Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. The February 2026 balance update made quite a few changes to the game, but one of them in particular was an update to the plot card from Raging Slayers. It's only a few lines of text different from the previous version, but it has substantially changed how the deck operates and how all of the cards within it can be evaluated. The changes are so substantial that I feel like it's worth looking at the deck again from the ground up and re-evaluating it. This is the first part of a two part dive into Raging Slayers. This time, we'll primarily be focused on the new plot card and how it affects the different warbands out there. Next time, I'll dive more into the specific cards.

I also had the pleasure to play against some wonderful players at the Cherokee Open this last weekend. Two of them were even running Raging Slayers as part of their Nemesis pairings and I got a firsthand glimpse at how the deck has been revitalized. Thanks for the games Bryce, Caelan, and Zack!

The Changes

Since the first time I reviewed the Raging Slayers deck, there have been a few sets of changes that will make us evaluate it differently. Let's check them all out one by one.

October 2025 rules update: Nemesis pairings are no longer limited to only a single deck with a plot card. Thanks to this change, Raging Slayers is now able to pair alongside other plot card decks which include Countdown to Cataclysm, Edge of the Knife, Realmstone Raiders, Deadly Synergy, and the newly released Nexus of Power. This isn't huge, but it does mean there are five more options available to build a Nemesis deck with.

February 2026 rules update: The Raging Slayers plot card has been updated to what's shown above. The changes here were made to Raging Charge and Raging Strike.

Raging Charge is wordier now, but the key takeaway is that it can generate zero, one, or two rage tokens at a time. This doubles the potential number of rage tokens placed on your fighters in a game. Given that these tokens were what a lot of the scoring was based on as well as an expendable resource used to power your ploys, this is great news for the rest of the cards in the deck. It also means it's a lot easier to have fighters start their activation and already be sporting a rage token provided one of their teammates charged beforehand.

The downside is that Raging Strike had to be fairly substantially depowered in exchange for generating so many more rage tokens. Instead of the previous attack dice re-roll, it now can change a successful attack result into a critical result. This no longer boosts attack accuracy, given that you have to already roll a success to even be able to use this surge ability, but it does wind up helping in other ways. By generating more crits more reliably, you're going to be able to trigger your own Overrun more often while also denying your opponent's Stand Fast more easily. This actually raises the average damage done by a fighter with a rage token by a small amount, so it's still an offensive benefit albeit for damage and not accuracy.

Another benefit to being able to have a critical result on demand is more reliably triggering critical runemarks. Some warbands have multiple fighters with critical grievous, critical cleave, and the like. These aren't typically very reliable, but this deck can help turn them on much more often. For instance, a respectable 3 hammer attack with critical grievous has a 42.1% chance of triggering the extra damage through grievous. When that same attack is made from a fighter with a rage token, it jumps up to an 87.5% chance. Doing anything to increase your overall accuracy (flanked, re-rolls, etc.) in turn also increases these fighters' damage. Another way of looking at this is that if any of your fighters have a critical runemark, it effectively turns into a normal version of that runemark. If you land any hit at all, it immediately becomes a critical result and thus triggers critical grievous, critical cleave, etc.

So what does this mean? Previously, the deck was great for any aggro approach that wanted (or needed) help with accuracy. Rippa's Snarlfangs were a prime example because not only did they have mediocre accuracy to start with, but the re-roll could also be applied to the wolf bites which allowed that warband to double dip on the plot card. Now, warbands who already have decent accuracy will see the most reliable use of raging strike and fighters who have critical runemarks will be able to benefit above and beyond the norm.

Critical Warbands

So what warbands are out there who can make use of on-demand critical results on their attack rolls? There are a few categories here. Some warbands have access to critical grievous, and by turning it into "real" grievous you're able to substantially boost the damage output of that warband. In many cases, this bumps warbands up to having reliable access to three damage, which I've talked about as being important before. Other warbands have something less impactful, like critical stagger, which is mostly just a nice-to-have bonus. The last category are the really fun ones – warbands that have unique mechanics gated behind crits and gain quite a glow up from having access to on-demand crits.

