Among the most beautiful sets of miniatures Underworlds has ever produced, Cyreni’s Razors compose a 4-fighter Standard warband with the Flex designation. I played them in my very first game of second edition, losing on a tiebreaker at Worlds 2024 in a pre-event test of the streaming setup while facing down the pre-nerf Dromm BA/RF that won the highest glory differential across the event. That’s right, Thomas, you only beat me on a technicality!
All that aside, this is a warband that plays in a unique way and will have you looking at the board like you’re playing chess or connect 4 rather than the typical underworlds experience. Drawing straight lines all over the place during the game and even during setup and deployment, people with good spatial minds (not me lol) will have lots of fun options playing this warband. Let’s get into why!
Click here to see a Master List of all warbands in the game
Cyreni’s Razors: The Lore
Originally released in Deathgorge during first edition, Cyreni’s Razors are a band of Idoneth Deepkin – underwater elves whose goal is to acquire souls with which they will repopulate their atrophied race. The best way to do that? Go down to the Underworlds and take them.
Cyreni of the Abyss is a wizard with control over the tides and the minds of various jellyfish, as well as a pair of soulless thralls to help her do the whole harvesting thing. She also brings along her hulking pet squid. Their first edition iteration focused a great deal on atmospheric horror and the dark unseen threats of the deep, which was awesome. While it doesn’t quite translate to the warscroll, just know they’re spooky stalkers who are out for your very essence to drag it out of your body in absolute silence while your mates wonder where you went. Right before they’re hammered by a riptide force that bowls them over and a gigantic all-tentacles sea monster descends on them from god knows where.
Would that they played like that in-game, because it’s all the best space-horror movie themes and one of the first times I have thought ‘ok, maybe elves can be cool after all’
Cyreni’s Razors: The Warscroll
Inspire (and Uninspire)
At the start of round 1, you inspire any one of your fighters. They uninspire at the end of the round. Round 2 you get any two and it doesn’t have to be the same one from before. Round 3 you pick 3 fighters (if you still have that many).
This ability is great as it gives a lot of agency to the Razors player. You decide after everything is deployed and you have your cards in hand which fighter you need inspired the most. As the game state changes going into round 2, not only do you get to inspire more fighters, getting more potent as the game goes along, but you can adapt to changing circumstances. Other warbands with a similar-ish inspire are stuck with their choice; if the fighter dies, that inspiration is lost. If they’re way out of position in later rounds, too bad. Cyreni and co don’t have that issue.
Hammertide
Here’s the warband’s signature ability and what makes them a unique play experience. As a core action (so, instead of charging etc), if your leader has no charge tokens, you can draw a straight line from center of your leader’s hex to the center of the next hex and extend that all the way to the edge of the board (or a blocked hex). the first enemy on that line gets immediately dealt 1 damage and becomes staggered. You don’t roll any dice, it just works. They can’t roll any dice, it just happens. You CAN indeed kill somebody with this 1 damage.
Both players are going to be hyper aware of straight lines during fighter deployment, since you’ll want to laser beam somebody and they’ll want to keep their favorite fighter out of the line of fire. Think about this during feature token placement as well and see if you can’t get a few features that have intersecting lines with one of your starting hexes so Cyreni can cover them. It’s like Tzul’s positional shenanigans in Thyrielle’s Zephyrites if you’d like so read a longer review on the concept.
A super common trap people fall into is over-reliance on Hammertide and caring way too much about it, using a huge number of pushes to try and line up the perfect angle. While that’s a fun puzzle, it’s a whole action to do 1 damage and stagger somebody. Even if you’re the ultimate brain genius and hit a Hammertide every activation, you’re doing 12 damage and accomplishing nothing else. It rarely will score you cards. Make sure that you’re focused on your objectives and making charges or attacks with other fighters (or even Cyreni) in order to win, since Hammertide alone isn’t going to do that for you. I often find I Hammertide maybe once or twice a game at most (but it’s a beautiful way to finish off a vulnerable fighter).
Deadly Riposte
If an enemy attack mises one of your thralls, you get cleave or ensnare with that same thrall against that same enemy in the subsequent action step. This is nice to have, but honestly will not come up super often – they’re only 1 defense so misses aren’t common. You may have already charged with that fighter and they can’t attack in the next action. you may have a more pressing need to attack something else and will miss your opportunity.
That said, sometimes it will happen (if you remember it) and will take the warband’s ‘pretty good’ accuracy to ‘astounding’ levels. The thralls both have range 2 attacks, so even if they’re driven back you have a chance of being able to reach whoever missed you to take advantage of it.
