Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Objective of the Game
  • Contents
• Tutorial
  • Warbands and Fighters
• Playing the Game
  • Action Phase
• Combat
• End Phase & Victory
• The Battlefield
• Reference

Introduction

Warhammer Underworlds is a game for two to four players, in which each player takes their warband of fantastically detailed Citadel Miniatures and pits them against their rivals throughout the howling depths of Beastgrave. It's a game of strategy, fast-paced combat and devious ploys, and though you'll find this an easy game to pick up, you'll quickly find that it has more than enough depth to reward dedicated and experienced players.

Objective of the Game

In this game, your warband is engaged in a desperate struggle in the darkness of Beastgrave. Your success is measured in glory points, awarded for achieving objectives and vanquishing your foes. Whoever has the most glory points at the end of the game wins!

Contents

This Core Set contains everything you need to assemble your new miniatures and pit them against each other right away.

The box includes:

• Skaeth's Wild Hunt, consisting of 5 fighters
• Grashrak's Despoilers, consisting of 6 fighters
• A construction sheet
• This Learn to Play booklet to introduce you to the game
• The Rulebook, including all of the rules you need to play
• 11 double-sided fighter cards
• 2 double-sided game boards
• 60 power cards
• 42 objective cards
• 5 attack dice, 3 defence dice and 3 magic dice
• 2 lethal hex tokens
• 9 double-sided feature tokens (objective/lethal hex)
• 1 scatter token
• 30 double-sided wound tokens/counters
• 46 double-sided glory point tokens
• 15 double-sided Move/Charge tokens
• 15 Guard tokens
• 8 double-sided activation tokens

Miniatures require assembly and are supplied unpainted.

Skaeth's Wild Hunt consists of Skaeth the Huntsman (Leader), Althaen (Kurnothi Tracker), Lighaen (Malkyn), Sheoch (Kurnothi Tracker) and Karthaen (Huntcaller).

Grashrak's Despoilers consists of Grashrak Fellhoof (Leader), Korsh 'the Sneak', Draknar, Murghoth Half-horn, Gnarl and Ushkor.

Component icons: Glory point token (unspent/spent); Activation token; Move/Charge token; Lethal hex token; Support symbols; Counter/Wound token; Guard token; Feature token (Objective/lethal hex); Scatter token.

Attack dice: Critical success; Attack symbol – Smash; Attack symbol – Fury; Support symbols.

Defence dice: Critical success; Defence symbol – Block; Defence symbol – Dodge; Support symbols.

Magic dice: Critical success; Magic symbol – Channel; Magic symbol – Focus.

Tutorial

This tutorial will introduce you to Warhammer Underworlds and quickly take you through the basics of moving, attacking, charging and guarding with your fighters. There are other elements to the game – objectives, glory points, gambits and upgrades – that this tutorial will not cover, and some of the rules are used in a simplified form. Once you've played through this tutorial, however, you'll be well prepared to take on the game in full!

First assemble four fighters – Karthaen and Sheoch on one side, and Draknar and Murghoth on the other. You'll also need their fighter cards. Then, punch out all of the tokens from the three token boards.

Once you have done that, place two game boards together as shown in the diagram on the back cover of this booklet, and place the fighters in their starting hexes as shown. All you need now is an opponent and you're ready to play!

Warbands and Fighters

Each player in Warhammer Underworlds controls a warband – a set of fighters such as Skaeth's Wild Hunt or Grashrak's Despoilers. The fighters that make up each warband are not only represented by miniatures; they also each have a fighter card, like the one shown below, that tells you their characteristics (how fast, how tough and how well armoured or evasive they are), their Attack action(s), and any other actions they might have.

Each fighter card also describes an Inspire condition: if this condition is met during a game, the fighter immediately becomes Inspired. When this happens, the fighter card is flipped over, revealing the fighter's Inspired characteristics and actions.

