Hooo boy, here comes another deck, and what a callback to some fun stuff (and even card reprints!) from first edition. If you liked the accuracy boost from Hungering Parasite, the air hockey slip-n-slide from Breakneck Slaughter, the full-throttle flavor of Tooth and Claw, or the Leader-centric aggro of Toxic Terrors, then our newest entry just might be your style. Let’s see just how wild and crazy life is about to get by reviewing the Raging Slayers Rivals Deck.
So that you’re aware, this deck received a plot card rework in the rules updates in the February 2026 Errata. I’ll comment briefly on the changes later in the article.
Thank you to Games Workshop for providing the page with an advance copy of this product for review and content creation.
Click here for a Master List of every Rivals Deck
Raging Slayers: The Lore
Like Realmstone Raiders, Reckless Fury, and Blazing Assault, this deck continues the theme of ‘Emberstone makes you big mad’. Veins of the ‘Ragerock’ are all over the place beneath the city of Embergard and in the mines we fight over. That’s nothing new. This time, things are a little different, however. Where our other examples showed how people might act aggressively or ever foolishly in its presence due to the mind-clouding and apparently addictive power it has, we now get a glimpse at how use of Emberstone causes bodily and/or spiritual harm.
“By letting the anger ignite, they can survive one more battle, one more hour. They burn to bright that enemies are sent fleeing before them. However, perhaps that is also because a fire will consume anything – even the one who bears it…”
I do appreciate the idea that this resource we are fighting over is dangerous to our foes (why we want it) but also dangerous to us (why this is Warhammer). A few of my favorite flavor text quotes from the deck help bring this theme through:
- “And stay down! Right den – who’s next? Who’s next, ya zoggin’ gitz!” – Morgok
- “He sees me. He sees me! My Red God sees me now!” – Kamandora, Mother of Hate
- “All seeing Teclis, we are in the belly of the beast. Forgive us now for what fury shall see us do” – Myari Lightcaller
- “Trapped in your hole, worm. Good. We have been burning for this” – Kamandora, Mother of Hate
- Long dead though they were, when the Sons of Velmorn gazed upon the raging beast before them, fear still thrilled through their bones
- Through rage, all is narrowed. Everything that you thought important, burned away to ashes
- “It whispers. With every pulse it demands more.” – Morgwaeth the Bloodied
- Emberstone sees a warrior’s most violent urges untrammeled
Overview
Raging Slayers is a Strike deck with a Plot Card that will focus on Rage counters, which allow your fighters to gain the Enraged status. While this is a keyword-gated Plot, you don’t have to take any cards that mention it to see a benefit in Nemesis. This is a real benefit to this deck when comparing to the more recent expansion decks with Plot cards. Edge of the Knife granted people to ability to become Tempered, but it didn’t do anything on its own and you needed to take a substantial portion of relevant cards to benefit from it. Realmstone Raiders allowed you to make a Raid reaction, but unless you also loaded the deck with lots of Emberstone cards, there wasn’t any benefit to taking it. Players who opt to take Raging Slayers are going to see an impact from the Plot card and the Enraged keyword no matter what cards they choose to bring along. That makes deckbuilding conserably more flexible!
Who is this deck for?
As I did when reviewing Edge of the Knife, I’ll evaluate each card in the context of warband composition and model count. Some cards will go better with elite fighters, while others will provide more benefit the more fighters you have around. In general, I think we are going to find that this deck trends in favor of Elites, with some options for Big Boys and Standard warbands who are interested in charging into enemy territory. There are also 3 cards in this deck that specifically mention your leader, so warbands that have durable or strong leaders (or players who are willing to risk it for the biscuit) will have the most compatibility with this deck.
- Elites (3 fighter warbands)
- Big Boys (Warbands with one large fighter and a handful of lesser ones)
- Standard (4-5 fighter warbands with rough equivalence between the models)
- Hordes (6-7 fighter warbands)
I won’t bother with color-coding for Primary, Secondary, or Balanced as I did in Realmstone Raiders, since this Plot mechanic is agnostic to card choices and deck composition.
Plot
Here is the new Plot Card rework from the rules updates in the February 2026 Errata. There are some substantial changes here. I will cover these in red text.
