Death factions in Warhammer Underworlds come in all shapes and flavors, but we haven’t been graced by the nobility of the Flesh Eater Courts in quite some time. The Skinnerkin bring a different style of play compared to their Grymwatch cousins, and indeed perhaps a new style of play for Death warbands in general. These storied chefs entreat the hexes of our boards with a fast, but calculated, Aggro style of play that is actually fairly unique compared to many teams in the game. Let’s share a meal and get stuck in!
Fighters
Our first fighter and Leader is Gristla Tenderhooke. The beefiest fighter on the team at a respectable 4 Wounds and 1 Block, she brings a solid attack and the introduction to one of the core mechanics of the team, Haunch counters. Gristla has the potential to generate 2 Counters in a single attack with good dice, and you only need 3 to Inspire the entire team. However, her low speed leaves something to be desired, meaning that she’ll often have to stand up front (taking a beating in the process) or work more as a counter-charge piece. Her inspired profile only improves her attack, but boy howdy, it becomes scary accurate. Overall, she’s a straightforward piece that will be the backbone of the ‘Kin and instrumental in gaining those all important counters.
Young Master Kretch is an interesting fighter. His lackluster defensive dice belies an interesting aspect of this team – every fighter other than Gristla is 3 Wounds. Traditionally, 5 Fighter teams in Underworlds employ at least one fighter with Wounds of 2 or less, other than Sons of Velmorn, so this boost in overall durability doesn’t go unnoticed. But I digress. Kretch’s attack is perfectly passable, especially with his respectable Move 4 speed, and he generates Counters similar to Gristla. His Inspired side is kind of odd, with the Cleaver losing accuracy for damage, representing his feral bloodlust. This lack of accuracy can be helped with rerolls or supports, but still can make the act of Inspiring a moment to reprioritize your fighter priority.
Flensemaster Pewdrig is likely the weakest overall fighter on the team, with a fairly mediocre attack and a Reaction to gain Haunch Counters that is more niche than Kretch or Gristla. Still, he becomes much more reliable and dangerous once Inspired, so much like Kretch, you need to keep an eye on your Haunch Count and shift your planning as you gain that third Counter.
A much more interesting fighter comes in the form of Seddrik the Chain. Starting with Scything is nice, though of course it’s not particularly damaging, it’s a nice way to spread some early Wounds. He helps set up support prowess with his Entangling Chains, and once Inspired, becomes a somewhat strange fighter with a scary but inaccurate Scything attack, paired with a nice little chip damage Range 3 attack. Not particularly amazing by himself, but his ability to set up attacks or provide ranged fire makes him more flexible than Pewdrig.
Finally we get to the big bat, Carnskyr. This bad boy has a middling attack, but Move 5 with Fly gives him exceedingly good reach, and his Grasping Talons provide chip damage and/or utility that cannot be understated. Going to 2 Dodge when Inspired is another great boost, and I think value with the Carnskyr only scales as the game goes on.
Favorites
- Aman: Carnskyr
- George: Young Master Kretch
- Mark: Carnskyr
- Zach: Gristla
Objectives
Attacked Flank gives an interesting Aggro surge. All you need is a successful attack – provided that attack is from Gristla or Kretch, was a kill that involved Pewdrig, or that attack was a Charge from Carnskyr that happened to roll the Channel. However, more difficult than the Haunch counter is the need for Support, in a faction with no innate multimoves or pushes. If you can set up a good Support, this card is excellent, but whether that’s easy to do or not will remain to be seen.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
Back To The Kitchens!, other than having excellent fluff, is also a pretty decent card. Getting two Haunch Counters should be relatively easy over the course of a Turn, and with 5 fighters there’s often at least one keeping a toe in your zone. It’s pretty reliable for a 1 Glory End Phase.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
I have given He Likes It Fresh a few good looks and I think it runs into the same issue that all Shadeborn players know – setting up Vulnerable on purpose for an End Phase Objective is way harder than you think it is.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 1
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we have Last Minute Order, which is nearly as guaranteed of a card as I’ve ever seen. As an Aggro team, you want to remember your ABCs – Always Be Charging. And the Objective doesn’t have to be scored this Round, so you just basically always score it unless it’s the only Surge in your opening hand. And even then you likely just keep it and auto score it on your Second Activation in the next round.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
I find cards like One For You, One For Me to be fairly difficult. Ending adjacent to fighters in the End Phase is much harder than ending on an Objective token overall, and doing it with two fighters can be difficult. However, for a team that wants to play “death of a thousand cuts”, it’s a bit more in line with the gameplan than teams that like to kill quickly and immediately. Still quite iffy, but if you can do it consistently, it’s a pretty guaranteed 2 Glory End Phase
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
While Perfect Cut is not quite [
Headshot], it’s a type of card that you just kinda bring because with all your 3 dice attacks and incentive to Support, it should just score in a lot of games. Though sometimes, the dice will leave you in despair. Gambling!
