Warhammer Underworlds
Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:37 am
Hmm! The old thread doesn't really explain what the game is, and is (for the current state of the game) confusingly-named, so I think I'll start a new one with a relatively nice initial post, and we can use it for UW chat as we've been doing.
What is Warhammer Underworlds?
The official site is a pretty good place to start, but Underworlds is GW's hybrid board / card / miniatures game - it's probably accurate to classify it as "board game with living card game elements". It's a lot of fun!
You collect individual warbands, pre-selected groups of universally extremely awesome miniatures with little backstories and names for the fighters, then construct Objective and Power card decks to play with in game. Unlike what we usually consider miniatures games, you don't get to pick or modify your fighters in any way - if you use a particular warband, it will always have its set number of unique named fighters who you can't swap out or anything. Customization (and there's a lot of it) comes in your deck construction - Objective cards to determine how you'll get points in the game, and Power cards to buff fighters, manipulate the state of the game, and all that good card game stuff. It's in the "living card game" vein, so there's no blind buying or rarity or anything, you know exactly where to get all the cards, and you can't have duplicates in your deck, so there's no need to buy multiples of anything. There's basically two kinds of cards, faction-locked cards that only a certain warband can use, and "universal" cards that any warband can use. Generally you'll use a mix of them in a given deck (this will be important for the next subsection), and deck-building is an important, interesting, and fun part of the game: basically all the mental energy that would go into list-building in a typical GW wargame goes here. You can use a pure-faction deck, but faction cards tend to focus on theme rather than synergy or broad usefulness, so will struggle against constructed decks.
(An important point to keep in mind about all this talk about cards is that, for casual play, just getting card images from the database, printing them out and sleeving them up is perfectly OK.)
Wait, isn't this called Shadespire? -OR- What's this I hear about card rotation?
These are sort of the same question, and confusion around them is a big part of why I wanted to start a new thread, so I'd have a place to point people to explain it.
First is the concept of "seasons" - Underworlds is designed around yearly seasons: the first was Shadespire, the second was Nightvault, the third was Beastgrave, and the fourth current season at time of writing is Direchasm. A new season core box comes out in fall or winter each year, and it immediately replaces the previous one on the GW webstore, advancing the nominal plot of the series a bit and usually introducing some rules tweaks and a minor mechanic or two. Each season has a total of eight associated warbands (two in the core box and six released separately in the following months), and an associated set of universal cards. Each warband is packaged with a full set of faction-locked cards (enough to play using only faction cards as of Beastgrave) and a selection of universal cards which are often, but not always, thematically linked to that warband's typical play style.
Here's the thing: In the most popular organized play format, only universal cards from the current season and the previous season are legal - this is card rotation. At the moment, then, in organized play, only Direchasm and Beastgrave universal cards are legal. When the new season releases, Beastgrave will rotate out, and the new season's cards will replace them. There's also a list of restricted and banned cards in organized play. Warbands and their faction cards are never rotated out! (Although in some cases their cards may be restricted.) Very importantly, for casual play you can just ignore all these considerations and just play, and that's fine. I tend to follow the organized play restrictions in my deck-building generally, as I play often enough that I like the way rotation keeps the game fresh, and design and balance only gets tighter each year, so I feel that the already-very-good play experience is improved by following the deck-building restrictions, but if you don't wanna worry about it you don't gotta.
GW also only has for sale the current two seasons' warbands, I imagine partly for stock management reasons in stores and partly because the cards are not printed in-house, so keeping them in stock is more trouble than it's worth. Some people feel this is GW capitalizing on FOMO, but you have a couple years to get all the warbands in a given season, and TBQH the warbands only get better-designed (rules-wise) every year, so in general you're not missing much. Only a crazy person would have all 8 warbands from all 4 seasons.
*ahem*
What's the best way to get into the game?
The best way right now is probably the new Warhammer Underworlds Starter Set, which includes two (by all accounts well-designed, easy-to-pilot, competitively-strong) warbands and their faction cards, along with boards, dice, tokens and a rulebook. It has no universal cards, so there's no need to worry about deck building, so it's a good way to just see how the game works and try it out. No universal cards also means no rotation worries.
