This time around, we are covering a first edition menace in Hexbane’s Hunters that was hit REALLY hard by the edition change, to the point they were one of the worst in the game. After a much-needed rules update, the warband is back to being pretty good, but not in the oppressive way it once was. Let’s see how our favorite Cities of Sigmar Witch Hunters are faring in Embergard/Spitewood, and how to best make use of them and their adorable puppies in this somewhat unique take on a Horde Strike warband.

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Hexbane’s Hunters: The Lore

Haskel Hexbane is that boi who knows the ends justify the means, and is willing to use any means to purge the unclean who might threaten Sigmar’s folk. They say this as if he’s a good guy, but he’s probably just as bad as many of the villains he’s set out to burn. Alongside him are three more humans and two dogs – Aemos Duncarrow who is well known for his strength at woodcutting, Brydget Axwold who rocks the powdered wig look, and Quiet Pock who wears an iron mask at all times as if he’s from the Alexandre Dumas novel. My personal fan theory is Pock, who we know has ‘deep scars’ was once burned by Hexbane and had his tongue cut out, but survived and proved himself not a witch in the process. Why he continues to hang out with the guy is beyond me.

What’s cool about these homies is that they are ‘normal humans’. In a game and world where everything is hyper-fantastical and the best ever super power leveled BS, it’s refreshing to see some, well, dudes like us. They have no magical abilities, no superhuman attributes, just a handful of steel weapons, the power of friendship, and some real angry feelings they’d like to work out. It’s a refreshing change!

Hexbane’s Hunters: The Warscroll

Inspire

This has been updated in the February 2025 rules changes, and it’s a little better now. Any time one of your Humans is slain, you can pick another human and inspire them. If any of the trio of Pock or the two dogs are slain, you inspire the other two in that crew. This warband gets mad when you kill their friends, which is fun!

Tools of the Trade

Somewhat complicated to track, but this warband has an easier time applying upgrades than others. For each bounty’s worth of slain Agent Azyrites (no-dog friends), you get that much ‘bonus’ glory to apply to an upgrade. Normally you can’t exceed the value of your current glory when applying upgrades, but if you have 3 bounty of slain friends, you get 3 extra glory to spend on upgrades for Hexbane’s Hunters. While it still sucks to lose Aemos early, you’ll not only get to inspire somebody else but you’ll also get to apply a 2-glory upgrade for your troubles. It’s a nice little catch-up mechanic for the warband, assuming you have the upgrade in hand and couldn’t otherwise afford it. Late game this rarely will make a difference but can keep you in the fight during the first round.

Marked for Vengeance

Another thing that was changed in the February Update that makes the warband actually really good now, especially into Elite Aggro. Immediately after somebody kills one of your humans, that fighter becomes Marked for Death. When targeting the marked enemy, you get to reroll one attack dice (even the dogs!) whether using a ranged or melee weapon. If you’re using melee, you also get grievous against the marked target. This means you’re probably going to hit, and probably going to do 2-3 damage to whatever killed your friend. I’ve dismantled Blackpowder and Mollog like this, and had my Drom/Gorehulk town down the same way. This effect is great.

The enemy fighter remains marked until a different fighter kills another one of your Azyrite humans. I guess our memories are short. The good news is that if you should so happen to kill a Marked enemy, you then get to choose a nice benefit after completing your revenge. Either you can remove all move or charge tokens from one of your fighters (which can block enemy scoring like Arena Mortis/Unrelenting Massacre, or allow you to charge again with somebody) or you can draw one power card. Awesome reward either way.

Tight-Knit Pack

The dogs are worth zero bounty until the enemy kills one, and then the other one becomes a 1 bounty fighter. It’s a nice deterrent to an enemy attacking one of your dogs, since killing it doesn’t reward them until they kill them both, but will inspire Pock and the other dog. Be careful using cards that specify total bounty of your fighters, because the dogs won’t add to that until one of them has been slain. They also don’t contribute to Underdog at all, since the ability doesn’t apply to slain dogs and their cards say zero bounty on them.

Loyal Hounds

So why do we care about the dogs? Well, they’re great support pieces thanks to this rule which was also updated from the original warscroll. Immediately after a human moves, a dog can move. This is now true even if they already have a move token (but not if they have a charge token). You can use this to set up flanking on a charge. You can run to one place and have a dog run to another – this sets up positional scoring, occupies tokens, gets you united, whatever you need. It’s a solid ability that can do so much for a savvy player, and makes the dogs incredibly nice to have as some scoring becomes trivial for Hexbane and co. Since the dogs can hold treasure and can delve, stand on Aqua Ghyranis and more, you love to see them running all over the board.

Ward of Martyr’s Blood

Once per game (and this is your only once per game ability) you can turn off weapon abilities/runemarks for enemy attackers. Immediately after one of your humans is chosen to be the target of an attack, you can play this and say ‘sorry bro, no cleave against Pock’ or better yet ‘yeah that grievous is not in play, so Hexbane will be surviving this attack’. Choosing the right time to use this might be tricky, but will be so, so tasty when you get it right and will really frustrate some opponents, especially if they’re a runemark-reliant warband like The Skinnerkin or Kamandora’s Blades.

Hexbane’s Hunters: Fighter Cards

Haskel Hexbane

Your leader who sadly gives up 2 bounty while being only 3 health and 1 shield. He also only has crit grievous on two dice to get to 2 damage in melee uninspired, so he’s somebody you’d really like to see inspired. The 4 swords is pretty reliable once you factor in the dog’s flanking he’ll usually get when he wants, and if you are whacking a Marked for Death enemy, that’s 4 swords flanked with a reroll and flat grievous, so he’ll put out 3 damage all day.

