Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood Gryselle's Arenai Review

It's time for another Warband to join the latest season of Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood. This month Gryselle's Arenai, a group of all-female gladiators is joining the fray led by the fearsome Gryselle, the Slaughterer.

What comes in Gryselle's Arenai Expansion?

Inside the latest expansion to Warhammer Underworlds, you'll find a deck of cards containing lore information on Gryselle's Arenai, Objective cards, a Rivals Deck, and two plastic sheets of miniature parts that you'll be able to snap assemble to create the miniatures used in this expansion.

A nice additional note with this expansion is that within the box is a smaller storage box that you can slide in and out. This gives you better storage options whether you're keeping the miniatures and cards in the box, or want to store them together somewhere else.

Each miniature is posed excellently to give you an idea of what that character can accomplish. With the exception of Traxya, the Aegis who is standing squat with a sword and shield there's incredible movement in Kalexis, the Silvered Blur who is in mid-dash, and Thrialla, the Lash whose whip is frozen in the air. The most impressive miniature of them all is Retaria, the Entangled with her net and spear. The miniature is suspended by the net as Retaria drops down ready with a powerful stab.

Who are Gryselle's Arenai?

From the land of Har Kuron this Warband is entering the Gnarlwood in order to hone their skills and become an even more terrifying force than they already are. Each of the members of the Arenai not only shows off prowess in combat but also in acrobatics. These hunters also each have their own specialty. 

Some examples of these include Thrialla's proficiency with her whip, and Retaria's ability to vault across the battlefield. Each of these abilities doesn't just add narrative depth to this Warband but also influences how you can expect to play each of them in Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood.

Each character has their own unique ability that sets them apart, each of these tying into their lore. With Kalexis' Blur ability after your attack roll you can roll an attack dice for each success and add them to the roll and Traxya can use their Buckler Jab on a critical to be able to deal additional damage to adjacent enemies.

Another unique mechanic of the Gryselle's Arenai are that all of them become automatically inspired with the third round. This gives a natural ramping effect to the Warband. You might do a lot to position yourself in the early game, or even focus on non-combat objectives, to then turn around and go all out as every member of your Warband becomes more powerful in the back half of the game.

Our favorite cards from Gryselle's Arenai are:

• Warrior-faithful - This card does a great job of pushing the Warband to build up charge tokens and go on the all-out attack
• Har Kuron Hurricane - This is a great objective to have in the later game and is one of many that allows you to complete objectives for having Inspired fighters
• Devotee of Slaughter - So many different abilities rely on wound tokens being placed on enemies, with an upgrade like this you're able to scale up how much you can do that
• Kruiplash - Who doesn't like a good upgrade that will allow you to combo further attacks?
• Star Performer - Another ability that ties hand in hand with your Warband becoming inspired showing how the Warband can scale

What are our final thoughts on Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood Gryselle's Arenai Expansion?

There's a lot more happening here than in previous Expansions. Where a lot of Grinkrak's Looncourt and the Sons of Velmorn are built around using your Warband to work together the Gryselle's Arenai are much more independent. There's a benefit to the gladiator's independence allowing them to scale up and do a lot of damage on their own, but it also means if they get into a situation that they're less suited for they could be in store for a world of hurt.

Should you buy Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood Gryselle's Arenai Expansion?

This pack is for those that like creating a strategy and predicting your opponent's movements. So much of this Warband is not just looking for those opportunities to take an objective or deal damage, but also that the specific Gladiator is in the right spot to best utilize their own ability. For people who like playing Warbands that naturally scale with no outside intervention the auto-trigger for being Inspired is also a really nice factor that will help you feel more powerful as the battle goes on.

The copy of Warhammer Underworlds Gnarlwood Gryselle's Arenai used to produce this review was provided by the publisher.