Warhammer Underworlds The Exiled Dead Preview

Warhammer Underworlds is a competitive skirmish wargame that combines board and card game elements. Set in Games Workshop's fantasy Warhammer Age of Sigmar setting, it launched its sixth season recently with a new starter set Nethermaze. Releasing at the same time, as part of the last season, Harrowdeep, the Exiled Dead can still be used in competitive play of the new season, and will always be playable under friendly games and the new Rivals format. In this article, we'll take a look at what's in the warband pack, and our favorite cards from the pack.

To use the product in this article, you'll need a copy of a Warhammer Underworlds starter set, and if you don't already have one, either Nethermaze, Harrowdeep or the Warhammer Underworlds Two-Player Starter Set will work, but Nethermaze has the latest rules, boards, and tokens. For more details on Warhammer Underworlds, including how it plays and what a season is, check out our Warhammer Underworlds Nethermaze Preview.

Who Are The Exiled Dead?

The Exiled Dead features a vampiric necromancer, their apprentice, and five reanimated corpses. They differ from previous warbands in that the minions start inspired, and after certain boosts or abilities, become uninspired. Deintalos and four of the reanimated are also conductive, which can gain them bonus dice for attacks when nearby other conductive fighters.

The Exiled Dead expansion comes with the seven miniatures that make up the warband, their stat cards, and a ready-to-play Rivals deck (we discuss the Rivals format below). It also comes with an additional set of cards that can be used with any warbands, to add to decks in the other game formats.

What Cards Do The Exiled Dead Have?

Our picks from The Exiled Dead warband cards are:

• Danse of Deintalos - A spell that lets you move or attack with every conductive fighter that's inspired. Cast early in the game when all your minions are inspired, can race them across the board for some great positioning.
• Dynamic Cage - A ploy that lets you deal one damage to a fighter adjacent to two conductive fighters. It's an easy damage as your fighters will usually be packed together, but I also like the theme of this card.
• Terrible Dynamism - This lets you bring back two minions who've been taken out, they don't come back inspired, but having lots of conductive minions on the board is always helpful.
• Dynamic Enhancer - An upgrade for Deintalos or Marcov that boosts the damage of nearby conductive minions.
• Alternating Strikes - An easy one-glory objective when you attack in the same activation with two fighters. Both Deintalos and Marcov have abilities that let you attack with multiple fighters.

The Exiled Dead also includes thirty-two additional cards, eleven gambits, eleven upgrades, and ten objectives. These include neutral cards that can be used by any warband, and a grand alliance restricted card for Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction in each card type.

Our pick from The Exiled Dead Grand Alliance's additional cards are:

• False Vigour - A Death illusion upgrade that can only be given to a fighter with three wounds or less. It increases their attack dice and movement. Great for boosting a cheap minion and making them a target to draw away from the rest of your warband.
• Skittering Prize - A Destruction ploy that can move an objective token. Useful, but I love the theme of the objective token coming alive and scuttling off with fighters trying to pin it down.
• Questionable Loyalty - I love this Chaos objective. One glory if your companions get separated, or for Slaanesh, if your leader is out of action but you have surviving fighters. Very in theme with Chaos.
• Blessed Fate - This Order objective plays into the defensive tactics of some of the Stormcast, but being in enemy territory in the third end phase with no wounds counters? That's a  challenge to be met.

Our pick from The Exiled Dead Universal additional cards are:

• Vaults Mysterium - This waypoint ploy sticks around until another waypoint is played. It boosts wizards' levels, letting them roll more dice, but reduces the backlash roll from two crits to one. This can be very useful for using against wizards if your warband contains no wizards.
• Phantom Theft - This ploy is a reaction to a free illusion upgrade, making them discard a glory point or break the illusion upgrade.
• Living Missile - A flyers only upgrade that boosts their range one attack as part of a charge with extra damage, grievous for extra damage on critical hits, and Knockback 1. It deals one damage to them also, so make the attacks count.

The Exiled Dead are an interesting Death warband, and their cards punish your opponent for letting them gather around their fighters. There are also some decent cards for other warbands in the additional cards.

The copy of Warhammer Underworlds The Exiled Dead used to produce this preview was provided by Games Workshop.