Hello, Gloryseekers! Jonathan here with my review of the new Drepur’s Wraithcreepers warband! Today I will be talking about the fighters, rating the faction cards, and talking about how I think this warband plays on the tabletop.
Drepur’s Wraithcreepers are one of the two warbands contained in the new Two-Player Starter Set for Warhammer underworlds, along with the Storm of Celestus warband.
The Wraithcreepers are a warband belonging to the Nighthaunt faction, and are a member of the Death Grand Alliance in the Age of Sigmar world. They make up the 3rd nighthaunt faction in the game so far, along with Thorns of the Briar Queen and Lady Harrow’s Mournflight, and the 5th Death warband so far.
For more information on this product:
- Check out our review of the starter set as a product
- Check out our review of the Storm of Celestus warband (Coming Soon)
- Pre-order the starter set here
Without any further ado, let’s jump into this warband review! *Spooky sounds*
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The Inspire Condition and Core Warband Mechanics:
Like most warbands, this warband’s fighters all have a few things in common. The first is the Intangible rule, which allows all four of this warband’s fighters to move through blocked and occupied hexes when they make move actions (but not during pushes). This gives the warband extra mobility in some cases, and allows them to secure more advantageous positioning when making attacks. Notably this warband is not immune to lethal hexes unlike the other Nighthaunt warbands, meaning they will still need to be careful what path they take, and there they end their moves
The next most common theme for this warband is the inspire condition shared by all of the fighters other than the Partition, which says “At the start of your activation, one or more enemy fighters are within 2 hexes of this fighter.” This is reminiscent of the Thorns of the Briar Queen warband inspire condition, and means this warband loves using pushes to position themselves near enemy fighters before their activations, and that the enemy may not want to stay very close to fighters that have charged in. As far as inspire conditions go, I think this is a fairly easy one, especially given some of the tricks this warband has to help them get close to its victims.
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The Fighters:
The Patrician:
Although I think it normally makes the most sense to start with a Warband’s leader, I think Drepur’s Wraithcreepers are an exception to this for one simple reason: This warband is all about the drummer!
The Patrician is probably the most important fighter in this warband, but not because he has Move 3, 2 dodge, and 4 wounds, or his Range 1, 3 fury, 1 Damage Deathly Bite attack!
The true power of this fighter is from the Deathbeat reaction, which allows you to push one friendly fighter one hex closer to the closest enemy fighter after an opponent’s power step. This gives the warband incredible mobility throughout the game, and helps you set up the inspire condition before your activation.
The Patrician also has a separate inspiration from the rest of the warband which reads “At the Start of your activation, each other surviving friendly fighter is in enemy territory.” Once inspired, The Patrician’s face attack goes to 2 damage, and his Move increases to 4. Most importantly, once The Patrician inspires THE DRUMMING INTENSIFIES and you can now push two friendly fighters instead of just one. This inspiration should happen fairly naturally during the first turn, as you should have no trouble getting the other three fighters into enemy territory with the help of The Patrician’s drumming, and the power of the drumming is very likely to paint a target on The Patrician’s back.
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Viceroy Drepur:
It is finally time to talk about the leader! Viceroy Drepur is a solid fighter with 3 Move, 2 Dodge, 4 Wounds, and a Range 2, 2 Smash, 2 Damage Hunter’s Glaive attack action.
Once inspired, he gains another dice on his attack action, and goes up to Move 4. He also gains an effect on his Hunter’s Glaive, giving him the ability to re-roll one attack dice in his attack action, making him one of the most accurate fighters in the game.
I think Viceroy Drepur’s main weaknesses are a relatively average Move value, and his fairly low damage even after inspiration, but these are countered somewhat by his incredible accuracy, and the warband’s ability to dance around to the spooky drumming. Once inspired Viceroy Drepur is a true terror to low health fighters, and with the right damage upgrades can threaten pretty much anyone.
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Sire Haqfel and Grodrig the Lance:
The final two fighters are very similar to one another, so it’s easy to talk about them together. Both fighters have Move 3, 1 Dodge, and 3 Wounds, and a Range 2, 2 Smash, 2 Damage attack action with their Hunter’s Glaive attack actions.
