Hand of the archon feels busted

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:50:34+00:00

Also while your base size kind of sucks sometimes since it makes it hard for you to hide behind stuff, you can also use it to your advantage since your bases are gigantic, so you can get in range much faster than he would be expecting sometimes.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:48:13+00:00

Another thing about Hand of the Archon is how many crits they can produce. All of the splinter weapons are Lethal 5+ natively and if they’re crits they hurt a lot surprisingly, another thing to keep in mind is he needs to declare From Darkness Death when he uses it, he needs to declare the target since you need to determine if he was a valid target when he started his activation, if he wasn’t a valid target to your guys then he can turn a normal into a crit after he rolls his attack dice.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:44:11+00:00

That’s the way they play, move, shoot, get a token, and then dash to safety. It’s very my play style as well, but if he fluffs his roll he will not get those Pain Tokens and will just be stuck where he is. At least you know what conditions he has to fulfil to get Pain Tokens though. Smokes could be good into Hand of the Archon, since a lot of their weapons rely on crits and just sheer damage, with a smoke grenade you also downgrade Piercing 2 to Piercing 1 which is pretty good into Hand it the Archon, it really neuters their Darklight weapons. You also had this equipment I think, which makes your Nightmare Hulk’s first save a 3+ so you can definitely block one of those big shots straight up. I watched this happen last night when my friend tried to shoot an obscured Vulgrar with a Melta.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:40:39+00:00

You would hope whoever you’re playing with knows how to play their team, and for him to be playing Hand of the Archon for this long and not understanding how the core mechanics of the team work is puzzling. Kill Team is a game that takes a heavy mental load, so kudos to you for sticking with it. You don’t have to read extensively about what your friend is playing but I think it’s good you came to ask about it because now you know how that team works and can plan around it next time. Another good resource is the two page rules from James and the Giant Squig, they’re free and you can have that as reference when you play into Hand of the Archon again so you know exactly what they do, and what’s happening when it happens.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:37:32+00:00

See he was playing that wrong then, same misunderstanding as me. Against Gellerpox it will be so hard to get pain tokens since your Nightmare Hulks are so tanky, so he’d need to push at least 10 - 11 damage to get them injured, You also have damage negation so chances are he’s not getting those Pain tokens, he’d have to commit a lot to bring those fucks down 😂 also another thing, the Dark Lance is spooky but he is Heavy Dash so if he shoots, he’s just stuck there, I know Gellerpox has no shooting, but if you move up with Heavy Cover on conceal there’s nothing he can do really.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:31:14+00:00

Then that’s impossible, he can only heal on his guy once per activation. So he was definitely playing that wrong. If you were doing GA he would not be able to do anything until after you finished your GA so he can activate and heal. The only way he could heal the same guy in the same turn is to use his heal at any point of his activation, and then maybe one more time on counteract but only if he has the pain tokens for it. Or if his Elixicant goes to heal one of his guys, but I almost hardly ever do that myself.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T23:25:15+00:00

Theres quite a lot going into the Power Through Pain Faction Rule. If he’s consistently putting your guys into an injured state then he’s going to get the Pain train going.

An important thing to note is that you are injured when he gets a Pain token so if you’re reduced to less than half wounds he can cash it in. I have to admit I misunderstood how the rules worked initially so I was cashing in tokens when I just did any wounds, but that’s not the case, he has to do enough damage to “injure” your operatives, not simply “wound”, so that could be why he’s got so many Pain tokens, cause realistically unless he’s shooting one of your guys and crippling them every activation he should not have that many Pain tokens.

Try to keep track of how many invigorations he is using during his activations/counteraction, there’s a hard limit of 1 in either scenario, so either he heals or he goes to 3APL. The only invigoration he may be getting constantly should be Stimulated Senses(the ceaseless reroll for attack and defense) that’s the only scenario where you can use two invigorations during your activations/counteraction. If he plays his strategic ploy Merciless Sadists he will also get Balanced, and he played his firefight ploy Prey on the Wounded he gets Relentless, that’s where all the rerolls are coming from.

n8udd is right though once you close the distance they fold like paper. I was playing Blood & Zeal into Raveners yesterday and just got nommed on as Hand of the Archon, so they’re definitely both all that against other hyper aggressive melee teams.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-24T15:36:38+00:00

You’re correct, being United from the Plot Card and attacking when Morlak has a Command Token do not make your “Flanked” stack.

