Grand Avatars Quest
The depths of Beastgrave are a locus for the primal energies of Ghur. In certain echoing tunnels where this power runs strongest, strange manifestations are given life. Taking the form of divine avatars, these powerful phenomena are drawn by the spiking emotions that ensue when warbands clash. Whether the battling fighters wish it or not, the avatars empower and make pawns of those they choose as their champions, allowing them to achieve impossible feats.
These blessings are not freely given, for an avatar will only make their presence felt in order to defy another of their kind. The battles that follow are desperate indeed, as no warband will back down while they wield such divine power. Only when their rivals are brutally defeated will a victorious manifestation depart, leaving a handful of their bloodied followers to count the cost of the deities’ rivalry.
Side-Quest:
Grand Avatars
Grand Avatars is an alternative way to play Warhammer Underworlds that is designed with Narrative Play in mind. In games of Grand Avatars, divine manifestations observe the battlefield, empowering their chosen champions in a battle of proxies. Fighters will find themselves strengthened by the power of these manifestations, and may experience miraculous escapes or moments of divine guidance as they battle to destroy their rivals. The stakes of the conflict are higher than ever, as the destruction of an avatar may have dire consequences for the factions aligned with it.
Each Grand Avatar is aligned with one of the Grand Alliance and each player must use a warband from a different Grand Alliance. This means that games of Grand Avatars may require a little bit more planning than other games of Warhammer Underworlds, but you will be rewarded with unique battles where you wield divine powers in support of your warband!
Originally, the Grand Avatars ruleset was made for Adepticon 2020, although it did not end up happening.
Here at The Great Weave, I have further changed the ruleset to work more like a campaign that an individual person, and thus their Hero, can play through. This allows you to play with the ruleset even if you cannot get enough people together in one place at one time. If you’ve seen a Warcry campaign, it essentially works in a similar fashion.
Below you’ll first find the ruleset for each individual game. This is largely untouched from the original Adepticon rules.
Following that, there is the Side-Quest itself, made so that your Heroes can embark on this epic quest!
How to Play Each Game
Aim of the Game
The aim of the game is to have the last surviving Grand Avatar.
How to Play
You need a copy of Warhammer Underworlds, preferably Beastgrave to play Grand Avatars. Grand Avatars uses all of the Beastgrave rules with the additional rules presented here. If a rule in Grand Avatars contradicts a rule in Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave, the rule in Grand Avatars takes precedence. If a rule in The Great Weave contradicts either, the rule in The Great Weave takes precedence.
Grand Alliances
Before each game of Grand Avatars, each player must choose one Grand Alliance from the following: Order, Chaos, Death, Destruction Each choice must be unique – if one player has already chosen a Grand Alliance, other players cannot choose that Grand Alliance. If two or more players cannot agree about who will use a particular Grand Alliance, those players should roll-off, and the winner of that roll-off chooses the Grand Alliance.
Once each player has chosen a Grand Alliance, they choose a warband and build their decks as normal. However, the warband they choose must belong to the Grand Alliance they chose, according to the following table. If a warband is not listed in the following table, consult the latest designer’s commentary to find which Grand Alliance it belongs to
Grand Avatar Rules
Grand Avatar
Each player has a Grand Avatar card/ruleset that matches their Grand Alliance. For example, a player who chooses the Order Grand Alliance has the Grand Avatar of Order. Each player places their Grand Avatar card face up in front of them during the Choose Your Warbands step at the start of the game. If you do not have a physical card, you can use the below rules as well.
A Grand Avatar card does not represent a fighter: instead it represents the manifestation of the Grand Avatar that is protecting and empowering your warband. It has no miniature
Each Grand Avatar card has a Wounds characteristic and a number of abilities. These abilities explain how and when they can be used by the player with that card. When an ability is used in place of playing a power card this means that when it is a players turn in the power step to play a power card, they can instead use that ability.
Until a Grand Avatar is taken out of action, they are referred to as a surviving Grand Avatar
Grand Avatar of Order
Grand Avatar of Order
Health: 10
You can use the following ability once per game.
Divine Intervention (Reaction): Use this during an Attack action that targets a friendly fighter, before the deal damage step, or during a gambit that will deal damage to one or more friendly fighters. When resolving that deal damage step, or that gambit, deal that damage to this Grand Avatar instead. Then, if you used this reaction during an Attack action, the combat sequence ends.
You can use each of the following abilities once per round.
Watchful Guardian: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 1 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then choose one friendly fighter. Push that chosen figure up to 1 hex and give that fighter one Guard token.
Guided Strike (Reaction): Use this during a friendly fighter’s Attack action, after that attack roll, Deal 2 damage to this Grand Avatar. You can then re-roll any number of dice in that attack roll.
Grand Avatar of Chaos
Grand Avatar of Chaos
Health: 11
You can use the following ability once per game.
Divine Intervention (Reaction): Use this during an Attack action that targets a friendly fighter, before the deal damage step, or during a gambit that will deal damage to one or more friendly fighters. When resolving that deal damage step, or that gambit, deal that damage to this Grand Avatar instead. Then, if you used this reaction during an Attack action, the combat sequence ends.
