Today I’m righting a wrong, and starting to work on the backlog of second edition warbands that haven’t been reviewed on this page. Zondara’s Gravenreakers were released as a Mastery warband for second edition with digital only rules alongside Embergard in 2024, before Spent Glory was part of the Creator Programme. Since then, the warscroll has had an improvement when a recent rules update gave them an improvement to Undying Love.
However, the warband has rarely been reviewed in full by anybody (since it was a digital release at the launch of the edition) and pretty much everyone who did wrote about them in context of the original 4 decks only. I figured they could use a second look, and the updated rules are a good excuse! The warband is fun and has some of the best story/lore flavor in the game. Let’s Unearth and/or Exhume some goodness!
Click here to see a Master List of all warbands in the game
Zondara’s Gravebreakers: The Lore
This warband has among the most compelling backstories in the game. Some time past, a Man and Woman underwent a Romeo and Juliet-level tragedy. Zondara and Ferlain were lovers, but by some accident of fate (or something darker), Ferlain was turned into a snarling beast, with little if any of his prior humanity intact. Devastated by this loss, Zondara, an accomplished Amber Wizard (and proficient in beast magic, with miiiight explain Ferlain’s little accident) located and stole a cursed necromantic tome. In the intervening time, she has traveled the length and breadth of the realms seeking a cure for Ferlain’s ‘condition’, utilizing three zombie corpses to help her unearth and exhume secrets wherever she goes in a desperate attempt to being her love back to her.
At times, Lost Ferlain sems to glimpse a small portion of his prior intellect and humanity, and while these brief snatches of lucidity encourage and sur Zondara Rivenheart on, the sense of loss immediately thereafter must also deepen her agony. I’ve always been really into the idea of this being a “Beauty and the Beast” situation in reverse, so much so that I painted them like the Disney movie. The rules for the warband have a relatively faithful translation of the lore onto the tabletop. Let’s pull our picks and shovels out and get digging into those trenches.
Zondara’s Gravebreakers: The Warscroll
Please note that the warscroll has been updated and improved from the original digital release. The ability Undying Love may now be used once per battle round rather than only once per game, which represents a pretty substantial boon to an already decent set of abilities.
Inspire
So to understand inspiration for this warband, we’ll cheat ahead and say there are two ‘destined’ fighters – Zondara and Ferlain, your two bigger pieces. Give one of them 2+ upgrades and the other inspires as they’re so pleased with the fancy trinkets their lover is wearing. It’s nice because it allows you to benefit both of your better fighters in a similar way, but also works against ‘voltron-ing’, in that if you want one inspired, you can’t also stack all your upgrades on them.
The non-destined fighters (i.e. your minions who make up the zombie digging crew) inspire upon being raised. We’ll cover how that happens later in the warscroll.
Gravebreakers
This is part one of a multi-part warscroll ability that we will get into the meat of later on. The important pieces to note is that this chain begins when a minion delves. You’ll want to be getting minions onto feature tokens to make the most out of this warband, so look for decks and cards that also reward delving or assist you in getting onto/staying on tokens with your little guys. The second thing to note is that after you’ve delved with a minion you can pick one of the two abilities to trigger but Exhume can only be done if your leader is still alive.
Destined
If one of your two heroes dies, the other gets better. Most games this will happen naturally and if it doesn’t then you can be happy that you still have both your good fighters alive! Note that the plus dice applies to all weapons, both the ones on the fighter’s profile as well as any upgrades they might have. On the topic of upgrades, this ability is also nice in the situation where you haven’t managed to inspire a fighter before their counterpart goes down. Inspiration is now permanently denied them, but you can get a little stat bump this way still. Should you happen to have them inspired prior to their partner getting iced, all’s the better (though you’re down two or more upgrades).
Undying Love
This is the piece that got updated for the better with the February 2026 rules update. Previously this rule was only allowed to be used once per game. Now you get it once per round which is pretty potent if you can keep both lovers alive that long; though this rule will go a long way towards helping that happen.
In any power step, pick both of your destined fighters (so they must both be alive). Heal one of them and then push the other up to 3 hexes towards them. This is a super useful ability in a number of situations. Zondara can escape from danger with this if they happen to dive her in the back line. Ferlain can make a risky charge and then get yo-yo’d back to his lady’s arms. Either one can grab a heal in any power step, and the other can get pushed onto a token. You can become un-tempered to block scoring, re-united to score your own stuff, you name it.