There's also now an "Essential Cards" pack, which includes a curated selection of universal cards that are generally either staples for all playstyles, or broadly useful for a general style of play. The idea is that these cards will never be rotated out, and will always be legal in organized play. Basically, if you get the Starter Set and enjoy it, adding this will allow you get start getting into deck building with some cards that will be very useful for all warbands and playstyles. If you're at all interested in the deckbuilding aspect of the game, you will eventually want this - it's that useful.
Or there is the yearly seasonal Core Box, again Direchasm at the time of writing. Like the Starter Set, it includes boards, dice, tokens and two warbands with their full faction decks, and also a selection of universal cards for the season - which will be subject to card rotation eventually. It'll have a lot more deck-building options than the Starter Set, and also includes "advanced" rules like magic and so on, which the Starter Set leaves out.
If you really like the look of one warband, and aren't worried about not having boards, dice, and tokens (I have so many dice and tokens, I'll give you dice and tokens), you could just buy a single warband box, which will as I say above give you enough faction-locked cards to play using only them, and some universal cards which you may or may not want to use with that warband. It's not a bad way to get into the game! Again, the universal cards will eventually be rotated out of organized play if you're worried about that.
I would say that if you're just looking at jumping in, even if you're planning on going all-in competitively, there's really no need to bother with anything other than the current season, unless there's a warband you really want to track down for aesthetic reasons. There's basically no power creep season to season, except in the sense that design has improved and "being overpowered in some situations because your rules are janky" or "being weak because the designers thought thing X would be stronger than it is" getting ironed out. Even if you're going to be a completionist, a single season's worth of content is more than enough for a very rich play experience, and you won't be limiting yourself or setting yourself up to get merked by an OP warband with access to cool toys from previous seasons - especially since those of us who have access to those rare janky cards are respecting rotation and don't use 'em.
***
So that's Underworlds! It's probably my favorite game at the moment, and has been for some time - it's really well-designed and well-supported, takes 30-45 minutes per game, and has some of the best miniatures GW makes. The only reason I don't play more often at Nagoya days is that I do play once or twice a month up at Ichinomiya, but I'm always ready to play if anyone's interested or wants a demo!
What is Warhammer Underworlds?
The official site is a pretty good place to start, but Underworlds is GW's hybrid board / card / miniatures game - it's probably accurate to classify it as "board game with living card game elements". It's a lot of fun!
You collect individual warbands, pre-selected groups of universally extremely awesome miniatures with little backstories and names for the fighters, then construct Objective and Power card decks to play with in game. Unlike what we usually consider miniatures games, you don't get to pick or modify your fighters in any way - if you use a particular warband, it will always have its set number of unique named fighters who you can't swap out or anything. Customization (and there's a lot of it) comes in your deck construction - Objective cards to determine how you'll get points in the game, and Power cards to buff fighters, manipulate the state of the game, and all that good card game stuff. It's in the "living card game" vein, so there's no blind buying or rarity or anything, you know exactly where to get all the cards, and you can't have duplicates in your deck, so there's no need to buy multiples of anything. There's basically two kinds of cards, faction-locked cards that only a certain warband can use, and "universal" cards that any warband can use. Generally you'll use a mix of them in a given deck (this will be important for the next subsection), and deck-building is an important, interesting, and fun part of the game: basically all the mental energy that would go into list-building in a typical GW wargame goes here. You can use a pure-faction deck, but faction cards tend to focus on theme rather than synergy or broad usefulness, so will struggle against constructed decks.
(An important point to keep in mind about all this talk about cards is that, for casual play, just getting card images from the database, printing them out and sleeving them up is perfectly OK.)
Wait, isn't this called Shadespire? -OR- What's this I hear about card rotation?
These are sort of the same question, and confusion around them is a big part of why I wanted to start a new thread, so I'd have a place to point people to explain it.
