Oh my love, you have come back to me. Sweet Daddy Velmorn, how I’ve missed you. The Sons of Velmorn, an instant fan-favorite, have returned to the Underworlds with the Spitewood releases. They’re here to rattle our bones as a Flex Warband which matched their original flavor. As they step from one tangled root-hive into another, let’s see what the Underworlds’ Father of the Century will be up to in second edition.

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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Sons of Velmorn: Lore

The Sons of Velmorn were originally released in Gnarlwood, and have a very compelling backstory. Once, a fortress-city of Sentarion existed in those tangled, cursed woods deep in Ghur. Their King, Morlak Velmorn, worried about the future of his kingdom and lineage, set to study and consulted every scholar he could to learn of how to preserve his dynasty in the face of an ever encroaching Chaos threat in the Age of Myth. He learned of the Tyrant’s Crown, an artefact that legend said could control life and death.

So, Morlak suited up, brought his three sons and a bastard son along for the quest, and did in fact find that crown. Upon placing it on his head, however, he and his sons were slain by death magic that coursed from it, and then were raised as skeletal wights. They fight on to this day, in a vain effort to defend the borders of their shattered kingdom, for while Velmorn secured his legacy and lineage, he did so at incredible cost.

King Velmorn is the game’s only confirmed father, and boy is he a bad one. He constantly played favorites, pitted his sons against one another, and had them compete for his attention. In life he was a wise ruler and skilled warrior, and now he’s got nothing to rule over but his disappointing children and the ruins of his former domain. Perhaps that explains the bitterness – but he’s also proud of his sons (one at a time, mind you), and a supportive parent at least in game mechanic terms back in first edition.

His three legitimate sons are: Marshal Faulk Velmorn the firstborn, now doomed to be the heir eternal and watch his father sit a throne he will never occupy. Helmar the Hewer who was a crowd favorite and the focus of many tavern stories, but now there are none yet living to speak of his deeds, and no fair maidens to impress with his skill. Finally, Thain Fourth-and-last.

Wait, fourth and last? But there’s only three? well, he was youngest and least favorite of the legitimate sons, and his lot has NOT improved in undeath. Effectively ignored when he’s not being scorned (‘that wastrel, Thain’), he’ll forever be the black sheep of an unloving family, and a runt besides.

Sir Jedran Falseborn was the king’s bastard son and was knighted and kept as a close bodyguard due to his immense size and strength – this despite the constant reminder of his unfaithfulness and mortal weakness. It doesn’t help that he’s a much better fighter than his brothers, but at least he was never in line for the throne and thus somewhat outside the usual infighting.

Sons of Velmorn: Warscroll

From the February 2026 Errata:

This change is a BIG improvement to this warband. I’ll cover the details later, but you now have a way easier time keeping command tokens and thus hitting/inspiring, can raise in a power step rather than wasting an activation, and can ping somebody on death with all fighters and they don’t have to be raised first. Huge quality of life improvement here.

Inspire

After a friendly fighter’s successful attack, inspire them and each friendly fighter adjacent to the target. This is nice because you don’t need a crit like you did last edition, you just have to succeed. It’s also nice because it isn’t about flaking or surrounding, so even cards like Brawler can’t turn it off. Still dicey, but less so than Velmorn fans are used to. It doesn’t even specify melee/adjacency for the attacker, so you could pull this off with ranged upgrades too!

Deadly Command

Immediately after your leader uses a core ability, give him a command token. When he has any command tokens, he’s adjacent to his three legitimate sons’ attack targets (thus flanking them and allowing him to inspire if they succeed too). Remove all command tokens at the end of the round.

You have to do something with the king to get one, so your first activation in round 1 of most games will be moving the king, placing him on guard, etc. Then, and only then, can he support his three little sons, and only when they attack. No longer does he flank for defensive purposes. We will see below on the fighter cards that their defense is pretty baller now so they need it less, but it still stings a bit for some card synergies. The good news is it now sticks around until you spend it, and you can have more than one, so once you get him into the game you’ll have access to this benefit for probably the rest of the game.