As soon as you pick a friendly fighter to charge (or if they are making an attack while already having a charge token), you can choose to give them a Rage token (as well as one other fighter in the same territory if you’d like). This will grant them the status of Enraged, which lets them access the ability Ragin Strike. Raging Strike allows you to turn any one successful attack die result into a crit. This ability comes at a cost – Enraged fighters also have Poor Footing, which means after an enemy attacks them, if they weren’t driven back or grappled as part of that attack, your opponent MUST push you away from the attacker anyway.
While the ability has the potential to be quite strong for warbands that want to overrun or have critical abilities on their attacks, the drawback of being guaranteed to be driven back hurts smaller warbands more as they’re more likely to want to swing twice after ‘charging out’. If the opponent can guarantee you’re driven back, you’ll need range 2 or 3 to make a second strike, or 4+ models to keep charging all round.
Now that this ability does NOT grant an attack reroll and instead grants the ability to upgrade a success to a critical, this plot card no longer improves attack accuracy as it once did. This is a pretty large change to who enjoys it the most – previously, warbands who needed accuracy boosts and didn’t care about positioning as much liked it. Now, warbands who are hoping to access critical abilities like it, but only if they have some baseline accuracy.
While I would rate this as an across-the-board nerf for this deck that already didn’t see much play, we do get a boon in the same update. The plot card can now grant you enrage tokens on up to 2 fighters per activation, and if a charged fighter lost their rage token thanks to a card, they can get it back if they attack again later. This opens up the ease of scoring many of the objectives in the deck, fixing one of the biggest weak point the deck had. I am not sure the boost in scoring efficiency will offset the reduction in accuracy, but only time will tell.
I previously said this deck is best for Elites or Standard warbands. In the setting of multiple rage tokens per activation, there is far more play for Hordes as well. I’m not going back through to update every card’s ‘who likes this’ at this time, just know the deck appeals to a broader base now.
Surge Objectives
Best Foot Forward
We’ve seen this one before, and it’s a great surge for the most part. Yes, you have to charge into enemy territory and hit, so it’s not as automatic as some Blazing Assault offerings, but RF decks take it nearly every time for a reason. We will have the advantage of rerolls on our melee attacks and won’t be out of position from a plot card driveback during the scoring window.
Who likes this? Everybody
Blinded by Rage
Slay an enemy with an enraged fighter’s melee attack, but they have to have already been enraged before you activated them. So you charge, get enraged, wait until the warband is charged out, then attack again and kill something, all while managing the guaranteed driveback from Poor Footing. We saw an easier version of this in first edition’s Macabre Spectacle from Tooth and Claw, and it was taken very rarely. This one is a hard ask made slightly easier by the ability to get a rage token from a friend’s charge, so this fighter can qualify with their first attack.
Who likes this? Maybe Elites and Big Boys
Coordinated Assault
Every fighter needs to be enraged and in enemy territory. On paper this is easy enough for smaller warband, just charge 3 or 4 times. But remember you need to have chargeable targets in enemy territory AND have not been driven out of that territory. High movement and/or range 2+ will be your friends here, but it isn’t as straightforward as it looks. You will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now though.
Who likes this? Maybe Elites and Standard
No Respite
The window here is after an enemy activation. You need an enraged fighter in every territory. Your opponent will have an action in which they’re guaranteed to drive somebody out of neutral territory should they manage to hurl an attack out there. This is eminently counterplayable, unfortunately. You will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now though.
Who likes this? Nobody, but maybe Standard and Hordes
Sever the Head
You killed the enemy leader with an enraged fighter while holding this card is a whole lot to ask for 1 glory. What if you don’t want to charge? What if you’ve lost Enraged because of a power card? What if you don’t manage to kill their leader? What if you draw this card after the leader is dead? We saw this same surge in first edition, and that’s where it should have stayed.
Who likes this? Nobody
Supreme Slayer
‘Your leader kills their second enemy’ as surge for a disappointing 1 glory (as surges are limited to 1) is rough. Will a strong leader kill two or more fighters in a game? Maybe, depending on your and your opponent’s warbands. Will they do it when you hold this card? Less likely. Will you be happy when you add only 1 glory to your pile? Probably not.
