Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow The Headsmen's Curse Warband & Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck Review

Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow is in full swing. Whether you're still skulking through the Gnarlwood or have made your way below to the Wyrdhollow a new Warband and Rivals deck has arrived. These new entries into Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow are The Headsman's Curse Warband and the Voidcursed Thralls Rival Deck. These either bring a whole new group to the fray or alter the way you engage in a skirmish with any of your previously available Warbands.

Warhammer Underworlds The Headsmen's Curse Warband

The Headsmen's Curse is the first additional Warband to come to Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow. This group is the judge, jury, executioner, and… sharpener of the dead blade Terminus. The Headsmen's Curse lore card specifies the Chainrasp in this warband "Their former identities are subsumed into the greatsword's necromantic magic." It's a novel concept, even if executed grimly, that this Warband is really a magical sword and its servants. It's just one of the servants who is also needed to carry the magic sword.

As part of the Warhammer Underworlds line, the miniatures for this warband come on two sprues. With a simple instruction sheet, you're able to clip each part out and assemble them with push-fit connections.

This was a simple group of minis to put together, unlike other recent releases there weren't any pieces that needed to be held in place while you assembled other parts around them to hold them up. As a group of ghosts one of their nicest traits is how hollow they are, there's enough for you to look at while understanding that they're spectral. I did have some hesitation when performing the 'push' part of push-fit, with each being so hollow there was some fear of bending a piece out of shape but fortunately little damage was sustained in putting them together.

The Headsmen's Curse works together as a swift execution party for your opponents fighters. The available abilities fit thematically well with the roles that each represent. While the Bearer of the Block does fine work with Cleave I most appreciate Sharpener of the Blade who can emport the Wielder of the Blade. This allows these two fighters to work well supporting one another. This is more important when you know how that works further with some of the gambits in the rival deck.

Here are our favorite cards from The Headsmen's Curse Rivals Deck:

• Off With Their Heads! - This objective will align well with executing an enemy with the Wielder of the Blade and has an added bonus if you kill the opponent leader. This is where the Sharpener of the Blade's ability can come in handy.
• Tools of Death - This objective promotes upgrading your team and spreading those upgrades across the board. It's one you'll want to get off earlier, but is well worth it for two points.
• Hold Them Still - There's strength in numbers with this Warband as there are a number of abilities that promote them working together. Here there's a benefit of moving and then setting yourself up for an advantageous attack, or getting ready to protect yourself if being attacked.
• Swift Judgement - While it's broken after use this upgrade helps give a bit of added movement and also a chance to hand out a Condemned counter. You can also just keep it for the additional movement.
• Chilling Grasp - This is a fun additional element for an opponent to have to factor into their strategy. While it won't work in your favor if you're the weaker member of a duel if you've put yourself in an advantageous space not letting anyone leave is an exceptional ability.

Warhammer Underworlds Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck

The new standalone Rivals Deck for Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow is the Voidcursed Thralls. This Rival Deck turns your warband into the Voidcursed, a type of infection that will not only take over your own warband but if you're playing your cards right will also take over your opponents. When you first start, and any time you don't have any living friendly fighters who are Voidcursed, you're able to select one that will take on the infection.

A Voidcursed fighter has the following limitations placed upon them; they can't make actions other than Move, Attack, or Charge, can't make Range +3 Attacks, can't be Driven Back, and have a defense of 1 Shield. For a Warband with a large number of special abilities, the Voidcursed Thralls will nullify them, but once you start expanding these limitations to the other side of the battlefield it becomes a terrifying concept.

Each of the Gambit cards has something to do with directly affecting a Voidcursed fighter or infecting further around Voidcursed fighters. With how much this could cripple the abilities of your opponent's team it's well worth focusing on positioning your fighters in a ripe location to infect the battlefield.

I'm a very big fan of this deck, even though my player tendencies would warn me away from the kinds of high-risk/high-reward play of getting in quickly and turning a number of your opponents. I can just imagine never getting off any infections leaving your own warband somewhat helpless against powered-up foes.

Here are our favorite cards from the Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck:

• Perfect Thrall - This Objective is simple yet effective, have a Voidcursed fighter be working towards holding an objective while also dealing damage to a nearby fighter. It fits not only to promote the player towards objectives but also thematically fits well to the 'zombie' theme
• Reshape Realm - This is a cool objective for two reasons. The first of which promotes getting everyone on the board Voidcursed, this might be difficult to imagine when there are 8-10 fighters on the board but as numbers begin to dwindle or you pull off a big conversion this is a huge objective to complete.
• Singular Reshaping - If you aren't able to activate more Voidcursed on your own this upgrade applies to your opponents forcing one of them to turn. If there's a fighter that your opponent has been protecting due to especially powerful abilities or a consistent ranged attack you can stop that immediately with this upgrade.
• Zealot Imperative - This card is useful for making a large move on the field, it only works once but until it's used it gives that option to all friendly fighters. This is valuable as a way to conceal what your plan might be, or to give yourself the freedom to pivot if your opponent doesn't play the way you want them to.
• Reshaping Burst - This is a big powerplay gambit card. On a fighter with good movement against a warband that's bunched up too tightly, this could be a make-or-break strategy to play.

What are our final thoughts on Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow The Headsmen's Curse Warband & Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck?

Thematically I absolutely love the way that The Headsmen's Curse functions. Much like with the rest fo Warhammer lore I'm always in awe of the incredible ideas that come up. Unfortunately though with a Warband that focuses on a single piece 'commanding' others to sit back and be ready to revive them I'm not a huge fan. It's a personal preference so if you like knowing that you need to protect your leader and that fits into the way you plan strategy then The Headsmen's Curse might be right up your alley. The Voidcursed Thralls are a very interesting Rivals Deck, you'd need careful consideration as to which Warband you pair this with. There's a lot of ways this could interact differently with the size and abilities that could result in a number of fun combinations.

Should you buy Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow The Headsmen's Curse Warband & Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck?

As always whether you should pick up The Headsmen's Curse Warband or Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck comes down to whether the strategy that they would allow you to compete with is the type of play that you find interesting. In this case you have the style of gameplay that is the King and his revivable Pawns making their way across the board as a moderately sized Warband. The Rivals Deck involves an infection element where you not only corrupt your own fighters, but the fighters of your opponents altering their abilities but opening them up to more options.

The copy of Warhammer Underworlds Wyrdhollow The Headsmen's Curse Warband & Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck used to produce this review was provided by the Publisher. All photos were taken by the reviewer over the course of the review.