Once inspired, both fighters gain +1 to their Move and Dodge values, and Cleave or Ensnare on their attack action for Haqfel and Grodrig respectively.
These stats make them very decent right off the bat against low wound fighters, and depending on the matchup and the defense characteristics of your opponents, either Haqfel or Grodrig will want to be prioritized to make the most of the Cleave or Ensnare, and the other may be a bit more expendable. The main weakness of these fighters is their 3 wounds and their single dodge defense uninspired, so you will want to make inspiring them before they start taking hits a priority.
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Fighter Thoughts:
Overall I think Drepur’s Wraithcreepers have somewhat below average fighter stats, with relatively slow fighters, 14 total wounds, and a single defense dice on two of their starting fighter cards. Their damage is also fairly low, with no sources of natural 3 damage in the warband.
These weaknesses are somewhat counteracted by the incredible flexibility the warband gains via The Patrician’s Deathbeat ability, a relatively easy inspiration against aggressive warbands, and range 2 on three of their fighters.
For new players, I think these fighters will be easy to understand right away, and the drumming mechanic will be interesting and have a bit of a learning curve as they figure out which fighter is best to move when and where.
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Card Review:
As always, I’ll be using the following rating system.
- A score of “A” means that the card is very powerful and should almost always be included in your deck builds.
- A score of “B” means that the card is strong and will be commonly included in decks for a particular playstyle, but is a bit more situational than the A tier.
- A score of “C” means that card can be good in certain situations but will usually require extra support, or a very specific deck to work well in.
- Lastly, a score of “D” means the card is on the weaker side of things. It doesn’t mean that it is inherently bad but perhaps can be considered hard to use or counter intuitive to most game plans.
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Faction Objectives:
Death’s Bounty – This card is much harder to score than similar cards like Butchering or Slay the Corrupted, but gives 3 glory instead of 2! Overall I think makes it too hard to score in too many matches, and even impossible to score vs 3 fighter warbands, but may be worth thinking about if the meta swings back to larger warbands.
Rating: D
Death’s Triumph – A slightly worse copy of Treasure Hunter, this card is probably quite tricky for this warband to score with only 4 fighters, even with their special drumming push tricks.
Rating: C
Deathly Blooms – This is much easier to do than the previous card, and may be worth considering if you are looking for a 1 glory end phase card, but there will probably be better options.
Rating: C
Dread Harvest – A solidly scorable 1 glory end phase card for playing aggressively. A good deck filler but will compete with many other 1 glory end phase cards.
Rating: C
Ethereal Hunters – A very good surge for this warband due to their push ability and aggro focus. I think this card will see a lot of play.
Rating: A
Inevitable Advance – A very nice 1 glory end phase card that gets easier to score as the game goes on and you lose fighters. Probably the 1 glory card you take if you need one.
Rating: B
Massed Blades – I wouldn’t normally like this card very much since it can be sort of hard to set up, but I think The Patrician’s drumming makes this a lot easier to score.
Rating: A
Piercing Blow – Their own copy of What Armour?, but with only one source of Cleave locked behind Haqfel’s inspired side, I don’t think it’s worth building for at the moment.
Rating: C
Scythed Down – Their own version of Slay the Corrupted, I like this one much better than Death’s Bounty and would consider taking it in an aggro deck, though it does become a lot better if the meta has a lot of small fighters.
Rating: B
The Hunt Pursues – A decent 1 glory end phase, I just think there are better options for more glory.
Rating: C
Unstoppable Death – A solid surge for getting a kill on a charge. Worth considering if you don’t have enough better options.
Rating: B
Vengeance of Nagash – I think this is too situational, and doesn’t reward enough for what it asks you to do.
Rating: D
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Faction Gambits:
Deadly Vengeance – I like this card a lot more than similar cards we have seen before, because it is not an upgrade, or a 50/50 roll off to make the attack. You will be able to surprise your opponent with this card, will always get to make the attack, and can even choose a target other than the attacker. It also works well with the warband’s range 2 attacks, which is cool.
