Some men are hunters, and some of them are pretty dang good at it. When you’re subsisting on a steady diet of fresh kills you butchered yourself, you tend to get pretty jacked. As a result, it’s no wonder that Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers are a Big Boy Flex Warband – check out those triceps! Let’s check those man-traps to see how they have done in the time since we last saw the old ogor, and explore what new and exciting game he’ll be hunting in the Spitewood.

Hint: it’s you. Hrothgron’s Mantrappers are going to be an absolute nightmare to fight. This article will be kind of long since I have a lot to say about the various abilities which are surprisingly big brain for what you’d expect from an ogor. Trappers are supposed to be intelligent, after all.

So that you’re aware, this warband received some 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.

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Click here to see a Master List of all warbands in the game

If you’re interested in hearing a review of the Warband in audio form, we covered them in this Underworlds Underground Podcast Episode

Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers: Lore

This scrappy pack is a Beastclaw Raider and his Frost Sabre companion, as well as a few plucky gnoblars that act as hangers-on. Hrothgorn Man-Trapper, an Icebrow Hunter, once saw a footprint of something huge he’d never seen before, and knew he had to hunt and kill it. He eventually saw the creature, with six short claw-tipped legs and a pelt of thick black fur striped with red, but it dove into a crevice. Wanting the glory of claiming such a kill and the honor of being the greatest hunter of his group, he chased after it and ended up trapped in the Beastgrave, where magical hunger abounds and no true food can be found.

Horthgorn bears a massive Trap-Launcher he uses to snap his targets and reel them in so he can dispatch them with his (also massive) hunting knife, then eat like a king. He’s accompanied by Quiv, who is remarkably intelligent for a gnoblar, able to quickly reload his master’s crossbow and collect the spent bolts. Bushwakka acts as an advance scout and trap-layer, and Luggit and Thwak are literally two toddlers in a trenchcoat, minus the trenchcoat. Thrafnir, Hrothgorn’s longtime Frost Sabre companion, has been there and done that, and is as tough as nails. She also gets to eat some of the scraps on occasion, as a treat.

Hrothgorn and his menagerie have a really well written short story on his hunter’s viewpoint and complete disregard for lesser warbands in the Direchasm anthology. This killer stays on that sigma grindset 25/8, and a boy’s gotta eat. He also ain’t about to let an alpha beast get away from him.

Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers: Warscroll

From the February 2026 Errata:

These both work together to keep your Gnoblars alive longer, as they’re now substantially more difficult to dunk into the trap they just placed. This also allows for some excellent positional play from the Mantrappers player, as well as keeping the minions alive longer with Guard.

Inspire

When your leader carves somebody up with his huge hunting knife (or any melee attack), the whole team inspires since, you know, dinner is served. Of course, if your leader dies before inspiring, the rest of the warband is just SOL. It’s cool that in second edition this no longer requires you to be adjacent, so you can use an upgrade weapon if you want or use a card to extend your range and still qualify.

The bad news is it isn’t ‘an enemy dies adjacent to your leader’ anymore, so you can’t let the trap do the work for you, nor can you pull it off with a ping. He has to do the deed himself.

Everwinter Ambush

Thrafnir can be deployed in nearly any empty hex in enemy territory, rather than in a starting hex on your side. This can potentially be huge – right up in their soft leader’s grill, right next to somebody for a flanking attack right away – or my personal favorite immediately into a Waystone Hex. The Aqua Ghyranis counts as a feature token, but Waystones do not, which means Trafnir can go there and instantly benefit from rerolls as well as block out the opponent from accessing them.

Thrafnir can not only harry people, block things out, and be a general sweaty nuisance like you’re used to with Stalagsquig from Mollog’s Mob, she can also move and charge and do real damage. Most notably, this means she might just be able to drive people back, which is going to be MONDO important as we will see in the next warscroll feature.

Ravenous Traps

Man, I love the word sobriquet. I also love that you get to do this at the start of the first action step. This means that you will know the position of every fighter already. You’ll also know who gets the first turn. Depending on whether you’re about to go or they’re about to go, and where their frontline fighters are sitting/who is on the front line, you can make some very wise and well informed choices.

A well laid trap is going to do great things for you, since, it’s kind of a big deal to do 2 damage as a pseudo-ping. Your opponent isn’t going to enter it willingly, so you can make them take a longer path to get somewhere in your territory like a feature token or to charge into one of your fighters. It even tags fighters with flying, so this thing is a huge hazard!