A fighter in your warband is a friendly fighter. A fighter in any other warband is an enemy fighter.

Understanding your fighter card

1. Picture of your fighter's miniature.
2. Your fighter's name. A fighter with a wand symbol before their name is a wizard. A wizard will also have a number next to their name – this is their wizard level characteristic. Additional terms, known as keywords (e.g. Hunter), may also be found here.
3. Your fighter's Attack action (or actions) with Range, Dice and Damage characteristics (see opposite).
4. Your fighter's Inspire condition. When this is met, flip the card over. There is no Inspire condition on the reverse of the card.
5. Your fighter's Move characteristic.
6. Your fighter's Defence characteristic.
7. Your fighter's Wounds characteristic.
8. Additional abilities may be found here. Alternatively you will find text that tells you more about the fighter – such text has no effect in the game.
9. Your fighter's warband icon.

Playing the Game

A game of Warhammer Underworlds consists of three rounds, each of which consists of an action phase where both players' fighters move around and attack, and an end phase where the players prepare for the next round.

Action Phase

In each action phase, each player takes four activations that they can use to perform a number of actions, such as moving or attacking with their fighters. They do so in turns, so one player takes an activation, then the other player takes an activation, then the first player takes their second activation, and so on. When both players have taken all their activations, the action phase is over, and the end phase begins.

In this introductory game, Skaeth's Wild Hunt will take the first activation. Decide with your opponent who will control them – the other player will control Grashrak's Despoilers.

Activations

To take an activation, simply choose one of your fighters to make one of the following actions:

• Make a Move action – move your fighter into an adjacent hex up to a number of times equal to their Move characteristic. They cannot move into or through occupied hexes – hexes that contain other fighters. Once they have moved, give them a Move token (place it beside the miniature).
• Make an Attack action (see right).
• Make a Charge action – move your fighter as for a Move action, give them a Charge token, and then make an Attack action with them.
• Go on Guard. If a fighter is on Guard, they are better at fending off attackers. Give them a Guard token. If a fighter who is on Guard makes a Charge action, they are no longer on Guard (take their token away).

A fighter that has a Move token cannot make a further Move action or a Charge action. A fighter that has a Charge token cannot be chosen again during the current round when taking an activation.

It can be easy to lose track of how many activations you've taken in the heat of battle! To help you keep track, use the four activation tokens. Each time you take an activation, turn one of them over. Turn them back over at the end of the round.

Attack actions

Each fighter has at least one Attack action on their fighter card. All Attack actions are accompanied by the following information:

1. The name of the Attack action.
2. The Range characteristic of the Attack action. You can use the Attack action against any enemy fighter within that number of hexes.
3. The Dice characteristic of the Attack action. This tells you how many attack dice to roll when making the Attack action, and the symbol (Smash or Fury) you need to roll for a success.
4. The Damage characteristic. This tells you how much damage the target fighter suffers if the Attack action is successful.

Note that some Attack actions have additional rules text, which may refer to a number of common abilities, such as Cleave. Ignore these for this introductory game.

Combat

When one of your fighters makes an Attack action:

• Choose a target that is within range.
• Roll a number of attack dice (the white dice with black symbols) equal to the Attack action's Dice characteristic and count the number of successes you roll.
• Your opponent rolls a number of defence dice (the black dice with white symbols) equal to the target fighter's Defence characteristic and counts the number of successes they roll. The target fighter's Defence characteristic tells you which symbol (Block or Dodge) they need to roll for a success. If they are on Guard, both Block and Dodge symbols are successes. A critical success is always a success (see below).
  • If you rolled fewer successes than your opponent, or if you rolled no successes, the Attack action fails and has no effect.
  • If you rolled the same number of successes as your opponent (and at least one success) the Attack action fails, but your fighter can drive their target back: if you want to, push that fighter one hex so that they are further away from your fighter.
  • If you rolled more successes than your opponent, the Attack action is successful and the target suffers damage – take a number of wound tokens equal to the Damage characteristic of the Attack action and place them on the target's fighter card. Your fighter can then drive them back as described above if you want.

