You thought Kurnoth’s Heralds would be the only cavalry unit in Spitewood? Think again! These guys look like the gambler’s dream, and if they get rolling early then you’d better look out. Elites and Leaders everywhere will learn the name of Rippa Narkbad, or he’s gonna teach ’em right good. Let’s find out what these wolf-riders are up to now as a Strike Warband! I’d also recommend putting The Great Chinggis Khaan by The HU on while you read this one.

So that you’re aware, this warband received some rules updates in the February 2026 Errata. I’ll comment briefly on the changes later in the article.

Thank you to Games Workshop for providing the page with an advance copy of this product for review and content creation.

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Rippa’s Snarlfangs: Lore

These ladz are Snarlfang Riders and members of the Gitmob, which means they aren’t afraid of the sun unlike our other Goblin warbands in the Underworlds. With any luck, there’ll be some in Spitewood. Then they can fight it and usher in that everdank they’re always going on about.

Once upon a time, Rippa Narkbad decided to take up the time-honored goblin tradition of trying to stab your boss in the back and take his position. Unfortunately, he botched the operation, and quite quickly made a break for it rather than stick around and find out what kind of consequences might follow. His two best mates, Stabbit and Mean-eye, tagged along since they’re known associates and why wait to find out da boss might want to take out some retribution on you ladz for hanging out with a guy, right?

They spent some time in the Beastgrave, seeking to find a great shiny loppa that Rippa saw every night in his dreams. He presumed he’d find it and then be able to return and challenge his old boss again. The issue was his erstwhile companions kept messing up all his cunning plans and making a mess of things, so he had to get real grouchy and mean about it.

The trio effectively all disrespect and hate one another, and while Rippa may be da boss, the other two are really hoping he meets an untimely end and they get a nice promotion and new boss hat out of the event. Until that time, however, they’ll rampage wherever Rippa thinks he can find that shiny boss-loppa and take everyone to task who gets in their way.

The Direchasm Anthology has an incredibly cutesy tale of their squabbling and hatred for one another I’d recommend to anyone! Goblins at their backstabbing best.

Rippa’s Snarlfangs: Warscroll

From the February 2026 Errata:

This change is a significant improvement to the warband’s reliability: you can now attack even if you get a draw rather than only a success, and you do not have to attack the same target as the initial runemarked attack.

Inspire

After a power step, if any of your fighters have 2 or more upgrades, inspire that fighter. Also, if your ‘attack again with the dog bite’ attack hits, you can inspire that fighter as well. We’ll cover the Snarlfang’s Jaws ability next.

We’ll see when we get down to fighter cards, but generally speaking you’re gonna want these guys inspired. Load up on 0-glory upgrades and/or snack on some low-defense prey and gamble on that Snarlfang bite, get your defense to 2 dodge, and cackle like the cruelest gobbo you know.

Snarlfang’s Jaws

If a fighter’s weapon has the bite runemark, they have access to the following weapon ability: After you successfully attack (or draw with at least one success), you can then make a second attack with this profile – a relatively low accuracy range 1 bite that does 2 damage. The bite also cannot be modified, so no plus dice or damage and so on. However, post-update, you get more chances to use it and are able to target a different fighter, so you’ll see more consistency with this warband now.

On one hand, extra attacks are always welcome, this version is WAY less brutal than the first edition one. Now, since it’s a runemark, you’ll have to choose between the chance at a Snarlfang bite or using Grievous, Ensnare, etc. Then, you are only allowed to make that bite if your first attack hits or draws, and THEN you’re praying your one hammer or two swords gets through without any modifiers.

Every one of your fighter’s attacks on their cards has this runemark, so you’ll have access to it all the time. However, if you take a weapon upgrade, you’ll lose out on the chance to bite, so be careful out there.

When this goes off, you’ll be giddy, inspired, and probably just dished out 3-4 damage in one activation. When you choose not to use a different runemark and miss, you’ll be sad. Rippa and friends are going to LOVE things like Hidden Aid – or manufacturing flanking with things like Pack Tactics, which we’ll talk about next.

Pack Tactics

Once per game in a power step, pick an enemy fighter and push all of your friends 1 hex closer to them. It’s every one of your fighters 1 hex – so you’ll have to push all of them and have to push closer (assuming you’re able) – so use this with caution since it may require some finesse.

That said, this is an excellent option for a Strike warband, especially one with the Snarlfang’s Jaws ability. Up to three sidesteps for the price of one warscroll ability is huge. You can set up a flanked attack for accuracy that will allow a bite to go off. You can push into/out of a location for scoring Objective cards. You can close in on somebody to put them in charge range when they thought they were safe. I can’t understate how often this is going to win you some games. Gold Star warscroll ability right here.

Smell Weakness

Once per game, in a power step, you can turn off enemy fighters’ ability to benefit from Flanked of Surrounded in attack or save rolls if they’re adjacent to a friendly fighter. This ability might not do much in some games, but in others it can be pretty big. I love that it works on offense and defense too.

The most obvious use case to me is when you’re diving in to snipe the enemy leader, and have to do so into a flanked or surrounded position. Imagine Duke Crackmarrow surrounded by his friends, Rippa dives in and says ‘actually bud, you’re on your own’ – with a potential 4 damage double-tap while his minions just sit around like slack-jawed yokels.