Chaos

The Blood of the Bull. Credit: MildNorman.

Gnarlspirit Pack: Kheira here picks up critical grievous on a four sword attack when inspired. This effectively gives the warband access to two fighters capable of hitting for three damage when you combine it with inspired Gorl. The particular breakdown of fighters here has me scared because you basically have two fighters at three damage and then two other fighters with a mix of solid melee and ranged attacks, plus a generically useful warscroll. I'm surprised this warband isn't showing up more.

Thricefold Discord: Lascivyr also gains critical grievous when inspired which effectively becomes a three hammer, three damage attack and makes them into the hardest hitting fighter of this warband. Rest In Peace, Indolent Vexmor. The downside of enraged fighters getting pushed around might be partially negated by the temptation mechanic's own push. This deserves some testing.

Zikkit's Tunnelpack: Pretty minor gain here where Krittatok's uninspired side has a three sword attack that will hit for two damage with a rage token.

Grandfather's Gardeners: Their current playstyle of being the premier hold warband probably means they're not itching to take Raging Slayers, but Squort does become pretty scary here. Two hammers, two damage while uninspired and three swords, three damage when inspired makes the fly surprisingly deadly.

Blood of the Bull: I believe this warband has the most critical runemarks of any in the game right now. When uninspired, all the dwarves are rocking some profile with critical stagger and Grisk has a three swords attack with critical grievous. Nothing major, but once inspired Zuldrakka's changes to critical grievous with a respectable three hammer attack letting her deliver three damage. There's also the accuracy bump that Grisk offers to the warband which increases the chance of being able to flip a hit into a critical.

Death

Credit: Blake Law

Thorns of the Briar Queen: The band's queen herself inspires to a three hammer attack that becomes three damage. It's doubly nice because of how easy it is for this warband to have their opponent surrounded, which makes the attacks even more accurate and likely to give you a successful dice face to flip to a critical. She's also the only fighter capable of hitting for more than two here.

Exiled Dead: Three of the conductive zombies have inspired profiles with critical stagger. This is normally just a helpful accuracy bonus (which in turn makes you more likely to get a critical) but due to their warscroll granting grievous when attacking staggered enemies, it also becomes a solid damage bonus.

Sons of Velmorn: This is another warband that has multiple fighters benefiting from critical runemarks. Morlak himself becomes another three damage fighter, joining his son Jedran in meeting that key damage threshold. His smaller sons, Helmar and Faulk, hop up to two damage. Thain, who was already on two base damage, can reliably trigger his critical stagger. Once inspired, Faulk joins his dad and big bastard bro in being able to hit for three. This feels like one of the big winners with this change if you're wanting to smack people with skeletons. Alongside their own warscroll changes, this is quite the potential glow up.

The Headsmen's Curse: Technically, this warband does benefit in that the Sharpener of the Blade when inspired has critical grievous… but if you're planning around attacking with an inspired Sharpener, you're in a bad place.

Zondara's Gravebreakers: Ferlain has critical grievous while uninspired, which becomes a (not terribly accurate) three sword, three damage attack. You could potentially leverage the increased number of overruns to be able to get your zombies onto tokens for delving more easily, but that feels like a weird direction for this warband to go.

The Skinnerkin: Another big winner here are these ghoul chefs. Pewdrig has critical grievous while uninspired, so this does help him become a little more threatening with a three sword, two damage attack. The real juicy bit here is that your two chefs, Gristla and Kretch, have critical fillet when uninspired. Being able to guarantee two haunch tokens from every successful attack from these two (one from a chef making a successful attack and another from the fillet runemark) goes a very long way in getting the haunch train rolling and inspiring the warband. I've noticed Skinnerkin can really snowball, but they need some luck or favorable match ups to get the few initial haunches. Raging Slayers helps this out.

Thanatek's Tithe: The newest warband is one I still haven't figured out, but they can benefit from getting reliable critical rolls. The two retainers have critical grievous when uninspired, and if you can guarantee critical on every attack then you don't really need to inspire them at all. The two assassins start with an embarrassingly low single damage attack with critical grievous, but making it always two damage is a little more respectable for their profession. I have doubts whether you'd want to put an enrage token on the retainers to begin with because they're going to be easier to push out of position, but this warband is still too new for me to really have a grasp on how they'd work with Raging Slayers.

