How to Collect Warhammer Underworlds

If you’re a new player, find out how best to start collecting Warhammer Underworlds.

Welcome! Today I’m talking to you all about how to start off collecting Warhammer Underworlds. After reading my very useful Getting Started article, this one is all about how to go about collecting if you’re brand new to the game. Experienced players will be able to share this with friends who are new or interested in the game.

So after you’ve read the basics of Warhammer Underworlds what are you going to do? Bulk buy everything or only the competitive expansions? While ambitious, that generally does more harm than good if you’re a new player while turning away potential plays at such a cost for a new game. So what to do? It’s simple. Buy a core set and a single warband. Stick with it till you’re comfortable with your game knowledge then expand your collection more as you feel comfortable. Now this just isn’t it but that’s the basics. Luckily for you I’ll now expand some more.

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Core Principles

As stated earlier, if you’re new to Warhammer Underworlds you should resist the urge of jumping in all the way. I compare this to buying a new army for Age of Sigmar or Warhammer 40,000 all at once, it’s great to have everything altogether now but as a result your mind is likely to get overwhelmed due to too much choice. So how to prevent such a thing? It’s simple:

1. Start off small.
2. Buy a single warband expansion.
3. Prioritise buying products within the current season.

Start Off Small

Just buy the core set of the current Warhammer Underworlds season. Core sets are of amazing value. For the price of just a little more than 2 warband expansions you get: 2 warbands each with 32 card decks, a selection of useful universal cards, dice, all the counters and accessories needed to play as well as the core rules. To be honest you could even just stick with this, it’s a great learning tool to have fun with. However if you want to play with friends or at local gaming nights then you’ll need to expand slightly more.

Buy a Single Warband Expansion

Another simple purchase. With a warband expansion you get a warband, 32 faction cards and 28 universal cards. Add that in with your core set and you have a sizeable universal card pool to use as well as 3 warbands to play with! Especially with a single core set and a warband expansion, you’ll have 3 competitive teams to choose from and playstyles to learn.

Prioritise Buying Products Within the Current Season

If you’re a new player, generally it’s better to buy warbands from the current season (e.g. Direchasm as of January 2021). It’s simply because they’re the most up-to-date product and will have the longest life for you due to rotation. This becomes more important the later you join Warhammer Underworlds. Once you go beyond the 6 month point for a season it’s better off to just ignore the previous season if you’re not too invested in competitive play. You’ll be missing out on some nice universal cards for sure but if you’re not planning on being super-competitive then what you’ll have will last.

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Card Examples
With those 3 points out of the way I’ll go into some examples! These will be card substitutes between seasons and also warband examples. This is just to show what can be played around from one season to the next as well as decent copy cards that don’t do the exact same job as an older card but instead a similar role. Due to the timing of this article I’ll be using examples from Nightvault to Beastgrave (the 2 current seasons at the time of publication).

Gloryseeker (Nightvault) is a really good card that buffs any attack with +1 damage as long as the target has a wounds characteristic of 4 or more. Sting of the Ur-Grub (Beastgrave) does a similar job albeit differently. This gives a fighter +1 damage but only to range 1 attack actions. You lose the freedom of Gloryseeker with attack actions at any range characteristic but now you get +1 damage no matter the target’s wound characteristic as long as you’re using a range 1 attack action.

Determined Effort (Nightvault) is a great gambit for +1 dice to any attack action in the next activation. Sitting Target (Beastgrave) does a similar job giving +1 dice and Ensare when attacking a fighter with no move or charge tokens. You lose the freedom of Determined Effort but get that lovely Ensare against targets with no move or charge tokens.

Abasoth’s Unmaking (Nightvault is a really spell that needs a single channel to remove an objective within 4 hexes of the caster. Invert Terrain (Beastgrave) is a single focus instead but has more range at 5 hexes and flips a feature token instead. You lose the ability of completely removing an objective for flipping one into a lethal hex instead (great for ruining hold objective opponents bunched around objectives) or to flip-back one of your own flipped feature tokens.

Pit Trap (Nightvault) is a restricted gambit that inflicts 1 damage to a target driven back after an attack action. Snare (Beastgrave) works during an attack action that drives back if your fighter is a Hunter. Pit Trap can work with any fighter but Snare has a better reaction window and isn’t restricted, just dependent on Hunter keyword fighters.

Tome of Offerings (Nightvault) is a borderline busted upgrade. Counts as a Tome and gives you an additional glory when taking out an enemy fighter at any range. Trophy Belt (Beastgrave) can only be upgraded with a Hunter, only works against adjacent enemy fighters taken out of action and only gives an additional spent glory unless the target was a Quarry. The latter is more restrictive (balanced) but is also not restricted. Trophy Belt isn’t as overpowered but is still very good for Beastgrave players.

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Deck Examples

The following decks are made with a single Beastgrave warband expansion and the Beastgrave core set box.

Grashrak’s Despoilers

Playstyle: Flex (Aggro and Hold Objective)

Deck link

This deck uses the core set universal cards as well as those from Rippa’s Snarlfangs. With this you get a solid deck that’s only short when it comes to upgrades. Having both Temporary Victory and Despoilers provides a reliable 4 glory from Surge objectives. You still have a solid selection of gambits and sizeable glory to invest into buffing up Draknar with 2 ways to give him +1 wounds and 3 ways to give him +1 damage if you desire.

The Grymwatch

Playstyle: Flex (Aggro and Hold Objective)

Deck link

Using the Grymwatch expansion and subtle boosts from the core set make a very formidable deck. While lacking on some universal cards you now have Great Strength and Fortitude to provide even more solid buffs. You also have access to Restless Prize and Scrum which are very strong cards in their own right.

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Overall that’s pretty much it. This article will provide you with a solid guide for how to start collecting your Warhammer Underworlds collection. Obviously the examples I’ve used are small as at the time of publication there are only 2 warband expansions out for Beastgrave although that will be changing soon. The process becomes easier as more warbands are released of course. Remember if you’re already very comfortable with the game and want to go head-first into competitive play by buying everything then that’s totally okay too, it just depends what you realistically want from the game as not everyone wants to be Grand Clash competitive. Start off with the basics, get comfortable and stick to the most current season. Once you’re happy, keep collecting to your heart’s content. Who knows, you may even roll a crit or 2 along the way!