Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault – Thundrik’s Profiteers

We covered Ylthari's Guardians earlier this week and are closing on the Nightvault coverage with the last of the warbands of season 2, Thundrik's Profiteers.

Thundrik's Profiteers are a Kharadron Overlords warband supplement for Underworlds and costs 22.50 EUR. The Profiteers span 5 models and are available without the cards as an Easy-to-Build kit for 20 EUR. This kis is the first to cover a sprues in a metallic colour, golden-brown, beside the usual card deck and assembly instructions.

The card deck covers 65 cards, 5 cards cover the profiles, 29 are unique cards for the Kharadron warband and 31 universal cards (split across objectives, upgrades and ploys) to be used with any Warhammer Underworlds warband.

The sprues cover sculpted bases as usual, 2x 25mm and 3x 32mm bases in this case. Those bases have a rocky design, like the insides of a cave. The models carry a lot of gear with them, which are cleverly split across the sprues. From the first impressions, these maybe the Underworlds warband where we have some of the most parts per models, due to the gear, backpacks and weaponry.
All the Underworlds miniatures are push-fit, so you do not need glue to assemble them. With some of the tighter fits, it might be a good idea to use plastic glue any way.

Bjorgen Thundrik, the leader of the profiteers has a retinue of 4 skyfarers. He is an Aether-Khemist, wielding a atmospheric anatomiser with a range of 3, which is able to create deadly hexes. Quite the impressive model, with the huge backpack and steampunky gear. The inspiring mechanics for the profiteers is interesting and for my taste a very fluffy, fitting choice. The skyfarers are promoted by Bjorgen. When they score glory, Thundrik may promote (inspire) a friendly fighter on the board. This plays very centric on the leader, making him even more important, as you have no option to inspire the remaining warband, once he's dead. But with 5 wounds and the atmospheric anatomiser, you should be able to keep him around for a while.

A very prominent miniature of this box is Khazgan Drakkskewer. He is a skyrigger, an elite aerial cavalry of the Arkanaut crews, which gives him the ability to "fly", so he ignores deadly and occupied hexes while moving. He is armed with an skypike and vulcaniser pistol, so is capable to deal ranged attacks like all profiteers are. As mentioned above, the retinue of Thundrik have no inspiring condition of their own, it is all done by Thundrik promoting them through fulfilling mission objectives.

The pose is well done and should appeal to more people than the transparent flying bases, which were discussed not just with the release of the skyriggers, but with the new Primaris heavy shock troops. With him standing / floating on top of the anchor, it is pretty stable and I like this orb, which looks like a small hot-air balloon.

Enrik Ironhail is a veteran of the arkanaut company, and carries a deadly multi-barrelled aethermatic volley gun in the mirrored city. The volley gun benefits from more dice than the other ranged weapons of the Kharadron warband and even has push back. The model itself is easy to assemble, you might need to angle the head a bit until the pin sits properly, but then the model is complete.

Dead-Eye Lund is another veteran, but a Thunderer from the Grundstok Academy. As such he is armed with a aethershot rifle, that has access to cleave. Straight forward build, but you can identify him as a higher ranking model of the warband by his slightly larger 32mm base, compared to the 25mm bases of the Arkanaut Company.

The last member of the profiteers is Garodd Alensen, another arkanaut crew. He has the standard gear of the Arkanaut Company, a privateer pistol and Arkanaut cutters, making him the regular rank & file fighter of the crew.

And the complete, very versatile Kharadron warband of Thundrik's Profiteers.

As Duardin / dwarfs, the models are usually around 25mm from head to toe. That might not be that small by 28mm scale, but as we are more 30-32mm scale nowadays (and partly beyond, if you look at the Stormcast or the Tree-Revenants from earlier this week). The squat proportions of the models make them look even more compact, but more believable as some of the other dwarf miniatures out there simply lack knees, adding boots directly to the hips.

As mentioned with the review on Mollog's Mob, the Underworld Community page received an 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.

The profiteers are a very slow warband. They have a movement of 2, once they are inspired of 3. The only exception Khazgan through his device, keeping a steady 4. In addition to the +1 on move, they receive an additional wound and an upgrade to their weaponry once they are promoted. Promotion is such a great idea for the inspiring mechanics, very true to the lore. Channeling this through Thundrik might be limiting to some degree, but is a logical choice for that process. As such you will probably want to go for multiple smaller objectives, to score glory to be able to upgrade on a wider range. Ideally with "score this immediately". Due to the limited movement, these most likely won't be holding a lot of spread out hexes or those far from your starting area.

There are a couple of cards, that you absolutely should cover, for example Headshot and Focus Fire, which are easy objectives for this warband. Along with very helpful upgrades to give your ranged attacks cleave, or rapid reload for Ironhail, you can maximize the damage. The profiteers are slow, even when they are inspired, but your cards give you the option to claim and hold areas, by pushing your enemy back or filling the hexes with deadly gasses. So this denial is one way to go. It will be interesting to see, how they do against Zarbag's Gitz or Spiteclaw's Swarm. They are plenty and above average fast, so they might swarm your Skyfarers. But with their low wounds, it is not unlikely that you can take out 1 or even 2 models per round by ranged attacks.

Conclusion
The Dwarves as we know them from Warhammer, distinctively designed by Aly Morrison and Colin Dixon are not more. The classic dwarfs moved into the backrows, and with them even the name during the Age of Sigmar re-arrangement of armies. They became the Duardin, and even the newer plastic kits were moved with the Dispossed range within the Grand Alliance Order to make room for a reinvented Slayer army, the Fyreslayers, sporting they bright red-orange beards and mohawks, even dragons, and their own Underworlds warband of The Chosen Axes. But the design department didn't stop there and strengthened the already steam-power parts into a Jules-Verne / Steampunk theme, with the Kharadron Overlords. I like the skyvessels and the overall design of this army. It is a clear cut with the old Warhammer brand and the old world, as it wouldn't really fit in there. A bold move, but works incredibly well with Age of Sigmar, the new lore and especially the new possibilities of model making.

The models in this kit are very elaborate. You can see this design step with the Yltharis Guardians as well, that's - at least from my point of view - an even higher level of detail than the earlier warbands, which weren't blunt. So doing improvement, where already was a proper level of detail and quality, is a great choice - especially if it doesn't come hand in hand with a price raise. I was thinking about getting my hands on a couple of Kharadron models to convert them into Squats (the sci-fi dwarfs of the 40k lore) for Necromunda or Inq28. But doing so with the regular AoS range would have become a bit difficult and expensive, as I'd need someone to share an Arkanaut Company box, a Skyrigger box and maybe add in one of the characters. With this box, if I go with the easy-to-build set, I have for 20 EUR a very solid base to start from. Yes, the multipart kits would be easier to convert or individualize, but I think that you could go a long way with a bit of weapon or gear swaps on these.

From a gamer point of view. Yes, they don't have access to magic, but if you see that as mostly ranged attacks, which the whole warband covers, you're not missing out on a lot. Speed is a strong topic with this warband, so if you're play style or strategies do rely on that, Thundrik's Profiteers might not be the first choice for you. Otherwise, if the theme of sky-travelling steampunk dwarfs, who shoot their enemies to bits and pieces from a far sounds interesting, give them a try!

Warhammer Underworlds is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.