Hey Spent Glory crew! I played in the Las Vegas Open’s Rivals Clash this year and ‘Ad a Good Time. I wanted to take a brief moment to chat about the experience and cover what I brought and why, as well as what went down on the day of. I also realized that there is very little if any discussion around Morgok’s Krushas and what makes them an A-tier warband – they were somewhat outshone by Thricefold and Gorechosen at the launch of Embergard, but I think Morgok’s boys are right up there at the top, especially now after the rules updates. If you’re a Rivals fan, enjoy a good Krushin’, or just want to hear about our buddy Mike Prime/Sleeksbowl, read on.

Click here to check out other Deck Builds/Love Letters on Spent Glory

The hand-drawn art for this article was made by Vanja, a local player in my Seattle group. He’s a phenomenal painter, and a great artist as well, and I’m very happy he both made these images and was cool with me sharing them here.

The Warband

I chose relatively early on that I would be taking either The Dread Pageant or Morgok’s Krushas to LVO for the Nemesis tournament, because I was having fun with both, and felt like the Krushas especially were a decent counter to the Gorechosen who at the time I expected to face in numbers. In full honesty a major driver was that I had just finished painting the Krushas and felt pretty good about how they looked. As a result, nearly all my prep for both warbands was in Nemesis, and I figured whichever wasn’t working out I would bring the other as Rivals and just figure it out live.

Then the Forsaken and Restricted list hit, which took a lot of the wind out of the sails of Reckless Fury for Nemesis, and somewhat sealed the decision for me to have Krushas be my Rivals warband for the clash – both because I probably wouldn’t be seeing much BA/RF Gorechosen as well as the fact that RF wasn’t going to be as good for my Krushas either. I played another game post FAR and I still won, but it didn’t feel like something I could necessarily count on keeping up with in a Grand Clash setting. Since I was avoiding BA/RF out of principle and had been playing them RF/Countdown, I would have to replace three very good upgrades from a pretty weak pool in Countdown to Cataclysm, and it wasn’t something I felt like I could risk. So I risked it on Dread Pageant instead, since I’m, like, really smart.

The Prep and Lessons Learned

Here’s my Krushas record heading into LVO – relatively limited, but I spent most of my time on Dread Pageant/didn’t want to play with Morgok until he was done being painted and it is what it is. A few lessons I had learned is that you might be able to roll into your own games:

• Possibly the best use of Ded ‘Ard comes when you’re having a fighter slain in the early activations of a round. Per the rulebook, when an enemy fighter successfully attacks you, you take damage, then check if you’re slain. That means when you would die from an attack, you can spend a Waaagh! token to stagger the fool who hit you before you go down. The fighter is about the be removed from play and those Waaagh! tokens are about to be gone, so you might as well spend them. Saving them for Shut it, Pipsqueak or inspiration is generally their better use, but I have had some good success with saying “sure, you just killed Thugg, but he staggered you back on the way out and now ‘Ardskull is going to have a much easier time laying into you.”

• Shut It, Pipsqueak is a marvelous ability in both theme and effect, and getting the most out of it is the key to success with this warband. You have the ability to spend 1-2 Waaagh! tokens to potentially make the ploy the opponent just played take no effect. I wanted to look over the Rivals decks that I expected to face and look for the 1-2 ploys in each that I thought would be most impactful to the game state and ‘wait’ for those. Things like Sidestep, Fireproof, Get it Done, Reckless Attitudes, Lure of Battle, Twist the Knife, and so on. Of course, you might feel the need to block a given card based on the current situation you find yourself in, but having a shortlist was handy.

• You can always wave Shut It, Pipsqueak around as a deterrent too – don’t blow it too early! In some games can make people wait to use their good card until they’ve seen it spent. It’s a fun head game to hold that sort of staring contest. You can even go so far as to say ‘are you sure you want to play that card? I might use Shut It…” and sometimes the opponent, well, shuts it. You didn’t even need to use the ability. In most situations, I found that spending your tokens is not worth delaying an inspire for, so it’s either best to pull Waaagh! from some wildly out of position fighter or somebody dying soon/already inspired.

