Continuing some retrospective warband reviews, today we’re touching on the other half of Second Edition’s Embergard Core Box with everyone’s favorite rats with bombs: Zikkit’s Tunnelpack. This five-fighter Standard warband is classified as Flex, and their madcap warscroll allows for you to do lots of nifty things. Notably they got a slight rule change in a previous update so their warscroll has a few differences (for the better) which I will outline in each relevant section. Without further ado, I urge you to rev the engines on your homemade monowheel motorcycle and get blasting into the review of the Tunnelpack!
Click here to see a Master List of all warbands in the game
If you’re interested in hearing a review of the Warband in audio form, we covered them in this Underworlds Underground Podcast Episode
Zikkit’s Tunnelpack: Lore
Long story short, Embergard used to be a good sized City of Sigmar in Aqshy, the Realm of Fire. One thing led to another, some prophecies got foretold, vampires paid them a visit, and the city fell. Major bummer! The thing is, underneath that city is a huge network of mining tunnels rich with veins of Emberstone, the ‘Ragerock’ magical ore of that realm that thrums with power. It’s incredibly valuable and useful for all sorts of mechanical applications possible in the mind of a Warlock of the Skryre Clan Skaven, so a one Zikkit Rockgnaw decided he’d pay the newly abandoned mines a visit and see if there was any of the good stuff left lying around.
He brings along a handful of lesser rats to help him gather those raw materials: Rittak Verm drives a custom shoddy drilling device, useful both for prizing realmstone from the mine and for ramming into anybody who tries to get into their way. Krittatok has a particularly useful nose for sniffing out the whereabouts of more relamstone, augmented by a fancy mask. Nitch Singe-snout makes plenty of explosives for tunnel blasting as well as foe-blasting, and apparently likes to strap some of those bombs onto furry friends such as Tik Tik, a most adorable bomb delivery device.
Will they crack into the motherlode of magical macguffins after strewing the pieces of their enemies throughout the Underworlds, or blow themselves up in the process? Maybe both, if we’re lucky.
Zikkit’s Tunnelpack: Warscroll
Inspire
Any time one of your fighters is damaged or slain during an action step, you can inspire a different fighter after that action step. Thematically, this is your little rat men getting excited over the fact that somebody other than them is getting targeted and they’ve avoided that harmful fate for the time being. Super fun!
You’ll want to pay attention to which fighters you really want inspired early and then keep them deployed further back in less exposed positions so that your opponent is more likely to hit something else. We’ll get to it later on, but that fighter is probably Rittak the wheel driver. As a result, your opponents might focus all of their attack attention on him until he dies so that he doesn’t get to inspire and cause problems.
This also means you might feel safer than most warbands when throwing a ‘bait’ fighter out somewhere. Nitch charging onto a token in neutral territory for Shocking Assault or enemy territory for Sally Forth gives your opponent a hard choice; do they just accept that you’re scoring that surge, or do they try to deny it and thus give you your choice of inspiration on a much more dangerous prospect?
The good news is that your damage can come in any action step, and your warscroll gives you a couple ways to harm your own fighters mid-action if you need it/your opponent doesn’t take said bait. The bad news is that damage taken in the power step does not satisfy this, so ‘ping cards’ and the like won’t help you inspire.
More-More Power!
“It looks like you’re trying to charge twice. Might I offer you some warpstone amphetamines and a nitrous boost for your engine?”
If your whole warband is ‘charged out’, then you can go for this ability at the low, low cost of a 50% chance you die afterward. While it’s hilariously on-brand for Skaven, it’s an ability that’s pretty challenging to use correctly. First, you need to be already wearing a charge token on every one of your fighters. Then, you need to be in a situation where you don’t want that charge token anymore (and any move tokens) – say your whole warband has charged and you really REALLY need to get another attack off but nobody’s in range. Alternatively, your opponent is set up to score Unrelenting Massacre and it would be just dandy to take a charge token off the board.
If those conditions are met, you can then pick a fighter and remove their tokens. You take whatever action step you were about to take and then roll an attack dice to see if that fighter dies. The best use of this is to get one more desperation charge (or more, if you’re good at coin flips) as the game approaches a close, and it’s a possibility that the charge is what wins you the game.
Another, more niche application is hoping you kill your last remaining fighter so that your opponent doesn’t get to. Some aggro gameplans require making multiple attacks, getting certain dice results, slaying a fighter with an attack, making charges, and so on, which they cannot do if there are no targets. Self-destructive counterplay sounds like fun!
Keep in mind the fighter is slain after the action step, so you won’t be able to use this to inspire a friend should the option still be on the board at that point.
Skitter
Once per game, immediately after your action step, you pick a fighter with no tokens and they make a move action. Out of sequence moves are an awesome utility tool for any strategy. Do you need to occupy tokens? Charge or move onto one and then have your friend skitter onto another. Want to get fighters into certain territories, in/out of adjacency or edge hexes, etc? Get United for Deadly Synergy? Once per game, as a treat, you can get a two-for-one activation special. This does dish out a move token, so beware if you’re planning on charging out.
