Thanks to Games Workshop for providing review copies of Thanatek's Tithe and Nexus of Power.

It's another Warhammer Underworlds preorder day! Today, we are graced with Thanatek's Tithe, a new death warband alongside Nexus of Power, a new flex Rivals deck. If you want to read thoughts about Nexus of Power, we have an article covering it. If you want to see this new Ossiarch Bonereapers warband, keep reading.

Thanatek's Tithe joins Kainan's Reapers in being Underworlds' representatives of the larger Age of Sigmar Ossiarch Bonereapers faction. It's also the first death warband to be released in second edition Underworlds. Before this, the last new death warband was Zondara's Gravebreakers back in March 2024! It's nice to see this grand alliance get some love finally. This also brings the number of Organized Play legal warbands up to 49 and the total number of warbands up to 67 (ha ha new funny number I am so old).

Credit: Blake Law

As for the models, I'll admit the Ossiarch Bonereapers don't exactly do it for me. They're like legally distinct skeletons and I just can't get into their weird chin protrusions or the bone armor muscle stuff they've got going on. They're certainly not bad, but I personally prefer the more normal skeleton look of the Sepulchral Guard. My gut reaction on seeing Medeb-Ahk and Xar-Tamok was along the lines of "how in the world can I convert these to not look so silly?" but they've absolutely grown on me. They're silly as hell but in a wholesome way, almost. Thanatek himself is just so happy looking while he floats there with all his toys, while Tukhar and Sekhmor give off big theater-kid vibes. I've come around on the models since working with them a bit, but that's mostly because I'm looking at them as being wholesome silly bone buddies.

Credit: Jake

With the model aspect out of the way, let's look at the rules for Thanatek's Tithe.

Inspiring is gated behind spending a number of cadaver tokens equal to your fighter's bounty. Cheating by looking ahead a bit, these tokens are a currency in much demand with this warband. It's also not one that's readily available, so expect to spend a lot of time with your fighters uninspired. One nice thing is that you have full control over when and who inspires in your warband – it's not tied to the specific models making attacks, so there's a decent chance you can take advantage of an inspired model's improved profile before they have activated in a round… provided you have the cadavers.

Speaking of the cadaver tokens, Morbid Retainers covers the only way that this warband will generate the tokens. The deceptively short single sentence has some important nuance in it. It's gated behind making successful attacks, but doesn't specify they have to be melee attacks or non-upgrade attacks. This is fortunate because Thanatek comes with a nice ranged option built in and also means you can leverage the plethora of weapon upgrades available throughout the various Rivals decks. Improvised Attack from Countdown to Cataclysm continues to be a uniquely useful tool because it allows you to sneak in one more attack than you'd typically have in a game, theoretically increasing your cadaver token generation.

The second key part of this ability is that the target has to be adjacent to a Retainer model after the attack is complete. This is less flexible, and actually plays out so strangely that I wonder if it's functioning as intended. It means that you cannot utilize drive back against enemies already adjacent to a Retainer, because that would push them out of adjacency by the time the attack ends. The really weird part is that if you slay an enemy fighter, they won't be adjacent… which means you can only collect cadaver tokens from models that survive attacks. Once they are slain, they don't produce cadaver tokens. That's not what my understanding of the word "cadaver" means. An errata that simply adds "or the target is slain and started the attack adjacent to a Retainer" wouldn't feel out of line. Unless this happens, you'll have to keep in mind that the only way to create these precious cadaver tokens is to not slay your enemies and to keep them right next to your (rather fragile) Retainers.

Lastly, the way the ability is worded, you're only ever going to gain a single cadaver token from it. If you orchestrate a situation where both of your Retainers are next to a target, you're not going to be able to get two tokens out of it.

Soul-linked Constructs is an interesting mechanic that also comes saddled with some substantial downsides. Your leader can use any of the Retainers as the origin of his attack. Unfortunately, Thanatek can't use weapon upgrades for this effect, nor are you even allowed to modify his weapon characteristics – even if he's not channeling them through the Retainers. This sadly means Thanatek will never be able to take advantage of upgrades like Keen Eye. It's worth noting that re-rolls aren't modifying the attack profile, so stagger or Accurate are still on the menu. Nor are effects like cleave or ensnare forbidden because they're modifying the enemy's save rolls, not the Thanatek's weapon characteristics. One small perk is that since it's Thanatek making the attack, you'll at least be able to benefit from Flanked due to the Retainer being within 1 of his target.

