What’s good in the hood, fellow kids? Today I’ll cover yet another deck I almost brought along to the Tacoma Open, this time in exploration of a competitive use-case for Raging Slayers. I played this a bunch of times and did pretty well with it, so if you’re looking to use RS and win despite the trash objective deck, want to find a way to enjoy Blood of the Bull differently, or just want to be INCREDIBLY annoying to your opponents, this one might scratch that itch!
Full disclosure: I really don’t enjoy playing Pillage and Plunder. This is the first pairing I have used that I felt was legitimately fun to play Pillage with.
Raging Slayers is BAD, and Blood of the Bull has 5 fighters. What are you doing!?!
I asked myself the same question. But it worked. I’ll detail why; first, you’re almost certainly going to lose a fighter and can still charge out with 3-4 of them to score unrelenting massacre, so as long as it’s not in your opening hand you’ll be ok.
Second, you need to get onto treasures to delve and generate daemonforge dice. Escalating a success to a crit means you’ll get to overrun way more often and can do just that.
Third, you’ll usually be playing Pillage and Plunder with the dwarves (I was for this pairing anyway) and that deck can more than make up for scoring deficiencies in Raging Slayers.
Fourth, the Pillage Goal Card is Strip the Realm. An opponent will usually want to hold a treasure to stop this, but they want to delve to prevent you from getting daemonforge. Having Strip but also free overruns puts them in a hard catch-22 to compound the usual Pillage/Bull hard choice.
Fifth, RS on a move 3 warband sounds bad since you can’t always reach your charge targets. Pillage gives you plenty of mobility with Sidestep, Explosive Charges and Great Speed so it’s less of an issue. I didn’t take Tunneling Terror (though it would give a charge token and help Unrelenting Massacre – see this Staggerers review of the card) but that adds some positional tools, and you could also drop in Canny Sapper for a similar benefit of repositioning.
Sixth, the RS downside of being auto-pushed when attacked doesn’t matter much for you when you’re playing Pillage, and once you’ve delved you don’t need to stay there anymore. Your 5 fighters becomes a benefit here because a charged fighter doesn’t feel the need to attack again when a friend can charge in after them.
Seventh, four of your fighters have critical weapon abilities on their melee attacks. RS elevates those to flat runemarks, so you get stagger much easier and +1 damage with Grisk and Zuldrakka Inspired. It’s a similar story to why I played the deck with The Sons of Velmorn earlier in the year.
Finally, Raging Slayers has a god-awful card that’s actually super good for Blood of the Bull: Adrenaline Rush. I’ll be honest, it’s so bad that when I build decks with RS my eyes glaze over when I get to it and immediately discard it – my first few games with this pairing didn’t even include the card. Once I added it back in, things got SAUCY. You can remove stagger tokens from two friendly enraged fighters. You know what that means? That’s right, buddy; DEAMONFORGE TIME
Evidence
I performed pretty well all things considered and really was thinking about taking this to the Tacoma Open. Why didn’t I? Well for one, it’s still Pillage, and I had a hard time justifying that to myself especially if I would be taking 11 of their objectives. The nail in the coffin though was when I handed the deck to a friend who was starting to play with Blood of the Bull and had a few games against him. I let him borrow the deck and I played against it, then he took it against a few other locals.
He lost every game he played that day, and some of them by a whole lot. He even lost a few more against other people later on and has since given up on it. Maybe it was bad luck. Maybe it was his inexperience with the warband and pairing against my complete knowledge of his deck. Maybe it’s too big of a risk for a Grand Clash. If you decide to give the deck a spin, beware of this risk!
Alternate Title: Fueled by Rage Pills (but this is less suggestive and therefore less funny)
Surge Objectives
Aggressive Claimant – a bad surge in a pairing that doesn’t have better options, honestly. The first requirement to be in neutral hurts because I often wideboard to help with the slower move stat, so there will only be 5 hexes that count. The ‘on a treasure’ thing is much more doable since RS lets you drive back and overrun more reliably – except that the attack has to be successful. Daemonforge +dice helps with this, but plenty of games I had this brick hard.
Best Foot Forward – charge into enemy territory and hit can be a frustrating one, but I score it most games. You may only get one shot at this per round since you also need to be moving toward tokens to delve, so thing about saving your Daemonforge/Venting Strike/Brash Scout for when you have this in hand.
Careful Survey – you have 5 fighters with decent defense, to getting 3 fighters in different territories is doable until late game. Beware of the enrage push keeping you out of enemy/neutral though!
Delving for Wealth – The restricted card I picked, because you’ll be doing lots of delving for daemonforge purposes and won’t necessarily make it to enemy delving depending on the board state. Feel free to swap this for Claim the Prize if that’s more your vibe.
Hostile Takeover – Your second non-charge attack feels silly in a deck that wants to charge for RS purposes, but remember you can score it for your second across the whole game, not just the round. Maybe you make some charged out attacks. Maybe you’re able to pop a shot with a range 2-3 upgrade, Tokkor’s range 3 profile, or ideally get more action from Imnidrin’s spear. You don’t want this ion round 1, but thereafter it’s doable
Share the Load – move onto a token while you’re on a token is easy enough, and you can score it by charging onto a token. Careful you don’t get Poor Footing‘d off of a token all day though.