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
Plated Banquet might as well only be a Third End Phase card, though I suppose there’s worlds where you score it in Round 2. Still, 5 Counters is a lot to ask for, given that your cards want to spend them as much as you want to gain them, so I don’t know if I can swing this in my deck.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
Plenty to Choose From? Don’t choose this. It’s 3 Glory for a slightly easier [
Annihilation], making it not the most Win-More card in the game, but it’s up there.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 1
Now onto something really good, Sing While You Work should likely score in every game you draw it unless you really get blanked out by positioning or debuffing. The attacks don’t have to be successful, and you don’t need specific positioning or resources to score. Excellent
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Much like Plenty To Choose From, Slaughterhouse is very win-more. Unless you got crazy good luck on Haunch generation and also are killing models, this remains pretty hard overall.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 1
Likely this will just slot in alongside Perfect Cut. Like most of these “roll dice to score” Surges, Tenderise The Meat just wants you to make a lot of attacks. And given the team, you likely will do that. Easy pickup in my opinion, though dice will dice.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
And last but not least, The Main Course is another Surge you will simply score more often than not over the course of the game. Fairly difficult early, it becomes trivial in later rounds unless you’re using Ploys to dump all your Haunch Counters and not getting any back to replenish. I think the decider for using this depends on how many Ploys you have that remove Haunch Counters.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
Favorites
- Aman: Last-minute Order
- George: Last-minute Order
- Mark: Perfect Cut
- Zach: Sing While You Work
Gambits
Beginning with a pretty solid Gambit, Aspiring Artisan gives one or more rerolls depending on your Haunch situation. We’ll see some cards that spend Haunch counters later on, but realistically the only time you should be at 0 Haunch Counters should be the very start of the game, or after you score every Objective that cares about them. So often this is either a massive opening hit with full rerolls, or a solid reroll during the middle part of the game. Either way, quite good.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
Even more consistently good, Get Out Of My Larder! gives a move to three of your five fighters, and in the case of Carnskyr, can trigger Grasping Talons. This will at minimum be generically useful for getting on points, getting Support, or just repositioning, and in the best case will get you value from Carnskyr flying over enemies as well. Plus Salvage synergy. Great card!
