of distinct flavor whether from unique cards or weapon names; the loss of faction specific objectives in particular means warbands can feel more same-y when playing.

Rivals Decks

As touched on in the above section, there used to be unique Rivals decks for each warband as well as the universal decks that anyone could use. Embergard did away with this, making all the decks into universal decks. The contents are still mostly the same – 12 objective cards and 20 power cards – so this is less of a radical departure as the other changes. The layout of the cards themselves changed and the controversial decision to replace illustrations with photography was made. The illustrations vs photos thing only vaguely annoyed me at the start, but I quickly came around. The photos look fine. I honestly don’t even notice it anymore and it’s a non-factor for me. I’m curious if anyone feels strongly one way or another about it a year later.

The ability for any warband to use any deck is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it’s incredibly freeing to have so many options. At the time of writing, we’re at nine Rivals decks in the Embergard season and four of them have plot cards. This gives us 30 different combinations of decks for Nemesis. There are two more coming in Spitewood, but we don’t know if they’ll have plot cards. Assuming they both do (which feels unlikely) the total will become 40. If neither have plot cards, the total will be 49 instead. When compared to the end of the previous edition with 14 universal decks in play, each warband only had 14 possible choices. This manages to increase the number of options for any specific warband while also lowering the total number of cards in the pool at the same time.

You can also leverage this to learn new warbands quicker – take an existing deck you’re already familiar with and simply swap warbands. It probably won’t be ideal – you’ll likely want to make some tweaks after a game or two – but when the only thing that changes are your fighter cards and warscroll, it is a much shallower learning curve for new things.

The downside is that since there are no warband specific decks, it can feel like for any particular deck combination there’s going to be an ideal warband to pair with it. For those who are focused purely on optimization, this could actually reduce the number of options they feel are valid. The flip side of the previous paragraph is also that games can feel samey if all that changes are the fighters. You’re still worrying about Strip the Realm, Supremacy, and Unrelenting Massacre regardless of the warband when certain decks are taken.

Pros: More options for each warband, easier learning curve for learning all the cards, substantially fewer card sleeves to buy (maybe that’s just my personal issue).

Cons: Potential for “best” warbands for each deck combination, danger of games feeling repetitive even if warbands change out when decks stay the same.

Miscellaneous Rules

In the interest of not turning this into an even longer article, I’m going to dump a bunch of other smaller changes here in a rapid fire style.

Runemarks

Embergard introduces the concept of runemarks for weapons. This codified a bunch of different weapon rules and gave them all icons to further reduce the amount of text on cards. A key change here is that when making an attack, you can only select one runemark to use. Previously, you could load a fighter up with a bunch of upgrades that granted +1 damage and also choose to use cleave, ensnare, and whatever else they had. Shifting the bonus damage to being called grievous means it can no longer stack which helps keep buffed fighters in check while also presenting players with choices they have to make – do you want to use cleave for this attack for more accuracy, or risk missing by choosing grievous for more potential damage?

Pros: Provides opportunity for choices in game, reduces card clutter, allows more decks and warbands access to damage boosting without worrying about how it’d spiral out of control.

Cons: Loss of flavorful weapon abilities like knockback, impact, scything, or combo (but some of these have been replicated on warscrolls); more difficult to Voltron up a fighter if that’s your preferred play style.

Critical Hits

A single critical roll now just counts as a single success, instead of being able to trump any number of “normal” successes. Previously, a defender rolling one crit would be able to beat an attacker rolling any number of hammers/supports. This made combat feel very swingy and I am glad it’s gone. The introduction of Overrun and Stand Fast as well as the retention of runemarks that only trigger on crits still make crit rolls feel important without having an outsized impact on combats.

Pros: Combats are less random, crits still have a solid impact on the game through Overrun and Stand Fast.

Cons: I genuinely can’t think of a reason why this change is bad.