Warp-Charged
This is the ability that saw a change in the February 2026 balance update, which gave the ability both less downside and more consistency for the warband – while you lose a bit of gambling fun and the potential to be ‘never punished’ as my local Zikkit player loves to say, this is a solid boost to your overall performance and also allows you to plan with more confidence. (You can still also proudly declare ‘never punished’ when you survive More-More Power, however).
Once per game, once you’ve picked a weapon with which to attack, you can choose to deal one damage to your attacking model, and then select Cleave, Ensnare, or Brutal for the attack. An increase in accuracy is always a welcome thing, and you can select whichever runemark you need to best improve your odds of hitting at the cost of 1 damage. (It used to be either 0 or 2 damage after the attack based on a dice roll, and the overall odds were 2/3 no damage and 1/3 2 damage, so this is higher average damage across 100 games.)
Note that the timing on this ability as now written and updated means a few important things for Skaven fans; you take the damage BEFORE you make the attack, but during the action step. This means you’ll be able to use this to force-inspire another fighter in the event they’re picking on the wheel in their own action steps. Secondly, you can’t use this effectively with a vulnerable fighter, as they’ll die before they swing.
The good news however is that you know that you’ll take exactly 1 damage. If you’re playing Wrack and Ruin which has many cards that care about such damage, or damage-related cards like Skin of the Teeth from Nexus of Power or Calm Before the Strom from Edge of the Knife (and any adjacent Tempered-related things), you have more reliable control over scoring.
Funnily enough, they updated the rule to be far more predictable but kept the flavor text relating to the unpredictability of Skryre handiwork.
Kaboom!
Saving the best for last, we come to Tik Tik the GOAT, the God of all WHU models, and what makes him sing.
If Tik Tik has no charge tokens, you can pick him to use this ability as one of your activations. He then moves up to his maximum move characteristic, and the bomb strapped to his back goes off. You’ll roll attack dice for every model (friend and foe) within 2 hexes of him; 1 in round 1, 2 in round 2, and 3 dice in round 3. If any of those dice are hammers, the fighter takes 1 damage. If any of them are crits, they take 2 damage instead. Then Tik Tik is slain, his duty completed.
This ability allows no defense rolls, so it’s great for getting through somebody stacked with multiple dice, on guard, in cover, with rerolls etc.
The longer you wait to use this ability, the more reliable it becomes. Per fighter you’re rolling for:
– On a single die, you have a 50% chance of dealing any damage and a 17% chance of doing 2.
– In round 2 this becomes 75% chance of any damage and 31% chance of 2 damage.
– In round 3, you’ll have 87.5% chance of dealing any damage and 42% chance of dealing 2 damage
The longer you wait, the more damage you can dish per fighter. The earlier you use it, the more targets there are to try and hit. When you use this ability is going to hinge on a ton of different factors, but I find I usually take it in round 2, and maybe 1/3 of the time in round 3. I almost never use it in round 1, and trying to force this too early is one of the classic ‘rookie mistakes’ in second edition.
Be mindful of where Tik Tik can get to so that you hit the correct fighters and avoid hurting too many of your own (unless you need that pesky fighter dealt with). He can still use it with a move token, so he’s a Skitter candidate for 2x movement, and you can always use great speed or pushes if needed to position him for the optimal Kaboom.
Lastly, if he tags any of your fighters, inspire another one. Then, when he dies, inspire yet another.
Zikkit’s Tunnelpack: Fighter Cards
Zikkit Rockgnaw
This man right here is probably the biggest liability in the warband and the reason they haven’t been as competitively prominent as you’d think; Zikkit is 4 health and gives up 3 bounty. It’s nice that he begins on 2 dodge and inspires to 2 shields, but if he goes down early (and he certainly can) you are giving up a lot of glory for your opponent’s efforts.
Should you manage to keep him alive, he is a reasonably accurate fighter and becomes quite trustworthy inspired, rocking 3 hammers at range 1 or range 2. Attack upgrades suit him quite nicely. He’s probably one of your first two inspire choices just to get his defense up a little bit if nothing else.
Rittak Verm
You used to laugh at mice running on a wheel, but now you’ll be the one running and the mouse is the one laughing. What a killer model!
The things to pay attention to here are the differences in inspired vs uninspired profiles; while on paper 1 shield and 2 hammers is roughly equivalent to 2 dodge and 3 swords, the inspired version is better in the setting of cover, flanking and surrounding, and increasing your odds to crit to stand fast or overrun. The real difference maker however is the change from 3 move to 5. Since this is your own native 3 damage threat, being able to extend who is ‘at risk’ and force your opponent to respect a larger area of the board is a great reason to consider inspiring Rittak first.
