Why I'm really into Underworlds right now

 For most of this year I’ve been pretty focused on Age of Sigmar as my main hobby enthusiasm (not that you would know it from reading my blog, but check out 'Three and Two: A matched play Age of Sigmar podcast' to hear my AoS ramblings). But recently the release of the Spitewood expansion for Warhammer Underworlds has got me really hyped for Underworlds again. I’ve never not enjoyed Underworlds, and I’ve been playing it once a week consistently pretty much since it was released, but in the run-up to Spitewood it felt like the meta had got a little stale. So I want to talk about what’s changed for me since the Spitewood release, and what I’m enjoying about the game now.

The Spitewood warbands are awesome

Spitewood comes with two new warbands: the Blood of the Bull (a Helsmiths of Hashut warband for Underworlds to match the recent Age of Sigmar army release), and Kurnoth’s Heralds, a warband of three Kurnothi (essentially elf centaurs, which don’t really exist outside Underworlds at the moment). I think this is one of the better boxed set warband combos we’ve had in Underworlds, for a number of reasons:

• The model design is amazing, I really enjoyed painting both warbands.

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My Kurnoth's Heralds

• Both warbands are interesting, for different reasons. Helsmiths are still a very new thing in Age of Sigmar, and the Blood of the Bull gives people who like the Helsmiths’ aesthetic but don’t want to get a whole army the chance to try out painting them; while Kurnoth’s Heralds continue to explore an interesting lore concept that there isn’t (currently) space for in AoS.
• They play completely differently, but both have warband design that feels unique and is fun to play with. Both also seem to be reasonably competitive picks in the new Spitewood meta.

I’ve played a little bit with both, though much more with Blood of the Bull (who I’ll say more about in a minute).

The Spitewood decks are interesting

One of the big changes in the second edition of Underworlds was removing faction decks, and while I generally think that was a good change, it does mean that when there is a period without new deck releases the meta can start to feel a little stale, as you tend to come across the same deck pairings repeatedly. Spitewood comes with two new decks which is a welcome edition.

Hunting Grounds has a focus on staying in your own territory, while Deadly Synergy is focused around the concept of ‘uniting’ your models by having them next to each other. Both of these are new design space, which makes them fun to try out and explore new deck pairings for. Initially at least Deadly Synergy appears to be very strong while Hunting Grounds is perhaps less consistently powerful, but both made me think ‘hmm, I want to try this out’.

Worth noting that alongside the release of Spitewood there was a rules change that allows two decks with plot cards to be paired together in nemesis format (if you don’t play Underworlds, essentially before there was a technicality that meant some decks couldn’t be paired with each other, now there isn’t). And I think that’s also done a lot to provide new options for players to explore. Earlier in the year the lack of possible deck choices was probably the main thing that was making me feel unexcited about the game, so it’s great that I’m now feeling very differently.

The Blood of the Bull. I'm really happy with how these came out

Watching the World Championships made me want to get good

The release of Spitewood came just before the Underworlds tournament at the World Championships of Warhammer, so Worlds was played with the new rules. Now, you can definitely argue that releasing eighteen new warbands, two new decks and some minor rules changes less than a month before the most important tournament of the year is putting a lot of pressure on the players in that tournament to get prepared in time. But from my perspective as a spectator, it made it super interesting to watch the streamed games and see the new meta in action.

I ended up watching back almost all the streamed games, and my one top takeaway from them was that the skill ceiling for Underworlds is really high. I think of myself as a pretty decent player, but I feel like I learned a tonne from watching the top players on stream. The level of play was (as you’d expect from the world championships!) incredibly high, and it helped me realise a lot of ways I can improve my own game. I don’t want to get too technical in this blog, but in particular I want to start thinking a lot more about board choice and token placement, and thinking more about counterplay beyond just ‘how do I counter my opponent’s big end phase objectives’.

I’ve been trying to get more practice games in since watching Worlds, and I want to keep doing that and get as good as I can in time for some tournaments in early 2026.

I’m really enjoying the warbands I’m playing

I’ve been practicing with two warbands: the aforementioned Blood of the Bull, and Kamandora’s Blades who are a Khorne warband that looked a bit weird in their promo pics and so got very little attention on release earlier this year, but that I really like.

Kamandora's Blades.

The two warbands play very differently, which is useful since I can use them with non-overlapping deck pairings, but I’m finding them both very fun to play.

Blood of the Bull I’m playing with a focus on holding feature tokens, using the Emberstone Sentinels and Pillage and Plunder decks. I wanted an opportunity to learn to use this deck pairing, since it was very popular at Worlds and I’ve never played with it before, and so far it seems to be working out pretty well. The key to playing the warband/deck combo well is getting the timing right on when to delve feature tokens (flipping them from treasure token side to cover hex side and vice versa), and I’m finding this to be a fun challenge.  Part of the reason I love Blood of the Bull is also simply that they are dwarves, I do not love chaos dwarves as much as other dwarves but they are still pretty great. And I’m super happy with my paint job for them, which is always a bonus.

Kamandora’s Blades I’m playing with Deadly Synergy (which feels like the optimal pick for them as it fits very well with the way the warband wants to play anyway), and Countdown to Cataclysm, which is in an extremely silly place at the moment due to some rules that could probably do with tweaking, but as a result of this is a lot of fun. They definitely have some weaknesses as a warband, but I think they have potential to catch people out particularly in best-of-one tournaments as they aren’t a popular warband so most players won’t have had a lot of practice against them. And I think they are much better than they are perceived to be, once inspired they have very reliable stats and I’ve had a fair amount of success with them.

Wrap up

This isn’t to say that Underworlds is without issues, it could really do with an FAQ, and an update to the restricted card list wouldn’t go amiss either. But this aside, I think the Spitewood expansion was a really solid release, and I’m feeling really stoked about it right now. Hopefully I can get some tournaments in soon, I’m also contemplating trying to organise some kind of local competitive league if I can find enough time and motivation (I’m hoping if I tell enough people I might do this I will eventually feel obliged to actually do it).