The Mortis Reapers in the warband get their first mechanic with Elusive Mirages. You'll still have to roll at least one success, but if you can pull that off you're guaranteed to Stand Fast with these two fighters. Each of these fighters only have 1 dodge, so this ability is only going to natively go off 33% of the time. As such, this isn't something you can really rely on and seems to exist mostly to screw up the math of your opponent if they're going for kills. Going on guard with either of these fighters increases the chances substantially; although if a fighter is on guard, they already can't be driven back which is one of the two benefits of Stand Fast. Still, -1 damage is handy. It also gives the Mortis Reapers even more incentive to hang out in cover which I find thematically appropriate.

Unwilling Donors is another weird ability. You'll use this at the start of each of your opponent's action steps as long as Thanatek is still on the battlefield. As a reminder, each turn is divided up into the action step and then power step, so you'll be able to use this up to 12 times in a game. Effectively, you're telegraphing what model you will likely be attacking in your following turn before your opponent makes any actions. If you manage to damage the unwilling donor, you can immediately push each of your Retainers closer to the donor. One noteworthy aspect of this ability is that if you use it, you have to push all of your Retainers. You don't get the option to push only one of them.

Another facet is the timing of this ability – after damage is inflicted. If you glance back at Morbid Retainers, it grants the cadaver token at the end of the attack. If you check out the Combat Sequence page of the rulebook, you'll see that inflicting damage comes before the combat fully ends. You're able to attack an enemy, deal damage to it, trigger Unwilling Donors to push your Retainers closer to the enemy, and then check to see if the Retainers are adjacent to generate a cadaver token. You can even use it to close a two hex gap by damaging the donor, pushing the retainers, then driving back the donor to be adjacent.

I like that there are some mind game potentials here. You can nominate an enemy model as the unwilling donor even if you have no intention of attacking it just to try and shape what your opponent is going to do with their turn. This warband is pretty reliant on generating cadaver tokens and anything that helps with that will be very welcome.

Endless Duty jumps us back to the Mortis Reapers and allows you to spend cadaver tokens for a chance to raise one of your slain assassins. I'm inherently wary of dice based abilities like this because they're unreliable, but doubly so when you have to spend a valuable resource to even have a chance to use them. Burning one cadaver token is a 50% chance to raise one of your fighters; two tokens brings it to 75% while three (which feels unreasonable in all but the most dire circumstances) bumps the success chance to 87.5%. This can be used up to three times in a game, but that feels optimistic. The plus side is that it's a power step raise, so you don't have to sacrifice an action to perform it. It also brings the Mortis Reaper back with full health, so if you do manage to pull it off you'll have a fully functional fighter.

[update] As an additional bonus, a raised fighter has a bounty of zero so you can inspire them right after the raise by spending zero cadaver tokens. That's a nice bonus that I missed the first time around.

Necromantic Pulse is yet another ability that wants you to spend cadaver tokens and it also requires you to roll dice to see what it does. You're already going to want to shove your Retainers at the enemy fighters to generate cadaver tokens so game states where this is useful shouldn't be too rare, provided you want to spend tokens on it. It also functions somewhat as a deterrent for enemies choosing to get up close to your Retainers – they're pretty key fighters for this warband, so your opponent is sure to want them dead. Spending one token is a 33% chance of success. Two tokens yields about a 55% chance. Three, again a very big ask, raises the chance of getting a ping to about 70%.

There are two upsides to this ability. First, there is no restriction about not being able to ping vulnerable fighters, so this can be used to kill enemies. Secondly, even if you don't roll any swords or crits, you'll still get a consolation prize of staggering the enemy and removing their guard tokens, if they have any. This is the first effect in second edition that removes guard tokens, so if there's a durable enemy fighter camping out on a treasure token while on guard, you might even want to trigger this and hope to fail the roll just to be able to drive them back later.

Fighters of Thanatek's Tithe

Credit: Blake Law

The biggest standout here is that Thanatek is worth 3 bounty, making him a very tempting and juicy target. Zikkit's Tunnelpack has highlighted how this can be quite a liability when on a 4 health, single save fighter. This high bounty value also means Thanatek is substantially more difficult to inspire than the rest of your fighters, requiring a whopping three cadaver tokens – meaning three successful attacks against enemies adjacent to your Retainers where you didn't kill the target. Oof.

Thanatek has a pretty accurate ranged attack while uninspired and a "good enough" melee attack when using Soul-linked Constructs to attack enemies adjacent to your Retainers. In this case, you can even count on flanked results being successful which makes his attacks fairly reliable, which is exactly what you need to reliably generate those cadaver tokens. If you do manage to inspire him, he has a pretty nice profile overall with a nice save value, incredibly accurate ranged attack, and an above average melee profile – provided you can attack through a Retainer to have flanked results count as successes.

