Howdy friends! Today I’m going to look at some of the least-taken, most garbage Upgrades the game has to offer. While part of this exercise was to have a ha-ha laugher on some lunch breaks at work, I also think it can work as a bit of a meta commentary and maybe even a wish-list for a future rules update. Most of these cards could become reasonably playable with minor tune ups, and in some cases actually become quite good.

We as a community, we have to admit, spend a lot of time whinging about things we think are “overpowered” “needing a nerf” in a given rules update. But there’s more than one way to balance a game, and one of those ways is to bring up the bottom rather than just knocking down the top. It also gives Nemesis players more useful options, more personalization, more choice. I like those things. Let’s focus on that.

I plan to run down the 13 ‘worst upgrades’ I could find, including at least one from each Rivals deck. I originally was only going to do one per deck, but as you’ll see, some of these cards I just simply couldn’t ignore. I’ll tell you why I hate them, and if possible, I’ll suggest a few things that might bring the card up to par. Then, if anybody from the rules team is reading, maybe they can tip the scales on a subsequent rules update? Pretty please? Can we un-dumpster these cards, but keep the fire?

OK, on to the clickbait Listicle, you cretins.

13 – Murderous Instincts: Raging Slayers

On first blush this is awesome! A 1-glory Great Strength? Sign me up! However, it doesn’t apply to upgrades, just printed attacks. That’s OK, though, still cool right? Well the problem is, you have to charge. That’s ALL they can do. “Well I’m playing RS, I’m doing that anyway”, you say. Yes, and now that fighter cannot attack again for the rest of the round. There go multiple Objective scoring conditions in the same deck. Driven to a bad spot? No move actions for you! Man it would be a real shame if you weren’t able to have an enraged fighter in a given territory because you paid for this Upgrade.

I’m including this somewhat facetiously because it’s not hot garbage per se but in so, SO many situations you’ll be mad that you applied it to your fighter. If you were able to take other core actions at a penalty like spending more glory, taking damage, or something, then it’s potentially more valuable.

12 – Stubborn to the End: Emberstone Sentinels

While the effect is actually pretty awesome for Take and Hold, it’s only awesome if it triggers. Which isn’t super often. Why not just take a card that prevents them from hitting you in the first place? Maybe something that prevents drive-backs altogether? Why not give this card this effect AND a ‘roll some dice to see if you’re not driven back’? I play ES in Rivals pretty often so I’ve had the opportunity to test this card, and I cannot recall a time it has ever actually benefitted me.

11 – Misfortune: Wrack and Ruin

Ah, after I take an action, I can hurt myself. If I needed to be damaged when or before I did something, like, say Dread Pageant might, well that’s too dang bad. Gorechosen would love to take the damage in a power step before they attacked to get a blood tithe and maybe an inspire. You wouldn’t even be vulnerable yet after your charge with a Farstriders fighter to use their needlessly impossible Vanguard ability. The uses cases are just so few.

The silver lining is it’s zero glory and you can pass the hot-lava potato to a friend after you self ping, so you can more reliably score a few Wrack and Ruin Objective cards. The cards you probably only took in Rivals because you had to. Which is why you only see this card in Rivals… when you have to. And it’s a shame, because the art goes hard in the paint.

If this card let you damage whenever, say, in a power step, it might be ok. If you had a way to take mandatory damage after an action and pass it to an ENEMY fighter within 2 hexes or something, now there’s a sick AF control card that’s also thematic. I mean, it’s a Misfortune, right? Sure would be misfortunate to have this dumped on your key fighter by your opponent, and could go a long way to making Wrack and Ruin actually useful for more playstyles.

10 – Shared Incentive: Deadly Synergy

Your leader gets +1 move. Then, if somebody starts a move adjacent to them, they also get +1 move. Presumably to leave the leader’s adjacency though, and potentially un-unite themselves and/or that leader. What deck is this in again? Head-scratcher for anybody besides Kainan, really, and even then I’m probably not buying. Plus, draw this with a dead leader and you’ll shake your head and sigh. Two glory for this? You know Great Speed costs zero. First Edition’s Conqueror’s Circlet from Daring Delvers was substantially better than this and still didn’t get played super often.

