Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. Today, I’m taking a look at the recently released Warhammer Underworlds Spring 2025 updates and taking a stab at evaluating how they’ll impact the next few months. The meta has recently had a new warband, new deck, and a host of changes here so it’s potentially going to be shaken up quite a bit! I’m going to hit most, but not all, of the items in this update. A few of the FAQs in particular are just answering niche questions, so make sure you at least skim over the full documents at some point.
What better place to test your theories in this fresh meta than the Maryland Goonhammer Open? Come hang out, roll some dice, and take your shot at a ticket for the World Championship of Warhammer. It will be in Baltimore on July 6. More information can be found on the Best Coast Pairings event page!
Rules Updates
Let’s hit the longest document first. It’s going to contain the bulk of the changes including erratas and FAQs for the core rules, warbands, and Rivals decks. Once again, Games Workshop has helpfully called out anything in this document that is either NEW or UPDATED with appropriate labels.
Core Rules
The two different types of weapons are now defined by their runemark, not their range. Functionally, this isn’t going to make any difference yet, but it does allow for more variety in weapon profiles in the future. Melee weapons are no longer limited to a range of 1-2, nor are ranged weapons limited to 3+.
The second change is in how players place treasure tokens at the start of the game. This is a sleeper change that, in my opinion, is going to be one of the most impactful changes of this entire update. On its face it’s pretty simple. Previously, players would alternate placing the treasure tokens on the board and the first one had to go into neutral territory. Now, players still alternate placing the tokens but the first player is allowed to place their token anywhere and the second player is required to place one of theirs in neutral territory. The player placing the first token (henceforth referred to as Player 1) will have three tokens to place. The other player (Player 2) only has two tokens. Player 1 now has incredible control over how the treasures are going to be distributed on the board. If they want, they can force three treasures in their territory and reduce Player 2 to only having a single treasure in their territory. This is going to make treasure holding or delving strategies less reliable, or at the very least force those strategies to adapt into a more invasive approach where they’re pushing into the opposing player’s territory instead of hanging back and standing on treasures in their own home turf.
I spent a little while playing with treasure tokens on my physical board and there are some interesting set ups available. I might dust off the old diagrams I made when first evaluating the Boards of Embergard and show some of what I’ve been messing around with later. The short version is that if your plan involves holding or delving, you’re going to have to be ready to invade.
The next change dials back the impact on the game and redefines what underdog means in Underworlds. Instead of being the player with the lowest total glory scored, it’s now the player who has the most bounty worth of fighters taken out of action. Where it could have the biggest impact is on warbands who rely on raising slain fighters, specifically the Grymwatch who also gain the most out of any warband for being the underdog with their In the Name of the King! ability. Likewise, elite warbands are going to be less likely to be the underdog when paired up against horde warbands in the early game. Honestly, the underdog mechanic is such an infrequently relevant occurrence in my games that I don’t really see this making much of a splash overall.
The last change listed as a rules update is how persisting abilities are handled. This feels to me like it’s mostly closing some vague loopholes in the rules where someone could make (in my opinion) a bad faith argument that some abilities don’t say they last the entire battle, so they only last until the end of the round. This came up with Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz and their Trophy Huntaz ability, but by that logic it would also apply to a myriad of abilities that would make no sense such as the second dog in Hexbane’s Hunters losing their bounty value if the round ends. It’s now written out that unless specified otherwise, abilities will persist for the duration of the game. Some notable abilities would include the previously mentioned Trophy Huntaz, Hexbane’s Marked for Vengeance, the Brethren of the Bolt’s Fulminating Hymn (which now means it can pick up a new ability each combat phase and the previous ones persist!), and the Crimson Court’s Savage Bloodthirst (read on to see how this is no longer relevant!).
Printed Warbands
A welcome surprise is that not only did a few of the boogeymen warbands in the format get adjusted, but some of the warbands that were considered underpowered or less popular got some boosts to bring them in line with the rest of the options. There are some personal favorites in this list, so I’m biased but very happy for it.
Blackpowder’s Buccaneers is up first and the big guy’s swag cannon picks up an extra damage when using Swag Blast or Swag Mortar now. Hell yeah, big guy. It’s worth pointing out that the bonus damage on these abilities is not tied to removing swag tokens, so if all you want is a damage boost on the blunderbuss, you can do this from the get-go. Will having two ranged 3 shots dealing 2 damage be what Blackpowder needs to shine? It’s certainly not going to hurt.
Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz gets a relatively boring change of correcting a runemark typo. Dregg isn’t somehow performing melee attacks from 3 hexes away which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Moving on!
While I think the treasure token change is the largest impact of this update, this next change is probably my favorite. The Crimson Court had a weird warscroll previously, but they are coming out of this update with what is practically a brand new design. Their inspire is no longer tied to holding treasure tokens and discarding an absurd amount of power cards. The fighters themselves gain hunger tokens instead of you the player, and both their inspiration and bloodthirsty mechanics are tied to how these counters are managed. Each fighter starts with 2 hunger tokens and will gain another at the start of rounds two and three. The fighters can remove hunger tokens by making successful attacks (removing 1) or by slaying enemy fighters (remove all). Having 3+ hunger tokens makes them bloodthirsty, which grants +1 move and means they can’t benefit from guard. Removing all the hunger tokens will inspire them at the end of the battle round. Otherwise, their warscroll is the same as before – the other changes mentioned are mostly just doing a find-and-replace to change references of “savage” to “bloodthirsty” due to wording changes – and this is fine by me since these are a nice suite of versatile abilities. I loved this warband in the previous edition and they are some of my favorite painted models I own. I can’t wait to get more games in with the Court.
A very tiny nerf was dropped on Grinkrak’s Looncourt. Their quests are now only able to be abandoned in the power step instead of whenever the player wanted previously. I can’t imagine this was a power level adjustment and is merely just clarifying when effects can occur.
Hexbane’s Hunters have taught their old dogs… old tricks? The two hounds are now able to move repeatedly whenever one of the hunters moves. This was a powerful tool in their arsenal in the previous edition which allowed for setting up consistent flanked/surrounded attacks to boost their accuracy, get the dogs onto treasure tokens, or otherwise position two fighters in one activation for more reliable scoring. Hexbane was considered one of the harder hit warbands in the transition to Embergard so it will be interesting to see if the clarity on Marked for Vengeance not expiring as well as the extra utility the dogs can now offer will be enough to give them a boost. There’s a little ambiguity on whether Loyal Hounds means both dogs are able to move for each Agent Azyrite move. I’m inclined to think only one dog can, but the wording is incredibly similar to Daggok’s Stab-ladz’s Krule Stab which will allow each fighter who qualifies to make the attempts.
Da Kunnin’ Krew picked up two quality of life buffs in this update. The first is that their inspire will now also trigger if they slay their target, even if the target wasn’t flanked or surrounded. Additionally, A Kunnin’ Plan is more easily accessed because it no longer requires Mannok to have a move token before using it.
Morgok’s Krushas didn’t get any changes, but did have a few questions answered about how Shut It, Pipsqueak! functions in various situations. Basically, don’t rely on using Wings of War to make charges when playing against the Krushas until they use that ability or you’ll be risking a savage waaagh flavored counter.
Digital Warbands
The Brethren of the Bolt get a hidden extra change as discussed above. Since persisting abilities last until the end of the game unless otherwise specified, this means the Fulminating Hymn ability also persists. The warband will slowly charge up over the course of the game now, until by the third combat phase they’re sporting all three parts of this ability (can’t be flanked, their weapons have stagger, and they can choose to take 1 damage instead of getting a charge token when charging). That said… they’re still really squishy, so having enough survive that long to get supercharged doesn’t seem likely. At least the FAQ for this warband confirms they can use their Heaven’s Charge ping even if the chosen fighter is uninspired – this is a shockingly good ping that only requires your fighter to be adjacent to the target and can even finish off vulnerable fighters. Zap!
Next up is a clarification for Mollog’s Mob – specifically the Stalagsquig. Thank Sigmar this was addressed in a clear and decisive manner. Now the big biting rock will stick around wherever it gets deployed and cannot be pushed or move. With Nasty Critters, the Stalagsquig can be parked next to a feature token and very accurately bite anything that tries to land there to knock it away and can’t be driven back in return.
