Today’s article continues our Love Letters Series, in which readers of the page submit an ode to their favorite warband. The Love Letter Series was kicked off by this post encouraging people to play the warbands they love and tell others about the experience, inviting readers to contribute their passion to this website – if you have something to say, by all means let me know wherever you found this posted or by emailing me at SpentGlory@Gmail.com.
Zack Newcome was one of the representatives from the USA at this most recent World Championships of Warhammer, playing Khagra’s Ravagers and doing quite well for himself – if you would like to watch him compete on stream, here he is playing against the Grymwatch.
Leading up to the World Championship event, Zack had a hard choice to make about which warband he wanted to bring, and very nearly brought Thundrik’s Profiteers, a band he has had a lot of fun with and build a pretty solid deck. He ended up not taking it because of the meta he expected to face at Worlds (and considering how many Dromm there were, it was probably the correct choice). I wanted to pick his brain and hear about how he’s managed to make these dwarves work, as they’re a fan favorite and I’m sure the gunners out there want some insight. So let’s hear it from the man himself: a love letter to Thundrik’s Profiteers.
Who are you, and where are you from? How did you get into Underworlds? Do you have a local group you play with, and if so, do they have an online presence to help people find you?
I am Zack Newcome of Atlanta, GA. I have been an avid Underworlds player since a buddy from my board group introduced me to it back in the Shadespire days. We have a pretty large group in metro Atlanta, however trying to get them all into one store at one time is HARD given our traffic issues. I am Zack Newcome on Discord as well, theduke112 is my handle.
What’s the warband/deck/pairing you love, and how did you two sweethearts meet?
I love Dwarves. Dwarves are AWESOME. My favorite way to play underworlds is Flex. I love being able to fight you, while trying to hold treasure tokens. Which leads perfectly into Thudrik’s Profitters. I’ve been playing this warband successfully since they came out back in Nightvault. This makes an excellent Flex warband because of their ranged attacks, you can still attack while holding treasure tokens easily.
What makes the deck so fun to play in your experience?
This is the deck that placed 2nd place for me in my choices for the World Championships of Warhammer (WCW) event. It has a similar playstyle to the deck that I ended up bringing which was the same 2 Rivals decks, but with Khagra’s Ravagers instead.
This deck takes advantage of the Delving mechanic along with several of the very easy to score surges to get Thundrik’s rolling. In addition to those easy surges Pillage and Plunder has Glory Seeker which can turn Khazgan Drakskewer into an early game nightmare for your opponent. Combined with the reliable end phase scoring you are looking at a completely inspired warband in Round 1 if your draws are decent. This deck works GREAT with this warband’s inspire mechanic, scoring an objective card.
This deck also features a nice Dwarven theme as well. Dwarves like to dig holes, pillage for treasure, and then protect it. Which is exactly what this deck is designed to do.
Here is the deck link on Underworlds DB
The general theory behind this deck is to deploy mid territory so that you can make charges onto treasure tokens taking advantage of your ranged attacks, providing positioning and aggression at the same time. You want to deploy far enough back that some of your key fighters like Thundrik and Khazgan are safe, but far enough forward with your other fighters that you can still reach 3 treasure tokens with your 2 hex movement and get some targets.
You want to be careful with Khazgan because he is your 2nd 2 bounty fighter which is important for scoring Supremacy. He is also your heavy hitter, he inspires to a mighty 3 damage. He is the best target for upgrades like Gloryseeker and Great Strength allowing him to 1 shot a large number of fighters in the game. It also puts those 5 wound fighters in range of being shot once and then skewered off the board in 2 activations which is huge given that all of the ranged attacks only do 1 damage.
One thing I always call out when explaining how to play different warbands is “Who is the dangle?”. In the new edition’s Profiteers it is actually not Garodd anymore, it is (Enrik) Ironhail. Garodd actually has one of the three 2 damage attacks in the warband. You kinda want to keep him in reserve to do some damage later in the game. Enrik has a VERY accurate ranged attack right off the bat and has better defense making him a little harder to hit. So he’s perfect for making that early charge to hold the center treasure token and hopefully set up any of your surges by having him positioned there early.
Once you have a man in No Man’s Land, it does allow you to set up using “By the Code” to possibly push deep into enemy territory or simply onto a 2nd treasure token. This can force your opponent to make the choice of turning around and charge backwards, possibly making it harder for them to score objectives and taking the heat off of the rest of your warband to do other things.