Bounty

Previously, fighters were all worth a single glory when slain. Some fighters were classified as large (if they had 5 or more health) and those fighters were worth 2. This meant each warband had a different amount of kill glory available to the opponent. Someone like Domitan’s Stormcoven with three elite fighters were only worth three glory if you tabled them, while a warband like the Sepulchral Guard gave up seven (or often more, after raises!) glory while also being substantially easier to kill. As a result, horde warbands gain a little buff while the lower model count elite warbands are reigned in. They spent a long time being dominant, and are still very solid options, so I think this was overall positive.

Choosing seven as the total feels a little arbitrary, but so would any other number. The designers had to go with something and this works fine enough. It does lead to some weird situations where some fighters are worth zero bounty, but I find this to be an interesting mechanic itself – does your opponent want to waste time dealing with a fighter that will provide them no reward for killing them?

Tied in with the bounty change is a change to how resurrecting slain models works. Previously, a slain model would come back and just be killed again for even more glory. Now, any raised fighter is worth zero bounty. This stops raise focused warbands from bleeding off as much glory to their opponents. I was concerned about this initially because warbands with repeated raise effects would be able to populate the board with “worthless” fighters who can still score objectives and fight, but it turns out to not have been an issue. So far none of the warbands with raise mechanics have proved problematic.

Pros: An even playing field for warbands regardless of model count, provides balance knobs to scale individual fighters to be worth more or less than their fellow fighters in a warband, allows designers to play with zero bounty fighters for interesting mechanics.

Cons: The choice of seven can feel a little awkward for some warbands (Zarbag’s Gitz having nine fighters, warbands with four equal fighters needing to have one necessarily be worth less).

Underdog

Other Games Workshop games have started incorporating a mechanic called underdog. My understanding is that it’s intended as a catch up mechanic for players who are falling behind to feel like they’re still able to claw back a win. This is an admirable intention, but it can be handled pretty poorly if not careful. Mechanics like the blue shell in Mario Kart certainly work in that regard, but it’s a pretty frustrating feeling if the goal is to create a competitive environment and not a chaotic one.

Fortunately, the way it’s handled in Underworlds feels pretty reserved. A very few cards or warscrolls have a stronger or more flexible effect when one player is the underdog. Honestly, I think the entire mechanic as a whole could be removed and it would barely be missed – and that makes me wonder why it’s even here. It feels like a rule that just happens to exist, is relevant every so often, but otherwise has little impact on the game.

Pros: Doesn’t get in the way of playing a competitive game, allows some cards or warbands to work slightly differently when playing from behind.

Cons: Doesn’t really do much to justify its existence.

Promises Made and (Mostly) Delivered

During the reveals, there were all the normal hype articles and drip fed information from Games Workshop. Pretty common fare for a new edition of a game from any company, really. There were some statements made about how the future of the game would be handled and I think it’s worth checking those out while we’re celebrating the one year birthday of Warhammer Underworlds.

The Embergard Core Game will be the starting box for the entire edition. Games Workshop made a point about saying Embergard would be the only “starter box” for this edition. Previously, every season (roughly six months) a new “core box” would come out that served as a new starting point for players. Looking at the previewed images of Spitewood and hearing how Games Workshop has talked about it, that is clearly designed as an expansion and not a new starter box.

Verdict: Delivered!

You can still “open a pre-built deck, shuffle, and play” or have the option to “fully design your own deck.” There was some concern that Games Workshop would do away with one or the other of the main formats of the game – Rivals and Nemesis. Many players love the ease of getting ready for a Rivals game. You just grab a deck, some models, and play. Other players enjoy the ability to tinker with a deck list and customize it to their liking in the Nemesis format. Both of these formats are supported in Embergard and looking at the history of events ran at Warhammer World, both formats have had organized play support as well.

Verdict: Delivered!