Considering you have Grapple on your leader’s attack or can sprint Thrafnir in from behind, you just might be able to force somebody into this and an untimely 2 damage if you choose the ‘fives’/wideboard orientation during setup and you place the trap right on the line.

I want to call out something very important. The rule specifies ’empty’ meaning ‘no fighters occupying it and not a blocked hex’. You’ll notice in the above entry for Everwinter Ambush, it specifies Thrafnir must go in an empty hex that does not contain a feature token.

Ravenous Traps has no such restriction. You can place your trap on a treasure token or aqua ghyranis token should you so please. If you think your opponent is going to head into your territory for feature token purposes (Pillage and Plunder/Emberstone Sentinels/Edge of the Knife come to mind), you can make one of those tokens a very bad prospect for them.

Also, should your own fighters get pushed into the trap it bites them too, so be careful.

More Traps

So that trap is awesome, and you probably worked hard to put it somewhere that it would slam somebody for 2 damage. After you did that, the trap is removed. Big bummer, but guess what? You have more traps.

You can chuck another trap down adjacent to any gnoblars you have kicking around if your first one has shattered somebody’s tibia. This is awesome, because it means you can potentially hit people with traps multiple times per game, and the subsequent ones just have to be adjacent to a gnoblar, not necessarily in your own territory.

You can only do this in your power step (i.e. AFTER your own activation), so you can’t drop one and then immediately attack to push somebody into it, giving them the chance to run away. But there are a few nasty plays you can make still:

• Drop your new trap next to somebody who is charged but that enemy isn’t charged out, so they can’t asctivate the fighter who is a sitting duck for your next turn. If you run a gnoblar adjacent to them, you can drop the trap adjacent to both, and you’ll have a flanked attack when you go to shove them into the trap.
• Drop your trap in between you and your prey, and then play Lure of Battle from Blazxing Assault to drag them in all in the same power step.
• Drop your trap near a stagger hex with enemy fighters adjacent/in it, then play Sudden Blast from Countdown to Cataclysm to shove them in
• Drop your trap adjacent to an enemy, and then (from a different fighter thanks to the driveback angles) chuck a ranged attack in the power step at them with Countdown to Cataclysm’s Improvised Attack. Bonus points if the gnoblar is adjacent to the target for flanking purposes
• With the final action in a round, drop a trap adjacent to an enemy, and then cross your fingers to win the priority roll-off for the subsequent round so you get a ‘double turn’ and can push them in unsnaswered.

Filthy. Absolutely disgusting. Obviously, a priority when facing Hrothgorn is to never step on the first trap to prevent this from happening to you. Here’s the thing, though. Hrothgorn’s player could even suicide walk one of their own fighters through your first one to deploy another in enemy territory if you refuse to come to him.

February 2026 Errata gives this ability the change that the placing gnoblar a 1 hex push so they can sidestep away from the trap and be safer. You can use this to get into territories, onto tokens, you name it. You can even sidestep into the trap right after you place it if you really need a gnoblar dead for charged out status or something silly

Surprising Competence

Did I say you had to trigger the trap to get the opportunity to replace it somewhere else? HAHAHAHAHA

Run a gnoblar alongside your trap and leapfrog it in front of them, for FREE. That’s the ability to reposition your trap 2 hexes, which in a crowded midboard can be quite the distance. Then, do any of the aforementioned dirty tricks. I think I’m gonna puke.

February 2026 Errata gives this ability the text that it also places that gnoblar on guard, thus preventing them from being pushed into their own trap AND adding survivability. Quite the potent change for this team!

Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers: Fighter Cards

Hrothgorn Mantrapper

6 health, while Blackpowder sits on 8? There’s no justice in these Underworlds. Two shields inspired though, now that’s a spicy meatball. he has a pretty standard ‘big hitter’ 2 hammers for 3 damage with melee, which you’ll recall is the critical way the warband inspires. You do want to inspire this warband, to pick your target well, and be sure you don’t miss. Staggers, Cleave/Ensnare and flanking fighters will be your friends.

His range 3 is reasonably accurate and comes with grapple, which is just perfect for dragging somebody into your trap should you have the opportunity.