Who likes this? Nobody, but maybe Elites or Big Boys
End Phase Objectives
Aggressive Expansion
3 or more Enraged friendly fighters in enemy territory in an end phase suffers a similar problem as Coordinated Assault. You only need 3, which if you draw this early enough can probably be pulled off with enough eligible targets, but it may be impossible in many games. Then they have to survive and not be driven out, and you can’t play the cool cards that remove Rage tokens however you will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now though, and give some back to people after they’ve lost them through those cards.
Who likes this? Maybe Standard, especially if they’re fast and/or durable
Into the Fire
‘Your leader is in enemy territory and near other fighters’ for 1 glory isn’t the worst card ever, but it feels like too little reward for the risk. Into the Fire bricks if your leader dies, and you’re almost by definition putting them… into the fire… yet only hoping to squeeze one glory out of that risk. You’ll benefit most if you have a tanky leader which enough movement speed to prevent the (guaranteed!) driveback into neutral/your territory and/or enough other fighters to fling into the fray to make sure you have bodies near them. It is probably going to come up in most games though. Please note that this card has an errata to specify you need ‘two or more’ fighters, not exactly 2, so the condition is much easier.
Who likes this? Maybe Everybody
No Contest
An enemy leader is dead for 1 glory. If you’re going to do a ‘leader is slain’ card, this is the timing window for it, with no extra conditions. Sure wish it was worth 2 bounty though.
Who likes this? Maybe Everybody
No Escape
A 2 glory end phase! Great! Everybody needs to be enraged and in enemy territory? Less great, as we’ve discussed in previous cards. You will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now though. Oh, and they can’t have anybody in your territory? Bummer. Another very counterplayable card that you’ll have limited control over.
Who likes this? Nobody, but maybe Elites and Standard
Overwhelming Presence
This is rough considering it has MORE conditions than Strip the Realm, yet provides one less glory. Unless the meta becomes hyper-aggro I can’t see this being a good card to take, since people almost always want to be on a token these days, and you won’t even be able to hold them to stop that since your enraged fighters will slide right off with Poor Footing.
Who likes this? Nobody, sadly
Unrelenting Massacre
Everybody’s charged for 3 is a decent card as we have seen in Reckless Fury. You unfortunately don’t have the same tools to force enemy fighters to charge, so you won’t be able to rely on it as much and a savvy opponent will usually not allow it to score. Sometimes people can’t help themselves, or weight the risk of you scoring this as less than the potential benefit they’ll get by making those charges. Also, Iike to formally welcome you back to the party, Dromm.
Who likes this? Elites and Standard
Quick assessment – you have two 2-glory end phase cards and a 3-glory card. Fortunately, the 3 glory card in Unrelenting Massacre is one we’ve seen before and is scorable, especially if you’re playing Gorechosen or are pairing with Reckless Fury (though you wouldn’t be able to take it from both decks). The two 2-glory cards are far less reliable than I’d like though, so this is not a great glory spread for competitive players. The real question is: Can you make good use of the Enrage tools or the Plot Card Reroll to score out high-glory cards from other decks and/or offset that with enough bounty?
Ploys
Adrenaline Rush
Remove stagger tokens from 2 Enraged Friendlies is a decent enough ability, but how often do you have two stagger tokens you want to remove? This deck only hands them out to your fighters with a couple of cards, so you won’t have an abundance of staggers to clear, and your chance of combo-ing with the right card draw is low. Meta call, but it probably won’t make my decks.
Who likes this? Nobody
Honed Reflexes
Well, butter my biscuits. All round, reroll 1 defense dice, every time you roll defense. This is phenomenal, and stacks with other defensive rerolls if you have 2+ defense dice. This card is going to get Restricted down the line, mark me. You will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now, allowing you to have defensive rerolls even on fighters who haven’t charged yet.