Rise Again

Your leader, if they have a command token, and has no charge tokens, can then raise a dead Grave Guard (little son) in your power step, so after your activation. You place them in any friendly starting hex.

The fact that they return with full health is pretty awesome – though they’re now only 2 health instead of 3. You will spend 1 command token, so hopefully you have another sitting around from some point earlier in the game. Since this no longer takes an activation, you may find that you raise your little sons a fair amount now.

Raise Shields

Finally we reach an ability that looks like a true upgrade from last edition. Immediately after a friendly Bulwark (dude with a shield equipped) is attacked and rolled any crits, give them a guard token. We will see later on, but those Bulwarks are either on two shields (Faulk and Helmar) or inspire to 2 shields (Jedran), so your odds are good. if you like standing on tokens with this warband (and I imagine you will), you now you have a shot at getting Guard for free while you’re on them. Even if you’re playing aggro with these guys, guard never hurts.

The Velmorn Curse

Immediately after a fighter with a raise token is slain by an adjacent attacker, deal 1 damage to that attacker. The enemy has to attack them, kill them from adjacency, and be in a scenario where that ping matters, so it’s not insane, but still nice to be able to dish out some damage once a game.

You now can do this from any of your five fighters, so Velmorn opponents will need to be mindful of adjacent slaying, especially iftheir fighter is vulnerable. This ability CAN kill somebody!

Surprise Swiftness

Once per game, in a power step, friendly fighters get +2 move the following activation. It’s nice to take move 3 skellies up to 5 move, though it’s only once a game. You can make that charge after all, snag that token, do what you need to do. It coming in a power step (unlike Wings of War as a reaction) makes it less ‘surprise’, but it still is swiftness. You’ll rarely be sad to have it, and often will wish you had it more than once.

Sons of Velmorn: Fighter Cards

King Morlak Velmorn

Here he is, your most important fighter and among the most iconic models the game has ever produced. Your gameplan is almost certainly going to revolve around appropriate use of King Velmorn – if you want Command tokens (you ABSOLUTELY do, unless you don’t plan on making any attacks), you need to keep this guy alive and you’ll want to activate him first or second every round. 4 Health 1 shield isn’t a guarantee of making it for very long in this game, so deploy him defensively and consider walking him backwards onto a rear Treasure token/Waystone hex or simply taking a guard action.

Once he has that Command Token, he supports his little sons’ attacks and will inspire if they hit, bringing him to a more reliable 2 shields on defense and taking his crit grievous up to full grievous. He’s still only 2 hammers and range 1, so he isn’t necessarily the nightmare melee fighter he once was, but he’s capable enough for a 2-bounty fighter.

The last thing to consider is you may want to avoid charging with him unless you’ve already used (or aren’t going to use) the Rise Again ability, as he can’t resurrect his sons with a charge token.

Sir Jedran Falseborn

This big bastard is the same as he ever was – dummy thicc and blind as the bat skull on his shield (fun fact, bats have excellent vision). His visor’s eye holes are obviously rusted over, since he is a 2 swords fighter even when inspired, and since he’s not a Grave Guard, he won’t even benefit from Velmorn’s Deadly Command flanking effect. As such, he needs to hit an attack to inspire, or flank a fighter while somebody else does.

However, 3 damage is nothing to sniff at. Arrange a supported scenario for him to swing into and boost those odds to hit, and he’ll shear right through a lot of enemies. Once inspired he has 2 shields, which when paired with 5 health and the Bulwark icon means he’s going to be a tough nut to crack for your opponents. Just know he’s liable to miss his attacks very often, and will probably be better used as a position holder/distraction carnifex than anything.

Marshal Faulk

Oh boy! the little sons begin on 2 shields! Oh no! they also begin on 2 health!

Faulk is our first, and while his 2 swords 1 damage with crit grievous is, well, kinda bad, remember he should be making most attacks with at least his dad flanking to help out, and will be effectively 2 hammers as a result. Once inspired he keeps the crit grievous and bumps to 2 damage, so now on 3 swords (usually flanked) he can pretty reliably churn out 2-3 damage hits. The Bulwark ability should trigger with decent frequency since he starts on 2 shields, and a 2 defense on guard guy can potentially cause a lot of problems for your opponents.