You can use it on defense as well, which means your opponent burns some pushes to set up a flanked attack on a fighter you need to survive, slaps Hidden Aid on their bruiser, you name it. Pop this and undo their efforts (at least for the next turn) and up the odds you keep that fighter alive (or force them to attack from non-adjacency, which might be all you needed). Situational, but when this ability comes in handy you’ll be happy to have it.

Duck and Dive

This ability is KILLER! Once per game, after a fighter is chosen to be the target of an attack, trigger this and guarantee you’ll Stand Fast. you will reduce the damage by 1 and make sure you’re not driven back even if they roll hot. Being able to surprise somebody with this at will means your opponents will always have to factor in potential overkill. Rippa is 2 health from death? Well he might be 3, actually. It’s also great for maintaining position for Objective cards or getting another crucial attack off once charged out to close off a round. We’ve seen this ability before in Realmstone Raiders and Skinnerkin, and it’s so saucy.

Rippa’s Snarlfangs: Fighter Cards

Rippa Narkbad

Our leader sports a solid profile with 4 move, 1 shield, 5 health, and a 3 swords 2 damage attack at range 1 with the snarlfang jaws runemark. Once inspired, he jumps to 2 dodge, gains a move, and goes to an awesome 3 hammers on his attack. He’s your warband’s primary inspire target, so load him up with upgrades early (or hope you get luck with a bite). His range 1 attack and the only one of the crew with 2 damage means he’s the most important one to work around with regards to the warscroll abilities – don’t be afraid to use the Smell Weakness on him to get the most out of that 1 range, or Pack Tactics to get him into adjacency. Rippa players will live and die on how much juice they can squeeze out of the leader.

Stabbit

How the mighty have fallen 😦 Stabbit has a two hammer range 2 attack for 1, but inspiring does not increase his damage to 2, nor does it make him markedly more accurate as he goes to 3 swords only. His weapon having the Grapple runemark is fun, since it means you can potentially pull somebody into adjacency for later, but it is a runemark that competes with Snarlfang Jaws, so you probably won’t find yourself wanting to use it all that often. The stat block isn’t bad, but compared to the beast this guy was in first edition, it hurts a bit to see.

Mean-Eye

Our mounted archer, and the worst of the gang (though he’s a great model still). A range 3 shot on a 4 move platform is always nice, though he’ll only ever do 1 damage for you. He’s got the Ensnare runemark on his attack, which again is competing with the Snarlfang Jaws – but considering you have to use it against the same target, you have lower odds that you’ll even be in range to bit the thing anyway. Since he’s one a pitiful 2 swords to start, that Ensnare might actually come in pretty handy. Once inspired he may be more reliably able to fish for a bite with a 3 sword attack.

In Practice

I played one nemesis practice game with these rough riders, using Blazing Assault and Raging Slayers. The plan was to Enrage, hit an attack, and trigger a dog bite with a reroll. Regrettably it didn’t work out that way – I actually only hit one dog bite all game and only got to attempt three, since you need to hit your opening attack which is never a guarantee, even in BARS. That, and once I got other runemarks like grievous online, I had to make choices.

Inspiration was hard for another reason too – putting to upgrades on somebody takes glory, and then you have to make the hard choice of ‘do I continue to stack upgrades on my one good fighter, or spread them around so multiple fighters can inspire?’ After Rippa died I just loaded up Stabbit and said Mean-eye was on his own.

On that topic, Stabbit losing two damage inspired was much worse for them than I expected. Mean-eye is hot garbage uninspired with two swords 1 damage, and it’s not even melee so many cards don’t help it out. Rippa is your only decent damage-dealer since you really can’t rely on wolf bites so come through for you very often, especially since they only trigger off of successful attacks using their runemark.

Potential Pairings

An obvious choice for these ladz would be Blazing Assault – they’re going to be making a lot of attacks with their high mobility, multiple ranged options, and opportunities to get a second attack with a bite reaction., As a result, they’re less afraid of the dice-based surges, and really want the plus dice/flanking etc that comes with the deck. Countdown to Cataclysm and Wrack and Ruin look like good choices too, since they’ll get some pushes and ping damage with stagger accuracy to help out – and notably Stagger helps with the wolf bites as well. Reckless Fury is a solid choice too, since charging should be a piece of cake with this team.

The new Hunting Grounds could work quite well for them too, if you can find a pairing that convinces your opponent to walk over the line into the den of wolves.

Wrap

This one is hard to evaluate in a vacuum – so much of their success will hinge on using those wolf bites to good effect, which means hitting your initial attack, then hitting a second one against the same target. Snarlfang stocks go up when facing Standard or Elite warbands, but go down when playing into Hordes. They may also struggle a bit playing into Take and Hold teams, since the Snarlfang Jaws being range 1 after the attack means you don’t want to drive back after your first hit, but then might miss your second, leaving that enemy on the point.

My test game left a lot to be desired, but if you play smart and protect Rippa, you might have a better time than I did. Flanking/Surrounding effects, Plus Dice, and Stagger/Reroll effects are going to be this warband’s best friends, so pack as much non-runemark tech as you can, SPRINT to those Waystone Hexes, and get chomping!

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Thanks again to Games Workshop for providing me with this product so that I can produce this review content.