Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault – Zarbag’s Gitz

Zarbags Gitz were one of the first warbands released for Nightvault, late last year and with the recent release of the Gloomspitze Gitz it makes sense to take a closer look at them.

The warband of Moonclan Grots (formerly known as Nightgoblins) is the largest of them available for Underworlds so far and after the Orruks of Ironskull's Boyz the second greenskin warband.

Zarbag's Gitz are a warband of 9 grots, supplement for Warhammer Underworlds Nightvault and costs 22.50 EUR. It comes with the pre-coloured two sprues (in bright yellow!), a card deck and brief instructions on the assembly. The card deck covers 69 cards, 9 cards for the gitz, 29 are unique cards for the warband and 31 universal cards (split across objectives, upgrades and ploys) to be used with any Warhammer Underworlds warband.

As you probably will know by now, Underworlds miniatures are are push-fit, so they can be assembled without the use of glue. In addition they come with pre-sculpted bases, so all you need is brushes and paints to complete the miniatures, no PVA, glue or flock (or at least optional). Casting is really good, very crisp details and great use of the space within the sprues. Especially if you think about, that they managed to squeeze in a total of 9 miniatures including bases in there.

As many of the Underworld warbands, this one is called after its leader - Zarbag. Zarbag is a Moonclan Shaman, lead by the smell of mushrooms into the deep of Shadespire. He is armed with a cursed sickle, and a made-shift lantern, with a captured fairy inside to give light. These look a bit like the fairies from Zelda. As a Moonclan Shaman he is able to cast spells, which is important to keep him at a certain distance from the actual fight, as he is rather squishy. He benefits from the special reaction Scurry, that lets other gits move, if another git ended his movement in a hex field next to him. Imagine a hooded conga. The Gitz are inspired by having 3 or more glory.

The model itself is cleverly cut, to create multiple layers of details, including two rows of mushrooms for the base details.

The remainder of the Gitz isn't just made up from henchmen. There is Drizgit da Squig Herder, wearing a thick armour, including a small fire pit on his shoulders. His job is to herd the squigs and one of his action is to move the two squigs, Bonekrakka and Gobbaluk, along with him. He looks a bit like a moonclan knight, very similar in design to the loonbosses

A proper moonclan warband wouldn't be complete without a Fanatic. Snirk Sourtongue is covering that role and of course brings the matching special rules. He is inspired directly with his first activation and moves using the scatter template. And as a loonatic, he's drunk on brew and deals random damage. But take not, that he can't receive upgrades. The sculpt is compact, but detailed and makes a good, useable miniature for the warband.

Another special warrior of the Moonclan is Prog da Netter. He's a single cast and throws his net onto the enemy, reducing their attack value. I've build him along the two squigs, Bonekrakka and Gobbaluk, as netters are used to hunt and catch squigs. The big guys are really well done and sculpted, are an exception from the inspiring rule, as they don't care about the glory but go crazy if Drizgit is killed.

The remaining three grots of the warband are Stikkit, Dibbz and, Redkap. All of them regular moonclan gitz, armed with a short bow. All of them are single piece miniatures, but beautifully sculpted. Much more crazy than the regular or older models, with arrows through their hoods or a mushroom cap ontop of their heads.

And the full 9 yards ... erm grots, a colourful mixture of types.

The grots have become a bit taller over the last redesigns. You can see that pretty clearly in the second picture, in comparison with an old fanatic (and due to lack of old nightgoblins) a Blood Bowl goblin.

The Underworld Community page gotan update with Nightvault and now covers a Deck Builder, where you can take a look into all the cards from this supplement. The deck build section got updated as well, but currently only covers recommendations for the decks from both starter kits, Shadespire and Nightvault.

With 9 models in this warband, benefiting from a special moving rule, you can do quite a bit. It takes a bit to get the warband started, but once you do, they become like a train. It is important to score glory early, to upgrade the warband due to being inspired. With that many models, a movement of three and the Scurry rule, taking a couple of objectives shouldn't be the biggest problem.

But be aware, as they are many, they are not very tough. So do not use them alone, not just because not doing so would mean not to take advantage of the scurry rule, but it means less supporting fighters. And that's crucial when you're staffing with grots.

As mentioned above, these are available without the Underworlds content for 20 EUR. I think this is a great warband for a skirmish, maybe add a 2-3 moonclan grots with spears or hand weapon and shield.

Conclusion
I like this little Whaaagh! a lot. You get a whole load of models for just 22.50 EUR, and that's not just rank & file grunts ... well grots in this case, but actually some pretty neat characters and special fighters as well. So from the value point of view I think this might be one of the best boxes in the whole Underworlds range, if not Age of Sigmar boxes in general. As mentioned with some of the other warband supplement, you can take a look on these as smaller "Getting started!" boxes and if you rate Zarbag's Gitz as such, it is just very tempting - if you like greenskins.

As for an Underworlds warband, I'd say you should have at least moderate experience, as playing this horde is not that easy, as you have to have an eye for positional play and being comfortable with playing rather low stat profiles, compared to other warbands. Remember, WHU gives you "only" 4 activations, so you'll not use a lot of your models, if you aren't aware how to play them / bring them into the game.

What else is there to say? I like the mix of the models, I like the designs of the miniatures and would be an interesting addition to your collection of miniatures, even beyond the use in Warhammer Underworlds or Age of Sigmar.

Warhammer Underworlds is a brand by Games Workshop.