‘Avin a Good Time is a series here on Spent Glory where we drop the serious competitive approach, skip the idea of helping new players, and ignore altogether anything useful to the community and instead just have ourselves a good time. Gurzag and the Boyz approve, and so should you.

Today we will attempt to answer the all-important question: which priest sucks most the least? Since ~2020 the occasional model will be tagged as a ‘Priest’, and despite this being a keyword in the game for years now, it’s common consensus that being a priest is effectively useless. Some were retroactively made Priests after the fact with the Nethermaze update, but it’s never really meant anything for those fighters. Startlingly few cards mention Priests, and there are no universal cards that are tagged as prayers acting like an equivalent to spells for wizards. Even Paths of Prophecy, the deck that ostensibly would be for prophets, comes up empty.

Let’s look at each sad, lonely Priest in Warhammer Underworlds and find out just who’s the least worst. We’ll investigate their prayers and/or abilities, priest restricted cards, etc. I’ll rate each on a 5-star axis on the following traits: Sermon Quality, Ministerial Ability, Connection to the Gods, Credentials, and Practicing What You Preach. We’ll average them out for a final rating, and then you’ll get the Priests of the Underworlds #Ranked! Let’s crack open the good book and see who has the angels singing their praises.

Morgwaeth the Bloodied

Sermon Quality 4/5 – Catechism of Murder auto inspires a member of the warband. Safe to say she gives an inspiring speech, and the few quotations in flavor text she has sound priestly enough, from a Khaine perspective.

Ministerial Ability – 0/5. I would NOT feel comfortable going to confessional with her. If you read the short story in the Direchasm anthology, (you must read this collection) her entire warband hates and mistrusts her, and there is no soothing of the soul to be found here.

Connection to the Gods – 1/5. Morathi is not a god, and Khaine, if he ever was, has been leeched dry by her. Morgwaeth has a connection with Morathi, but it was such a bad one that she sent her out to die in the Underworlds so she wouldn’t be a problem. You bet your bucket no prayers are being answered here.

Credentials 3/5. She’s a Hag-Queen. That’s a pretty fancy title. She’s also The Bloodied, which suggests experience in her field. Presumably she earned those titles, but I don’t think a lot of it had to do with studying or ecclesiastic writing.

Practicing What You Preach – 2/5 – She and her crew carve runes in people, and murder, so the intent is there. Unfortunately I’ve rarely seen them pull it off with reasonable success.

Average Rating 2.0/5

Kixi-Taka the Diviner

Sermon Quality 2/5 – He speaks only once in the faction cards, and it’s saying ‘don’t bother trying to hit the chameleon skink’. His warband does their holy duty, but it’s based a lot more on selective breeding and Slann magic than his preaching. However “The chirruped and holy exhortations of a skink priest” are mentioned so maybe I just don’t speak reptilian.

Ministerial Ability 2/5 – He has a few cards that involve pushing and increasing defense rolls, so he’s interested in keeping them safe, though there’s probably not much warmth outside the spawning bond.

Connection to the Gods 5/5 – he has some holy artifacts and was on a holy mission to silence the Beastgrave. His Gods are real and he probably has actually spoken with them, or at least somebody who has.

Credentials 4/5 – probably not the top of the pecking order, but legitimately a skink star priest with a following and some swag

Practicing What You Preach 4/5 – he’s named The Diviner, but doesn’t do a lot of divining as far as I can tell. But otherwise he’s got The Great Plan in mind and spends all his time furthering it to the best of his ability.

Average Rating 3.4/5

Dromm, Wounder of Worlds

Sermon Quality 5/5 – He talks a big game and has the ability to enrage his followers, as well as his enemies. He can even sway those who oppose him with his prayers – that’s some high quality preachin’, y’all.

Ministerial Ability 3/5 – This one’s tough, because while Khorne’s spiritual uplifting leaves something to be desired, he almost certainly does this and ministers to his warband in an effective way for what they’re looking for.

Connection to the Gods 4/5 – Khorne cares not, or so they say, but it sure does seem like he’s listening to what ole Dromm is up to. That power has to come from somewhere! Boy’s yoked!

Credentials 4/5 – He’s a Slaughterpriest, standing on his god’s rune (does it just follow him around like an aura or something?). He loses a point for calling himself Wounder of Worlds when he hasn’t even wounded this one realm yet, but he’s working on it. And for a man of the cloth, he doesn’t wear a lot upstairs, and the downstairs is decidedly not cloth, so hard to give a 5 on this point.

