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.

This very special edition of the Love Letters series was penned by Val, a longtime legend of the game who runs the Straight Outta Shadespire group in the Netherlands and has been a prominent member of the Vassal community since way back in the day. He’s also a frequent guest on the Path to Glory podcast where he also serves as an executive producer. To boot, he also was a competitor at the World Championships of Warhammer in both 2023 and 2024. In short, he’s as close to an authority on the game as you’re going to find, is an excellent competitive player, and a champion of the Underworlds Community.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to share his insight into his newest foray into the Jaws of Itzl, which he took to phenomenal success for the Warhammer World Nemesis Clash and Warhammer World Grand Clash in February 2025. Val went undefeated across the entire weekend, taking first place out of 72 players on Saturday and second place out of 124 players on the Golden Ticket Grand Clash on the following Sunday. If you’re looking to take a bite out of your local competition with the Jaws of Itzl, you’ll find no better guide than the one Val was written for us below.

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Dear Warhammer Underworlds Aficionados,

Please let me apologize in advance for the lack of humor in this article. That is by design. The first lesson you must learn in order to prevail in competitive play is to excise all human emotion… apart from rage… and maybe spite… and, of course, Enraged Spite (for the relics among you).

Let’s break it down, following these bullet points I got from Mr. Fishmode. He made me write this as a “reward” for performing halfway decent in the most recent Bugman’s clash (1st of 72 players) and the Warhammer World Grand Clash (2nd of 124 players).

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?

Let me introduce myself. I am Val and i got into Underworlds because my Crossfit coach told me to. That was back in September 2019, when Beastgrave came out. Before i even played a game, I got hooked on the painting. I would start painting, and whoops, 4 hours were gone before I knew it. On the picture below, you can see the first miniature I ever painted, my boy Skaeth. Such a cool model. He’s doing 1 damage on his new fighter card. I weep for him.

I played my first game ever at a local store tournament, playing my Skaeth’s Wild Hunt with what you might call their Rivals deck and a great strength versus the ridiculously OP Stormsire’s Cursebreakers. The first round went: empower, surge, inspire, spell, surge, spell, surge, spell, Magical Storm, Solid Gains, Great Gains. If you can’t follow this – neither could I. It went badly. Anyway, that was my first experience. for some reason, I must’ve loved it.

Although i am originally from Germany, I am living in the Netherlands. We have a fantastic community that we call “Straight Outta Shadespire’ – after a legendary tournament in which only Shadespire warbands were allowed. If you want to get in touch, just find me somewhere on Discord, and i can add you to our group chat. There are always new people to find. I remember running a series of Underworlds webcam tournaments during the lockdown days, and one time, this dude signed up who ended up living 2 streets away from me. You can find him on the picture below.

What’s the warband/deck/pairing you love, and how did you two sweethearts meet?

Enough about myself. Let’s talk about reptiles. Dinos and snakes on a base. Right around the World Championships of Warhammer 2024 (event summary: I sucked – with Gorechosen of Dromm – shame!), my son Neo (10) saw the Jaws and demanded to have them – and who am I to deny him? Honestly, I had succeeded in coercing him into play a few times before, but never really continuously. There is the already famous story when I needed him to play as a ringer at a small tournament I ran at my house. He said he was only going to do it if i promised him 200 bucks for winning the thing. I was young and I needed a player, so I promised. Long story short: he won the tournament with a 7-hex charge by Brodus the bro vs Lady Harrow. Naturally, I was super-happy that there was finally a warband that made him want to paint and play by his own volition. I had also bought us 2 tickets for the January 2025 grand clash in Nottingham – without knowing that there would be a golden ticket. So we started practicing a bit. He was playing his dinos with Countdown to Cataclysm, CTC, and Reckless Fury, RF, in every game, while I changed warbands and decks as often as I could in order to find myself a strong combo, and to prepare him to what he might be facing. Of the 35 games we played, he won at least 30. In the beginning I told myself I was letting him win, but every time I was going to play seriously, I still lost. I couldn’t beat them, so I joined them. I painted them up quickly and managed to finish them a couple of hours before we headed to the airport (see picture).

What makes the deck so fun to play in your experience?