Thrafnir

This thing starts in your back lines, if it wants to. It’s also only 1 bounty, which is pretty great for this statline. With 3 health and 2 dodge, Thrafnir will be harder to put down than your opponents would like, has a pretty solid attack, and inspires to gain cleave for bonus accuracy. If Hrothgorn dies this probably won’t be enough to carry the day for you, but will be a strong piece in most games regardless. 5 move is also huge in second edition, so with the ability to deploy almost anywhere and run faster than anybody else, you cannot hide from this beast.

Quiv

Quiv is a pale shadow of his former self. If you’re gonna dangle somebody as bait, here’s the prime suspect. Put him in a position where they have to run near the trap to kill him and then let his sacrifice be for a glorious outcome. We’ll remember you when we’re roasting manflesh on the victory pyre tonight, old buddy.

Bushwakka

WOW he’s bad uninspired. Once he’s inspired he’s decent – well as decent as you can expect, anyway. 1 sword 1 damage isn’t worth wasting a roll on. 2 swords with ensnare? So you’re telling me there’s a chance. And it even bumps to 2 damage. I would either just sacrifice this guy as a trap caddy (since, you know, he’s the Trap Queen), of hold him back until you’re inspires so he can be helpful.

Luggit and Twack

Three health here means he’s a little harder to put down, and while you’re still only swinging on one dice, at least it’s a hammer. Amazingly they inspire to 4 move also, so Luggit deserves some props. Inspired, they can serve as a mediocre setup piece with 3 swords and stagger so one of your better fighters can finish the job.

In Practice

I did play one game of Nemesis using BA/CC with them and the new Aqua Ghyranis tokens/Waystone Hexes, which didn’t end up affecting the game all that much as Horthgorn was right next to both, and no enemies were dumb enough to get within 1 hex of him. The trap ended up being part of what killed Thrafnir based on some risky deployment, but in the end the Manrtrappers did quite well for themselves, eventually setting up a flanked Hrothgorn strike to inspire, and from that point on it was off to the races. Once Lure of Battle pulled someone into a trap. Another time they were driven back into a trap. Two other times charge lanes were trap-blocked, and finally it came to rest sitting on a treasure token.

Ultimately the warband felt pretty fun, and while most of your eggs were in one Ogre shaped basket, it was a super enjoyable mind game to place and reposition the trap. If you get good at it, and playing against the right warbands, I bet this crew has some serious gas

Potential Pairings

So there are a handful of strategies you could opt to take here, but generally they’re going to involve convincing people to enter your territory so you can trap them, then ideally taking as many pushes as possible that affect enemy fighters so you can shove them into said trap or get Hrothgorn adjacent to the enemy to let him hit in melee without having to charge, and thus get more action out of him.

Since you want the fight to happen on your turf in most cases, Hunting Grounds is a great choice to benefit when that happens.

Blazing Assault and Countdown to Cataclysm have great push effects and will help Hrothgorn’s accuracy and damage output, as well as give you three options for trap triggering in the power step as discussed in the meat of this article.

He and Thrafnir can’t do it all, so you may want to play a little Pillage and Plunder or Emberstone Sentinels so your gnoblars can help out a touch as well as induce your enemies to enter your minefield in order to block your Objective scoring.

It’s likely not their best pairing, but you do begin the game with two tempered fighters, so you could make a play for Edge of the Knife. Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers have a special advantage with this deck because the trap does 2 damage, tempering anybody who steps in it, including your own fighters. Should your opponent refuse to attack your bigger guys in an attempt to deny you Trial of the Tempered or keep you from having more Tempered fighters to activate other cards with, you can make it happen by yourself.

Wrap

Wow. I honestly think I need to play a dozen games with these guys to get a more accurate assessment, but there’s the opportunity for a skilled player to reach astronomical heights with this one. You can set a trap with complete positioning knowledge, drop a pretty decent yet only 1 bounty fighter on their side effectively anywhere you want, and if the warband inspires they’ll be terrifying.

The issue is going to be that it will take a pretty high skill floor to make effective use of their tools, and Hrothgorn himself may not work against some matchups. Can he hold up against a blitz aggro elite trio who headhunt him before he can inspire? Can he deal with a passive opponent who is perfectly fine to longboard/’nines’ the board orientation and chill in their own territory? If the answer to one or both of those is yes, expect to see this warband do quite well in the competitive scene.

Even if he doesn’t turn out to be a top meta threat, he still looks like a lot of fun for enjoyers of the brainy positional flex game, and the models are gorgeous, so A+ all around. Good Hunting!

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Thanks again to Games Workshop for providing me with this product so that I can produce this review content.