I'm just concerned that he won't inspire in most games due to the cost required. At least he flies, I guess.

Your two Retainers, Medeb-Ahk and Xar-Tamok, have identical profiles so I'm grouping them together. On the surface, these are two really solid fighters. Two block is the most durable profile you'll find printed on a fighter, they're of average speed, and only give up one bounty when slain. The biggest downside is their health and the fact that these are your cornerstone fighters in this warband. Without them, you're not generating cadaver tokens and there goes over half of your warscroll.

You can't even tuck them away safely in the back because they need to be within hugging distance of the enemy to get any of their abilities to work, so they're going to be in the danger zone. That's asking a lot from two fighters with only three health each.

They're not terrible if you wind up relying on their attacks, either, but their accuracy is a little lackluster. Inspiring these two is probably your lowest priority because they only trade in their critical grievous for a guaranteed point of damage. Since they're rolling three dice on their attacks anyway, that's about a 42% chance of turning on critical grievous in each attack.

Interestingly, these might be the first fighters ever where I would have been excited to see them sporting grapple over literally any other runemark.

Credit: Blake Law

Tukhar and Sekhmor are the Mortis Reapers of this group and, again, have (almost) identical stats. They're a little quicker on their feet than the rest of the warband. They have a much worse save than the other three fighters, but Elusive Mirages makes that a little tricky to evaluate. They'll still fail a lot of save rolls, but when they succeed it'll be more impactful. It makes these two a lot more swingy and unpredictable – for both players – in determining how durable they'll be. Like their basket-headed compatriots, the Mortis Reapers only have three health.

For being assassins, they're not all that threatening to start with. Maybe they're still undergoing on the job training. They have decent accuracy but hit like a wet noodle because only 30% of their attacks will trigger critical grievous. The attack profile gets a nice glow-up if you spend a cadaver token to inspire them because they pick up another dice, another point of damage, and either cleave or ensnare depending on which of the two you look at.

You can potentially raise both of these, but it's going to be costly. Initially, I wanted to wait to inspire them until after they were raised, but blowing a raise attempt on one cadaver token doesn't feel worthwhile so I'd want to use at least two, bringing their overall inspire cost to (at minimum) three. Maybe the right call is to inspire these guys first to make them more tempting targets and take some of the heat off of your leader and Retainers.

Deck Pairings for Thanatek's Tithe

Credit: Jake Bennington

You'll want to include as many positioning tools as you can to make the most of this warband. Pushes like Sidestep, Counter-charge, Duellist, or Rush to Aid will be hugely helpful to get the Retainers into position and out of danger when needed. Any way to heal, reduce damage, or apply guard tokens will also keep Medeb-Ahk and Xar-Tamok in the game longer which is key for getting anything done with this warband's warscroll.

Once they're inspired, they're not too shabby at fighting but you have to do quite a lot of that fighting before you'll be able to inspire them. Due to this, I don't think they're going to be great with an all-out aggro plan. I'd also hesitate to go for a straight hold plan with them given the reliance on Xar-Tamok and Medeb-Ahk being adjacent to the enemy so much. Perhaps lean into their flex archetype and do some Pillage & Plunder or Countdown to Cataclysm stuff with them. Wrack & Ruin has a lot of positional based scoring already, so if you're feeling like a real pinball wizard and want to shuffle models around you can get some payoff there. Deadly Synergy has some, well, synergy with Soul-linked Constructs allowing Thanatek to make flanked attacks from anywhere as long as the Retainers are in position.

The Verdict

This warband's entire gimmick is centered around cadaver tokens, but that relies on two of your 3-health fighters getting (and staying!) danger close to the opponent. If these two die, you cannot channel your leader's attacks through them, they won't be around to push after attacks, and you are locked out of generating any more tokens which means you cannot inspire, raise the assassins, or threaten a ping. This is putting a lot of eggs in one basket (... bones in two caskets?) which leaves you vulnerable to getting blown out early and trying to cobble together a gameplan together with the rest of your mediocre fighters.

I worry that the Retainers just have too much riding on their already quite crowded shoulders. I might also just not be on Nagash's wavelength because Kainan's Reapers also baffles me. Someone's probably going to do well with this warband but I don't think it'll be me. They seem like they have potential and I can't wait to see them in the hands of a skilled opponent.

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Tags: warhammer underworlds | Starting Hex