First is the concept of "seasons" - Underworlds is designed around yearly seasons: the first was Shadespire, the second was Nightvault, the third was Beastgrave, and the fourth current season at time of writing is Direchasm. A new season core box comes out in fall or winter each year, and it immediately replaces the previous one on the GW webstore, advancing the nominal plot of the series a bit and usually introducing some rules tweaks and a minor mechanic or two. Each season has a total of eight associated warbands (two in the core box and six released separately in the following months), and an associated set of universal cards. Each warband is packaged with a full set of faction-locked cards (enough to play using only faction cards as of Beastgrave) and a selection of universal cards which are often, but not always, thematically linked to that warband's typical play style.
Here's the thing: In the most popular organized play format, only universal cards from the current season and the previous season are legal - this is card rotation. At the moment, then, in organized play, only Direchasm and Beastgrave universal cards are legal. When the new season releases, Beastgrave will rotate out, and the new season's cards will replace them. There's also a list of restricted and banned cards in organized play. Warbands and their faction cards are never rotated out! (Although in some cases their cards may be restricted.) Very importantly, for casual play you can just ignore all these considerations and just play, and that's fine. I tend to follow the organized play restrictions in my deck-building generally, as I play often enough that I like the way rotation keeps the game fresh, and design and balance only gets tighter each year, so I feel that the already-very-good play experience is improved by following the deck-building restrictions, but if you don't wanna worry about it you don't gotta.
GW also only has for sale the current two seasons' warbands, I imagine partly for stock management reasons in stores and partly because the cards are not printed in-house, so keeping them in stock is more trouble than it's worth. Some people feel this is GW capitalizing on FOMO, but you have a couple years to get all the warbands in a given season, and TBQH the warbands only get better-designed (rules-wise) every year, so in general you're not missing much. Only a crazy person would have all 8 warbands from all 4 seasons.
*ahem*What's the best way to get into the game?
The best way right now is probably the new Warhammer Underworlds Starter Set, which includes two (by all accounts well-designed, easy-to-pilot, competitively-strong) warbands and their faction cards, along with boards, dice, tokens and a rulebook. It has no universal cards, so there's no need to worry about deck building, so it's a good way to just see how the game works and try it out. No universal cards also means no rotation worries.
There's also now an "Essential Cards" pack, which includes a curated selection of universal cards that are generally either staples for all playstyles, or broadly useful for a general style of play. The idea is that these cards will never be rotated out, and will always be legal in organized play. Basically, if you get the Starter Set and enjoy it, adding this will allow you get start getting into deck building with some cards that will be very useful for all warbands and playstyles. If you're at all interested in the deckbuilding aspect of the game, you will eventually want this - it's that useful.
Or there is the yearly seasonal Core Box, again Direchasm at the time of writing. Like the Starter Set, it includes boards, dice, tokens and two warbands with their full faction decks, and also a selection of universal cards for the season - which will be subject to card rotation eventually. It'll have a lot more deck-building options than the Starter Set, and also includes "advanced" rules like magic and so on, which the Starter Set leaves out.
If you really like the look of one warband, and aren't worried about not having boards, dice, and tokens (I have so many dice and tokens, I'll give you dice and tokens), you could just buy a single warband box, which will as I say above give you enough faction-locked cards to play using only them, and some universal cards which you may or may not want to use with that warband. It's not a bad way to get into the game! Again, the universal cards will eventually be rotated out of organized play if you're worried about that.
I would say that if you're just looking at jumping in, even if you're planning on going all-in competitively, there's really no need to bother with anything other than the current season, unless there's a warband you really want to track down for aesthetic reasons. There's basically no power creep season to season, except in the sense that design has improved and "being overpowered in some situations because your rules are janky" or "being weak because the designers thought thing X would be stronger than it is" getting ironed out. Even if you're going to be a completionist, a single season's worth of content is more than enough for a very rich play experience, and you won't be limiting yourself or setting yourself up to get merked by an OP warband with access to cool toys from previous seasons - especially since those of us who have access to those rare janky cards are respecting rotation and don't use 'em.
***
So that's Underworlds! It's probably my favorite game at the moment, and has been for some time - it's really well-designed and well-supported, takes 30-45 minutes per game, and has some of the best miniatures GW makes. The only reason I don't play more often at Nagoya days is that I do play once or twice a month up at Ichinomiya, but I'm always ready to play if anyone's interested or wants a demo!