Venturing into the Underworld

 Recently my brother introduced me to Warhammer: Underworlds. I've been basically out of the GW scene for a long time (for all the usual reasons), but I do keep half an eye on their new releases. And in particular any mini-games involving small numbers of models (Necromunda, Kill Team, and such) could potentially temp me to give them a go. Underworlds is in that category. 

After playing a couple of games using Vaughan's minis, I picked up the Starblood Stalkers lizardman warband. After these were painted I was left without any projects on the go, so on a whim I picked up both the Direchasm starter box (which comes with the Myari's Purifiers and Dread Pageant warbands) and the Morgweath's Blade-Coven witch-elf warband. These have all now been assembled and basecoated. 

Blade-Coven Warband

Dread Pageant Warband

Myari's Purifiers Warband

These guys, along with a few terrain pieces Vaughan 3D printed for me, are my current works in progress. 

Yesterday afternoon Vaughan and I played a game of Underworld, with me using the Starblood Stalkers (since they're my only painted warband) and Vaughan using the Magore's Fiends warband. My warband consisted of five Skinks and a Saurus Old-One, and Vaughan's had three Chaos Warriors and a Khorne Hound. 

For a change of pace, we set up the two boards lengthwise. In hindsight I think this benefitted me, since my units had both higher movement and better ranged attacks than Vaughan's.

With me having deployed a few hexes back, Vaughan had no option for his first round activations but to move and/or charge forward. Since the separation between most of our models was a hex or two greater than his movement, the units ended up just short. This let my lizards choose the engagement, firing off ranged attacks or charging in when it was advantageous. 

This was still very much a learning game, with much looking up rules and (at least on my part) deliberately avoiding cards that included rules keywords I didn't want to take the time to look up just yet. 

Which actually segues into another comment - Underworlds is very much a hybrid, being part miniature wargame, part board game, and part card game. Deck building is supposed to be a significant part of the strategy of the game. Now I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm typically not a fan of Magic-style trading card games... but a large part of my objection to these is due to the "collectable" business model of which cards are in a pack being random. Effectively gambling directly aimed at young-people. 

Underworld doesn't have this - the cards that come with a particular product are fixed. The cards are somewhat used to incentivize buying (for example, if you play warband X but a power card you want only comes in the warband Y expansion) but at least it's not random. And while deck-building is part of the strategy of the game, it's not as central as it is in Magic, or even in Warmachine / Warcaster. So even as somebody not a fan of card games, I think I can enjoy Underworld despite the modest card-element.