• Get a Move On, Ya Gitz has often made a difference in my games, and it definitely helps when it is needed, especially with Reckless Fury. Even in other decks it can catch people by surprise! The first limitation is that Morgok needs to live, which he sometimes doesn’t, and the second is that for it to be the meaningful there has to be somebody else alive who you also want to push. There are three (four) general use cases for it:
  • 1) Use it in round 1 after Morgok has already charged activation 1 to allow the other two to push closer to an enemy and get their turn 1 charges on a passive/smart opponent who is sitting too far away
  • 2) Use it in round 2 after Morgok has already charged so that your charged out other fighter can get another swing or two in
  • 3) Use it when out of position with Morgok (or when there are no enemies left to attack!) to become ‘charged out’. This helps get another attack out of anybody with any deck, but this helps you score Reckless Fury cards for manipulating charge tokens. I have scored Arena Mortis and Frenzied Rush this way in round 3 even after I had tabled my opponent, because it let me pop a charge token onto Morgok despite him having nobody to charge. You could also score Bloody Momentum or if you’re crazy enough, Unrelenting Massacre too.
  • 4) BONUS – whenever you have Bloodbathed Rampager from Reckless Fury in your hand and need a quick way to get a second charge token onto your leader – something that’s harder to do in Nemesis now with Get It Done being forsaken. Krushas are among the only warbands (along with Thorns) with warscroll access to this benefit.

Note: I wrote this when I thought I would be taking Reckless Fury. As you’ll see later, I bailed on that plan and decided to just have a little fun with Pillage and Plunder, which I have found to be remarkably consistent in Rivals format, though maybe not when you only have three fighters who also want to be Krushin’. Get a Move On, Ya Gitz is still good though!

Another benefit of the Krushas is that any of your fighters can be the MVP, which is great. In most games that will be Morgok, as once inspired he has good accuracy with 2 damage + grievous and is on 2 shields. The other will be opponent dependent – but generally I value ‘Ardskull inspired more because he can get 2 damage at range 2 – somewhat inaccurate, but since I’m bound to charge out and struggle for targets he has more flexibility than Thugg. If I was dealing with a Take and Hold horde Thugg’s stock jumps in value, and I have definitely had him be the solo hero on that 2 shield before.

The Event Itself

I had just come off of a very draining Grand Clash so I knew my brain wasn’t going to be at full speed. I actually decided the night before the Rivals Clash that I would be playing P&P, and had basically no experience with the deck with the Krushas or really with anybody in Rivals (or even Nemesis) at all. But when has that ever stopped me?

We were slated for five best-of-one rounds across the course of the Sunday, and with the field of 14 players we would get to an undefeated player 4 rounds in and then that person would have to win again in the fifth round to come home Rivals Champion. Rivals is a format that exacerbates the issues caused by card draw and dice variance, and best-of-one does too, but presumably across 5 games the better players are going to find themselves at the top of the field. That, and being able to win the event going 4-1 means there’s not much to stress over and you can just have fun playing this awesome game, which we set down to do.

Round 1: Ross’ Ylthari’s Guardians with Emberstone Sentinels

My first round opponent was none other than Ross, who I seem to meet more often than not when we’re at the same convention. He’s a cool guy and we got to talking a bunch during setup, and then got to talking a lot more during the game because Ylthari’s Guardians are confusing and we kept forgetting about how many tokens should be on which planted card and when what happened and yadda yadda. Regardless ,the game was a fun one and the matchup was nice – he wanted to brawl with me and we would be doing it on tokens. I had better dice luck and killed two of his fighters early on, but he played Confusion and had me off a token I needed at a bad time.

I remember thinking “Man, that confusion is AWFUL for me! I wish that didn’t happen. Geez if only he didn’t play that card right in that moment“. If you, dear reader, are thinking ‘yeah that sounds like a great time to use Shut It, Pipsqueak‘, then you’re more on top of things than I am. I just let it happen. Practice makes perfect, and, uh, I didn’t practice.

Our game ran out of time in round 2 since we were on a tighter schedule to get things done before the awards ceremony, and we had to end it. I was pretty comfortably ahead, but it’s always a bummer to not have a game reach a natural conclusion.

Result: Krushas win 12-2

Round 2: Andrew’s Mollog’s Mob with Pillage & Plunder

Not this jerk again! Andrew has me figured out and I simply don’t know what to do about it. Mollog bonked ‘Ardskull, then he bonked Thugg. The real turning point was when he was down to just Mollog and Stalagsquig, and then played Tunneling Terror to jump away from me. I also forgot to Shut It Pipsqueak when this happened, instead thinking just like last game ‘man that’s rough for me, now what will I do?’ – I lost by 4, so I might have lost anyway, but dang I really have to work on my warscroll discipline.

Result: Krushas lose 14-18

Round 3: Nickalaus’ Thundrik’s Profiteers with Pillage & Plunder

Nickalaus and I were actually originally matched for the first round of the Rivals event until a reshuffling had to happen due to some late adds. We had sat down and shuffled cards and everything, so it was nice to meet him again after only a short delay. He was also playing P&P, so we expected an interesting mirror as we fought to occupy and delve tokens despite both being lower movement.

