Warhammer Underworlds - Analysis Series - Attacks
Reliable Attacks in Warhammer Underworlds
Welcome back to another look at the mechanics behind Warhammer Underworlds. Last time, I took a look at the durability of Warhammer Underworlds warbands, which I defined as:
Durability is defined as the total number of successful 2 damage attacks required to remove all fighters in a warband.
As I progressed through that analysis, I looked at how Saves adjusted this durability, and then I considered how the number of successful hits reduced the effectiveness of Saves to the point of returning the warband to its base durability. Once an attack reaches two or more successes, the defender’s Save becomes unreliable. This is the point at which the Save collapses, and the fighter’s durability drops back to its base value. This is what I now refer to as the Save Breakpoint.
If you would like to read the previous article before we proceed then here is the link.
Suffice to say, this led me to another question: when does an attack profile reliably result in two or more successful hits? In other words, when does an attack reliably reach the Save Breakpoint?
Where to start
Let us begin by considering the basic attack profiles in the game. Most fighters start with a single weapon profile, which is usually either a melee or ranged attack. For this article, whether it is melee or ranged will have no impact on the discussion. Equally, the damage the weapon causes has little importance here. The only aspects I am interested in are the number of dice rolled and the symbol required for success. In essence, I am looking at the effective accuracy of the attack.
Effective accuracy of the attack is a product of the number of dice rolled and the symbol needed for success.
Assumptions
When working through this thought exercise, I have made a number of assumptions:
- Attacks always deal 2 damage
- Crits only count as successes
- No weapon abilities are considered
- No warscroll rules are included
- All effective accuracy calculations are based on uninspired profiles
- Hammer attacks succeed on 3 faces of a die which is a 50 percent chance
- Sword attacks succeed on 2 faces of a die which is approximately 33 percent
As the number of dice in an attack roll increases, the probability of rolling at least one success increases.
If we look at the fighter characteristics of most fighters, they start with one of two attacks, either:
- 3 Swords
- 2 Hammers
In larger, swarm warbands, we see another, weaker profile:
- 2 Swords
What is the effective accuracy of these attacks?
If we take a fighter like Dripterus (from Grandfather’s Gardeners), who has a 2 Sword attack, he has:
- a 56 percent chance of rolling at least one success, roughly once every two attacks
- an 11 percent chance of rolling two successes, roughly once every ten attacks
- a 0 percent chance of rolling three successes. This is obvious from the maths, but it is still very important, as we will see later
If we compare this to Strewg, who has a 3 Sword attack, he has:
- a 70 percent chance of rolling at least one success, about seven out of ten attacks
- a 26 percent chance of rolling two successes, about once every four attacks
- a 4 percent chance of rolling three successes, roughly once every twenty attacks
Finally, let us look at Phleghmus, who has a 2 Hammer attack, with:
- a 75 percent chance of rolling at least one success, roughly three out of four attacks
- a 25 percent chance of rolling two successes, about once every four attacks
- a 0 percent chance of rolling three successes
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| My Gardeners |
What does this mean
First, we can see that the chances of success with 2 Hammers and 3 Swords are very similar, with 2 Hammers being slightly more likely to achieve at least one hit, but having no chance of getting three hits.
Gaining any successful hits means the opponent’s fighter has to attempt a Save to avoid taking damage. The more hits that a fighter can land, the more likely it becomes that the Save will fail and damage will be applied. Against one success the defender still has a realistic chance to survive. Against two successes the Save often collapses. Against three successes the Save cannot succeed under any circumstances.
This means that two hits is the Save Breakpoint. It is the point at which most Saves, especially single defence dice, have effectively failed.
I am, therefore, interested in finding out in what situations my fighters are likely to cause at least two successful hits, the Save Breakpoint.
Hence my question: when does an attack profile reliably result in two or more successful hits and reach the Save Breakpoint?
Achieving two successful hits
What am I looking for in a fighter's weapon profile to allow them to score two successful hits, in order to reach the Save Breakpoint and reduce their opponent’s fighters to their base durability?
The most obvious answers are:
- roll more dice
- roll dice which require Hammers rather than Swords for success
- gain access to rerolls
When does an attack become reliable
When considering whether an attack profile can be called reliable, it helps to think in terms of simple probability thresholds. Some results happen often enough to be expected, others occur only occasionally, and some are so infrequent that it is unrealistic to plan around them. The following guide provides a practical way to understand how likely a result must be before it can meaningfully influence decisions on the tabletop.
- Around 33%. Possible but unreliable. (White)
- Around 50%. The minimum threshold for reliability. (Blue)
- Around 66%. Consistently reliable and expected in most activations. (Yellow)
- Around 75%. Highly reliable. (Light Green)
- Around 90%. Functionally guaranteed. (Dark Green)
When we look at the table, it becomes clear that it is very difficult to reach the highly reliable range, let alone the functionally guaranteed threshold, when aiming for two successful hits. Reaching the Save Breakpoint is simply hard. By contrast, achieving a single successful hit is much easier.
Hammer attacks naturally outperform Sword attacks in this respect. Because Hammers succeed on 50 percent of dice rolls, they reach high reliability quickly. With only two dice, Hammer attacks already sit around the 75 percent mark for scoring at least one success. Swords require more support or more dice to reach the same level.
Where things become challenging is in the pursuit of two or more successful hits. Even strong profiles struggle to achieve this consistently. Yet this is crucial for overcoming Saves. A fighter rolling only a single successful hit still gives the defender a reasonable chance to negate the attack. When two or more successes are rolled, the defender’s ability to prevent damage collapses. This is the Save Breakpoint and a key breakpoint in a fighter’s offensive output. Reaching it demands either more dice, Hammer accuracy, rerolls, support from Flanked and Surrounded, or a combination of the four.