You can use each of the following abilities once per round.
Cursed Earth: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 1 damage or 3 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then pick one objective token in your territory if you dealt 1 damage, or one objective token in enemy territory if you dealt 3 damage. Pick one: flip that token or remove it from the battlefield.
Dark Displeasure (Reaction): Use this after an enemy fighter’s successful Attack action. Deal 1 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then deal 2 damage to the attacker.
Grand Avatar of Death
Grand Avatar of Death
Health: 12
You can use each of the following abilities once per game.
Divine Intervention (Reaction): Use this during an Attack action that targets a friendly fighter, before the deal damage step, or during a gambit that will deal damage to one or more friendly fighters. When resolving that deal damage step, or that gambit, deal that damage to this Grand Avatar instead. Then, if you used this reaction during an Attack action, the combat sequence ends.
Eternal Servitude: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 4 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then choose one friendly fighter that is out of action. Place the chosen fighter in a starting hex in your territory
You can use the following ability once per round.
Irresistible Command: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 1 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then choose one enemy fighter. Push the chosen fighter 1 hex
Grand Avatar of Destruction
Grand Avatar of Destruction
Health: 11
You can use the following ability once per game.
Divine Intervention (Reaction): Use this during an Attack action that targets a friendly fighter, before the deal damage step, or during a gambit that will deal damage to one or more friendly fighters. When resolving that deal damage step, or that gambit, deal that damage to this Grand Avatar instead. Then, if you used this reaction during an Attack action, the combat sequence ends.
You can use each of the following abilities once per round.
Drums of War: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 3 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then choose one friendly fighter. The chosen fighter makes a Charge action.
Driven to Destruction: Use this during the power step in place of playing a power card. Deal 1 damage to this Grand Avatar. Then choose one or more friendly fighters. Deal 1 damage to each chosen fighter, then push each chosen fighter 1 hex.
Disrupted
- Each time a friendly fighter is taken out of action deal damage to your Grand Avatar
- At the start of the end phase for each enemy fighter that is holding an objective in your territory, deal damage to your Grand Avatar Each time an objective token is tied or removed from the battlefield, and that objective token was in your territory, dealt damage to your Grand Avatar. If it was in no one’s territory, instead deal 1 damage to each Grand Avatar
- When a Grand Avatar card has a number of wound tokens that is equal to or greater than its Wounds characteristic, that Grand Avatar is taken out of action
Banished
When a player’s Grand Avatar is taken out of action that player’s fighters are immediately removed from the battlefield and that player plays no further part in the game. If once this has happened, there is only one surviving Grand Avatar or no surviving Grand Avatars, the game ends
Victory
If, when the game ends, there is only one surviving Grand Avatar, that Grand Avatar’s player wins the game. Otherwise, determine the victor as for a normal game of Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave, with the exception that only players who have a surviving Grand Avatar are considered eligible for victory (eg. if player has the highest glory points total but does not have a surviving Grand Avatar they cannot win the game). If there are no surviving Grand Avatars, the game is a stalemate – there is no victor
The Campaign
Playing with your Weave Hero
If you’d like to play through the Grand Avatar’s Side-Quest with your Hero, there are primarily two ways you could do this.
- The first, recommended, and easiest way to get involved is to choose an Underworlds Warband Leader that most-closely resembles your Hero in terms of Grand Alliance, and type of play.
- The Second is actually designing your own Leader (or even entire Warband) Card(s)! This is obviously a lot harder to do, and be sure to talk to your opponent about this as well before playing. If you do do this, make sure you tell us! We’d love to see what you cooked up!
Grand Alliance
Instead of choosing a Grand Alliance for each game (has used in the Adepticon rules above), you will choose a Grand Alliance that most closely fits your Hero, and play with that Alliance for the entirety of the Side-Quest.
You can change decks between each part of the Quest though.
Welcome to The Mountain
In this Side-Quest your Hero, and a few plucky followers, have found themselves on a sentient and malevolent mountain. The Mountain has a habit of luring in adventurers in the hopes of consuming them, and now you find yourselves having to fight your way to freedom. You will battle through three (or up to nine, if you want to play best-of-three with your opponents) battles in order to escape the Beastgrave.
Rival, Foe, and Challenger
In the Grand Avatar Side-Quest you play representing a Grand Alliance. When playing through each of the three+ games, you will fight a Rival, Foe, or Challenger.
Reference the Enemy Table below to figure out which Grand Alliance correlates to the Rival, Foe, or Challenger titles.
Progression
In order to progress from one mission to the next, you will need to win the relevant game.
Enemy Table
| Order | Chaos | Death | Destruction | |
| Order | N/A | Rival | Foe | Challenger |
| Chaos | Rival | N/A | Challenger | Foe |
| Death | Foe | Challenger | N/A | Rival |
| Destruction | Challenger | Foe | Rival | N/A |
The Campaign Missions
Find a mistake?
If you find any mistakes, or you find it plays better in some way, please feel free to get in touch with us and we’ll make it happen!
You can also get in touch on our discord!