Helmar the Hewer

Helmar has a very similar profile to Faulk, and is identical when uninspired. Upon inspiring their differences are revealed, and the only one is that the Hewer loses crit grievous and instead gains cleave on his attack. Frequently benefitting from a flanking fighter, he will be a source of reliable accuracy for 2 damage, and again can be very annoying with Bulwark.

Thain, Fourth-and-Last

Poor Thain, nobody loves him. I often said in first edition he was the most important son while Faulk was the least, but that may no longer be true. Thain has the benefit of starting on 2 damage, and instead of crit grievous he has crit stagger. Inspiration does very little for him, just adding 1 sword to his attack and converting to regular stagger, but he’ll be a solid setup man for you in the early game when you’re short on damage. Hit somebody for 2, stagger them if you’re lucky, and enjoy the pile-on as other inspire.

He doesn’t have Bulwark though, so he’s less useful for holding Treasure and the like. Beautifully he keeps 2 shields on his profile in either case.

In Practice

I played one test game with this warband and used the nemesis deck Emberstone Sentinels/Edge of the Knife. It’s a very clunky pairing, and this team in retrospect is a bad fit for it – they simply don’t have the mobility to do things in enemy territory. Velmorn lost the game 10-15 which isn’t great but also could have been much worse, you know? Especially when you consider they didn’t hit a flanked attack (or any attack, actually) until midway through round 2.

Lessons learned are that two shields is indeed a solid defense profile. That’s really the only bright spot here. The command mechanic where Velmorn has to go first is limiting, and it really hurt that it didn’t work on defense at all. Then you have to consider the fact that everybody on the team save the King hits on two swords when uninspired – which as you may recognize as plain awful. Needing to succeed with that profile, even if flanking, is a tall ask and only two fighters inspired across the whole test game. That’s not a recipe for success.

Bulwark was really cool in concept, but since it’s entirely out of your control it can’t be counted on. It triggered when it didn’t matter, and didn’t trigger when it really needed to. Next time I play them, I think I’ll take a more aggro approach, since the take and hold angle is probably a losing prospect with this new warscroll.

Potential Pairings

So this time around, they’re a Flex warband, which means they can do a little fighting and a little holding treasure. That’s all well and good, but the available decks don’t perfectly line up with their skill set just yet in my estimation. There are a bunch of things that sort of work, but nothing that just clicks perfectly – so take what you like and let me know how it goes because I’m really rooting or these guys.

They need to hit to inspire (and Jedran really needs the help), so Blazing Assault will always look like an attractive option. Emberstone Sentinels is an OK choice as well – you’ll feel less bad ‘wasting’ an opening activation to use Velmorn somewhere safe, and the great defensive profiles with some dicey-but-always-threatening guard tech can help you stay on those tokens once you land there. Countdown to Cataclysm can help their accuracy and has some Hold based things as well.

I’m actually tempted to suggest they use Edge of the Knife in some scenarios as they have three tempered fighters with great defense, and should have a moderately simple time scoring a few of the cards therein, especially considering the free flank on attacks from their old man. Wrack and Ruin grants them a little more accuracy and some pushes/decent upgrades. Hunting Grounds can be a decent option, since you’re probably too slow to walk over the line anyway.

Sadly, they will likely not do as well with Deadly Synergy as you might initially expect, since Velmorn’s Deadly Command makes him adjacent to the target and not to the attacking fighter, so he will not be dishing out free United status all game. However, their guard tech can potentially help you stay united, so there’s an angle for it. Raging Slayers allows you to change a success to a crit, and since so many of these fighters have crit abilities on their fighter cards, you’ll be interested in accessing that!

Wrap

Good Lord, I love these guys and are so glad they’ve made their way back into the limelight. While I wish they were more how I remembered and several of their warscroll abilities had a little more gas, I’m sure I’ll be jamming them a whole bunch in the months to come regardless. Forget what you know about old Velmorn. He’s not that dawg anymore, but that doesn’t mean we can’t love him all the same.

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