All existing (at the time of Embergard) warbands would receive rules in the new edition. This was an impressive promise. At the time, there were 58 warbands in existence in the first edition of the game. By promising to provide rules for all of them in the new edition, players felt secure that they could bring their favorites over and continue playing the game. What happened is that all the warbands did get rules… sort of. A chunk of warbands were designated as Organized Play Legal and the others were essentially relegated to “legends” (non-tournament legal status that still have some form of rules support). GW provided these legends warbands with some quick fighter cards and each grand alliance received two generic warscrolls to choose from. They were hardly on the same level as the Organized Play warbands which left some players who were big fans of some particular warbands feeling pretty left out. Personally, I understand why they went this route – making 58 fully fleshed out warbands worth of rules is quite a time commitment and I can’t imagine the team dedicated to Underworlds is anywhere near as big as 40k or AoS.

Verdict: Technically delivered. But it didn’t feel great for some people.

If any warbands are legal for organized play then they will be available from warhammer.com or your FLGS. This was mentioned in the tail end of one of the teaser videos and had me extremely excited. One downside to the release model of the past is that there were loads of warbands that were tournament legal but you simply could not purchase from any retailers. You had to scour eBay or similar second hand places just to get a chance to find them, and then it was often at exorbitantly inflated prices. The promise that any legal warband could be purchased from your FLGS was music to my ears. And then GW released digital rules for the 13 most recently released warbands of the past edition, which… weren’t made available for purchase. Since they were the most recent releases, they at least weren’t impossible to find but they were still substantially harder to source than the stuff you could simply buy off the shelf or from the Games Workshop store. This felt like two different parts of the company doing two things without communicating, to be honest.

Verdict: Not delivered. Most tournament legal warbands were made available for purchase, but 13 of them were not. Some are being re-released in upcoming boxes which brings the total down some, but there will still be legal warbands that you have to find from resellers if you want to play them.

Updated fighter cards and warscrolls will be available to purchase for people who already own the models. This was an unexpected but very cool thing for Games Workshop to do. They created an additional product specifically designed for long term players transitioning over to the new edition. It would have been easy to say that if you want the new fighter cards, you need to re-buy them. However, they chose to make the Warbands of Embergard cards available at a much cheaper price for those of us who already had all the models. And it looks like they’re going to do the same for Spitewood, which is also great!

Verdict: Delivered! Twice, even!

The Warhammer Design Studio will be issuing quarterly balance updates. Fantastic news for those of us who want the game to be in its most balanced state for maximum enjoyment and competitive viability. The road map for the upcoming year was released and part of it was the promise that quarterly balance updates would come out and that they would utilize data from events and play testing. We have so far had the Winter 2024-25 updates back in January of this year and the Spring 2025 updates back in June. While it’s hasn’t exactly come out at a quarterly rate, I have to say that the updates overall have been quite well done. They are a combination of FAQs, errata, and rules changes that have kept the game feeling pretty fresh alongside new releases. I would prefer them to come a bit more frequently, however.

Verdict: Sort of delivered. Updates have been released and have been solid, but not quite at the frequency originally proposed.

My Two Cents Glory

On the whole, I think it’s been a pretty nice year for Warhammer Underworlds. Embergard has been a refreshing reboot for the game. I feel like it offers an easier onboarding for new players, and new players are the lifeblood for any game. It addressed many of the issues I had with the older edition. Some new bumps were introduced which I’m not thrilled with (underdog, so many decks with plot cards, arbitrary change to roll offs) but they’re pretty minor compared to the benefits.

I also really want to applaud the support the game has received. Anyone who is a fan of Underworlds is under no delusion about its place in Games Workshop’s hierarchy. We’re not a 40k, AoS, or even Kill Team level game. Even so, this will be the third year in a row that Underworlds has been one of the games featured in the World Championship of Warhammer. Underworlds also has had a history of many Organized Play kits with sweet swag in them consisting of unique trophies, alternate art cards and boards, and fancy acrylic tokens. There are regularly scheduled events at Warhammer World that bring in triple digit player counts which is wild to me over here in the US.

Am I overly attached to this game? You know, I probably am. I quite enjoy it and am very positive on the whole about it. I’m not sure how much of that is the game itself or the absurdly wonderful people I have met while playing it for the last few years, but I think this iteration of Underworlds should celebrate a well earned first birthday.

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