His ranged attack is pretty solid inspired too, so if you just need to hit something he’ll do that for you. I’d have him protected at all costs, saving Ward of Martyr’s Blood for him when necessary, and inspire him first in most games that you can. A great candidate for +health and +defense upgrades.

Aemos Duncarrow

More sadness with 2 bounty 3 health and 1 shield, Aemos can still lay the hurt on somebody in melee. He’s quite accurate when inspired, but I find he often doesn’t live long enough to get to play with that profile very much unless they’ve managed to dive Hexbane in which case he’ll get vengeance for his boss with Marked for Death grievous.

Brydget Axwold

I often enjoy placing Brydget forward as bait and using her to make my opening charges. Having crit grievous isn’t miraculous uninspired but 3 dice is decent odds to hit a crit, and with a dog coming along she’ll probably at least hit for 1. If they happen to kill her you’ll get to inspire somebody, get a free 1 glory for an upgrade, and have a marked enemy, so it’s not so bad at all. Should she happen to become inspired she goes to two dodge and flat 2 damage, which makes her quite a damaging prospect against a Marked enemy. Not bad for a 1 bounty fighter! She also has a ranged profile for added utility.

Quiet Pock

Pock is the premier bait – the enemy probably won’t hit him since he starts on 2 shields, and even if they do you get all the benefits of a dead fighter this warband enjoys (and can inspire both dogs too). His inspired profile is pretty decent if you’re ok with 1 damage. Put him right up front and have him walk into enemy territory/delve for scoring, no worries.

Grotbiter

There are two dogs and their stats are identical. You’ll primarily use these to set up flanking attacks or to run around for positional/token scoring. They’re not bad when inspired either, and considering they can absolutely wear weapon upgrades and take advantage of Marked for Death, a dog with Coordinated Deathblow or Desperate Rage is a fun little toy to pull out.

Ratspike

The dogs are the same, but this one is better. Trust me bro.

Potential Pairings

As a Strike warband, you like Blazing Assault. Everybody does, and they do too. You also can do quite well with Pillage and Plunder since you have multi-mover capabilities and can spread all over the board with expendable fighters, and the dogs are miraculous for this deck.

Countdown to Cataclysm is a great choice since it leans into the ‘get rewarded for your guys dying’ angle, provides nice weapon upgrades, and pack pings to help your otherwise low damage output.

Edge of the Knife is a very fun deck to play with, as you have 4 tempered fighters and will almost certainly lose the other two (or at least take enough damage to temper them). Trial of the Tempered is a legitimate threat for this warband, and ‘make an attack with a tempered fighter/be somewhere while tempered’ is easy peasy.

You can potentially use Realmstone Raiders even, because while the deck required melee hits (discouraging your ranged attacks), you’re pretty accurate with the dogs in flanking positions, and even more so with rerolls on a Marked for Death enemy.

My favorite deck for them is Deadly Synergy, since you’ll be able to get united without even thinking about it as the dogs can plug holes every single turn. Scoring nearly everything in the deck is trivial, and the upgrades play right into your gameplan (and you’ll get to afford them easier!)

In Practice

Data from the Nemesis Statistics Project shows that across the edition they only win 41.6% of the time, which is up to 46.9% in the most recent meta. That’s within the range of 45-55% balance, suggesting they’re in the mix and not severely underpowered. They have done pretty well with Edge/Cataclysm and Deadly/Nexus in the past few months.

Please submit your own games to the record! It really helps the community assess the current situation, even if your games aren’t hardcore competitive.

I personally have played this warband 10 times with a 8-2 record and an average +5 differential. Not too shabby! In almost every pairing I have tried, Edge of the Knife was included and often a prominent component. My best pairing was Edge/Deadly Synergy which is 3-1 with a +6.75 glory average, routinely scoring 18 or more in a game. When playing against Hexbane I have a 6-2-1 record and an average of +4.6 glory though, so it’s not like they win all the time. They have some serious weaknesses in the stats department, and many of these wins came prior to the errata that made Marked for Death a serious threat. Since that time I’m 2-2-1 with only a +10 total glory differential (2 per game) – with a 50% and +2 glory situation, they can definitely hold their own.

I don’t have my own Edge/Deadly deck saved, but Staggerers put this one together that’s likely close enough

I got a rude awakening at the Tacoma Open 2026 playing against Chad and his CC/DS build, which ended up in the top 8 at the event and took me to a draw across 3 games.

Battle Mallet cooked up this Pillage/Edge Combo (prior to some banning and restricting so it will need modification today)

Staggerers has made this Edge/Nexus build and explained its use in their Dexamples series here

They also made a Hunting Grounds/Edge deck that looks like a lot of fun

Finally, Spinnerite has composed this deck using Deadly synergy and Nexus of Power

Wrap

Ultimately, this warband is loads of fun now that the dogs can move multiple times, and you benefit in pretty significant ways when you lose fighters; “free” upgrades, inspiration, and a bullseye on the head of whoever took a friend down most recently. If you like trading pieces in bloody combat, or if you like scattering around the board in ways that prevent your opponent from getting everybody before time runs out, Hexbane’s Hunters just might be up your alley. Give them a try again if you haven’t played them since launch, or take them up for the first time now! Either way, I’m sure you’ll have a great time spending glory (and even getting some upgrades without spending anything but lives)