This one should lose the leader restriction and just work for the bearer plus any adjacent friendlies, AND also only cost 1 glory. It wouldn’t make the card amazing or anything, but you might actually see it played.

9 – True Grit: Hunting Grounds

Hey let’s all swarm our own leader, and this will help our defense! This card really only helps warbands that already want to be bunching up around the leader and works much better when you defend naturally on dodges. Who are those warbands? Do they really exist? Kainan I guess, and in niche scenarios Exiled Dead and Briar Queen. But then they have to be playing Hunting Grounds, and can I just say lol, lmao even. Worse, your opponent can just target the leader and drive them away and ruin the whole thing anyway, since the leader themself doesn’t benefit. And it’s dead if the leader is dead. And it’s two glory. YUCK

You can fix this card a dozen different ways – Let it apply to the bearer as well. Or reduce the glory cost. Or remove the leader restriction. Or extend it to fighters within 2 hexes. Or all of these so long as the fighters are in friendly territory. As it is, you’ll never see it hit the table.

8 – Tough: Blazing Assault

Let’s spend 2 glory to prevent 4+ damage in a turn. Wait, how many fighters can dish 4+ damage? Just a handful? Well, what about the power step? Oh, it would only apply to the one power step immediately following their action, so they can still ping you, then move to the next turn, and charge you. 3 damage is still enough to scare almost any fighter. The number of times this is useful is very low, and the cost is so very high. Did you know Grandfather’s Gardeners get this on four of their fighters for free, and the cap is reduced 2 damage?

This card could limit damage to 2 (and possibly break after it does), or it could cost less glory. As it stands it’s a waste even on somebody like Mollog. What if you said this fighter can’t take more than, say 4-5 damage in an entire round? NOW we’re cooking with gas. That sounds like a 3-glory upgrade right there though.

7 – Spurred Momentum: Deadly Synergy

This one’s a stinker. After you SUCCEED on an attack and only if you were united at the time AND if you had this upgrade already applied to them, you can remove this fighter’s MOVE and STAGGER tokens, and then discard this upgrade. To see this card as worth including in your deck, you need to have a move token or a stagger token and care about its removal. Why am I taking move actions as a DS player? This is basically worthless as an upside (unless you’re pairing with Pillage and Plunder, or some very special warbands like Kainan or Exiled Dead), and has some difficult restrictions, and you can only do it once. I’d say you’re almost definitely leaving this at home.

This one didn’t fall all the way to the bottom because there do exist a few ‘give your opponent a move token’ options out there that are backbreaking, and on a select range 2-3 fighter you can make use this to clear those and get to charge later. IF you were United at the time. Jeez Louise.

You want to fix this card? Remove the success condition for the attack. Or remove the United requirement. Or maybe remove both. I still wouldn’t take it. There has to be something more beneficial this card can do.

6 – Armour Piercer: Realmstone Raiders

You have to spend two glory before you make an attack. You need to draw. Guess how often that happens!? Then your damage must be higher than their save dice. With how many 2-defense fighters we have these days, you’re really only landing this with a 3-damage swing. Then you get to break the card to do a single damage, in very specific scenarios. Damage ain’t bad, yeah? Oh wait, I burned a 3+ damage attack opportunity on this, so I obviously needed more than 1. And the plus damage from a warscroll ability or grievous does not apply here. And the card breaks. And you feel like you have to include it in your deck anyways because it’s an Emberstone Upgrade and GOSH DARN IT WHY DO I KEEP TAKING THIS CARD

OK GW, here’s the deal. This is a 1 or even 0-glory card, and you know it. We have to keep it an Emberstone card because this deck REALLY needs ’em, so let’s make it worth taking. Maybe you can ping if you failed but rolled at least 1 success. Maybe you can ping if you were greater than or equal to the save characteristic. Gimme something here, man. Realmstone Raiders is dying.