Some time around game 25, RF got nerfed. Consequently, we changed to Blazing Assault, BA. An amazing combination. While CTC provides the best objectives in the game, BA provides the best power cards. Smart, isn’t it? You can see the deck I played at both the Bugman’s Clash (1st place (Editor’s Note: out of 72 players!)) and the Grand Clash (2nd place (Editor’s Note: out of 124 players!)) in January 2025 on underworldsdb here. For those who like it more graphic, here’s a deck pic:

As you can see, the all the objectives are basically auto-score as the game progresses, except Shocking Assault and Set Explosives. And for these, I just charge a dino onto the treasure token in neutral territory, use use my Instinctual Control reaction to move my snakes onto a treasure token in the back of my territory, and play obstinate on the dino. He ain’t going anywhere. That scores both objectives with 1 activation. Bam! The ploys help me to control the battle-field. Sidestep, Counter-Charge, and Illusory Fighter let my dinos get around without charging (enabling some Savage Mauling), while Lure of Battle and Violent Blast can also do that, plus ruin any treasure token holder’s day. Determined Effort can help score a bunch of the attack-related surges, and a Twist the Knife for 4 damage is just rude. All upgrades are solid and useful at almost any point of the game. Nothing surprising there.

What advice do you have for other players who might want to try your warband on for size?

If you fancy yourself some dinos, here’s some advice:

• Even though the deck looks aggro at first, it’s truly flex. It’s not about always be charging, ABC. Feel free to just move onto an objective.
• Keep the snakes safe until you scored set explosives, or have collateral damage in hand
• If your opponent wants to get onto feature tokens – and most of them will want to, be happy to just occupy these tokens and deny their scoring. Be patient, let them charge you, use your Predatory Fighters ability to damage them, inspire, and bite back.
• Use your power cards at the last possible moment. Don’t burn your Sidestep and Lure of Battle in the first power step. No. Better use them in the last power step.
• Keep Determined Effort and don’t charge So-Kar if there is still a chance to draw into Overwhelming Attack in a round.
• Improvised Attack can move the snakes and score a bunch of the surge objectives including Get Stuck In.
• Don’t move the cataclysm further than step 9 until you have scored Wreckers or have 4 enemy fighters damaged/slain.
• Remember Loaded for Bear when putting upgrades on your fighters.
• Collateral Damage can be scored in a variety of ways, e.g. when pinging your own snakes, or at the end of the round if you are the underdawg.
• If you can chose the board placement, always use the “golden side” in the orientation in which the starting hex symbols are correctly facing yourself, i.e. they are not sideways or upside-down.
• If your opponent does not place the first feature token into the center hex, try to place your first token so that you block your opponent from placing a second token in neutral territory. This will help with Shocking Assault and Set Explosives. Place the other treasure tokens next to stagger hexes.
• If your opponent places the “golden side” of the board in the “longboard” configuration, you can place a treasure token in neutral territory next to a stagger hex. That way, you can use Violent Blast as a sort of confusion to push an enemy fighter off the token (away from the stagger, so they cannot use violent blast to get back on), and push a friendly fighter onto it.
• There are many ways to use Illusory Fighter. Defensively to retreat a damaged fighter. Aggressively to teleport a fighter who was initially placed in the back onto the front starting hex after the fighter who was there charged away. Or cunningly, to get a wounded fighter next to an enemy fighter to hand out a Savage Mauling.
• Don’t forget that Visions of Ruin gives your fighter a stagger token.
• Put Utter Conviction on Ro-Tak if possible because it prevents the crit-grievous on So-Kar.

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?

It’s a solid deck. The most challenging match-up i faced at the grand clash were these dino-hatin’ dwarves, Thundrik’s Profiteers, playing CTC and Emberstone Sentinels, ES. They long-boarded me, shot from range 4 to drive me back out of charge range, and have that nasty ability that they cannot be pushed unless an enemy fighter is adjacent. “Fair and square” – my ass. Very strong vs dinos because the dinos won’t inspire from defending ranged attacks. The other hard matchups were Grymwatch and Zondara’s Gravebreakers with CTC and Pillage and Plunder, PNP. They just move onto tokens, flip them, get slain, get rezzed, and repeat. They have a high glory ceiling and it’s hard to find the time to slay their leader to stop the rez permanently (I never managed to) while keeping the small dudes off the tokens. Especially because they are worth zero bounty after coming back. Over the entire weekend, I went 9 undefeated for 9 straight games because I managed (for once!) to stick to the game plan even when my reptilian hypothalamus made me want to just roar and charge. Got some nice swag, too.

Anything else you’d like to tell the community?

As much as I love self-aggrandizement, I guess it’s enough now. Writing is hard work. I could never become a blogger. That’d be like having homework for the rest of my life… hold on, I am supposed to say something to the community. Fine. Let me just check what the other people wrote here… hm. I would love to see as many of you as possible at the World Championships. So please keep organizing and participating in these golden ticket events everywhere. Heads up: we will have one on 15 June 2025 here in the Netherlands. It’d be awesome if you could join. C’yall, and remember to keep it glassy!

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Thanks once again to Val for sharing his thoughts with us, and congratulations again on taking a chunk out of some serious opponents in Nottingham and representing Europe so well. It’s also inspiring as a father to see him take his child to a big event, and Neo also did quite well for himself there despite his age!

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!