One of the nice things about the Pillage and Plunder objectives is that most of the end phase cards are unstoppable once you’ve done the thing on the card. If you set up the treasure tokens correctly Desolate Homeland is a free glory. Once you delve an odd number token Against the Odds has scored. Once you’ve Delved 3 different treasure tokens Broken Prospects has scored. If you’re able to do the thing before your fighters are knocked off the token or slain, you’ve still scored the card. One thing that you need to keep in mind while playing the delving mini game is that Broken Prospects and Against the Odds require you to delve a TREASURE token. So you cannot score these cards if you are sitting on the cover side of the feature token and delve it back to the treasure side. You have to Delve the token when the TREASURE side of the token is face up. The ploy like Switch Things Up can REALLY help you score these cards as well because you can gain access to a 3rd token without having to leave your territory. Switch Things Up is also VERY handy to have in your final hand given the number of REALLY tight games you tend to have in this new edition. Treasure token #5 becomes much more important at the end of the game, this won and lost me more than one game in WCW.
The ploy package for this deck is designed to get you onto tokens, keep you on tokens, keep you alive. There’s also a good bit of mobility worked in as well. Hidden Paths and Commanding stride can be game changers if you need to get to somewhere but those short dwarf legs just won’t get you there. Hidden Paths also works GREAT with By The Code because you can drop someone deep in enemy territory then push 3 hexes onto a treasure token that you need. Confusion is also a card in the deck that is very important in matchups where your opponent also wants to hold treasure tokens or if your opponent is trying to counter play you by standing where you want to stand.
The upgrades in this deck aim to improve your mobility and action economy by giving you more movement, extra pushes, more damage, and more reliable attacks. With how slow most of the Dwarves are, Great Speed and Duellist provide a bit of extra movement to get onto those tokens and be able to cover ground to reach the tokens across the board. Agile, Sharp Reflexes, and Impossibly Quick give you some defensive options so that you can hopefully tank a couple of attacks to be able to hold those tokens. Burrowing Strike may seem like an odd choice for a warband with so much range, but this gives Lund and Ironhail a better choice for a melee attack if you need to do more than 1 damage. It also allows you more options for Glory Seeker and Great Strength while still giving you the reach to be able to stand on a token and attack still.
Now that we’ve covered the deck, we need to talk about that Warscroll and how it works with the deck. “Custom Aethershot Rounds” gives you a lil extra reach and a little extra accuracy early in the game when most of your fighters are only rolling 2 hammers for their ranged attack. This also allows you to make that charge onto an objective deep in friendly territory and still be able to reach out and touch someone. “Hail of Aethershot” scores you Hostile Takeover in 1 activation. It also allows you to spread the damage out a lil bit quickly so that you can potentially get 2 different fighters within killing range. It makes a GREAT first activation if you put Ironhail up front and have Hostile Takeover in your first hand. Atmospheric Isolation is a range 1 warband’s nightmare, especially warbands like Sepulchral Guard and Grymwatch. You can shoot someone with Thundrik and if they’re vulnerable it makes it impossible to actually charge him. It also gives a lil extra deterrent to keep him safe until your warband is inspired.
One of the BIG warscroll abilities with Thundrik’s Profiteers that make them an ideal warband to try to hold treasure tokens with is the excellently named “This is Mine Fair and Square”. If you are holding a Treasure token and you don’t have an enemy fighter next to you, you can’t be pushed. by enemy abilities. That means Lure of battle is useless, Violent Blast doesn’t work, range 2 and 3 attacks can’t drive you back. It’s not quite as good as being on guard, but it’s free. It makes you just that little bit harder to remove from those tokens. Plus if your opponent tries to push you off you get to state “This is MINE, fair and square” which honestly just feels good.
How have you found success and/or fun with the deck?
Like I mentioned above the deck was ALMOST my pick for WCW. It did VERY well in testing, there were several games where I scored 3-4 surges in round 1, all my end phases, and then did the same in round 2 leaving me with 1 or less objectives cards for round 3. If you get halfway decent draws this deck just flows. The power cards felt very good and every card felt useful in the deck. I was very tempted to add a 13th objective card, but was afraid of clogging the flow and given the short amount of prep time we had for WCW I had to pick something and roll with it without much time to get in a lot of reps. With more time, I probably would have taken this deck because it felt very clean.