Relatively early on he managed to outmaneuver me, put great speed onto one of the little guys, and get walking into my territory as I bit on a fake and moved the wrong way onto the wrong token. I managed to catch up with a few timely kills (and had the good fortune for the balloon boy to miss me) but it was a tight match the whole way through as we both drew roughly the same cards all match, blocking each others’ Strip the Realm. I did remember to Shut It, Pipsqueak in this game (forget what the card was), but I rolled no successes and he got to play the card anyway. At least I tried. In the end I managed to come away the winner, only because I scored two more bounty in slain fighters. And that’s only because he missed a high probability shot on ‘Ardskull twice. I got away with one here.

Result: Krushas win 17-15

Round 4: Jesse’s Ironsoul’s Condemnors with Reckless Fury

For a bit of context, Jesse was the guy who almost eliminated me in the Semifinals of the Nemesis Grand Clash the day prior, and now I got to face him again with a potent combo and gorgeously converted miniatures. He even tattered the robes! He also was last year’s LVO Rivals runner-up, losing to Mike Smith/Mike Prime in an incredibly close match. He had just faced him again this year, and Mike won the game (again) in the Ironsoul’s mirror, so I was definitely expecting a bruising as he was overdue for some retribution.

Playing into RF I knew the right more was to take move actions, keep a fighter in each territory, and hope to weather the storm. Which is why I immediately charged with ‘Ardskull, missed a range 2 attack from a token, and allowed Tavian to roll a crit defense to inspire. Oopsies! He clapped back, and then in a subsequent action charged Morgok with Brodus, then played Reckless Attitudes to force me to charge (and therefore unable to stand on a token and delve it). “Man, what a bad situation I find myself in thanks to this Ploy you just played. Guess I’ll have to charge, then!”

Shut It, Pipsqueak count: 3 times forgotten, 1 time failed, 0 times successful. I even took a moment to photograph the perfect positioning he had when he played the card. It really was back breaking. So is my shattered memory.

Anywho, some time later I have Thugg charged and now next to Ironsoul wearing Fury of Aqshy, so he’s locked out! I remember to use Get A Move On, Ya Git and push him out of adjacency (also conveniently charging out) and I manage to run away, get priority, and run again. As he closes in on me, I use canny sapper to pop over the my territory and block his Arena Mortis, but it wasn’t enough. Jesse gets his revenge and heads to face Andrew at the top table, but I fall to 2-2.

Result: Krushas lose 11-13

Round 5: Adi’s Myari’s Purifiers with Emberstone Sentinels

You may recall if you read my nemesis write up that the only person who scared Andrew all weekend was Adi. After playing her I can see why. She was taking Myari’s Purifiers, who in my estimation are a mid-tier warband. She was pairing them in Rivals with Emberstone Sentinels, which in my experience is fine as a Nemesis component but pretty rough in straight Rivals. I’m playing a stronger warband with a smoother Rivals deck and more experience/counterplay knowledge. This should be easy money, right?

Not true. Not even close. It was so tense I forgot to take pictures of our match or her stunning miniatures, which came really close to winning Best Painted. Imagine white cloth, yet it looks good. Hard to do, and I haven’t ever pulled it off.

Two separate times she ‘made a mistake and wish I hadn’t done that’. Two other times I had her saying ‘dang you just ruined my plan, now I have to do my backup that I just made up on the spot’ and somehow she pulled some of the most technically perfect, miraculous moves. I never had it in the bag, even when I actually remembered to Shut It, Pipsqueak AND rolled successfully. We double counted objective scoring at the end of the game because it was so close, and I only barely pulled it out by one point. Give her another year of practice and she’s running the table at LVO in 2026, mark my words.

Result: Krushas win 15-14

Wrap

I ended up going 3-2 with a +7 differential and had some fun. Rivals is always an engaging challenge to work with what you get and deal with clunkier hands. I also feel like the warband’s innate traits stand out more since that’s one of the bigger differences between players, especially in the mirrors.

You see what I have to deal with back home? Why did I ever teach this guy how to play Underworlds? Andrew beat Jesse and wins again, undefeated again, to be the LVO double champion which to my knowledge has never been done before. And with another ‘garbage tier warband’ which is exactly his style.

Of note, Mike Prime went 4-1 and took second place overall despite literally never playing a game of Embergard/Second Edition before this day, using a handwritten warscroll and the old fighter cards Thomas won back for him after he lost them in the inaugural Pink Slips match the year prior. Apparently earlier in the bracket he had Andrew down to just Stalagsquig, attacked him, and Luigi-squig rolled a double crit defense to escape doom, blocking annihilation, and letting Andrew steal a win by a point. Literally that close to being back to back rivals champion.

Anyway, long story short, Rivals is fun, Tournaments are fun, and you should do them both. Krushas are fun too, especially if you remember to use your abilities…

However you like to play, and wherever you like to do it, I hope you enjoy spending your glory! See you all in the next episode.