Another substantial change to a warband comes along for the Sepulchral Guard. Bone Shrapnel gets tweaked in two ways. First, it can no longer be used on a raised fighter. This is the second nerf this already restricted ability has received which feels a little unnecessary, but at least that blow is softened because you can now explode your skeleton to kill an enemy even if they were vulnerable. Their leader’s raise ability also gained a nice buff in that the returned skeletons no longer are damaged until they’re vulnerable when they come back. Sure, coming back at 2 health isn’t amazing but it does put them out of one shot range from most ranged attacks and incidental danglebro fighters. Finally, this warband was in a rough spot because they are so dependant upon the Warden’s survival but the new boards make it a lot harder to keep him safe. This is addressed with a new ability called Startling Reformation. You can use this to reposition the Warden, provided you have set up a landing spot for him with two of your other fighters. This is a ton of flexibility that you can use to move the Warden across the board with no limitation on whose territory you end up in. You can even charge in with an inspired Warden, attempt to land a painful 3 damage attack, then yoink him to safety. This does lock you out of Arise! or Forward! for the remainder of the round, but with some planning that impact can be mitigated.
The Thricefold Discord have been given yet another bonk. In addition to what they’ve had in the previous updates, the two Evasive fighters are now a little less slippery. If either Vashtiss or Lascivyr have a move or charge token, they can no longer attempt to reduce incoming damage. This is a pretty hefty nerf to the warband that already has the lowest health total of any of the 35 current Organized Play legal options. I’m not sure this was necessary either, and I suspect it will hamper Discord players in the future. Sorry, fellow Chaos enthusiasts.
The final warband that received direct changes in this update are Zarbag’s Gitz. There has been an interesting divide between tournament results in the states vs in Europe – the Gitz have been dominating multiple events on the eastern side of the Atlantic while remaining fairly absent from most events in the US barring one recent event. Apparently this was enough to get a bop from the nerf bat from Games Workshop. The inspire for the Gitz is no longer when your glory total is equal to or greater than the number of surviving fighters. Instead, it has to simply be greater. This slows their inspiration down a little. The bigger change is replacing Barely Worth It with Too Bouncy! Not only do the squigs no longer have the ability to hold treasure tokens or delve, but every model in the warband is worth 1 bounty for a total of 9. This is the only warband that breaks the trend of 7 total glory. I don’t think this is as big of a deal as some are making of it – the Gitz still have a massive amount of wounds to chew through and many bodies to take the hits. Even in the best case scenario of killing one model with every activation, the GItz’s opponent is still going to spend 75% of their turns trying to kill goblins. This completely discounts the effect of dice, needing 3 damage to one-shot multiple models in this warband, and trying to score any objectives. This warband is still in a very strong spot.
Rivals Decks
Countdown to Cataclysm has been showing up constantly in all events. It’s one of the strongest decks to pair with any other deck in a Nemesis environment, and part of that is due to the insanely reliable and high scoring it packs. One of the reasons is that Wreckers, a 2 glory end phase objective, is very easy to score if you simply don’t tick up your cataclysm value. Since a lot of the other cards in the deck that scale off of your cataclysm value aren’t particularly impactful, this “choice” comes with basically zero downsides. That is, until now. It’s no longer optional to increase the cataclysm tracker and it must be increased every time the criteria are met. This introduces some counterplay to Wreckers.
Reckless Fury has an upgrade, Bellowing Tyrant, that was previously unclear whether the equipped fighter could use the ability without a charge token. This has been clarified and now it’s spelled out that in order to bellow, the fighter must have a charge token.
The Wrack and Ruin FAQ feels like a thought experiment more than anything, but now we know how Unstoppable and Misfortune interact. Unstoppable reduces the damage to 0, then Misfortune can be moved to another fighter. Let me know if this has ever actually come up for you.
Organized Play
Nemesis Format Rules
Well this is a big shake up. In the previous quarterly update, Reckless Fury had four cards added to the Forsaken list meaning they are flat out not allowed in any Nemesis deck. At the time, there were zero cards on the Restricted list. Now, we have a slimmer Forsaken list (Bladecatcher escaped over to the Restricted list) and most decks have had one card added to the Restricted list. Additionally, instead of picking three options from the Restricted list (which wouldn’t do anything) you’re now limited to a single card from the list in a Nemesis deck! That’s a pretty big change and will have a strong impact on deckbuilding.
Reckless Fury’s Bladecatcher has already proven to be a solid card, able to turn off every runemark. It has strong defensive value in keeping cleave/ensnare/brutal from affecting your fighters, as well as neutering most damage boosting abilities since they tend to function by adding grievous.