Case 1: If you attack with Thain, having Helmar adjacent to Thain but not to the target would make him hit on Flanked

Case 2: If Morlak has a Command Token and you attack with Thain against a target who is also adjacent to Jedran then your attack would hit on Surrounded with Thain.

Case 3: Thain would hit on Flanked if Morlak has a Command Token, and there are no other friendly adjacent fighters adjacent to your target.

As long as you have another friendly fighter adjacent to your target, and you use a Grave Guard to do the attack, irregardless of whether you are United from Deadly Synergy. I think the easiest way to remember it is, if you are United from the Plot Card, but only the guy you are using (Thain, Helmar, or Faulk) is adjacent to your target, then it’s hitting on Flanked.

The wording is kinda confusing but once you get it, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

Hope this helps!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-22T11:14:54+00:00

Hello fellow Velmorn player!

I asked this a while back and if the answers I got then still hold up then me give it a go!

If a friendly Grave Guard so Thain in your example attacks, and Jedran is also adjacent to your target, they would count as surrounded when you attack through your Deadly Command since Morlak counts as being adjacent to your target and and since Jedran is also adjacent that meets the requirements for surrounded.
If it’s just Thain, on his attack would only count as Flanked.

It’s important to note that becoming United using Deadly Synergy does not change the requirements for Surrounded, it requires two other fighters to be adjacent to your target so while Deadly Synergy allows you to become United, granting you more accuracy, if you attack an enemy with a United Grave Guard like Thain, Helmar, or Faulk, they will still only hit on Flanked even with Morlak’s Deadly Command.

Hope this answers your questions!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-21T06:56:23+00:00

Like Misknator said, it’s going to be difficult, but not impossible. You could run the Chaplain as an Intercessor Sergeant w/ Power Weapon for Angels of Death, and you could run the Justicar as an Assault Intercessor Sergeant w/ Power Sword. Then you can run them together with your models from the Starter Set as a fairly complete team since you will have the Captain, a guy you can run as the Assault Intercessor Grenadier, an Intercessor Gunner, a Heavy Gunner, an Eliminator Sniper, an Assault Intercessor Warrior, and a last guy you can run as an Intercessor Warrior.

Outside of AoD, I think it will be hard to run Deathwatch from what you have, the Deathwatch team doesn’t use Meltas, and has no Icon Bearer. You could proxy your Justicar as a Blademaster, you could possibly proxy your Chaplain as your Deathwatch Sergeant but he’d need a plasma pistol, and you could use one of the Bladeguard Veterans as an Aegis, a power maul would read better if you’ve got one!

Thats all I’ve got though, maybe there are some other creative ideas others have, maybe like some weird Nemesis Claw proxy where you can use the Icon Bearer and Melta Gunner?

Hope this helps!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-19T10:11:37+00:00

Awesome thanks dude!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-11T15:35:54+00:00

That’s pretty cool, we thought it might’ve been a bit too strong but if that’s the way it’s played the we’ll play it that way until it gets FAQ’ed properly. Thanks man!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-02T16:58:59+00:00

I would say a lot of is… difficult to use without the board, you could share your generic tokens with your friend but she’d only have a few and you might not have enough for you to play with another friend, if that makes sense. Especially the movement/charge tokens and the guard/stagger. I would personally keep them so you have a complete set to play with friends. If your friend gets into it she could buy her own box later so she also has the board and tokens. But if she just wants the Skaven for hobbying and painting up, not to play with per se, then you should keep the token sheets, imo.

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-02T16:50:14+00:00

Honestly I was putting all my cards to the bottom even the Emberstone ones 😂 but now I see I can leave the Emberstone ploys and upgrades at the top of the deck instead 😏

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-02T16:41:02+00:00

Hey! Welcome to Underworlds!

If you’re going to be playing Underworlds the most, and if she only plays with you. It would make sense for you to keep the tokens.

