Hey gang! Today I wanted to talk about a way to leverage the new Raging Slayers deck with some lesser-taken stuff. If you want to explore the deck with me, I’ve found some early success with Morgok and RF and think it opens up some fun approaches to play with.

Pretty quickly the community has come to the conclusion that RS pairs best with Pillage and Plunder. It’s hard to argue against it, since PP has a nearly complete objective package and the RS objectives are generally bad across the board. If you take that pairing with a flex warband that has inbuilt mobility and/or range 2 melee attacks, you’re probably going to do pretty well for yourself. BA stacks more accuracy and damage but doesn’t solve your Objective problems. Wrack has a similar issue (though I have had fun with it). Reckless Fury has a handful of bad Objectives of its own, and with duplication of their better ones across both RF and RS (Best Foot Forward and Unrelenting Massacre) it can be hard to justify taking that pairing when PP is… right there.

That’s all well and good, but in the interest of trying something different and not playing yet another PP-centric objective deck, I branched out and tried a few other pairings. The Dexamples article over on Staggerers paired RF/RS with Gorechosen, and you can certainly read their justification here which looks lethal enough, but it’s yet more Dromm. This is just my perception, Morgok’s Krushas are both criminally underrepresented in the meta and have a unique ability to leverage RF/RS. If you want to take it for a spin, please do! I bet you’ll have a laugh and half like I have.

Krushas RF/RS

Before I dive too hard into the card choices, I want to address the elephant in the room – the Objectives from these two decks don’t have a lot of smooth combinations for most warbands. Sure, you’ll probably kill lots of stuff, but can you also score cards while doing it? I’ll argue that Morgok and the boyz can, thanks in part to their raw power and a few warscroll tricks they have up their sleeves.

Why Krushas?

I waxed poetic about how generally cool Krushas are back in January which you can read here, but I’ll cover their special fit with RF/RS in this article.

First things first – the fighter stats are pretty good. Two of your fighters inspire to two shields, so you’ll eventually get durability online and can keep brawling when other elites might not be able to keep up. Additionally, once inspired all three of your fighters can access 3 damage – ‘Arskull does so flat, Morgok gets Grievous, and Thugg gets Crit Grievous, which is much more reliable with built-in rerolls from the plot card. ‘Ardskull also has a range 2 attack, so even if pushed back you can still probably swing at something and keep the party music bumping. No matter which fighter you lose, you’ll still have tools to lay the hurt on the opposing warband.

Morgok himself is also a heck of a leader. Since RS makes an attempt at being a Leader-Centric Rivals Deck you’ll benefit from taking a bruiser with 5 health getting up to 2 shields, with huge accuracy and great damage potential. You’ll need a leader who can get into the fray and survive while taking a few heads himself, and, you know, Morgok has a handful of them tied to his belt already.

Second, the warscroll ability Get a Move On, Ya Gitz! has always been good, but is even better than usual for this pairing. It’s usable in a power step if Morgok lives, grants him a charge token (so you can charge out if he’s poorly positioned) and pushes your other fighters 1-3 hexes. It’s great for those usual reasons (as I detailed in my Rivals Deck Review from LVO) but grants you some additional benefits in the RF/RS Objective landscape. Multiple cards in RS want your fighters to be enraged in enemy territory, but your ladz are slow and will be driven back when enraged. Just push them back in or push them forward to allow them to reach where they need prior to their charge! You’re charged out and out of range to swing again, which you’ll need for scoring some RS cards? Get a Move On! You want to stand on a token for Sally Forth? Get a Move On! You can be where you need more reliably, and charge out earlier if need be for a surprise swing (with a fighter who was already enraged, no less).

It’s more niche, but their other warscroll abilities come in handy here too. Ded ‘Ard lets you stagger an enemy after you get hit for more rerolls, but really the juice here is in the Guard token. RF has the generally dumpster surge Living Bludgeon, but if you time it right, you can score this very easily with Morgok’s Krushas, having a Charge token and a Guard token without wasting activations or begging for a good card draw. It sadly won’t prevent the push from the RS plot card’s Poor Footing, but with how weak the RF/RS surge package is you’ll take what you can get. If you’ve dropped your Rage token with a card or never enraged in the first place (you fool!), the guard will even help you score positional stuff.

Shut It, Pipsqueak is always good, but especially so when you need to prevent an enemy’s surprise push to escape your reach. Not explicitly better for RF/RS than other cards, but you’ll rarely be sad to have access to it.

The Deck

Wunderworlds.Club link

This isn’t a refined deck by any means, but I have won all three times I played with it. Below I will cover a handful of the cards I took in each category, describing why Morgok is better positioned to score them than other warbands using RF/RS, or why the power cards might work better with this pairing than others.

Card Assessment

Surge Objectives

Coordinated Assault asks you to have all of your fighters enraged and in Enemy Territory. Krushas only have three, and with a warscroll push for two fighters have the capacity to get back in if your opponent think they’ve shut you out.

Living Bludgeon is a card that most warbands don’t like. A Guard Token and a Charge token requires you to charge, then get guard though a card (if you’re lucky to have it in hand when needed), or by ‘wasting’ an activation to take a Guard action after charging out. I’d argue ‘take an action and gain one glory’ is a decent option in many cases, but wouldn’t it be nice not to need to? The ability Ded ‘Ard lets you take a guard token when you take damage. Eventually (except in the game where I played into Sepulchral Guard), this is going to happen.