This ability is quite powerful and quite flexible if your two main fighters are still on the board, and now that you have the ability to use it once per round you can potentially squeeze 9 hexes of push movement and 3 damage healed across the course of a game which is straight up nuts.
Exhume
OK, back to the Grave (c-c-c-COMBO) Breakers ability tree. Once a minion has delved, you have the option to choose Exhume if Zondara is still alive. Should you do this, you’ll pick a slain friendly minion and bring them back adjacent to the minion that delved. They come back full (2) health, and inspire, and don’t come wearing any move or charge tokens.
Considering you can do this in the power step immediately preceding your action, this can allow you to immediately charge with that newly raised zombie, make some move or attack to score some other objective, or just enjoy the presence of a friend (who is both tempered and united) newly arrived to the field. This is a raise that isn’t a core action and just tied to a power step, but more importantly is infinitely repeatable. If you find yourself in a situation hoping for ten raise counters across a game, you can keep doing this all day as long as at least one minion is alive to able to delve, and your leader is somewhere on the board as well.
Being able to pick which adjacent hex your minion arrives in is great too. You can resurrect in any territory so long as you have a minion to delve there. Among the better raise options in the game right now.
Unearth
Not only is Unearth the name of a kickass metalcore band (with an appropriately named song Zombie Autopilot for you to enjoy), it’s also one of the warband’s most unique and potentially powerful mechanics, and the reason most of the warband’s enjoyers can’t stay away for long.
The alternative Gravebreakers reaction to Exhume is Unearth; should you have a minion delve, you have the option to draw a number of power cards equal to the number of slain friendly fighters. This ability does nothing if all your fighters are alive (neither does Exhume), but once you start dropping fighters you can make up for it in power cards. The potential to spin a token every power step and draw 1-4 cards means you can pretty reliably take a 22-26 card power deck and have no issues drawing through it all, and have more options than your opponent does all game. This is especially true if delving was something you would have been doing anyway based on the deck you took.
Additionally, the number of cards includes all friendly slain fighters, not just minions. If they ignore your minions and go after your destined fighters, you can still dig for power cards and use those to get back in the fight. If they’re slamming your minions, you can grab power cards in one power step before raising that minion in the next power step as long as you can keep delving all day. You don’t even need Zondara alive for this one!
Zondara’s Gravebreakers: Fighter Cards
Zondara Rivenheart
Zondara is your leader and is necessary for Exhume, as well as interacting with Ferlain for inspiration, Undying Love, and Destined. A very important thing to take note of is that inspiration does basically nothing for her at all; her melee actually gets slightly worse and ranged gets slightly better accuracy but no other stats change. As a result, there’s no reason to push for her inspiring, and it should only happen as a natural consequence of giving Ferlain two upgrades he really likes.
Her best uses will primarily be allowing for the raise and being something to anchor Ferlain for his heal or push with Undying Love. As a result, load her up with defensive upgrades to keep her alive and inspire Ferlain in the process.
Lost Ferlain
This sultry pose belongs to every Belle’s Beau, and he’s a nightmare in the right circumstances. With a solid potential to hit 3 damage uninspired and consistent 3 damage with a 5 hex move inspired, he’s a torpedo for you especially if you can engineer flanking or get plus dice/rerolls for him. Don’t be too afraid to throw him down the enemy leader’s throat either because he has 2 dodge and 5 health, and you can either heal him or yank him back to safety three times a game with Undying Love.
Should Zondara happen to die he is rolling 4 swords and moving 6 if inspired, so Ferlain should be one of your highest kill priorities if you’re playing into the Gravebreakers.
Cracktomb
Cracktomb is probably your best combat minion, capable of 2 damage and inspiring to 3 swords. Don’t stress if he dies, you almost want that situation so he can come back and actually hit something. Put him on a forward and tempting token and start delving.
Toyle
Toyle has decent accuracy for a minion but the sad 1 damage profile you’d rather not see. He’s no slouch inspired though, so getting him killed first is totally fine too.
Pikk
Pikk is your last minion and probably your worst inspire – even if you’re playing into a shield enemy, 2 swords is just bad enough to not bother with outside of situations with flanking or surrounds. Use her to dig in the backfield token(s) and maybe make a desperate attack for a shot at 2 damage in a pinch. If she dies first I’d consider waiting to raise her until you’ve drawn a few cards since she gains so little from inspiring.