Don't give your fighter a token for making an Attack action – a fighter can make more than one Attack action in the same round if you want.

Critical successes

In addition to counting as successes, critical successes can dramatically change the outcome of combat, with a lone attacker taking down a formidable hero, or a surrounded fighter blocking every blow!

If the attacker has more critical successes than the target, then the Attack action is successful, regardless of the number of successes rolled by the other player.

If the target has more critical successes than the attacker, then the Attack action fails and the target cannot be driven back.

If both players have the same number of critical successes, the success or failure of the Attack action depends on the total number of successes rolled (including critical successes), as described above.

Support

If you have more fighters in a combat than your opponent, your fighters have an advantage:

• The attacking fighter receives support for each friendly fighter that is adjacent to their target.
• The target fighter receives support for each friendly fighter that is adjacent to the attacking fighter.

Whichever fighter has more support has a greater chance of success, either in attack or defence. If one of the fighters has one more supporting fighter than their enemy, they count rolls of the support symbol as successes.

Out of Action

Once a fighter has a number of wound tokens on their fighter card equal to or greater than their Wounds characteristic, they are taken out of action. Remove them and their tokens from the battlefield.

End Phase & Victory

In the end phase, remove all Move, Charge and Guard tokens from the battlefield. The next round then begins, and Skaeth's Wild Hunt take the first activation again.

Keep playing rounds until one player's fighters have both been taken out of action. At that point, the tutorial is over and the other player has won!

What Next?

If you feel like you're still getting the hang of it, have another go at this introductory game – you could perhaps swap sides to experience playing with the other warband. Otherwise, you're ready to tackle the Rulebook, which covers the rules you've used here in greater detail, and introduces you to power cards and objectives that let you customise your warband and strategy. Beastgrave awaits!

The Battlefield

For your introductory game you should set up the battlefield as shown here. The battlefield is made of two game boards placed adjacent to one another. It is divided into hexes, which are used to determine the position of fighters and the distance between them. Anything placed on the battlefield must be placed in a complete hex (not one of the incomplete hexes on the edge of a game board, unless that hex is completed by another game board). The incomplete hexes are not part of the game: fighters cannot be moved into them, nothing can be placed in them, and so on.

Counting distances

• B is within one hex of A. These hexes are adjacent.
• B is within two hexes of A.
• B is within four hexes of A.

Reference

Round sequence

Action phase

• Roll-off to determine player order.
• Resolve any 'Start of the action phase' abilities.
• Play the following sequence four times:
  • First player's activation
  • Power step
  • Second player's activation
  • Power step

End phase

First player, then second player do the following:

1. Score objective cards
2. Discard objective cards
3. Give fighters upgrades
4. Discard power cards
5. Draw objective cards
6. Draw power cards

Activation options

• Make a Move action with a fighter.
• Make a Charge action with a fighter.
• Make a Guard action with a fighter.
• Make an action printed on a fighter card or upgrade (such as an Attack action) with a fighter.
• Draw a power card.
• Discard an objective card and draw an objective card.
• Pass (forfeit an activation).

Combat sequence

1. Declare Attack action (choose an Attack action and a target).
2. Attack roll.
3. Defence roll.
4. Determine success (compare your successes to your opponent's):
   • Neither player has any successes – Attack action fails.
   • The attacker has fewer successes than the defender – Attack action fails.
   • Players have the same number of successes – Attack action fails, but go to step 7, Drive back.
   • The attacker has more successes than the defender – Attack action succeeds. Go to step 5.
5. Deal damage.
6. Check if the target is taken out of action.
7. Drive back. Is the target trapped?
   • Yes – Attack action succeeds; go to step 5, Deal damage, then step 6, Check if the target is taken out of action.
   • No – go to step 8, End sequence.
8. End sequence.