Destruction

Morgok's Krusha's from Warhammer Underworlds. Credit: Magos Sockbert

Morgok's Krushas: Inspired Thugg has a four swords, two damage profile with critical grievous. This is one I'm pretty excited for because if you're running Raging Slayers and have Thugg enraged, your entire warband can hit for three (or four!) damage once they're inspired. That's some real heavy hitting power and their warscroll offers some generically useful tools – including a stagger to help even more with accuracy.

Blackpowder's Buccaneers: Shreek bumps up to a reliable two damage here, but that's it for the warband.

Daggok's Stab-ladz: Both sides of Jagz's fighter card benefit from being enraged. The reliable critical result means he's hitting for two or three depending on if he's been able to land a sneaky stab to inspire. It also means this warband has multiple damage three fighters.

Borgit's Beastgrabbaz: There are two benefits here. Borgit himself picks up the first since he has critical grievous on both sides of his fighter card, bringing him to a three damage swing. Additionally, the warscroll has Gittish Tactics that grants all your little idiots critical grievous on their melee attacks. I've played into Borgit a fair bit and I think I've seen this be relevant one time ever, but having reliable critical access could set up a full turn of savage mauling from the grots. A successful attack with Borgit (at three damage), triggering Gittish Tactics and marking that target as da mugginz could potentially allow three attacks from Rigg and Shamm or Snagz at two damage each, allowing the warband to hit for nine damage in a round without needing to bring in Uglug. That's enough to take out even Mollog!

Order

Jaws of Itzl warband. Credit: keewa

Ironsoul's Condemnors: None of these fighters have any critical runemarks, but their inspire triggers off of rolling a critical. Typically, you're solely up to the luck of the dice on when (and if) any of these fighters inspire, but with the new raging strike you simply have to roll any successes on your attacks. Given they're all quite accurate to begin with, Raging Slayers would let the Ironsoul player inspire much more reliably and unlock those improved fighter profiles.

Starblood Stalkers: Another primarily hold warband, I don't see Starblood taking Raging Slayers often. If they do, uninspired Klaq-Trok would be able to trigger that critical cleave more often. Hooray?

Elathain's Soulraid: Look out! Uninspired Spinefin can (maybe) attack with ensnare more often. The downside is the attack has awful accuracy, only one damage, and if you're attacking with uninspired Spinefin you're scraping the bottom of the fish tank.

Shadeborn: Only one fighter with these elves has a critical runemark, but it's a pretty nice one. Inspired Valyssa jumps up to three damage, making this aggressive warband come with two fighters at three damage and their leader at an insanely accurate two damage.

Hexbane's Hunters: Two of the hunters, Haskel and Brydget, have critical grievous when uninspired. They're only sporting a single damage each, so even with this being triggered they're just hitting for two. There's also a little bit of anti-synergy in that Marked for Vengeance now grants grievous when going after the marked target, so Haskel and Brydget wouldn't benefit if that was their target anyway.

Jaws of Itzl: So-kar's inspired side has a two damage attack with critical grievous, letting this warband have two fighters hitting for three and the other having a nice range two poke. Also there are snakes.

Kurnoth's Heralds: The leader of the Heralds starts off with a two damage attack with critical grievous, He'll inspire to having normal grievous and often his first attack will pick up cleave and ensnare from the warscroll, so he probably won't benefit from raging strike very often.

Choose Your Fighters

The Gnarlwood Crew. Credit: Fowler

There are some warbands on this list that I've been meaning to get to for a while. There are others that weren't quite on my radar but I am more interested in now specifically because of the Raging Slayers changes. In particular, I expect to be jamming some test games with Gnarlspirit Pack, Sons of Velmorn, Skinnerkin, Ironsoul's Condemnors, Shadeborn, and Morgok's Krushas using Raging Slayers whenever I get time in the future. There are just too many cool warbands in this game and limited time to play.

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Tags: warhammer underworlds | Starting Hex