Warhammer Underworlds Deadly Depths Preview

Warhammer Underworlds is a competitive skirmish wargame that combines board and card game elements. Set in Games Workshop's fantasy Warhammer Age of Sigmar setting, it launched its sixth season recently with a new starter set Nethermaze, which gets its first rivals deck, Deadly Depths. In this article, we'll take a look at what's in the new rivals pack, our favorite cards from it, and also talk about the different Warhammer Underworlds formats.

To use the product in this article, you'll need a copy of a Warhammer Underworlds starter set, and if you don't already have one, either Nethermaze, Harrowdeep, or the Warhammer Underworlds Two-Player Starter Set will work, but Nethermaze has the latest rules, boards, and tokens. For more details on Warhammer Underworlds, including how it plays and what a season is, check out our Warhammer Underworlds Nethermaze Preview.

What Is Warhammer Underworlds Deadly Depths?

Deadly Depths is a Rivals Deck that contains 32 cards, including 12 objectives, 10 gambits, and 10 upgrades. Deadly Depths is themed around the water depths of the Nethermaze and Harrowdeep.

Deadly Depths is designed to be played straight out of the box with the Rivals game format, which we discuss below, but all of the cards can also be used individually when creating your own decks. All of the cards are universal, so can be used with any warband.

The deck focuses on extra movement and interaction with feature tokens in the action deck and scoring objectives from being in cover hexes and feature tokens in the objective deck.

What Cards Does Warhammer Underworlds Deadly Depths Have?

Our picks from Deadly Depths are:

• Waist Deep - This ploy reduces all movement of fighters not on feature tokens during the next activation to 2. Only lasts for one activation, but can hamper fast or swarm warbands and can be great for last-moment objectives pushes. Very thematic with the watery depths.
• Seeking the Deep Truths - This ploy allows you to deal up to 3 damage to a friendly fighter in a cover hex, giving you a magic dice for each damage dealt. If a magic symbol is rolled on the dice, a glory point is gained. This can be handy for final glory pushes, or to gain glory for a pivotal upgrade to be purchased from.
• Gallows Humor - This upgrade allows a fighter to move one hex after every activation in which a fighter is taken out of action. Can be fantastic to keep essential fighters in range and set up big attack rounds.
• Call of the Dark - This 3 glory objective can be scored in an end phase if 4 fighters are in cover hexes. Your opponent also gets to deal 1 damage to one of your fighters in a cover hex, but that's a minor price for 3 glory.
• A War in the Shadows -  This 1 glory objective can be scored in an end phase when an enemy has been taken out in the previous activation step, and two friendly fighters are in cover hexes. Play very well with Deadly Depths and offers an easy glory for ranged warbands if using it to construct your own decks.

What Are The Warhammer Underworlds Game Formats?

Warhammer Underworlds has 3 game formats, the full rules for which can all be found on the Warhammer Underworlds downloads page.

• Rivals - This format uses the set decks that come with each warband, or a preconstructed Rivals decks. The warbands from the first few seasons don't have enough cards for the Rivals format, so if you're playing an earlier warband, you'll have to use a Rivals deck to play.
• Championship - The championship format rotates cards out from older seasons. Players can select cards from their warbands cards, and universal cards from the current and previous seasons. Currently, these are Harrowdeep and Direchasm. This format also includes a banned and restricted list for organized play events.
• Relic - The relic format allows players to use any cards from all seasons of Warhammer Underworlds, and it also includes a banned list to balance out organized play.

Why Are There Different Warhammer Underworlds Formats?

The different formats make it easier for newer players to start playing Warhammer Underworlds. Brand new players can pick up a Starter Set and start playing straight away in the Rivals format, and then supplement their collection with a warband, or one of the rivals decks. If they then want to play Championship, they're only ever a season behind, and veteran players can always play relic if they want to make use of their full collection.

There is also an unofficial Rivals+ format, which allows players to pick a warband, then supplement their cards with either of the current rivals decks. This format allows players to play the older warbands, without losing access to their warband-specific cards, which reinforce the flavor of that warband.

What Formats Can I Use Warhammer Underworlds Deadly Depths In?

Deadly Depths can be used to replace any deck for any warband in the Rivals format or can be used to supplement any deck with individual cards in the Championship/Relic format.

The copy of Warhammer Underworlds Deadly Depths used to produce this preview were provided by Games Workshop.