Delving for Wealth is a very safe and reliable surge from Pillage and Plunder. Since it didn’t even require the delving to be on different tokens, you could easily score this surge just by parking a fighter on one token and flipping it back and forth over three power steps. Now this reliability comes at the cost of potentially locking you out of another restricted card, but it’s still a tempting objective to include.
Blazing Assault has the Illusory Fighter power card added to the list. Blazing Assault’s power suite is very potent for any warband that wants to get swinging. Illusory Fighter can function as a rescue tool to teleport a fighter that has overextended, a way to reposition for attacks against invading fighters without getting a charge token, a way to set up flanked or surrounded for an all important attack, and a tool to enable a variety of scoring options. It’s often said that the mobility and push cards are the strongest tools in this game, and this continues that trend. It’s going to be difficult to not include this in Nemesis pairings.
Mobbed! feels like a bit of a stretch here. It is one of the stronger cards in the Edge of the Knife deck, but I feel like it’s also the weakest of the six restricted cards. I’m personally going to be hard pressed to ever pick it over the other five options.
Spread Havoc is yet another solid end phase objective from Countdown to Cataclysm, and its inclusion on the restricted list along with the tweak to make Wreckers harder to score does a lot to bring the scoring of that deck in line with others. It’s still an automatic 1 glory even if you do nothing else in the game and is fairly trivial to bump up to its cap of 2 glory (especially since incrementing the cataclysm tracker is no longer optional), so it is a solid contender for that precious single restricted card slot.
Finally, Supremacy from Emberstone Sentinels was added to the list. This massive 3 glory bomb is one of the main draws to the Emberstone Sentinels deck to begin with, and having it on this list along with the changes to treasure token placement feels like it’s a solid one-two punch into the face of objective holding warbands. Particularly when the prime treasure holding decks were Emberstone Sentinels + Countdown to Cataclysm, so you’re forced to choose from one of the two really good end phase objectives when building that deck.
Tournament Companion
I just want to take a second to reiterate how nice it is to have indications of what is new in these multi-page documents. The Tournament Companion document serves as a series of recommendations for events, but they’re not set-in-stone requirements. Games Workshop added a couple of items to this list of suggestions.
The first addition is a suggestion for using some kind of token to indicate who took the first turn. If everyone is on the ball with turning their activation tokens over when taking their turns, this isn’t a big deal. But I am sure that anyone who has played a few games of Underworlds has run into a situation where one or both players have forgotten to flip one of their tokens and there’s a little bit of back-and-forth at the end of a round, so I can see why this is included. I’m not sure I’ll be implementing it myself, but I also didn’t use a physical token to track the underdog in games before either.
Finally, there’s a suggestion for how board placement and treasure token placement is handled in a best-of-three event. Simply roll off for the first game normally, have the player who didn’t get to choose the board placement in game 1 choose it for game 2, and then in game 3 have the players roll off as normal. This is how I’ve personally seen it run, but I’ve heard some places having disagreements come up about how it was handled. Now it’s spelled out and a tournament organizer can lean on this document for their own events.
Final Thoughts
And that’s it! Games Workshop promised the community during the days leading to Embergard’s release that there would be quarterly updates based on their observation of the game’s health. The first one addressed the double meanace of Gorechosen of Dromm and Reckless Fury, along with a handful of other minor (but impactful) changes. This time around they have continued to address some problems that have reared up in the last few months while also bringing up some underperforming warbands in an attempt to make them more viable options for people wanting to do well in events. I am thoroughly pleased by this latter approach, and not just because my precious Crimson Court got a glow up. I think it is a reassuring sign when an underperforming warband that a player has an attachment to gets some positive attention.
I think the Restricted list is going to throw a wrench into deck construction and a few lesser seen options may start surfacing in some builds. The minor change to treasure token placement is also going to have a substantial impact in not only the setup of treasure tokens in the game, but also what decks and strategies feel viable to bring to the table. Treasure holding or delving has become a lot more risky. No longer can you guarantee two feature tokens in your territory to reliably score objectives or perform various warband-related shenanigans. Instead, you have to prepare for the worst of only having a single token available. Will hold strategies become less common? Or will they have to lean into a more aggressive plan and be prepared to raid the enemy territory to take the treasures there? I’m excited to find out.
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