Phantasmal Ink
If somebody misses at attack against Cephanyr, you can push 1-3 hexes depending on the battle round. This lets you steal tokens, get into territories to score, get adjacent for an attack or flanking, or run away. Tons of utility even with a push 1, and hugely impactful if it’s push 3. Again, they have to target him and have to miss, and your push comes after the driveback, so you may not get to use it when you’d like and may not be in reach for what you’re trying to push to. When it works though, it’s beautiful.
I have had the best success when holding a treasure with him, getting kicked off, and scooting right back on.
Soul Harvest
Our last ability is our only once-per-game choice. In any power step, pick an inspired enemy fighter and give the opponent a bad choice; they either uninspire that fighter, or they let you draw 1-3 cards depending on the round number. It’s potentially hugely powerful.
Sometimes the enemy has put a ton of resource into inspiring a fighter and you can threaten to turn that off right before they would use them to attack or you would hit them. They’ll instead grudgingly let you draw 2-3 cards. Which you can then use to ruin their day anyway.
Other times however, they don’t care or can easily re-inspire depending on their warband. That’s a bummer. You’ll get no cards. In some niche situations they really don’t want you to draw some cards because they’re afraid you’ll get that game-winning one and now you an uninspire a key fighter and laugh. I find this to be the rarest option though.
Save this for later in the game so you get more card draw and they have less time to re-inspire the fighter is usually the best move. It’s regrettable that they get the choice since they’ll almost always choose whichever option is less good for you. A few fighters gain health when inspiring though (lookin’ at you, Gardeners) so uninspiring a vulnerable one would actually kill them. Wouldn’t that be a dream.
Cyreni’s Razors: Fighter Cards
Cyreni of the Abyss
Our leader has a bit of an underwhelming profile to start with 4 health 1 shield, and 2 hammer attack profiles for 2 or 1 damage at range 1 or 2. Her real utility is in Hammertide as discussed above, but when she inspires her attacks hit 3 hammers accuracy which is really strong. Giving her a grievous upgrade will make her a serious threat, assuming you can keep her alive. She also goes to movement 5 which is pretty dang good if you ever need to make a run for it.
Cephanyr
Cyreni’s Spirit Guardian/mind-slaved squid monster is a two-bounty guy that begins on only 1 dodge with 3 swords for 2. He does fly though! Inspired he goes up to 4 swords and gains grapple and gets to that important 2 dodge defense. He’s our only fighter that becomes 2 defense dice without card support, and for that he’ll be useful to you if he survives to when you choose to inspire him.
Being 2 dodge makes people more likely to miss him and therefore more likely to trigger Phantasmal Ink. Depending on your deck pairing and your opponent in the matchup, he’s not a terrible choice to inspire in round 1 or 2.
Renglaith
The first of our two Namarti thralls, lil’ lantern boi is pretty squarely the worst of the bunch. hitting on swords and starting on one dodge, they inspire to a shield and four swords, but give up 2 bounty and thus are a lot to risk if you place them too aggressively. Deadly Riposte is cute, but they have to miss (and then you have to swing at the attacker from last time), and who is going to miss a 1 dodge fighter?
I tend to keep him in reserve until later rounds and try not to inspire him as it’s more beneficial on other fighters. If he can charge into a flanked enemy (or reach out with his range 2) he’ll do all right for you.
Alathyrr
Our other thrall is where the money is at. Despite being strictly better (hitting on hammers and gaining Brutal when inspired), she’s somehow only 1 bounty. This is the fighter I most commonly inspire first and try to get the most swings out of. Having 3 hammers brutal for 2 damage on a 1 bounty fighter is a beautiful situation to be in during the first round, I tell ya.
Potential Pairings
Blazing Assault gives you pushes for lining up Hammertide. It also improves your damage output. Those are the two things the warband wants most, so BA is as usual a great choice.
Emberstone Sentinels provides you with ways to get better defense – plus defense dice, rerolls, heals, etc. Since you have great mobility and range, you’re able to get onto tokens and still be making attacks, which is a great way to play the deck. You’re liable to be killed though, so it’s not always your strongest option.
Pillage and Plunder is a strong scoring deck in general, and again with your mobility and range you’re able to get onto tokens and still attack, then delve. This will stagger you and up the odds of your early death even more, but if you want to play a fast suicide gameplan it can be a decent choice for them, as well as provide some more defensive tech, heals, and pushes/teleports for your leader.
Countdown to Cataclysm is among the best choices for this warband. Wreckers is actually on the table since you’re so accurate and have Hammertide to help out. You love the pings the deck brings to help papercut people to death. Getting Utter Conviction to bring Cyreni’s defense up to 2-4 shields is golden. Countercharge and Violent Blast help make Hammertime lanes a piece of cake. A flexy hold/strike approach is what this warband already wants to do, so go have fun.