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Players who like to gamble with their aggro will enjoy Greedy, Greedy! in their decks. I personally don’t like it a lot, though with two fighters that go to 4 dice and dice improvers in the deck, it’s likely pretty reliable, and damage is damage. Still, I would have rather had it be just stock +1 Damage instead.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
Speaking of gambling, we have Precise Fillet. Someone will come and check me with the math on this, but honestly I don’t like this card. Yes, it helps trigger Grievous and Prime Cut, and likely will make blocking harder for certain dice values, but I feel a lot of times if you’re rolling multiple successes, one of them is a crit. I don’t personally like this type of card that needs to wait for a precise situation, but there’s synergy there if you want to use it.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 1
The first Heal(X) card we’ll see in the deck, Quick Bite is also our first card that spends Haunch Counters, so let’s talk about that. Once you Inspire, the only reason to stack Haunch Counters is for certain Objectives. I think Plated Banquet is pretty mid, so mostly you just need 2-3 for most Objectives. Hovering around that 2-3 Counter spot, spending any that go over, is going to be a conceit of this team’s playstyle. Quick Bite can trade a little or a lot of Counters, so it’s a nice flexible card that almost always will be worth using. Again, you have more Wounds than most 5 wounds teams on average, and Healing here and there will help press that advantage. I like it.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
Season The Meat is a decent little debuff card. Being adjacent is somewhat restrictive, and whether it’s terribly impactful really depends on the amount of dice the opponent is throwing. Still, debuffs are debuffs, and hitting a 2 Dice enemy with this will help considerably, especially against big dudes like Mollog or the Wielder of the Blade.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
Taste Test is pretty similar to Quick Bite, with a bit different utility. More Healing is actually pretty decent overall, and sometimes early on the Guard will help a lot, but I think usually you’ll take the Heal off this. Out of the two, I think Quick Bite is a bit better, but both will stack up the Heals and make you more durable than the opponent may expect.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
We’ve talked in the past about how iffy Stagger is to evaluate, but the area of effect from That Was Nasty is quite large, which is nice. There’s worlds where you get a single attack off and Stagger nearly the whole enemy team, which can be huge. Though is that better in a single card than another Ploy would be? I think this gets cut often, but I wouldn’t look funny at anyone who decided to run it.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
The King Hungers! is not quite a double of Aspiring Artisan, but they both fill a very similar role. This one I think is better in general, as you can already get rerolls from Stagger effects, and extra dice means more chances for Hit + Crit. But basically everything I said about Artisan applies here: Amazing early on to open up Prime Cut/Fillet from Gristla or Kretch, still good later on. Good card.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Our final Gambit and also final Haunch Discard gambit, Unfit For A King gives us non-Objective Glory! I find these types of cards always good, and like I said in the Quick Bite section, you can feel free to discard Haunch Counters once you Inspire, down to whatever you need to score your Objectives. If you somehow get a glut of Counters, a card that gives 2 Glory for (effecitvely) free is insane. But even 1 Glory is a lot, provided it doesn’t lock you out of more Glory from Objectives. I will likely run this in every deck unless I find myself starving for Counters during the game.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Favorites
- Aman: Unfit For A King
- George: Precise Fillet
- Mark: Get Out of My Larder!
- Zach: Get Out of My Larder!
Upgrades
Teleport cards are always worth a consideration, and Awful Connoisseur is no exception. However, how much value you get out of this is… arguable. It depends on your opponent (excellent against 2 Wound teams, less good into Elites), and depends on your dice and the situation. What you get off the teleport may also vary, as it might not get you much distance or a good position in various circumstances. Overall it seems fine, but not my favorite card in the deck.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 1
Cleave is good… when you don’t have to pay for it. Butcher’s Strength joins the legion of cards that you likely won’t include because half the teams in the game don’t care about it, but you’ll consider if the meta becomes rife with Block teams or Voidcursed Thralls.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
Remember what I said about Unfit For A King giving us non-Objective Glory? Calloused Hands! What a great card. One off damage reduction is perfectly fine, especially when it’s guaranteed to give you a glory as long as you get hit by an attack before dying. It puts a lot of awkward choices on your opponent, raises the Glory ceiling, and further boosts your effective durability. Excellent.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Ping cards are always good, and Gruesome Gourmand is no exception. While it’s technically a card that requires a two-card combo to work, you’ll almost always have good Gambits to set up with, and damage + heal combo is a great swing. I think you always run this.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 3
Head Chef basically turns Gristla into a master commander, but unfortunately I’m not sure that pushing 2 on everyone is that useful of an Action in an Aggro warband. If you cared a lot about Holding Objectives, or cared a lot about swarming adjacency, it could be a really good card, but I think there’s better ways to get movement shenanigans once you move into Nemesis decks. The effect is powerful, but not really what the team is looking for.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 2
Kitchen Director turns Inspired Gristla into one of the most accurate fighters in the entire game for a single Upgrade… provided you get Supports. That’s quite good for proc’ing Fillet and chopping down enemies, but be wary of your positioning to get the most use of it.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
Latching On will give your warband some defensive power, boosting your meager one dice Dodge into Guard provided you Charge. Preventing drive back also helps a lot for setting up Supports, which is nice. It’s not amazingly impactful, but it’ll never not be good.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
Midden Heap Scavenger makes Carnskyr a real pain to take down once Inspired, effectively being on Guard all the time (minus the Drive Back part). The Action is quite interesting – as an Aggro team, you don’t want to lose out on a good Move or Charge, but sometimes a guaranteed Haunch will lock in some Objectives that you would otherwise have to dice for. I think the passive part of this is nearly good enough by itself, and the Action will sometimes be clutch. Good card.
