Featured this month are these astronomically good Emberwatch painted by Francisco Pozo. The details on the faces, the non-metallic metal that also has OSL from the glowing emberstone clusters added to the bases, and the beautifully chromatic green capes all gave me pause as I just flipped between the images in this gallery for ten minutes or so. I mean, Ardorn even has a 5 o’clock shadow. Absolutely stunning.

Check out Web Highlights from previous months here, or dive in by category below!

Content Creators

PODCASTS

Underworlds Underground has launched our “Season 2” with an episode titled How to (Re)Start Underworlds in Second Edition, which covers why it’s a great game to play, how to get started as a new player, and how to get back into things if you’re a player form back in the day.

What the Hex has posted a beautiful retrospective on 2024 as well as a hopeful looking forward to 2025, which is definitely worth the listen.

Battle Mallet had some hot takes on the Forsaken list and the rules update in general if you’re interested ot hear their behind the curtain view on things.

YOUTUBE

Agents of Sigmar have a video going over the FAQ/Errata/Rules Updates as well as their opinions on the changes

Critical Focus Channel has a ‘Civil War’ battle report of Da Kunnin’ Krew facing off against Daggok’s Stab-Ladz. An interesting matchup!

Cinderfall Gaming is back with another battle report, this time in a showdown between Grandfather’s Gardeners and the Jaws of Itzl. One of my favorite things Cinderfall does is include cute little drawings of each leader and these two new ones are charming in their signature way. Check it out!

HobbyHunterz posted a second edition battle report from their new studio, and in 4K. Pretty great production quality here, and the team continues to take strides to improve their content. Glad to see it! Here’s the Sepulchral Guard with Pillage and Plunder vs Lady Harrow’s Mournflight (Using the Dark Majesty warscroll) with Reckless Fury.

A new channel for me, “la PRIMA SFERA” is an Italian language channel that features a battle report of Thundrik’s Profiteers vs Khagra’s Ravagers in Rivals

BLOGS

Staggerers has a very thorough and thought-provoking review of the Countdown to Cataclysm Rivals Deck, what makes it so good, and how it fits into so many Nemesis builds.

Goonhammer has thrown together a ‘How to Build a Nemesis Deck’ guide for those that are new to the process. Not to be stopped, Goonhammer has also posted a review of the Winter balance update. Good God, he’s a machine! Jake’s Starting Hex blog over on Goonhammer ALSO posted an article on Objective Counterplay, so I’m delaying mine for a while since he’s now beat me to the punch on two different beginner topics in one month. Curse that devilish community benefactor!

Set The Tempo has an insightful breakdown of every deck from the World Championships of Warhammer, evaluating which decks were chosen the most, which cards had the most play, what was chosen more often by players who placed highest, and so on. Excellent for use by competitive players looking to fine tune their decks. He then went and did the same thing for the Las Vegas Open, which was post ruled update to see how things changed.

Path to Glory has had a Worlds Recap from Mark (the hero who took Kainan’s Reapers), covering his experience and his matches across the event. His approach to having fun and trying to maximize his success with a ‘less competitive’ warband really speaks to me (maybe I too have al little ‘too much Johnny’ in me), and I was glad to be able to give this a read this month. I especially appreciated him emphasizing how it’s cool to let each other ‘walk back’ things and win the game ‘for real’ rather than off of an opponent’s simple mistake. If you can’t tell I respect the heck out of the guy and we’re lucky to have somebody like him in our community.

Events/Organized Play

Sooo, the Las Vegas Open happened, and your boy took second place. MY boy, however, took first! Congrats to Andrew on beating me, and with Zikkit’s Tunnelpack WR/CC of all things. He’ll be headed to Atlanta this November to teach you all how good he is at this game, and you’d better be scared.

LVO also had a rivals event, and Mollog’s Mob took it with Pillage and Plunder (piloted again by Andrew…). Read my writeup here.

Critico y Culo have shared the layout at the start of the Spanish Vassal League’s playoffs with some interesting analysis of the deck choices. Best of luck to the competitors!

