The Helsmiths of Hashut spent many years biding their time, planning total domination of the Mortal Realms in secret, before the meddlesome Skaven shoved half of Blight City into Aqshy and kicked off the Hour of Ruin. Now the Hashutite war machine marches out to desolate and destroy, claiming all it sees for the glory of the Zharrdron.
However, sometimes your reach exceeds your grasp, and in Ghyran a formidable army was destroyed in a surprise night raid by the Kurnothi. Incandescent with rage, the War Despot called upon the last of the debts owed to her to assemble a warband and strike into the heart of the Spitewood for revenge, in the new expansion for Warhammer Underworlds.
As duardin, the Blood of the Bull are a warband that is slow and resilient, sporting an almost uniform 3 movement across the board (slippery Grisk earns a pip of movement when Inspired). Zuldrakka, Imnidrin, and Morudok all have respectable defence and offence that improves on Inspiring, their hefty weapons coming in at damage 2 with the ability to stagger foes.
Tokkor and Grisk add a little bit of flexibility to proceedings. Both wear a little less armour than the rest of the band, making them rely on dodge rolls for defence. Tokkor brings crucial ranged threat with his master-crafted flamehurler, while Grisk packs Grievous on critical hits.
The Helsmiths desolate the land and draw on its power to enhance their daemon-crafted weapons, and they’re no different in Warhammer Underworlds. After suffering a humiliating blow from the Kurnothi, they remain Empowered by Spite, earning daemonforge dice when they Delve treasure tokens. These can be spent to perform one of two actions: Enhance Arsenal, boosting the Attack roll of a Chaos Duardin by 1 dice, or Reinforce Armoury, improving the Save roll by 1.
EMPOWERED BY SPITE
As Zuldrakka and her warriors kill, burn and despoil, their daemon-crafted arms and armour grow ever more powerful.
You start the game with 1 daemonforge dice.
In your Power step, if a friendly fighter with no Stagger tokens Delves a treasure token, gain 1 daemonforge dice. All daemonforge dice are lost at the end of each battle round.
ENHANCE ARSENAL
Immediately after you pick a weapon as part of an Attack made by a friendly Chaos Duardin, you can use 1 daemonforge dice in the Attack roll. If you do so, that weapon has +1 Attack dice for that Attack.
REINFORCE ARMOURY
Immediately after a friendly Chaos Duardin is picked to be the target of an Attack, you can use 1 daemonforge dice in the Save roll. If you do so, that fighter has +1 Save for that Attack.
Whenever you use a daemonforge dice, you can Inspire that fighter. Grisk, however, will only Inspire if he is adjacent to one of the other fighters when they make an Attack, presumably taking notes on how to inflict copious amounts of pain in an economical manner.
While he’s standing next to one of his allies, his Hobgrot Cunning – jeering, making faces, poking knives in uncomfortable places – makes rolls of both hammers and blades for his Chaos Duardin allies count as successes.
Tokkor the Immolator also likes to get up close and personal with his foes – often closer than is really safe – so he can fire his flamehurler point-blank at their weak spots and consume them in an Infernal Conflagration, earning Grievous when his targets are adjacent.
HOBGROT CUNNING
Grisk might be a conniving, murderous back-stabber, but he has his uses…
Rolls of both Swords and Hammer are successes in an Attack roll for a friendly Chaos Duardin while the target is adjacent to a friendly Grisk.
INFERNAL CONFLAGRATION
Tokkor’s flamehurler spits sentient fire that sticks to flesh and disintegrates the soul.
A friendly Tokkor’s ranged weapons (excluding Upgrades) have Grievous if the target is adjacent.
Delving treasure tokens to build up daemonforge points to Inspire your gang, before getting close to dish out the pain, is the way this Mastery warband wants to play, using Grisk as a way to ensure your fighters strike true. They work well with the Deadly Synergy Rivals deck that comes in Warhammer Underworlds: Spitewood, a sneaky collection of cards that encourages clever positional play and even lets adjacent warriors use each other’s melee weapons, take one for the team, and more. We’ll be taking a closer look at both new decks tomorrow.