One of the best things with this deck is watching the look on your opponent’s face when you score Aggressive Defender in your first activation, inspire Khazgan, then before your 2nd activation you throw on Gloryseeker. “You’re doing how much damage?!”
What advice do you have for other players who might want to try your warband on for size?
Thundrik’s Profiteers is noted as a “Mastery” warband on the box for a reason. It’s not straight forward like a lot of the other warbands. Most of the other warbands want you to do a specific thing with their abilities, there’s certain fighters that are going to be doing certain things. This warband has the tools to do a little bit of everything. If you want to play Strike, you can. If you want to play Take & Hold, you can. If you want to try some crazy ping damage stuff or play a glory denial game plan, that works too. This warband can do a lot of different things all at once which means that you need to understand that equation in your head while you’re trying to work out what your next activation is.
The other thing that makes this warband a bit different is, most of the time you’re going to be doing 1 damage. You do that 1 damage very reliably, but it’s only 1 damage. You are going to have to pick your moment carefully to bring in your heavier hitters and you’re going to have to use the tools available to try to position yourself to be able to score your objective cards when you make that move. It is a VERY fun puzzle to try to solve for, but can be frustrating into certain matchups.
What threats do you find most challenging to face? Are there any warbands or strategies that others can use to beat this warband or pairing?
The hardest match for this warband is beefy Strike warbands. If they have more than 3 wounds and want to kill you, you’re going to have at least some trouble. This warband does not have the best defense stats and most of the fighters are only 3 wounds. Ultimately this was the reason I did not choose Thundrik’s for WCW. I knew that Dromm, Emberwatch, Thricefold, and other warbands like them would be very popular. Dromm and Thricefold is almost an unwinnable match in their current state. Doing 1 damage to Dromm’s fighters just gives them more blood tithe to spend on an extra charge. While Thricefold’s free ping ability and upgrade disruption makes it very difficult to stay alive. Vexmor being parked or pushed up into the middle of the board would make a very bad situation quickly doing 3 damage from range 2.
Other matchups where you’re facing 4 fighters with 4 wounds, you use so many activations to drop 1 fighter that it becomes an uphill battle if you aren’t able to connect with your 2 damage fighters. Warbands like Kharga’s and Crimson Court provide equal challenges because they want those treasure tokens as well, so they’re going to be trying to hold them. They also have some very reliable range 1 attacks that make it hard to maintain control over the tokens.
Anything else you’d like to tell the community?
If you’re reading this as a player that used to play Underworlds and stopped playing during the pandemic or because you didn’t like the direction the game was going for a while; Give this new edition a chance. It is still Underworlds, but it feels more similar to the olden days of Nightvault and Shadespire while still feeling like a shiny new way to play the game. Have someone give you a demo game!
If you’re reading this and you are Underworlds curious, reach out to others on the Discord servers and set up a demo game. This new edition makes it VERY easy to enter the game without too much of a buy in. If you find a warband that you REALLY like or you’re a returning player that owns several of the older warbands, it’s even easier to join the fun. It’s a very easy game to learn and play competitively.
This is one of the most welcoming communities in wargaming and gaming in general which says a lot about the game system and the people that play it!
And like Ironhail always says, “If at first you don’t succeed! FIRE AGAIN!!!”
Thanks to Zack for giving us a guide for Thundrik’s Profiteers as well as an interesting look into a defensive strategy that can score even while tabled. Zack tells me he just took third at a local tournament with the Profiteers! Hopefully some of you beard fans can give it a try and see how it works for you.
I’d like to echo the ‘give this game a try’ sentiment as well – if you’re from the olden days this game feels like a fresh take on the original, and if you’ve never played before it’s more accessible now than it’s ever been.
While there are a few Love Letters in the works, there is always room for more. I’d love to hear your thoughts about an older or lesser or weird warband/pairing, what drove you to fall in love with it, and how you’ve piloted it to success – and especially piloting it to fun. If you have a warband you’d love to wax poetic about and serenade the wider community, let me know! I’m always accepting new submissions at SpentGlory@gmail.com. Until next time, grab the warband you love, a couple friends, and Spend some Glory!
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