Power Ceiling: 2 Consistency: 3
Potential Courtier is a card that seems pretty difficult to set up a lot of the time, since the team does not have multimove or many pushes in faction. However, if you do get the chance to set it up, it’s extremely strong and can rip a Stormcast or even Mollog to pieces in a single turn. I think the danger is that you focus so much on trying to make it work that you do subpar actions to get there, which might be your downfall.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
And finally, we have an Upgrade that relies on Dice. Practiced Butcher is extremely good, 66.66% of the time. However, that’s a pretty good chance to work, and the threat of it can sometimes force your opponent to position in a way they otherwise would not, which can be a great mindgame. And when it goes off, damage and a free Counter can be great for finishing someone off or setting up for next turn.
Power Ceiling: 3 Consistency: 2
Favorites
- Aman: Awful Connoisseur
- George: Calloused Hands
- Mark: Potential Courtier
- Zach: Calloused Hands
Final Thoughts
I initially thought I wasn’t going to be excited for the Skinnerkin. I wasn’t crazy about the models (other than Carnskyr) and I generally don’t like fast aggro, but this team is pretty interesting overall. Surprisingly durable, with good Wounds, three cards that Heal, a great Guard Upgrade, and a Damage Reduction Upgrade (that also gives Glory). Non-combat utility that can help with Glory and positioning also gives them a bit more of an all-arounder feel that makes them a bit deeper than just running forward and rolling dice. Of the “5 Model Aggro” teams, I feel like Skinnerkin might be my favorite in the game! In Nemesis, I can see a few potential pairings. Tooth and Claw leans into their Range 1 combat, giving them everything they need to build up the violence. Voidcursed Thralls gives some defensive boosts to go with their surprising durability, as well as mobility boosts to get extra range and support, as well as some good Flex scoring. I could see them pairing well with the new Hungering Parasite deck, especially if you play it where you try to dump the Parasite onto enemy Fighters and cut them down. Personally I will be trying them Voidcursed at first, but I’m really excited to see how people use them on the tabletop!
Aman: I must admit, when I read the fighter cards and the objectives, I wasn’t very hyped for this warband. However after digesting (sorry, I had to) them a bit more, I’m actually quite interested in them. While the damage output is quite low, they’re fairly durable as 3 wounds allows them to avoid getting one-shot most of the time. The most interesting aspect to them is how powerful their gambit deck is, and how well it supports the objective deck. I like how this is an aggro warband that doesn’t need kills – it’s quite refreshing. Just be sure to leverage supports as much as you can. I believe this warband is deceptively powerful, and consistent, enough to tango with some of the more prevalent warbands in the Nemesis format like the Crimson Court and Madmob.
Mark: While I have to say that FEC don’t do it for me aesthetically, I like that they’ve taken another shot at balancing a counter-based inspiration with competitive counter-spending effects. While I think I would’ve liked to see more of this in the upgrades too, I’ve always disliked stacking counters just for the heck of it, so it’s nice to see they have some use. I also like that they’ve made the warband a bit more involved than the “ABC aggro,” rewarding you for setting up supports and/or granting you useful tools that don’t require you to make a charge. They don’t strike me as overtly powerful, but I think they’ll be able to hit a decent ceiling for folks who put in the reps.
George: This warband offers a unique flavor of aggro, one that I don’t quite think we’ve seen before. While on the surface they seem very straightforward, I think there’s a good blend of tricks here to serve up a refreshing amount of options. I especially enjoy the push and pull between accumulating haunch counters and spending them. On the whole, I think they won’t be too strong but where other aggro warbands are a force based on kill pressure, the amount of glory that this warband can accumulate is somewhat separated from the amount of kills they get, which offers interesting lines of play.
As always, thank you for reading and we wish you the best of luck, and some tasty morsels, on YOUR Path to Glory!
__________
Written by: Zach Caschetta
Edited by: Aman Khusro
