Skabbik’s Plaguepack and Paths of Prophecy

Reviewing the new Skaven warband and rivals deck for Warhammer Underworlds!

Welcome to my review of the Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow box set! I cover both new warbands, new rules, what’s inside as well as all the new faction and universal cards. Check out how the newest core set and rival decks shape up! Before we go further, thanks goes to Games Workshop for giving these to review for free. As always, I aim to be honest, impartial and constructively critical.

If you want, I’ve done a YouTube review which you can watch here:

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Miniatures

Skabbik’s Plaguepack are a 6 fighter warband. They’re a pretty neat collection of Clan Pestilence Skaven, although the smoke is just too…solid for my liking. Other than that minor gripe, they are amazing models. My favourite is definitely the leader. Breaking the Skaven norm, these miniatures come in green plastic.

Plot Card

The Plot card is decent, quickly rewarding you for occupying certain parts of the game board. My only confusion arises when a territory becomes un-corrupted at the end of a action phase while you still meet the conditions to corrupt. Regardless, it’s a solid way to play that rewards canny positioning and objective placement.

Fighter Cards

Your leader is kinda just alright? Befouler is decent but he’s not that durable or damaging. Upon inspiring Skabbik just goes to 1 block and 3 fury which is kinda underwhelming.

Itchit is good for a last activation ping damage with Book of Woe. Much more reliable when inspired.

Rabidius is your main damage dealer. Inaccurate while uninspired, he becomes much more threatening when inspired.

Poxlix is alright but being capped at 1 damage with no befouler makes him kinda useless.

Rikkit suffers a similar issue but is at least more damaging.

Skritter is oddly pretty great. A befouler, fast and not worth any glory when killed. Becomes slightly even more annoying to the opponent when inspired!

Faction Objectives

Objectives are overall pretty great. Lots of great surge objectives as well as Bringers of Ruination that can potentially give you 3 glory at the end of action phase 1.

Faction Gambits

Gambits are also really good. Lots of ping damage and positioning cards. Manifestation of a Great Plague helps you quickly inspire and corrupt too.

Faction Upgrades

Faction upgrades aren’t as good but still have a selection of great cards. Disgusting Appearance provides some needed defence while Glorious Sacrifice is just a pure win more for your faction with very little downsides.

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Paths of Prophecy

Now I’ll go over the rivals deck you can buy separately!

Objectives

Paths of Prophecy focus on hold objectives but in a weird twist. A lot feel very warband-specific but still has some gems like Devoted Offerings.

Gambits

There are some objective tools in the gambit sections but also a surprising amount of ping damage cards like Bursting Power. Also some interesting draw tech cards as well.

Upgrades

Upgrades are alright, with a lot focusing around fighters fighting on or next feature tokens. Watchful Eye exists only to make the rival deck work but Guided by Fate is a great aggro upgrade.

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Overview

Overall I think Skabbik’s Plaguepack are great. Amazing models with very strong cards and an interesting playstyle. It really captures the feel of a spreading Skaven plague. Paths of Prophecy is a hold objective rivals deck at least but feels much better for warbands that only want to swap out of few faction cards for some key cards in the deck. Out of the two, I’d highly recommend getting Skabbik’s Plaguepack. As for Paths of Prophecy, only buy it if you can make it work competitively for your chosen warbands.

If you want to pick up both of the Warhammer Underworlds products I’ve reviewed today, you can pre-order it directly from the Games Workshop website or use my affiliate link at Element Games to net you a 25% to 15% discount at no additional cost to yourself while helping to support me and my work.

Check out my Discord as well as my Patreon too if you want to give me some more support!

So until next time, no matter how many plague rats your run into, there’s always a chance to win as long as you can roll a crit!