The RS surges are so pants that I kept the sketchier Pillage ones, as it allows me to not enrage or burn a rage token when needed.
End Phase Objectives
I actually took 7 end phases – this makes you more comfortable discarding one that doesn’t score and can also lead to really greedy big totals at the end of the game. If you’d rather play 12, I’d probably skip Torn Landscape as you sometimes want to delve back to treasure before the end of a round to help get Daemonforge next round, and then you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Against the Odds – delve an odd? You probably will without even thinking about it.
Broken Prospects – Delve 3? might do it in round 1. Delve one they held? That’s the goal of the deck anyway. Sometimes a little difficult, but if you aren’t scoring this you might be scoring Strip the Realm so you’re still happy.
Desolate Homeland – 1 or fewer in home territory is simple enough especially if you place tokens well. Beware when delving back up to treasure – you want to do that for daemonforge in subsequent rounds but can block this (or Torn Landscape) if you’re not careful.
Lost in the Depths – another ‘nice if it happens’ thing, have no friendlies adjacent at the end of a round. You’re liable to get pushed around with Poor Footing so it may not score, but as you lose fighters it becomes easier and easier to do.
Strip the Realm – one of your two goal cards. The deck is designed to score this one with overrun/driveback crits. Play whack a mole and enjoy the ragequit when you pretty reliably force this.
Torn Landscape – as discussed, you may not score it. Feel free to discard it or even cut it from the deck entirely, but sometimes it’s a free 2 glory.
Unrelenting Massacre – your other goal card but it does require a fighter to die. Still very nice as a control card because it will make your opponent hesitant to charge out against you, and I did score it most games.
Ploys
Adrenaline Rush – I talked about this in the intro, but the ability to remove staggers helps you generate daemonforge, which you love. Delve a cover back to a treasure, then in the next power step pop this and unstagger so you can delve again for daemonforge. You have to be enraged, but the new plot card makes that easier to spread around.
Brash Scout – rerolls are always good, and you’ll be fighting in enemy territory often enough that you can usually get some value out of it.
Explosive Charges – you’ll be charging, and you’ll enjoy +1 move when you do so with your stubby lil’ dwarf legs. Careful though, because it’s a domain, and will cancel out your other one.
Honed Reflexes – the other domain, giving you defensive rerolls on enraged fighters. You’re already pretty tanky and this takes that up another notch, which is good for a giggle.
Knife to the Heart – ping damage is cool, and since you have no objectives that require you to be enraged you’re not afraid to spend it. Soften somebody up to finish them off later. Note it cannot kill a fighter 😦
Sidestep – best card in the game and helpful in this build.
Trapped Cache – unlimited distance unblockable ping is beautiful, assuming there is a valid target. They may not have undamaged fighters, or maybe you’ve delved so well that there aren’t treasures around. Early game this is golden though!
Venting Strike – plus dice can be super sweet, and again you don’t need rage tokens for scoring conditions so spend away.
Wary Delver – going on guard can be tasty and increase your already good durability. You’ll be pushed if enraged still, but you may not mind. If you’re looking to cut any ploy for another (like Tunneling Terror or Crumbling Mine) this might be the one though, since it doesn’t actively promote any scoring conditions.
What Pain? – heal 1 and guard another while dropping the rage token you didn’t need can keep you kicking for longer. Zuldrakka and Imnidrin love a nice heal, as a treat.
Upgrades
Aggressive Ambusher – your accuracy ain’t bad but cleave and ensnare are awesome and this card gives you both. Setting up flanking can be a tall ask with Poor Footing in play. Definitely a cuttable card.
Agile – reroll defense while inspired in cover and daemonforged and laugh as nobody can touch you.
Burrowing Strike – niche card, but if you’re charging onto tokens this lets you hit somebody who wasn’t in the right spot and can help you get one more charged out attack for Hostile Takeover
Excavating Blast – same story as Burrowing Strike, but worse/better. You could consider dropping one of these for something that may be useful like Canny Sapper or United in Anger.
Gloryseeker – access to more damage against the targets who you need it for. Easy peasy.
Great Speed – #GottaGoFast if you want to charge out/reach those treasures and delve them, and zero cost is nice.
Haymaker – FROM THE TOP ROPE. Love this card. among the top reasons to bring RS in a warband without a natural 3-4 damage attack.
Impossibly Quick – who doesn’t enjoy a +1 save? This card has no limit, so you can indeed take a 2 shields inspired fighter, give them this, and spend a daemonforge to get them to 4 shields, maybe even with rerolls/cover. Yes, I have done this. Yes, I have belted out my most dwarven laugh.
Keen Eye – plus dice = more hits, more kills, more overruns, more glory. Only werks on melee so Tokkor is a little sad but otherwise a sold choice.
Swift Step – after you’ve charged (you will) push a hex. Helps grab more tokens or get positioned for Careful Survey etc. You can overrun and then do this too for even more utility.
Wrap
There you have it – pillage but fun, RS but winnable, and very good at knocking people off of tokens. If you’re as hateful as Zuldrakka herself and want a new way to RAGE while also being a pain in the butt like a Chaos Dwarf should be, give it a go! Let me know how your testing works out, and until next time, I hope you enjoy Spending your Glory (and you might just get a boatload of it with this deck)
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