Encounter in the Embergard was held in the UK, with 14 participants which saw Jon Chambers take the win with the Jaws of Itzl using Reckless Fury and Countdown to Cataclysm.

The first ever Second Edition event in the Phillipines happened this month – The Ermahgerd Embergard Tournament. The event was an 8-man rivals tournament with the Gold Winner being Joel’s Emberwatch with Emberstone Sentinels. Glad to see the game spreading to new countries!

UPCOMING

As usual, check out Check out the Global Events Calendar here: you can filter by country and see what’s happening in your corner of the world. Note this is in GMT so hours may be off for you depending on your time zone.

Short turnaround, but there is a Warhammer Underworlds Grand Tournament at WarZone: Atlanta February 8-9. Lunch will be provided both days!

Also coming up mighty quick is the Embergard Nemesis Grand Clash in the UK at Warhammer World! Six games over one day on February 8th – I’m told this is shaping up to be the largest Warhammer Underworlds event EVER

March 2nd will see the Italian 2025 Road to Final in Brescia which is officially a World Championships Qualifier. Here’s the Best Coast Pairings link to register

March 22nd, Stuttgart Grand Tournament is Germany’s first major Warhammer Underworlds tournament in 2025! This Nemesis format event features 3 rounds of best-of-three matches will be a World Tournament Qualifier

The Polish Championships in Poznan will be held March 29th and the event will have THREE golden tickets to Worlds in Atlanta. Here is the registration form

July 5th-6th will host the World Team Championships in Vienna, Austria which will host 5-player teams from countries around the world fighting for the world team title. If you have five competitors from your nation, consider hitting up Vienna this July and see if you can’t take the championship! It will be a 6 round Nemesis event over two days.

August 2nd will feature Into the Under-Ekeren III, held in Ekeren, Belgium which has also been selected to be a Golden Ticket event. Get busy, Europe!.

Painting/Hobby

“Grandfather’s Gift, Bestowed” is a diorama featuring Squort from the Gardeners painted by Dillon and it’s everything you want. Perspective shift, medically-gross flesh on the hand, out-of-the-box thinking, and high level painting quality to boot. The hand itself was hand-sculpted. Bravo!

GOOD GRAVY check out these Sailor Moon themed Shadeborn painted by Maria Włodarz

Remarkably detailed and starkly highlighted Zarbag’s Gitz by Origalum out of Ukraine. I know how small these models are and it’s amazing he got that fine of a line so consistently.

Zikkit’s Tunnelpack by Josh Crozman with beautiful shadow and light effects – really feels like warpstone in a tunnel

“Ghostbusters” by Toni Garcia, which includes several models from Hexbane’s Hunters with incredible highlighting detail

The Farstriders by Jupiter Rin in an absolutely RADIANT blue metallic with lilac accents.

I only recently learned of Young Song, a top-tier painter who has done loads of Underworlds warbands, many with extensive conversions. They conveniently decided to post every WHU project they’ve completed in a single post, so we can both catch up together. I especially like the Hexbane’s Hunters!

Pale Grandfather’s Gardeners by Ace of Paints, which is on a mirrored photo setup that makes it look ten times as good. Squort’s eyes are particularly impressive!

Bielkins Brush is back with some head-krakkin’ Madmob with great shading on the orky flesh

This is an old one, but I only just discovered it now. “Eye of Nagash Sepulchral Guard” by John Margiotta with awesome mummy eyes freehand across the shields that reminds me of old White Dwarf projects

Stunningly evil Dread Pageant by El Gobbo Studio, who also painted up Mayri’s Purifiers in a white and sage green scheme that’s to die for

SnotlingDiskotek painted up Pointy Burk in a carnival pink/old world mashup scheme

Grey-green Grandfather’s Gardeners in a really unique pallette by Peppe Solano

Gorgeous Vasillac the Gifted by waterpaper – check out the freehand on the cloak, the NMM gold, and luscious purple tones. They also painted a fun little blue Gobbaluk which amazing highlighting

Smooth purple Thricefold Discord with almost satin looking skin that also has cool mottling on the backs – phenomenal effort from Ajaxsis

“Dry January? I’z neva heard of it” – Snirk Sourtongue by bomb_tombadi (awesome username). It’s great to see so much Zarbag love this month!