Potential Pairings
It’s not absolutely necessary, but pretty important that you consider Pillage and Plunder as one of your deck components in Nemesis. For Rivals it’s a no brainer. You’re going to want to be delving tokens all day to make use of your Gravebreakers abilities, and you might as well score Glory while you’re at it.
Blazing Assault is a fine choice for most any warband, and will help you maximize Ferlain’s efficacy. Countdown to Cataclysm gives you some more aggro tools and has a few rewards to interacting with tokens and is a fine choice as well, plus ping damage can help make up for a slightly lower damage output.
Edge of the Knife is a potential good one: you have 3 resurrect-able Tempered fighters, multiple ways to dish out 2 damage and temper enemies, and rewards for playing invasion/token strategies in enemy territory with those tempered minions.
Deadly Synergy is a really interesting option for this warband – you can get into unity every time you raise a minion as they have to go adjacent to the minion that delved. Three times a game you can get a 3-hex push out of Undying Love and potentially sneak some unity out that way as well. The warband is rife with sword attacks that would be more than happy to get some free Flanking to boot.
Nexus of Power is another relatively unexplored but intriguing deck for this warband; Every fighter in the warband would enjoy some +1 range to their attacks, and it complicates your opponents decision about flipping tokens at the start of the game. You’ll need to be very careful about when to delve what to maximize your warcroll as well as get the Covetous status when you need it, but with the out of sequence moves, flipping, and pushes the deck packs you can potentially do vile things with tokens and this warband.
In Practice
I personally have a 3-2 record with Zondara: 1-1 with BA/PP, 1-0 with PP/CC, and 1-1 with PP/DS. Four of those five matches were decided by 1 glory or less (3 of which were ‘pre-update’), so the team can absolutely keep up with the field. In one of those games I found myself holding 12 power cards at once, which means near endless opportunity to affect the board state and take control of the game – in that one I was the winner over Mollog BA/RF by 12 glory.
The trick is accept that you’ll lose a destined fighter, and just keep making the most of your minions delving. Opening move is probably get onto a token with Toyle and delve – even if he dies he’s started the party and can be raised later (much better stat-wise too). After he’s begun, you can follow up with another minion or Ferlain if there’s a united situation to land, and focus on objectives rather than combat. If you have Broken Prospects, Torn Landscape, Share the Load etc you may just be moving and delving, and that’s ok! There will be plenty of time to slay stuff in unity once you have a ton of power cards in your hand and pillage glory to buy things with. Zondara PP/DS also recently took second in a major clash, so there’s something there.
Playing against Zondara however, I have a 4-0 record and was winning by an average of 8 glory – noting this was the original ‘once per game’ Undying Love version. I was able to exploit some good dice luck, but also being able to dive Zondara quickly with hard aggro or out-control tokens with good movement economy were both paths to victory in those games. Two I would argue ‘didn’t really count’ as the were playing ES/Wrack, but the other two were PP/CC which is a solid pairing – though those games were much closer. I won with the old Sikknerkin and Khagra by outcompeting for tokens. Zondara run into issues if the leader dies too early or if the minions can’t get on/stay on tokens for delving purposes. My opponent told me that any effort put into Zombie kills without hitting the lovers made him happy – if you’re fighting Zondara make sure to take a destined fighter or two out before you get too invested in zombies, Ideally Zondara herself.
Pulling from the Nemesis Statistics Project, Zondara has a full second-edition 47.6% win rate across 353 recorded games. While this is on the lower end, it’s within the desired 45-55% and most of this data came from the once-per-game Undying Love rather than the new and improved version. They have a 57% win rate with Pillage/Edge of the Knife. Since the update, the stats project has only 5 games recorded, but Zondara is 2-0 with Deadly/Nexus and 2-1 with Deadly/Pillage. Small sample size, but there’s reason for optimism!
Most of this data comes from earlier in the edition when fewer decks were available and their warscroll worse. The Gravebreakers haven’t had matches recorded very much at all since their rules update, so it’s difficult to say how well they would be doing since their improvement. (Also, please record your games for the stats project! It’s really not that hard)
Wrap
Hopefully this review shines a light on the updated Zondara’s Gravebreakers and convinces people to give them a second look. This have changed since the launch of Embergard with new decks, updated rules, new boards, and lots to explore. Will love bloom again in the Spitewood?
However you choose to play them, I hope you enjoy spending your glory!
Be sure to check out Spent Glory’s other review articles here
Leave a Reply