Rating: B
Drifting Death – A great push card for this warband.
Rating: A
Enervating Beat – A decent way to make it harder to kill one of your fighters for an activation, I just think I would prefer to take a bunch of wound upgrades before this one.
Rating: C
Fevered Beat – A situational accuracy de-buff that works especially well vs fighters with 2 smash attacks, but overall I think there are better options.
Rating: C
Heart-Piercer – Unfortunately I don’t think this card gives enough benefit for a single gambit. In most cases +1 dice would be stronger than simply having Cleave.
Rating: D
Horrifying Shriek – A solid enemy push B-tier Distraction style card with a fairly balanced range limitation.
Rating: B
Methodical Attacks – A great gambit that makes this warband even more accurate.
Rating: A
Somnolent Beat – A situational card that probably doesn’t make the cut in competitive decks.
Rating: C
Stuff of Nightmares – Probably too random to be worth the gambit slot.
Rating: D
Unending Pursuit – A Sidestep copy! Always welcome in any warband.
Rating: B
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Faction Upgrades:
Bitter Strength – Their own Great Strength! A nice card for a warband with relatively low damage.
Rating: A
Carrion Companion – Too specific and limited due to the fighter requirement.
Rating: D
Death Grasp – A decent weapon in general, but actually worse than Drepur’s inspired attack, and I don’t think the Move token effect makes it worth taking.
Rating: D
Deathly Vigor – I’m always happy to see another +1 Wound card.
Rating: B
Memories of the Hunt – Probably not worth taking for only +1 Move.
Rating: D
Murderous Accomplice – Too specific and limited due to the fighter requirement.
Rating: D
Murderpact – A very cool design and fairly strong effect if you can set it up, which this warband is pretty good at.
Rating: A
Pall of Fear – A solid defensive upgrade.
Rating: B
Tearing Claws – Sadly this attack action just isn’t that good.
Rating: D
The Point of Death – Re-rolls are great, so I like this card quite a bit. It’s only weakness is that this warband is actually fairly good at avoiding charge actions, but it still may be worth taking.
Rating: B
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Closing Thoughts:
I think Drepur’s Wraithcreepers look like a very interesting warband to play, largely due to the power and flexibility of The Patrician’s Deathbeat ability. I think the most obvious way to play them will be aggressively, but I also think they are pretty good at holding a few objectives with cards like Dominant Position, and perhaps even Treasure Hunter. I think you will want to pack plenty of +1 damage abilities, but they have two of their own, and there are plenty of universals as well, and once they are inspired, upgraded, and in range of the enemy, they seem like they will quite scary.
Overall I think the objective cards for Drepur’s Wraithcreepers are fairly low quality compared to the current meta universals. Most of their cards are playable in a faction only deck, and are good examples for new players learning the game, but outside of the few of the surges, I think you will usually want to dip into the universal objective pool for this warband in competitive decks.
I do think they have a very solid set of gambit cards, though nothing too fancy, really. This is probably ideal for new players, and you can always take universals to spice things up. They also have a decent number of solid upgrades that we have seen before like +1 Damage, +1 Wounds, and a charge re-roll. I also think Murderpact is quite cool, and quite powerful. This gives them a solid foundation, but they will definitely want to dip into the universals to spice things up a bit. Again these cards seem oriented towards providing a solid starting deck for new players, which makes sense given this warband is found in the starter set!
Keeping the The Patrician alive should definitely be a focus for players of this warband. Once inspired, his ability to push two fighters each power step gives the warband unparalleled mobility, and with clever positioning and card can allow you to simply attack-attack-attack-attack with a heavily upgraded and amazingly accurate Viceroy Drepur, who can become truly devastating.
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Thanks for Reading!
I am very grateful to Games Workshop for allowing me to review this product.
If you would like to pre-order this product, head on down to your local Warhammer Store or gaming store. If you prefer to shop online, check them out here. If you have any thoughts or comments about the box, please share it with us on social media or our discord.
As always, best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory.
Jonathan