Practicing What You Preach 5/5 – There’s really no argument here. The man lives his mission and is willing to bleed for it… which is also the mission.

Average Rating 4.2/5

Gryselle, The Slaughterer

Sermon Quality – 4/5 – She doesn’t do a lot of talking, but she does sing a mean paean, and honestly her sermons are more the ‘actions speak louder than words’ type. And those actions do be active.

Ministerial Ability 2/5 – I think sometimes she compliments her followers’ performances, and I guess can carve a a rune into their flesh, so there’s something. Otherwise not a lot of comfort in her camp would be my guess.

Connection to the Gods 2/5 – same story as Morgwaeth, whatever God she’s only peripherally connected to isn’t the genuine article, but at least Morathi hasn’t basically sentenced her to exile.

Credentials 5/5 – She’s a Paragon of the Arena, which has been established as her ‘church’. Probably wouldn’t get a lot of respect from other priests at an interfaith convention, but it doesn’t get much more authentic than this inside her own cult.

Practicing What You Preach 5/5 – murder is worship, and she’s on that sigma female grindset 25/8

Average Rating 3.6/5 and no I am not biased how dare you

Skabbik Plagueseeker

Sermon Quality 3/5 – He inspires (or maybe intimidates) his feverish followers into action. While I can’t say he’s particularly eloquent form a human perspective, he might have the gift of gab as far as Skaven go. I’ll give him a 3 for being at least moderately effective to those who listen.

Ministerial Ability 1/5 – to Skabbik, his flock is literally that: sheep. Useful Distractions, for lack of a better term. he has no interest and I presume no ability to minister to them or anyone else, unless you count the infectious body fluids he may daub occasionally about, so he’ll get at least one point there.

Connection to the Gods 2/5 – He worships only a single aspect of the Great Horned Rat, who only recently got elevated to the pantheon (and wasn’t in the big boys’ club when the warband was released). I’m more than willing to bet that the Great Corrupter doesn’t even know who he is. He has no prayers available in his warband cards, so presumably he’s getting by on charisma rather than divine intervention.

Credentials 3/5 – he’s seeking something to make the great plague, so he’s a Plagueseeker which I suppose fits the bill. He does occasionally quote ‘scripture’ and mentions The Great Corruptor which has some priestly air to it, but he also hasn’t actually found any plague ingredients and unless it involves the Realmshaper Engine/Voidcurse he’s probably not going to find it in the Wyrdhollow.

Practicing What You Preach 4/5 – get busy corrupting or get busy dying (and become an ingredient in another plague concoction). He’s less interested in the dying part personally, but being willing to sacrifice your followers for you ‘noble’ cause still tracks.

Average Rating 2.6/5 (notably he earned 13 points, which is nice and holy and I did not do that on purpose)

Pater Filius

Sermon Quality 5/5 – “Pater Filius is a fiery demagogue” and he’s convinced his lunatic followers to martyr themselves in order to bring Sigmar’s light to the darkest depths, which you can’t really do without some silver-tongued speeches. The flavor text is filled with religious statements and I think he really means it.

Ministerial Ability 4/5 – you get the sense that he, like, might actually care about his followers? He has an adopted son, he took in a convict, he feels haunted by guilt after leaving Soror Tazat to die in the Skinnerkin card He Likes It Fresh. As far as Underworlds psychopaths go, he might actually have some empathy. (The bar is real low around here…)

Connection to the Gods 3/5 – The lightning is real, and he does possess a Stormcast artifact. Whether or not Sigmar would approve or is even aware is pretty doubtful.

Credentials 2/5 – I think he’s just a crazy old man with some religious ideas more than a real ordained minister or whatever. If this guy walks into a Sigmarite temple the real priests probably tell him to get lost.

Practicing What You Preach 5/5 – Emphatically, fanatically

Average Rating 3.8/5

Final Rankings

Pope Tier: Perfect 5
None

Cardinal Tier: 4+
Dromm

Bishop Tier: 3+
Pater Filius
Gryselle
Kixi-Taka

Deacon Tier: 2+
Skabbik
Morgwaeth (by the thinnest of margins)

‘The End is Nigh’ Sandwich Board Tier: 1+
None

Wrap

What do you think? Have I mis-rated anybody, or left out an axis your favorite priest would excel at? Should some other character have been counted as a priest despite no official keyword? Whatever, I’m just ‘avin a good time, and now I’m off to spend some glory. If you’re interested to read other entries in this series, click here! See you in the next article!