Warhammer Underworlds Grandfather's Gardeners And The Jaws of Itzl Review

Shortly after the new Warhammer Underworlds edition launch we're already being spoiled by Games Workshop releasing two new Warbands, Grandfather's Gardeners and The Jaws of Itzl, alongside two rivals decks, Reckless Fury and Wrack and Ruin. We took these Warbands and decks for a spin so check out what makes these tick and how we liked them.

Warhammer Underworlds Warband Changes

With the new edition of Warhammer Underworlds the way that Rivals decks are mostly the same, but there are larger changes to the ways that Warbands function that you'll need to know before reading further.

As I mentioned in my Warhammer Underworld Embergard Review a Warband is now just the units, Fighter cards, and Warband reference cards. These reference cards contain the unique mechanics for each Warband, it's no longer something specific to that Warbands Rival Deck. Those mechanics now stay with each Warband, and then the Rivals Deck you're using creates permutations as you go into games.

For example if you're using the Grandfather's Gardeners you'll always be able to use their Blooming Plague throughout the battle, but pairing them with Reckless Fury will result in a more aggressive style of game as opposed to the positioning-based Wrack and Ruin.

Warbands Grandfather's Gardeners and The Jaws of Itzl

Inside each of these new Warband packages you'll receive the Warband's Fighter Cards, a sprue with the Fighter's pieces, instructions for assembly, and the Warband card that shows colored versions of each Fighter alongside their names, story, and primary mechanics.

Quite interestingly the standalone Warband packs don't just come with a single Warband card but they come with seven. Each card comes in a different language supporting English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese. Their character cards also list the creature names in a variety of languages.

Grandfather's Gardeners are a Warband fighting to "spread the maggots and seepages of Nurgle across the realms." This Warband of five has a really interesting mechanics of cycling through powerlevels, like a garden growing and wilting away.

At the start of the game a token is placed on the start of their Warscroll tracker and processes at the end of turns, when damaging is inflicted upon you, or if you have more treasure tokens than your opponent. As the tracker moves around the circular track the number next to the tracker will determine the power of their characteristic.

This will determine times when you'll want to seek out objectives, if you're at a low value position on the tracker, or when you want to make big plays. One point on this track even allows you to heal a fighter making it beneficial to be moving through the track quickly if you need to heal up.

By comparison, The Jaws of Itzl are a Skaven pack of four Fighters; Kro-Jaz, the Aegis, So-Kar, Ro-Tak, the Guardian, and Sotek's Venomites. This Warband will always be seeking to overpower their opponents and get into advantageous positions.

With Instinctual Control after declaring an attack Sotek's Venomites can move, keeping Sotek's Venomites nearby other Fighters can help gain a quick advantage early on. With low stats it's likely the most help that the Venomites will be.

Other offensive plays including Savage Mauling which lets you roll attack dice up to the damage that the saurus has taken. A quick way to turn the battle and even more useful knowing it recharges on the death of an enemy fighter. Knowing just when to unleash this attack could get your opponent on the back foot very quickly.

It's clear that this Warband is ready to not only take some hits but also dish out, for a player who enjoys pushing fast and aggressively at the start of the game you'll likely have a lot of fun with this Warband.

Warhammer Underworlds Rivals Decks - Reckless Fury and Wrack and Ruin

Each Rivals Deck comes in a large package, once inside you end up with a neat deckbox with the logo of the Warband. Easy to cary around and pack up which is important for storage once you've got a lot of Warbands to pick from.

The Rivals Decks themselves come with a double-sided title card. This displays the deck name, a narrative structure for the deck, and a list of all of the included Objective and Power Cards. There are 12 Objective Cards and 20 Power Cards that will make up your deck.

For Reckless Fury your goals align with the Bounty characteristics of enemy fighters, or getting Charge tokens on your Fighters. This really aligns with the idea of "Fury" as you'll be wanting to Charge as much as possible, or use power cards to force characters to Charge, and then taking out your opponents to score big.

The majority of the cards in this deck are tied to Charging, abilities when you have Charge tokens, and buffing characters when they have the Charge token. It's honestly not a complicated Rivals Deck to get behind, and at the beginning of a new edition of Warhammer Underworlds this will likely be a great way to introduce players who just want to deal some damage to the format.

Wrack and Ruin play a more complicated game. Earning objectives are predominantly tied to the positioning of your Fighters. You might get an objective on something as simple as a friendly fighter being in both territories or if there are no fighters in Edge Hexes, but it could also be something far more complex like having two friendly fighters in the enemy territory with Move tokens.

The placement isn't just about your own fighters either, as it's also important to see where your opponents Warbands are and attempt to move them into specific positions.

These specific requirements can be achieved with smart use of ploys and upgrades. You'll be getting to swap fighters, giving your opponents options of whether they want to move or be vulnerable, or simply push them around.

Unlike Reckless Fury that's all about attacking you'll likely more be dancing around your opponents with the Wrack and Ruin Rivals Deck having to plan two or three turns ahead to make sure you have responses to keep yourself safe and on-objective while baiting your enemy towards you. For a more calculating player there's a lot of fun to be had here.

Warhammer Underworlds Grandfather's Gardeners And The Jaws of Itzl Review | Final Thoughts

Variety is the spice of life and once again Games Workshop has created a diverse collection of Warbands and Rivals Decks that when mixed and matched can create wholly different experiences.

Whether you're playing as Grandfather's Gardeners with fluctuating power you can go on the attack with Reckless Fury or coax your opponents into helping you achieve your objectives through non-combat with Wrack and Ruin. The pieces are the same, but in a different arrangement, it's a whole different level of fun.

The only potential drawback of this offering is that it's either a very simplistic approach, or a very complicated one. If you want an easy stepping stone to a more complicated startegy it's likely not going to be found here.

The copy of Warhammer Underworlds Grandfather's Gardeners, The Jaws of Itzl, Reckless Fury, and Wrack and Ruin in this review was provided by the publisher. All screenshots were taken by the author during the process of review.