It's time for the Las Vegas Open, and that means plenty of Warhammer announcements (including a new Warhammer Underworlds warband) have broken cover. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting to like this new team of degenerates so much.
I'll admit it – I'm a hopeless romantic. So hearing that the new Warhammer Underworlds warband is here because of love? I just… I can't. If it wasn't a group of twisted zombies and a very eerie hag, I'd go so far as to say it was sweet.
Named 'Zondara's Gravebreakers,' the group is led by the necromancer Zondara Rivenheart whose soulmate was cursed into becoming a beast. Said lover is on the team as a monster alongside a collection of zombie thralls who are there to do Zondara's dirty work, all so she can focus on finding a cure for her beloved. Compared to other parties who are squabbling over this season's setting (first introduced in Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge), it's a surprisingly pure motive.
OK, so Zondara's wearing a corset made of bones and seems to have a jacket of flesh, but hey – everyone is entitled to love, right?
In terms of how the team works, it's very thematically tied into the idea of undeath and that love story. Namely, Zondara can heal allies and hurt foes within the same activation, but if she or her former lover are knocked out, you can discard an objective referring to them before taking a fresh card.
As for those zombies, they can move objective tokens using the 'Gravebreak' skill and 'Exhume' fallen minions - in other words, bring them back into play. This is reminiscent of the skeletons seen in Warhammer Underworlds: Gnarlwood, but having lowly thralls doing it for you instead of your leader is pretty novel.
We don't have a release date yet for Zondara's Gravebreakers yet, but they will apparently arrive later in 2024. It's also worth noting that this isn't a full box-set for Underworlds; it's an individual warband, much like the recent Daggok’s Stab-Ladz. That's good news if you just want to shake up your sessions of what is arguably one of the best board game spins on wargaming.
For more Warhammer, check out our Kill Team: Salavation review and our write-up on 5 Warhammer painting tips everyone should learn.