Three Hammers
3 Hammer attacks are the first consistently highly reliable attack profile in the game.
In practice, the first real breakpoint where an attack becomes consistently highly reliable is 3 Hammers. Everything below it, 2 Hammers, or 2 or 3 Swords, can drift into reliability, but only situationally. Once you reach 3 Hammers, the accuracy strays in the 75 percent region and pushes well beyond that with even modest reroll support.
Crucially, 3 Hammers is the first profile that regularly threatens the Save Breakpoint. This is the moment where the defence begins to crumble.
This reinforces:
- Why some warbands feel punchy
- Why accuracy ploys massively amplify them
- Why 3 or 4 Swords can still feel unreliable unless heavily supported
- Why even +1 Dice to a 2 Hammer attack changes the offensive quality of a fighter
Why does 5 Swords always miss
In short, it does not. The problem is that 5 Swords has a highly reliable chance (87 percent) of getting a single hit but only a 54 percent chance of two hits. It struggles to reach the Save Breakpoint. Against most fighters, the defender still has a chance of a Save, which can cause the attack to fail. The issue is the base accuracy of Swords, not the number of dice, but we have all become used to the idea that a 5 dice attack will fail, usually because of an opponent's Save, when the attack really mattered.
Rerolls and Accuracy
One of the most common ways a fighter can gain access to a reroll is when a target is Staggered, allowing the attacker to reroll a single failed attack die. Rerolls can also be granted through Ploys, Upgrades, and by standing on Waystone hexes, making them one of the most frequently encountered accuracy boosts in the game.
With even a single reroll available, the probability of achieving successful hits increases sharply.
When we look at the table, a few key patterns become immediately obvious:
- Rolling any number of dice requiring Hammers becomes highly reliable, if not functionally guaranteed, at achieving at least one success
- More importantly, four or more Hammer dice with a reroll enter the highly reliable range for two hits and often reach the Save Breakpoint
- Swords improve but rarely provide multiple successes.
This is because Swords start from a lower base probability, a single reroll provides a smaller relative benefit. They increase the chance of success, but they do not fundamentally change the chance of reaching the Save Breakpoint in the way Hammers do.
Supported Attacks
Another way to improve accuracy is by gaining supports from other friendly fighters.
Why is Flanked more valuable than a reroll
A single reroll only affects one die per attack. It is most impactful when rolling very few dice. However, Flanked supports increase the success chance of every die within the roll. As the number of dice grows, this provides a far greater combined benefit than a single reroll.
Rule of thumb:
If you are stuck at one or two dice, a single reroll is more effective than Flanked support. Once you are rolling three or more dice, Flanked support is better for reaching the Save Breakpoint.
Combining Hammers with Flanked and Rerolls
Accessing a 3 Hammer weapon profile is the first component of achieving highly reliable attacks. It produces one hit 88 percent of the time and two hits 50 percent of the time. Adding a reroll boosts the effectiveness into the Functionally Guaranteed range for one hit and approaches Highly Reliable for two hits.
Adding Flanked significantly improves the chances of a success on each die from 3 out of 6 to 4 out of 6 before the reroll is even considered. Once a reroll is layered over that, the reliability jumps into an entirely different tier.
A 3 Hammer attack with Flanked and a reroll hits at least once in more than 99.8 percent of attempts and reaches the Save Breakpoint around 97 percent of the time. Even the full three hit result lands in just over 70 percent of rolls, which would be unthinkable on standard smash dice. This is the point where an attack stops feeling merely accurate and starts acting like dealing automatic damage.
Scaling from 3 Hammers to 4 Hammers
Moving from three dice to four pushes that effect into overkill levels. A 4 Hammer attack with Flanked and a reroll will fail entirely only 0.02 percent of the time. It reaches the Save Breakpoint in 99.5 percent of sequences. Three or more hits show up in over 93 percent of rolls, and a full four hit success still appears more than 62 percent of the time.
At this point, you are playing with what is essentially guaranteed multi hits. These modifications to weapon profiles bypass normal dice dependent gameplay and pressure durability in a way very few warbands can withstand. It is not just accurate. It is oppressive.
Conclusion
When deciding whether a warband is suited to an aggressive playstyle, it is not enough to look only at raw damage values. What matters is how reliably those attacks can reach the Save Breakpoint. Any warband can hit hard when the dice fall kindly, but only some can apply damage reliably.
Warbands built around Hammer attacks have a clear advantage here. Their baseline accuracy means they are naturally more capable of reaching two hits without leaning heavily on ploys or positioning. Once you add modest support in the form of rerolls or Flanked, these already strong profiles begin to reach the Save Breakpoint with regularity. This is where a warband starts to feel truly threatening.
Sword‑based warbands are perfectly capable of being aggressive, but they need more help to do it consistently. They often require either more dice, more support or rerolls before they can reliably reach the Save Breakpoint.
If your goal is to play aggressively and apply damage from the very first activation, look for fighters who begin with strong accuracy. Fighters with 3 Hammers or those who can reach that profile with Inspiration stand out because they are the ones who cross the Save Breakpoint most consistently. They are the fighters who threaten enemy fighters, even when they have strong Saves, and who allow your game plan to function without relying on favourable dice.
Aggressive play is not about damage alone. It is about reliability. It is about reaching the Save Breakpoint often enough that your opponent cannot depend on their Saves to protect them. The more consistently you can reach that point, the more control you exert over the pace of the Aggro game.
I’d love to hear what you think. Does this match your experience on the table, or does your favourite warband surprise you? What do you think should be my next topic of analysis?
Checkout my Warhammer Underworlds for more articles.
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