5 – Fuelled by Pain: Edge of the Knife

It gets better the more damage your fighter has taken, so it does effectively nothing for smaller fighters. Bigger fighters effectively always have a better attack than this anyway until you get up to the higher damage stats, and it will be hard to rely on this. Not sure anybody really likes it, except Blackpowder on 7 damage. And THAT’s a condition you can ALWAYS rely on! The only real use case for this is a kinda trash 3-health fighter who you’ve managed to keep vulnerable, and if that’s your game plan, you sure do like to play on hard mode, don’t ya?

The Crit Ensnare feels almost like an intentional insult. Just leave the runemark off, boss. You want to fix the card? Give me 3 damage, or 1+X hammers, make it range 2, or literally anything to make it a decent attack that beats what the fighter would already possess.

4 – Extinction’s Edge: Countdown to Cataclysm

In the rare situation where advancing your tracker a single step is beneficial to you, you still have to have this equipped and slay somebody. Then break the card in most cases. Originally, you never wanted advance too fast for Wreckers purposes. Now with Aqua Ghyranis, you’re trying to hold back before Collateral Damage is bricked at Cataclysm 4. I am still almost never hoping to advance my tracker mid-round, and I sure as hell don’t want it tied to this trash condition. It’s like a kill surge, but even worse.

You can ‘fix the card’ by making it a successful attack rather than a slain enemy fighter, then not break the card, but we all know that’s not enough. The concept is cute, it really is. But the way the scoring objectives work and the scarcity of other power cards that enjoy a high cataclysm tracker limit this thing pretty hard.

3 – Still Swinging: Reckless Fury

Ensnare only on melee attacks after I’m charged out and get to try for a second attack? That’s definitely worth a whole glory and a deck slot. Pretty much anything I’m going to be pairing with RF probably has an ensnare option already and it will be streets ahead of this one. In GW’s defense, they tried to warn you! A petitioner with a depressed skull fracture in on the card art for this one because you’d have to be braindead and insane for millennia to bring it along.

Fix this card by giving us Ensnare flat, and then if you have a charge token you also get +1 dice or something.

2 – Burnt Out: Countdown to Cataclysm

You know what I love to do? Spend a whole action to draw some power cards. I’d especially enjoy it if it gave my fighter a stagger token. If only there weren’t something substantially better like the Focus Action in the core rules.

The worst part of this card is it’s one of the alt-art promo cards, looks pretty cool there, and I just never get to slot it in. SHAME, GW!

Fix this card by making it better than Focus. You draw 3+ your cataclysm value regardless of underdog status and get to do Objectives too, like a Focus-plus action economy. And don’t bother staggering my fighter, that’s just rude. This is one of the 12 actions I get to take all game and it’s gated behind an upgrade; you do NOT need to make the cost higher than it already is!

1 – Frenzy of Greed: Pillage and Plunder

If your upgraded fighter is in some very specific places, you’re immune to cleave and ensnare. More than half the time, your pillage fighter will be hanging out in a cover hex and not the treasure side, so this won’t trigger anyway. We already have a card like this called Tough Enough in this same deck with fewer positional restrictions. Oh, and did I mention this one somehow costs 1 MORE glory that that card?

But wait, there’s more! You also can’t get Stagger tokens on the equipped fighter, so you CANNOT DELVE in a deck where that’s the whole point.

Truly, the Crown Jewel of Upgrade design.

How do you fix it? Well, let’s remove the stagger token thing and allow it to apply to more of the board. It still needs to be substantially different from Tough Enough, so maybe plus defense, or a defensive reroll? You have to do something to justify the 2-glory cost. I’m just not sure what it is.

Wrap

Thanks for reading along! What suggestions do you have to fix up these dumpster fires? What other Upgrades did I overlook that are as bad or worse than these? Let me know by emailing SpentGlory@gmail.com or better yet, send it direct to the head honchos by emailing them at whunderworlds@gwplc.com

I hope you all enjoy Spending Glory in the Spitewood, but for the love of Sigmar, please don’t spend it on these.