Warhammer Underworlds - The Waaaghrio Brothers Come Out to Play

Roo, in true wargamer style, has been jumping from project to project recently. Having started painting up some 28mm Fins for Bolt Action, he then started chopping up Space Marines (although not to play 40K - I'm not sure what rules system he had in mind for that). Then he started swapping out the bendy axe from a pre-painted D & D Gnoll and replaced it with a much more sturdy weapon and latterly he decided to finish painting up the figures for his Orc/ Orruk Warband for Warhammer Underworlds. For some reason he decided to paint them up using the colours of the Marios Bros so Gurzag, seen above, is in blue and red in homage to Mario himself.

Bonekutta is in the colours of Luigi

Hakka wearing yellow as does Wario

And Basha in the colors of Waluigi.

Of course, having such a fancy colour scheme is all very well but until they had been proved in battle, the Waaaghrio Bros may as well stay in the box.

So it was that they took to the table to play their first game of Warhammer Underworlds, taking on the servant of Khorne himself, Magore Redhand

Magore Redhand - ready to claim Skulls for Khorne

Zharkus The Bloodsighted

Ghartok Flayskull (don't you just love the names GW give their models?!)

Riptooth

Disclaimer - Roo did not build the decks for the Waaaghrio Bros - he just used the decks that I had previously built for my Orc/ Orruk Warband. He asked me to state this before you read any further.

So having won the roll-off for board placement, I decided to place the boards slightly offset (but still keeping 3 full hexes in no-man's land) and then having placed the objective tokens and drawn our objective and power cards, we then deployed our warbands.

However, despite having deployed my warband first I still managed to lose the roll-off to see who would take the first activation. Gurzag/Mario decided to launch himself headlong into an attack against Ghartok.

Gurzag/ Mario shouts obscenities at Ghartok.

And promptly misses. Ghartok has a reaction attack with his Gorefist but given that the way to inspire a member of the Waaaghrios is to cause them damage, I held back the attack. However, Gurzag/ Mario didn't hang about and playing "Brutal but Kunnin'" Gurzag/ Mario then ran away 3 hexes......

Ghartok is left bemused at the sight of Gurzag/ Mario making a "tactical" retreat.

However, Ghartok was not to be denied and in my first activation, declared a charge against Gurzag/ Mario with Ghartok.

Ghartok shows Gurzag/ Mario some combat skill causing 2 wounds.

As "reaction" I then played the "Twist the Knife" power card which caused an extra wound to Gurzag, so 3 wounds inflicted in total - a half dead Gurzag/ Mario. With the attack being a success  I was able to inspire Ghartok. However, taking damage also meant that Gurxag/ Mario also inspired.

Now being a friendly, non-competitive game we don't abide by the Banned and Restricted card list that GW have published for Warhammer Underworlds which you can find here (mainly due to the fact that I've never had enough time to go through my built up decks and check them for such cards). So when I played "Great Concussion" there was no gnashing of teeth from Roo or howls of "Foul Play" but I used this to push everyone away 1 hex from the designated hex primarily to avoid the possibility of Ghartok being tag teamed by one of the other Waaaghrio Bros and counting Gurzag/ Mario as support. However, it did also mean that my other warriors were just that further bit away. And as it turned it out it didn't stop Ghartok being charged in turn by Bonekutta/ Luigi and Hakka/ Wario although thankfully neither of them did any damage to Ghartok.

Bonekutta/ Luigi finding out that his axe is too heavy and promptly missing Ghartok.

Scene at end of Round 1. Ghartok is shouting for help as the Waaaghrios gang up on him.

I did manage to score a glory point with Ploymaster having played 3 ploy cards in the first round whilst Roo scored a glory point for having 3 of his models declare a charge. With my glory I upgraded Magore with "Trophy Hunter" which would give him an extra glory point if he took out an enemy fighter

The next few activations saw Riptooth and Magore both charge without any success although Riptooth's charge did result in Gurzag/ Mario being pushed back.

Not sure why Bonekutta/ Luigi and Hakka/ Wario are looking away from the action. Probably too embarrassed to watch the pathetic dice rolling display by both sides.

The end of the second round saw me score glory for Sudden Advance and Master of War so the score at this point was 3 v 1 and we entered the final round.

Magore activated first and with his attack took out Bonekutta/ Luigi scoring 3 glory points in total for having Trophy Hunter and also I had drawn Show of Strength which gave me an extra glory. In desperation Roo played Shardgale inflicting a wound on everyone and finally taking out Ghartok as a result but also killing Basha/ Waluigi.

Sensing ultimate Glory and Honour, Magore then charged Gurzag/ Mario and missed. Hakka/ Wario did decide to turn round and charged Zharkus, killing him and scoring another glory but at the end of the final round it was a sorry looking battlefield -

But with the objectives that I scored in the final round I ended up with 10 glory and Roo scored 3 in total.

So a sorry first outing for the Waaaghrios - the dice didn't really do anyone any favours and although Magore did have that one success both leaders were otherwise pretty bad at hitting anything.

Roo, of course, claimed it was because of the decks that he had to play with and that next time he will play with decks of his own creation. Now that sounds like a challenge.......!

Gratuitous shot of the 3d terrain that I made using some Azyrite Ruins and a mdf hex base