I’ve found that holding him back until the fourth activation can allow him a good change to dish out hat 3 damage since you’ll have had all round to set up flanking, stagger, upgrades, etc. Slam into somebody to close out the round and keep him relatively safe so you can do it again in round 2. If you’re going to risk a fatality with More-More Power, he’s your prime candidate. If you can stomach the 1 damage, he loves getting the accuracy benefit runemarks from Warp Charged as well.
Krittatok
Ratward Scissor-Hands has a discrepancy in fighter cards; should you so happen to pick up the Organized Play Kit prizes at an Embergard tournament, you’ll see that he has flat 1 damage uninspired and 2 damage with crit grievous inspired. This has been confirmed to be incorrect. Trust the images I put above: he has the crit grievous on the uninspired side in reality.
Though I would have liked to be able to access 3 damage inspired, he’s still a pretty good fighter for 1 bounty. Inspiring him increases his damage consistency and defense which is nice to see, and you’ll probably be inspiring him third.
Nitch Singe-snout
Nitch is the premium bait fighter as I described in the inspiration section at the top. He’s also surprisingly accurate when inspired, so while he’ll never break 1 damage being a ranged-only attacker, you will be able to hit and displace people pretty reliably. Charge him onto a token or what have you and enjoy his help inspiring your team or scoring cards. Late-game, 3 health 2 dodge can be annoying for your opponent to finish off as he runs around grabbing positional objective cards for you as well.
Tik Tik
I kneel.
While his main utility is obviously the Kaboom as described above, do NOT discount his amazing profile for zero bounty. He has 2 dodge and 2 health, so they might not hit him and can’t easily ping him. If it so happens to come up, you can even eventually have him inspired and hitting on 2 hammers is no slouch. He also can carry a weapon upgrade as well as anybody and I have had fighters slain by a Desperate Rage Tik-Tik on many occasions. Then, after he’s charged out, More-More Power him and you don’t care if he dies afterward because you’re kabooming him anyway.
One of the most fun fighters, and a great reason to give this warband to new players to make them excited for the game.
Potential Pairings
Blazing Assault is good for just about everybody, and this warband is no exception. They can also make decent use of Pillage and Plunder as they have extra move capacity in the warscroll.
I really enjoy Countdown to Cataclysm with them, as their flex designation and focus on splash damage/self-damage plays well with it. They for very similar reasons go quite well with Wrack and Ruin and have unique ability to score some of the cards therein.
It’s not a glove fit, but I have been able to make Realmstone Raiders work with pretty good success in the past.
Deadly Synergy is a very interesting proposition, as it disproportionately benefits their dodge and sword profiles, and they have a free move to help get United in a pinch. They aren’t averse to the weapon upgrades either. I have also had fun recently playing with Nexus of Power for yet more movement shenanigans, and their melee fighters won’t say no to a little range extending plot card here and there. Additionally, being able to damage yourself on demand with Warp-Charged means scoring Skin of Their Teeth is much easier than it is for other warbands.
In Practice
Data from the Nemesis Statistics Project suggests that Zikkit’s Tunnelpack has a 42.4% win rate across 262 recorded games through the entire edition, though I’d like to add some caveats to this. First, it’s a starter box warband, so plenty of the people playing it are likely newer players and might have less experience or skill than the people they played against. Additionally, the warband recently go the errata to improve their ‘you might get blown up’ skill #2 which should improve their viability and consistency.
I personally have played this warband 7 times (mostly because my main practice partner played them almost exclusively and we try not to mirror match), but my record is 6-1 with +33 differential for an average win of 4.7 glory.
The Nemesis pairings I have had good success with include Blazing/Nexus (surprisingly consistent to score Skin of the Teeth with now that you can hurt yourself 1 damage on purpose as described above), as well as Pillage/Raging Slayers. I’ve won with Blazing/Realmstone Raiders, Wrack/Realmstone, and Emberstone/Cata too, so they can play lots of different things. I’ve played against Zikkit 30 times with a record of 16-14, so they can definitely hang.
Drex/Andrew went undefeated and obliterated the field at LVO 2024 with this Cataclysm/Wrack and Ruin build, and while I gave it my best try I simply couldn’t beat it. Lifetime I’m 8-11 against this deck despite using my hardest stuff. If you’re looking to compete with the Tunnelpack, I’d start here.
Staggerers cooked up this Realmstone Raiders/Deadly Synergy build which I think is quite intriguing and will definitely catch some people unawares if you’re willing to put the reps in the get good with it
Jake from Goonhammer Tabletop Battles cooked up this Pillage/Cata build which currently has too many restricted cards but is a great starting point. Here’s a blog post describing how it works, and I have had locals try it at our home tournaments and do pretty well!
Another somewhat outdated deck taking both Supremacy and Spread Havoc, this Emberstone/Cata take and hold deck took 1st Place at the Nov ’24 WHW Clash when piloted by David M.
Wrap
Whether you’re into ramshackle contraptions or think rat extermination is an invaluable pursuit, I hope you enjoy Zikkit’s Tunnelpack as much as I have from both sides of the table. Happy glory spending!
Spent Glory 
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