Vanguard – Undead Warband Preview

Welcome back Fanguards… we promise it’s the last time we’ll try that. It’s bound to catch on eventually. After looking at the Ice & Iron book in detail in the previous two blogs, we’re back with a preview of the brand-new Undead warband release!

The Undead faction is the latest full faction release, which means new units, new miniatures, updated stats and warband cards. The Undead warband and Ice & Iron will be in stores from Monday and available to order from the Mantic website shortly.

As you should hopefully know by now, full warband releases are an exciting opportunity for us to create new units for the existing factions. We’ve already done the same with the Trident Realm, Goblins and Forces of Nature.

With the Undead release, we basically wanted to make some truly disgusting miniatures, with plenty of rotting flesh, shambling feet and, of course, extra body parts.

ARKOSAUR NECROMANCER

Leading the Undead warband is the Arkosaur Necromancer. Although the stats are the same as the standard Necromancer, we wanted the miniature to be something a little different. You see, it’s not just humans that can be attracted to the dark arts of necromancy, and the other noble races of Pannithor can fall victim to its wiles.

VAMPIRE HALFLING

It has an ability called Ankle Biter. That is all you need to know.

Oh, you really want to know more? Well again, it’s not just humans that have their blood drained by bloodthirsty vampires. After all, that fatty food the halflings eat probably makes them quite tasty.

Anyway, the Vampire Halfling is quite the handy fighter but will also be good at quickly grabbing the objectives, thanks to Fly. Yes, he’s a little bit on the slow side, but that doesn’t really matter when you can glide over obstacles.

CRYPT GOUGER

Want to cause some more trouble with your undead minions? Well, the Crypt Gouger is your friend! Hopefully not, that would be quite odd… but you get our drift.

With the Crypt Gouger’s Shallow Grave action, you can place potential spawn points around the battlefield to use when raising more zombies or skeletons. Instead of only being able to spawn skeletons within 3” of the necromancer, you can now make them appear near a grave marker instead. This will be perfect for controlling objectives or raising extra units in the final stages of a game.

ZOMBIE ORC

Another new unit for the Undead are Zombie Orcs. Tougher than your standard zombie – well, they were orcs in a former life – these are a good offensive unit. Team it up with some other zombies to make use of the Mob Assault ability too.

GOREBLIGHT

A disgusting mass of undead flesh, the Goreblight is a sight to behold. The Goreblight is a definite control unit. It will most likely get off to a slow start – unless you give it the Potion of Haste – but once in place, it can start unleashing the Tormentor Flails. Park this brute on a high-scoring objective and your opponent is going to have to throw some serious firepower into shifting it.

What’s more, not only is the Goreblight entering the world of Vanguard, it will also be making the move to Kings of War: Third Edition. Here’s a sneak peek at the work in progress rules (subject to change).

Well, hope you enjoyed this quick look through some of the new Undead units in Vanguard. Of course, these aren’t all you’ve got to look forward to and the warband also includes: the Barrow Wight, Zombie Troll, Soul Reaver and more!