Who likes this? Everybody
Knife to the Heart
Every deck needs a ping apparently, and here’s the one RS is bringing. Drop your Rage token and ping an adjacent enemy who isn’t vulnerable. Relatively underwhelming in all honesty – you need those rage tokens to score your cards for the most part. Is one non-lethal damage worth that opportunity cost? You’ll at least stop being on auto-driveback though. You can give a rage token to a friend who is in position and drop it again with this ping, so it’s pretty flexible after the plot card update.
Who likes this? Maybe Everybody with a nod towards Hordes with lower damage reliability
Murderlust
You missed with your charge, even though you had a reroll! For the rest of the round, your friends get +1 dice against that target. Nice reliability boost and the all-round persistence makes it great. When something simply must die, this card is going to do a lot for your prospects. Burn it on a high-defense leader like Borgit and watch ’em squirm.
Who likes this? Everybody
Senseless Haste
+1 move in the next action turn, and stagger whoever moved afterward. Useful for making that charge that was just out of reach, or for getting one hex deeper to make the driveback out of enemy territory more challenging. Stagger isn’t the best condition to carry, however, and if you’re a warband that has multi-moves you’ll suffer twice. There’s a place for it, especially if you’re slow, but I’d be cautious.
Who likes this? Maybe Everybody
Slayer’s Aid
Grab an enraged fighter who is not your leader and push them up to 3 so they end adjacent to that leader. This card can set up flanking fighters for your leader which is great, but more importantly it can bring them back into the party if they’ve been driven out of enemy territory, for example. Play it right and they’ll be positioned to take a charged-out swing on whatever your leader just charged at. It’s a dead card if your leader is down, and situational, but push 3? Hard to go wrong. You will appreciate being able to hand tokens out easier now as this means way easier to have an eligible fighter pushed, AND they can potentially charge from this new position.
Who likes this? Everybody
Slayer’s Arena
A domain that staggers anybody who misses an attack. You’re going to hit more often than your opponent with the rerolls build into the plot card, so most of the time this hurts your opponent more than you. If you’re particularly high-defense, with 2 dice (especially 2 shields) and/or rerolls, this gets even better for you. Still risky though!
Who likes this? Maybe Everybody
Venting Strike
+1 attack on top of the Enrage reroll is pretty nice, and is a great accuracy benefit for a single Ploy. It does remove your rage token after the fact, so you’ll lose Poor Footing and get to stay where you landed more reliably, but you’ll also no longer be Enraged and thus might have more trouble scoring cards.
Who likes this? Standard the most, as they can still get multiple Engaged fighters after losing this. Maybe for Everybody else, who will either struggle to get enough rage, really want to hold on to their rage, or not benefit as much from the + dice.
What Pain?
Incredible. A heal 2 with unlimited range! It comes at the cost of a stagger (you might get hit again) and losing your rage tokens (harder to score stuff), but it also means you don’t have Poor Footing anymore. Lots of people will take this for the healing potential alone, but if this is a secondary deck for you and Enrage isn’t critical for your Objectives, it’s basically an auto-include. Since you pick ‘up to 2’, you could even just heal your last standing fighter, so it doesn’t even have the brick potential.
The funniest part is Stalagsquig, who cannot move, and therefore cannot be picked to charge, is on the card. The only fighter in the game who can’t benefit from it. You can now give him a rage token, but it’s still funny.
Who likes this? Everybody
Wrong-Footed Stance
A domain that says if something goes into a stagger hex, it gets a move token on top of the stagger token. There’s a world where you are jamming drivebacks and pushes into staggers all day, and your opponent becomes afraid to use Canny Sapper or something, but it seems pretty niche. And it directly works against Unrelenting Massacre, which seems internally conflicted.
Who likes this? Nobody
Yeesh, 3 Domains. At least only one of them (Honed Reflexes) is going to be a frequent pick with some people opting in to Slayers Arena, so you likely won’t have to make tough choices mid-round in Nemesis.
Upgrades
Agile
Great elsewhere, and great here. Defensive rerolls are always handy, and if you happen to have two save dice, this stacks with Honed Reflexes.
Who likes this? Everybody
Aggressive Ambusher
Cleave and Ensnare, if you should so happen to be enraged and having a flanking fighter. Not a bad accuracy boost, but since you’re enraged anyway you get a reroll, and you have a flanking fighter – how much more do you need? That flanking fighter will be harder than usual to set up since they’re probably being driven back with Poor Footing. At best you’re getting this benefit once or twice and it probably isn’t worth the slot.