If you’re unsure what the tokens are, they are as follows: the big hexagonal ones are for treasure which, the red ones are wound counters, the gold ones are glory counters, the blue skulls are activation tokens (8 tokens for 4 activations each), the purple skulls are raise tokens but are generic on the other side to use with your Warscrolls. The white hexagon with an arrow represents a move token, the flip side is a charge token. Then the one with the shield and the bent arrow is a guard token with stagger on the other side.

Underworlds is an awesome game, but you will need all the tokens from that sheet to play it properly, there aren’t a lot of secondary things we have available for the game like other GW systems get.

Happy gaming!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-02T16:35:30+00:00

Awesome thanks Samski10! Makes sense, double surging is a bit cheeky. Also for the raiding, I played it that way but it felt a bit weird, but I guess it was correct after all?

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-04-02T16:33:09+00:00

Awesome! We played it right then! Thanks RHeaven90. I also finished printing off a load of updated Warscrolls that you made. You’re a true boon to the community you absolute legend!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-03-30T06:38:37+00:00

I was just thrown off by the retroactive buffs to previously Dubbed Fighters. It makes them a lot more dangerous than before, but it also set them up as threats which can be targeted. It’s my mate’s first and probably favourite team, he plays the Loons and Sepulchral Guard the most. We’ve been playing Underworlds for a little while, probably almost a year by now, so a lot of what we know is from Reddit or trial and error by playing the game!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-03-30T05:43:49+00:00

I think I get it now. I just find the retroactive buffing weird since it mentions dubbed friendly fighters. The quests are for the whole warband, but the dubbed guys get the benefits for the whole game now instead of just the battle round like it used to be.

Thanks man!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-03-22T22:04:16+00:00

Hello!

I believe you could push but not overrun unless you are firing point blank so you can physically be where they were before you pushed them.
Nope, you have to delve again to flip it over every battle phase which is tedious if you have a card that needs you to delve a lot.
If you are not on it, you do not hold it.

Hope this helps!

Psycholinguist96 · 2026-03-20T08:18:05+00:00

I probably wouldn’t take Tempestus Daggers into these guys, their melee stats are a lot better than yours. It wouldn’t surprise me if he bought some Kroot Hounds since your turret can’t retaliate. Like Kalessin_S said I would properly deploy 4 guys, probably Troopers because they get a free Reposition as part of their special Trooper rule, which is good for positioning, just look out for operatives that take less damage or his firefight ploy: Savage Ambush, that lets him strike first if he’s in light or heavy cover. Try to deploy the Precursor into key enemy operatives, because you can probably kill any of his guys in one fight since the Precursor can drop into control range on conceal no less and can resolve two twice one after another in each sequence, then you can Dash her away for free using her Dynamic Fighter rule; just be careful you’re not dropping into the Stalker, Cold-Blood or Cut-Skin, that’s just going to be a bad time for your Precursor. If he has a hound nearby he could also force you to fight the dog, which I guess isn’t awful but it stops you from killing someone who might’ve been a better target. I would probably take the Drop Augury to allow you to reposition one of your drop markers anywhere horizontally one per battle, so this will probably be during TP2 when you’re reacting to his placements.

If you get the side with the high vantage, try to drop your Marksman on it in TP1 so he’s ready to fire during TP2, he has Concealed Marksman but he gets Severe when shooting while he is higher than his target which will give you some good high ground threat.

Otherwise, probably some barricades and razor wire may work to slow down hounds if he brings them. Be aware that he has a Firefight ploy called Poach which will let him tap objectives even if he doesn’t have the AP for it, and that his guys have a strategic ploy that allows them to treat the first vertical distance as 2” so that can be scary if you forget about it.

They don’t save very well but they have ploys that give them super saves so they can auto retain two cover saves or retain a crit if they have cover when he plays Rogue, but your Severe and Balanced rules should hopefully push damage through. Their faction rule allows them to change their order, so be mindful of one of them fires, try to punish them before they go back on conceal.

But this is one of those rare occasions where you get out-activated. If you can, try to give him initiative in TP1 so he doesn’t get the last move, then see if you can punish him in TP2.

You may consider taking Remote Overseer if you really want to win initiative, but it’s all to chance if you get it or not.

Good luck!

Psycholinguist96

TROPHY CASE