Sally Forth was a card many RF/RS warbands would not take, but Morgok can pull it off. For the same reason the built-in guard option on Ded’ Ard that helps us score Living Bludgeon, you can potentially tack that guard token onto somebody who has made it to a feature token and make sure you stay there, so long as you’re not Enraged. I almost always choose to Enrage, but you could opt not to for this specific score (probably with Morgok since he’s so accurate anyway), or use a card to remove the rage token. You could also push onto tokens with Get a Move On if need be.

Blinded by Rage is a little more scorable for Krushas because you have a decent Range 2 attack out of ‘Ardskull, and the push from Get a Move On if you need to close in with a range 1 to get that kill. with an Enraged fighter. It’s still pretty bad, but does feature Morgok on the card, so there’s some extra gravy there. It was hard to take this and not Vicious Brawl (I mean, it has Thugg in that photo), but I’m so rarely underdog that I found Blinded By Rage a little easier to score – especially since staying bunched up is hard when enraged. I could easily see this card swap being made though.

Frenzied Rush is criminally easy with a 3-bounty fighter to charge with, and Best Foot Forward is great, but even better if you get a reroll on the attack to up the odds of being successful and scoring.

End Phase Objectives

Into the Fire is better than average because Morgok has 5 health, gets up to two shields, and the deck gives his access to multiple heals and defensive rerolls, as well as Bladecatcher. You can push friends in closer with Get a Move On if needed, though I sometimes find he killed everything near him and then can’t score this.

Unrelenting Massacre can be a tough score in some matchups (even for Dromm) but with your ability to tack a charge token on Morgok with Get a Move on you can escape being out of position a little better. The deck includes Reckless Attitudes and Catch Weapon to help get some on your opponents if need be as well.

Arena Mortis and Bloody Momentum might be tough in RF/RS than in other RF pairings because of Poor Footing. Good Thing Morgok has access to charge tokens and pushes with Get a Move On as well as a Guard token with Ded ‘Ard if you’re not enraged, anyway.

I didn’t take Bloodbathed Rampager but Morgok has a charge token built into Get a Move On if you wanted to give him two to score it. You could argue including Aggressive Expansion because of the push as well, but if you lose even a single fighter it becomes a dead card. More scorable for Morgok than other Elites, though.

Ploys

What Pain is effectively a must-take, but with 3 thicc bois you can benefit from the heal more than most. Removal of Rage Tokens can actually be a good thing for territory/position/token occupancy, and if you took Bloody Momentum, Arena Mortis, Into the Fire, and Sally Forth it’s actually a good thing, so it’s even better for RF than other RS partners.

Diving In is a nice positional tool in RF anyway, but with RS and the guaranteed Poor Footing push you’ll be even happier for it to close back on the enemy who pushed you, or get over to somewhere else. Morgok likes is more than others because of the ability to give Charge Tokens with Get a Move On and the associated push which could chain with this card.

Slayer’s Aid similarly creates an interesting opportunity for Morgok. 3 hexes is a huge push range, but the fighter has to already be enraged and has to land next to the leader. What if you could then push away from the leader with Get a Move On, charge out, and swing again with that enraged fighter immediately? You could also push before this card with Get a Move On and/or Diving in to chain lots of pushes together, and everybody loves that.

Push Through is great on any 3-fighter elite, but nicer in the RS pairing since you have access to more healing to make up for the damage drawback, and more incentive to be able to charge again since Poor Footing will push you away from your targets.

Upgrades

Haymaker is as usual a must-take, but Morgok’s Krushas benefit a little more than some other Elites because so many of their attacks are 2 damage or 2+ grievous. Only ‘Ardskull Inspired hits flat 3, and his range 2 still only does 2 and you’ll need to use that more often with the RS driveback.

Senseless Haste is nice for any warband who needs to charge but struggles with move 3 like Krushas. But getting a stagger token, is that worth it? Maybe not for some warbands, but like, Krushas stay yelling ‘come at me bro’. You need more Waagh tokens? Bait them into swinging at you.

Gifted Vitality works best on fighters with more health, and you’ve got plenty of those. You’re more survivable than many other elites with access to 2 shields on two fighters, and while any RS pairing is going to get the extra durability from Agile, Honed Reflexes, and What Pain, you have the added benefit in the RF pairing of adding Bladecatcher to the mix. These all combine to give you a little more milage out of a decent card than usual.

United in Anger is the special case I really wanted to cover for this section, however. The card grants you a push on the upgraded fighter, towards any enraged fighter who gets pushed. In RS itself, it can be useful for a bit of push/pull when Poor Footing knocks a guy back, forces the opponent to think about what direction they push the enraged fighter, and so on, so it’s not a bad choice for most RS. It’s an even better choice if you have move 3 like Krushas, since that can get you into charge range with that last fighter. Doubly so if you’re taking RF along with it and getting other push cards such as Diving In like I did (and if you’re wild enough to take Bellowing Tyrant). It’s even better still if you have access to Morgok’s Get a Move On. If Morgok himself has this upgrade, you can push one enraged friend, then push Morgok closer to them, then push the pother enraged friend and push Morgok closer to that guy next. That’s four pushes for one ability if combo’d with this card. Add Slayer’s Aid to the mix and you have tons of opportunities to push somebody around a bunch, and if that guy is ‘Ardskull he can even swing around at range 2 while ping-ponding between his two teammates as they’re pushed.

Wrap

What do you think? Is RF/RS dead in the water and we should all just settle for another release cycle of pillaging and plundering? Or does the RF/RS pairing have legs? Are there better warbands out there than Morgok for giving it a try? I’d love to hear your takes on the deck, the pairing, the warband, and any other options you’re thought of/tried out.

Whatever deck you’re playing, and whatever warband you’re jamming with, I hope you enjoy Spending your Glory out there in the Embergard tables.