Who likes this? Nobody
Angered Swing
A weapon upgrade, we love those! 3 swords 2 damage is pretty solid, and while you have to be enraged to use it, you were going to be anyway. The reroll lets you reroll all 3 dice, but you have to reroll all 3 if you opt for it. I haven’t math-ed it out, but I’m going to guess this is still awesome for minions and other lil’ guys. One thing to note is that while the Plot card lost the reroll, this card still has the same ability. You CANNOT change one of the results of this attack to a crit, they must reroll all three dice instead. Weird!
Who likes this? Big Boys and Hordes
Assured Bloodshed
When enraged, you gain grapple and brutal. Grapple is a pretty cool situational tool, though none of this deck’s cards particularly care about it. Brutal is OK, but also situational. This card might end up mattering in a big way, but most games it won’t. Probably pass.
Who likes this? Nobody
Gifted Vitality
Ah, good to see you again, old friend. 2 glory for an end-of-round heal is a fair price. If this comes out in round 1, you can potentially heal the fighter 3 times across the game, though it’s very unlikely for that end-of-game heal to be meaningful. Regardless, most warbands have a fighter they’d really like to keep around, and this card is tailor-made for them. The Big Boy who has to do all the work, the Elite leader who will be at risk for cards, the Standard heavy hitter who will be a priority target, or the Horde leader who activates the warscroll abilities all want this equipped early and often.
Who likes this? Everybody
Haymaker
LOOK OUT! +2 damage! what a bonkers card. Thankfully it must use attacks on the fighter’s profile and not weapon upgrades, cannot exceed 4 damage, breaks after use, and requires a Runemark so you can’t stack it with Cleave or anything. Despite all of that, you want this card. Glad to see an old buddy with a new haircut.
Who likes this? Everybody
Keen Eye
Mo’ dice, mo’ glory. Sleeve it right now.
Who likes this? Everybody
Murderous Instincts
A much more reasonable take on a first edition Tooth and Claw card, this one occupies a cool design space. Grievous is good, but this one requires you charge. The fighter can ONLY charge, so if they’re your last fighter, activation one you charge, and then you’re done. It also only works on range 1 attacks that are on the fighter’s card (not weapon upogrades). That’s a lot of drawback that probably makes it harder to include for most warbands, but if you have a fire-and-forget fighter and aren’t getting to charged-out second attacks that often, why not grab another grievous?
Who likes this? Hordes and maybe Standard and Big Boys (but only for their lil’ guys)
Stubborn to the Bone
Another updated callback from first edition’s Tooth and Claw, this card allows an enraged fighter to be immune to pushes and staggers. This turns off the worst part of your plot card, which is awesome! You will also not have to be staggered when you heal that stubborn boi with What Pain? and that’s just juicy.
Who likes this? Everybody, but especially Elites
United in Anger
This upgrade grants you the Rally Together reaction which lets you push the equipped fighter 1 hex closer to another friendly fighter after they’re pushed while enraged. This potentially lets you get back into charged out swinging range, or score some positional ‘enraged fighters are in these places’ objectives, but it’s not the most reliable. I’d wager in most builds this doesn’t see much benefit.
Who likes this? Nobody
Flavor Count
Elites: 1 Surge (3 maybe), 1 End Phase (3 maybe), 4 Ploys (4 maybes), 5 Upgrades.
Between 11-21 of the 32 cards are good for them
Big Boys: 1 Surge (2 maybe), zero End Phases (2 maybe), 4 Ploys (4 maybes), 6 Upgrades (1 maybe)
Between 11-20 of the 32 cards are good for them.
Standard: 1 Surge (2 maybes), 1 End Phase (4 maybes), 5 Ploys (4 maybes), 5 Upgrades (1 maybe)
Between 12-23 of the 32 cards are good for them
Hordes: 1 Surge (1 maybe), zero End Phases (2 maybes), 4 Ploys (4 maybes), 7 Upgrades
Between 12-19 of the 32 cards are good for them.