Wrack and Ruin is among my favorite decks and gives you some great push options and pings to supplement your ping that needs a push. You have good speed and range 2 attacks so the positional things like Alone in the Dark are available to you more so than most warbands.
Realmstone Raiders – this warband tres’ accurate in melee with multiple range 2 options but beware that Hammertide will not raid. It will stagger though, setting up future raids! The lower damage output hurts a lot less when the goal is to just land hits and raid rather than killing things, which this warband can do for sure.
Raging Slayers is legitimately an option for this warband! They have four fast fighters and 3 of them have range 2 attacks so you’ll be able to charge relatively reliably. When pushed back with Poor Footing you have range 2 and can still take a charged-out swing. If somebody misses Cephanyr, the poor footing push happens before the Phantasmal Ink push, so you can still scoot where you need to go (and close the gap to swing again). It’s probably not their strongest choice, but if you’re looking for some RS fun, these guys might just make it happen in a casual setting. Just beware that Hammertide isn’t a charge and won’t benefit from Enrage.
Hunting Grounds generally suffers from a difficulty convincing your opponent to invade you. Soft targets in your thralls and the ever-present threat of Cyreni’s Hammertide may compel them to come at you anyway, and then you can feast. She has a range 2 attack, so ‘your leader attacks twice’ in Leading By Example is on the table and you’ll probably bag that two glory.
Deadly Synergy ain’t a bad choice since you’re so fast, have the potential for a push in Cephanyr to retain Unity, and multiple range 2 attacks allow for an easier time making united swings. Again, Hammertide is not an attack, so you’ll brick a few things with it, but the ping and stagger still work great as setups.
In Practice
Data from the Nemesis Statistics Project tells us they’ve won 50.9% of the time across 228 games through all of second edition, which is solid. Taking out legacy scrolls like old Gorechosen and old Zarbag, they go up to 51.8%. Regardless of which meta you look at, they sit right around the 50% mark, which means they always have play.
Please submit your games to contribute to this project, which should take you very little time at all.
Somewhat disappointingly, the warband landed near the bottom of the D-tier in our recent meta-analysis of ITC-registered tournaments. This means they rarely appear in major events, and do not typically perform well when they are present. Part of this may be due to a hard skill floor needed to achieve success with the warband, part of it may be due to the difficulty obtaining the miniatures, and another part may be that the board layout just doesn’t support Hammertide the way it did in first edition. They’re not a complete flop, but at the Grand Clash level, you may not find them doing what you need to reach the podium.
I personally have played this warband 6 times with a 3 win, 2 loss, 1 draw record. That draw was against a World Championships 2024 Dromm BARF deck with all the nasty stuff that warband and RF could do before things got well nerfed, so even there it could keep up! I’ve had fun with them using ES, Wrack, CC, and PP, and surely there’s cool stuff you can do with many other combinations as well.
The most popular competitive choice with this warband is Countdown to Cataclysm and Wrack and Ruin as you triple down on the ping game. Here’s an example Staggerers put together
ES/CC has also been a popular choice in the past, and I have two old ones that would need to decide whether you’re keeping Supremacy or Spread Havoc since the restricted list was introduced. Here’s one Michael K put together for the World Championships in 2024, and the Love Letter he wrote for Spent Glory.
Laura of the Magmahold also took this ES/CC deck to an event in England, which you can read about here on her page.
Staggerers loves this warband, and so has lots of decks out there on top of that catawrack one.
If you’re willing to risk getting out-passived and losing a 2-6 glory game, or you’re sure your opponent is invading anyway, give this BA/Hunting Grounds deck a try. They also wrote a dexamples article to explain it
Countdown/Hunting Grounds is actually a pretty strong combo, and Cyreni does it as well as anyone. Here’s the deck Michael K took to the Warhammer Open in Maastricht. Here’s an event write up. Here’s an introduction to the pairing’s concept Michael calls The Steel Garden
Countdown and Realmstone Raiders gives you lots of ‘score for hitting guys’ options – here’s a staggerers deck and their dexamples article to explain it
Here’s an Emberstone Sentinels/Countdown hold deck titled Soul Sentinels and its associated deck guide
Finally, they made this Wrack and Realmstone deck, which is a pairing I have had a ton of fun with using other warbands. They explained this one in an article as well!
Wrap
While they aren’t tearing people apart the same way they once were, the warband can still be a fun challenge and has a few unique tools to shake up your gameplay. If you manage to figure out their puzzle and get some competitive success, pat yourself on the back because few others have! Whether you’re gathering soul stuff or enjoying some sushi for dinner, I hope you enjoy spending glory in the Spitewood.
Here’s a few sick quotes from first edition to help drive home the ‘best elves in the game’ vibe check I’m trying to communicate:
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