Krittatok painted up in a VERY old-world scheme by Minimalist_Basing, which looks straight out of the 80s.

Very early work in progress on two underworlds warbands’ Golden Daemon dioramas by Volomir: The Grymwatch and Zarbag’s Gitz. Excited to see how these pan out

Zarbag’s Gitz by Loony with blue-black robes and papping with red accents

Fantastic work on Daggok’s Stab-Ladz by GDSShadez with perfect cloth texture and captivating NMM on the shields. Apparently they did this while recovering from surgery and didn’t have full control of their painting arm, which makes this even more impressive because, jeez. Also I love the basing foliage.

Zarbag’s Gitz in a shocking yellow by Stuart McQuarrie

Crimson Court with plaid tartan style cloaks by Tom Eden

Ye Olde Ardorn Flamerunner in a 90’s Dark Angels scheme – looks like the ‘Eavy Metal stuff I used to read in White Dwarf as a kid. Awesome work out of Minimalist_Basing.

Squort with great stippling detail and patterning on the wings – gross and biorealistic all at once. Nice execution from BoneGrampa

Grinkrak’s Looncourt by mroz4 in a crazy blue color scheme that’s inspired by Ninjon and Juan Hidalgo

Incredibly vibrant blue on Skhathael by This_Ad9714

Beautiful magenta and blue-grey robes on Zikkit’s Tunnelpack by Juan Francisco González Hidalgo

What if Garrek’s Reavers, but bald? John Margiotta sought to find out and knocked it out of the park.

Neat highlighting on Kro-Jax by Forsaken_Scar_4521

NMM Silver Ardorn Flamerunner by InterviewNo2229

King Velmorn, who I must share at every opportunity by Limp-Meal-6786

Drizzgit Da Squig Herder got some custom improvements to some sickeningly pale squigz in this post by nico_grand

Colorful Blackpowder with the striped green pants that everyone loves, painted by Polar_Ice96. The leather coat is pretty nice looking too!

Awesome red and black Emberwatch by Dagg3rsB, which have stark cloaks, great NMM gold, and cool lightning glow on the eyes. Here’s their Steelheart’s Champions as well in the same scheme

A cool white and purple Kro-Jax that looks a little bit like the Leviathan tyranid scheme. Great work from Flashy-Environment

Grimy and mud-splattered Wurmspat by Gamolo

Myari’s Purifiers in white and red with some interesting face paint by Markus Hunt

Starblood Stalkers in classic style by 61 Painting, looking almost like Old World saurus and skinks in an ‘Eavy Metal scheme

Zondara’s Gravebreakers with bright and colorful tones achieved through the use of oil paints – cool work by IndependentRest5188

You know what’s cool? The Dread Pageant making a comeback. Here’s a rendition in Purple, Gold, and Forest Green by Alphariusthefirst. Keep the Pageant rolling, friends.

MISCELLANEOUS

RHeaven90 continues to make cool stuff, and now you can get your hands on Underworlds Blanks to make your own custom cards/warscrolls if needed.

The Etsy Store EazyVictory has made high quality prints of the grand alliance cards for all those ‘Legends’ warbands if you’d like to play them but can;t be bothered to print them yourself. Here’s a link to the destruction pack, and their seller page has all 4 grand alliances for sale

Wathlab is at it again, this time having posted up a V1+ custom warband named Leana’s Shadewalkers, with three wood elves and an owl. For those still into first edition, especially those with Vassal, check it out!

It’s technically not a community highlight since it’s from GW, but there was a free piece of Short Story fiction from Black Library named Chronicles of Embergard: Blood in the Mines if you’re interested in a quick read.

The North West Warhammer Underworlds group has put out another useful document – an FAQ AND ERRATA CARD printable like last edition. For those who want to use the updated stuff in a printout to sleeve with the rest of your rules and cards.

That’s a wrap! Tune in next month for February’s highlights, and don’t forget to Spend your Glory!