In Practice
I played a Rivals game, pairing Raging Slayers with Knives of the Crone against Ironsoul’s Condemnors with Blazing Assault. I won’t lie, it was disgustingly good which surprised me a lot. Sure, the Objective cards aren’t that great, and many power cards aren’t too good either. Despite this, I scored nearly every Objective, tabled the stormcast, and won 21-6. The plot card granting rerolls to melee attacks made my offense much more reliable, which made prophesizing much more reliable, which granted a higher change of defensive rerolls. I was hitting almost every attack, and was getting hit less often than I should. When I rolled Crit Grievous as my prophecy, the reroll on attacks also let that happen more easily.
I healed 5 points of damage across the game with an early application of Gifted Vitality on my leader as well as What Pain? which allowed me to end the game with all 4 of my fighters alive and all three Condemnors out of action. It was Rivals, and just one game, but that’s absurd.
Two more test games went down in the Nemesis Format with BA/RS and Ironsoul’s Condemnors. The first was into Mollog with BA/RF. The troll was slain within 5 activations, with Ironsoul winning 19-12. The rerolls helped to inspire, and the Honed Reflexed domain helped those two shields on defense hold firm. The second was into Kamandora’s Blades with BACC, and despite reolls the Condemnors had atrocious dice, were out-positioned by the fast Blades with great push tech, and lost 18-9. I still doubt they would lose a best of 3 – the RS plot card goes gangbusters.
Lessons learned:
This Plot Card is fantastic, and arguably too good. The downside of a guaranteed driveback is relatively minimal unless you’re trying to block Strip the Realm – and in that case you might just score Overwhelming Presence anyway. The capacity for a reroll on every fighter that can charge grants a massive benefit to warbands with high speed/ranged attacks to force charging out, warbands with high damage characteristics, and warbands who ‘need to hit’ for their warscroll abilities to take effect. There’s some internal balancing when you compare the relatively low strength of the objective deck in Rivals, but in Nemesis? You can take this plot card, maybe 5-15 cards from this deck, and pair it with a relatively self-sufficient deck like Blazing Assault or Pillage and Plunder. You’ll never miss an attack again. I worry we are going to see a lot of 3 fighter elites or 4×4 statballs spitting BA/RS at top tables for the next couple of months.
At least Pillage/Cataclysm might finally go away.
Wrap
The Pros:
- Charging is fun, and getting crits is fun. You’ll get to do both with this deck.
- This deck lets warbands that have innate crit ablities on their fighter cards (or crit benefits on the warscroll) enjoy a much more reliable access to those.
- Guaranteeing a push after an attack against an enraged fighter isn’t a huge negative to the RS player necessarily, but it does open up positional scoring for their opponent, giving a boost to things that really want enemies in/not in certain hexes like Emberstone Sentinels, Edge of the Knife, or Wrack & Ruin. While I expect meta presence of RS to be quite high, it should also promote other lesser-seen decks as counter-tech and shake up the deck distribution in more ways than one.
The Cons:
- Th
e Plot Card is crazy. Just crazy. Any fighter who charges gets a melee reroll at any melee range. First edition’s Hungering Parasite made you and adjacent fighters staggered, so you had to be adjacent to get the reroll, got a reroll against you too, only worked on the one parasite fighter and oh yeah, you couldn’t inspire. That plot card was arguably too good, and this one is undeniably better. - The Objective cards be bad. Balancing for Nemesis this is the right thing to do. Handing this deck to a new player for their first few games (because who doesn’t like to hit and kill things) might sound like a good idea, but they’ll be all over the place trying to score their cards. Alternatively, the newbie just doesn’t try to score and plays the Slay All Day, Bae game, which isn’t very good for learning/skill development.
- I have a VERY long discussion article coming on this in a little over a week, but they tried to make a leader-centric deck and I think they missed the mark. I applaud the effort, I really do. I just wished for more.
So who is this deck for, actually?
Every warband archetype has a relatively solid card choice – 11 or 12 good options and 7-11 more ‘reasonable to include’ options in this card mix by my assessment. However, I think this deck meshes best with Standard warbands, especially those with 4 fighters, as they can score Enraged things most reliably. Elites are definitely a solid option as well, particular if they have range 2+ attacks available.
I’d be somewhat cautious about Big Boys because you can’t get Enrage unless you charge, making your usual ‘Standing Attack/Push/Activate your Chungus 4 times per round’ strategy fall flat with this Plot Card. I’d beware of Hordes as well, despite these decent numbers, because for them it’s heavily skewed toward the power deck. You’ll need a lot of help from your other pairing in the Objective department.
Suggested Warbands
Ironsoul’s Condemnors – A. B. C. Nearly guaranteed crits, which help you inspire. Being pushed back hurts less since you have a +1 range warscroll ability. Your leader kicks tail. Go get ’em, soldier.
Skinnerkin – Rejoice, ye wretched fools! Reliable haunch generation is back on the menu.
Sons of Velmorn – With many fighters having crit grievous, you’ll appreciate a huge improvement in damage output by forcing crits.
Thorns of the Briar Queen can put out lots of charge tokens with their warscroll and now that the plot card lets them spread rage, can actually be quite good with this deck due to their ability to reposition. The queen loves the crit for her attacks too- just beward it may be harder to inspire if you keep getting bumped away.
Morgok’s Krushas are uniquely well positioned to score this deck’s objectives, and Thugg is always happy for some crit grievous to pop off.
The Shadeborn have some crit grievous abilities on their attacks that you’d like to see land, and love the ABC playstyle with an added ping.
Skittershank’s Clawpack has access to crit grievous where it counts and is accurate enough to enjoy the benefits here.
Blood of the Bull have several critical attack abilities and are quite accurate, though beware you’ll get pushed off your tokens and have a harder time generating Deamonforge
Beware/Potentially Avoid:
Jaws of Itzl – Kro-Jax was smiling, until he remembered the Venomites. Did you know Poor Footing overrides Obstinate? And they’ll always drive you back outside of Savage Mauling adjacency, which you can’t use after charging anyway.
Daggok’s Stab-Ladz – you want to be making move actions or pushing for Krule Stab. This deck wants the opposite.
Suggested Deck Pairings
Blazing Assault is the no-brainer choice. This deck incentivizes you to charge, and makes you more likely to hit. BA gives you more accuracy and damage on top of that, rewards your successful attacks, and has 3 dice-based Surges that would love a reroll. Great Speed and Wings of War help you make charges and Enrage. The driveback from Poor Footing can be mitigated by Sidestep and Lure of Battle. The power card deck is so strong you really can drop pretty much all of the stuff from RS you don’t like and not lose any sleep over it.
Pillage and Plunder has a nearly complete Objective deck, so if you don’t want many of the RS offerings, this is a good option for some, especially for Hordes. You’ll then have to make some tough choices between charging and delving, so your warband might want to come with range 2-3 attacks – unless you’re dropping most of the Enraged objectives to begin with.
Reckless Fury has some overlap with ABC/Always Be Charging, so in some sense you can kill two birds with one charge, so to speak. However, Best Foot Forward and Unrelenting Massacre are two of the best Objectives in this pairing and are duplicated in both decks, but you can’t take both copies. Additionally, you’ll need to be aware that you become enraged “when you pick a friendly fighter to charge” NOT when they have a charge token. That means any of the ‘surprise, add a charge token’ cards from RF will not enrage your fighters. While Headcase and Catch Weapon are nice for RF, they don’t play as well with RS.
Avoid/Caution
Emberstone Sentinels is likely a poor choice as you need to avoid rage tokens to prevent drivebacks, so it’s hard to get an optimal action for both decks at the same time. Wrack & Ruin has some potential, but since your opponent can push you at will, you’ll have a hard time scoring Stay Close and Spread Out; at that point it becomes hard to justify WnR.
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With all that said, thanks for reading Spent Glory’s third Deck Preview. What do you think of the deck, and who do you plan to test it with first? What other Rivals Decks might you try it with in Nemesis? Let me know by commenting wherever you found this or by emailing SpentGlory@gmail.com – and don’t forget to Spend your Glory!
Thanks again to Games Workshop for providing me with this product so that I can produce this review content.
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