Paths of Prophecy Rivals Deck Review

Intro

Hello all and welcome back to Path to Glory! Apologies for the delay on our Paths of Prophecy review, our copy arrived at Aman’s place shortly before I was about to go to bed Friday night, but we’re caught up now! I’m very glad to see that GW finally released a hold objective-focused deck. I know Fearsome Fortress had some HO components to it, but the card support was often not sufficient to give proper play to a lot of HO warbands, especially with respect to the surges, and it came with the plot lock. PoP not only skirts the plot lock, but also drops a handful of incredible universal cards, not only for HO support but for more passive play in general, which is a tad concerning given the current state of Pandaemonium and Stormcoven in Championship, so we can only hope that some game updates are on the way. I will say that, if we are looking at a new player trying to figure out how to play HO, there are some kind of convoluted aspects to this deck. It also lacks the end phase pop that you’re usually looking for when playing HO. Still, it overall is very close to the release the game needed right now (at least in Championship), especially with rotation presumably coming up soon. Major shoutout to the art team on this one though, so much fantastic work in this set. I’m excited to talk about it!

Objectives

Starting off with an absolute banger of a piece of art, we have A Dire Omen. Getting ahead of myself a bit, they’ve finally made a concerted effort to make the objective numbers matter and improve upon the old “Hold Objective X” and Tactical Supremacy cards. Hold Objective 5 or hold objectives which add up to exactly 5. This one is ok, but I don’t think it would’ve been too crazy to just make it “add up to 5 or more” given that 1 glory for holding 2+ objectives seemed fine to me. Now, there is some power card support later for number manipulation, but it’s not so much that it trivializes the numbering. I think it’s ok for some passive scoring, but you’ll want the mobility of something like Spiteclaw’s Swarm to make sure you can access the higher value objectives if they happen to not be placed in your territory.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Similarly, we have A Sign from the Gods, which is basically the same as our previous entry, but scoring for instead holding Objective 3 or Objectives 1 and 2. I think this one is slightly worse, as the first condition is equally difficult on each, whereas the second would require [Tactical Supremacy 1-2] levels of effort, whereas there are a couple of permutations that added up to 5 in our previous entry. Again, it’s fine, but HO generally doesn’t make up enough glory off kills to warrant taking so many 1-glory end phases, especially ones they won’t always have control over.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

All Part of the Plan is a surge for holding objectives whose value adds up to more than the number of surviving fighters after an opponent’s activation step. If you do some quick math, you’ll notice that, at the start of the game, this will never be easier than holding a value of 7 and will more likely require you to hold something like a value of 9 or 10+ in the early game. While it certainly gets better in the later stages of the game, HO again often needs to pull its surge glory early, so you can’t really afford to get backed up with something like this. It’s also limited to more elite HO such as Dread Pageant or Mournflight, or maybe something like control Gorechosen or Wurmspat, but you are still very much subject to whatever warband your opponent is using. If you’re playing horde HO like Sepulchral Guard or Grymwatch, you’ll probably need to stay far away from this one unless you happen to have some great luck with numbers and/or [Dark Inversion].

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1

Complete Harmony is a mildly easier version of [Infestation], but man is that a hard sell outside of the Harrowdeep/Nethermaze meta. Holding all the objectives is extraordinarily difficult, even if you do pack in some flip tech to help with empty tokens. A bit counter to the last one in that you need an absurd number of bodies to pull this off. The “hold 3+ equaling 15” aspect is probably more doable, but still really difficult to pull off even if you take all of the number manipulation cards in this deck. Sky’s the limit since it is a whopping 5 glory, but you’re not pulling this off almost ever and, even if you do, you’re likely not getting it more than once in a best of 3 against an opponent who knows what they’re doing.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1

Devoted Offerings is insanely good. I think in terms of ubiquity and ease of scoring, we’ve not had anything like it since [Sudden Revelation] in Nethermaze, and, even then, I would argue this is still easier. Draw 3 power cards or play three gambits and boom, 1 glory. For all the commentary about GW not liking when the game is very non-interactive, I am very surprised to see a card like this where you have no real way of stopping your opponent from doing the thing. If you run any draw tech, this just gets that much better, as chaining something like [Duel of Wits] into more ploys will be absurd, if it doesn’t already just get you to the “draw 3” condition. Not sure if and when GW plans to release a new FAR list, but you’ve got to imagine this needs to get on it ASAP. Until then, pretty much everyone just gets to have 1 glory now. Worth noting though that this requires you to play ploys, not gambits, so the spell-heavy builds will likely need to steer clear of this (not that Pandaemonium and Stormcoven really needed more surges anyway). Even so, the combination of triviality and ubiquity makes this the strongest surge released in the Gnarlwood/Wyrdhollow seasons.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3, Universality: 3

Hanging On scores after an opponent’s activation step if you hold one or more objectives in enemy territory with a fighter who has two or more Move tokens. In Nemesis, I think this is only really going to be usable by the multi-move warbands such as SG or DKK, but I think they likely have better options at their disposal anyway. Where this will provide more value is in Championship in conjunction with Voidcursed Thralls, as that will supply the additional movement economy you need to actually pull this off (particularly during your opponent’s activation) in addition to driveback denial. While you do have to be careful about the fact that this requires Move tokens, not Charge tokens, there were plenty of instances when playing my SG deck that I would have met this condition. Still, it’s not as trivial as other more passive surges and there is a limited selection of warbands taking VCT in the first place, so I’ve tempered my expectations with this one.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Held in a Bloody Fist falls into a very similar boat as our previous entry, scoring after an opponent’s activation if you hold an objective with a wounded fighter. However, I think the lack of positional requirement makes this one is a lot easier for you to control, as you could very well just offset somebody, run through a lethal and onto a backline token, then just sit there and wait for your glory. While it’s very important for you opponent to have the right to respond this card allows, I think realistically there is not much you’re going to be able to do to stop this in the early game if that is the sort of line your opponent is playing. Chaos warbands probably benefit from this the most due to having cards like [Vile Offering], [Reckless Pact], and [Sadistic Stab] at their disposal, but I’ll give a particular shoutout to Dread Pageant here. Not only do they stack in more options to score this with [Cruel Pangs] and [Fuelled by Sensation], but they also have the ability to voluntarily take a wound on Vasillac and Slakeslash after making a successful attack with them, granting the warband a lot of control over the condition. Outside of Chaos, Sons of Velmorn strikes me as a solid candidate for this card as well due to their resurrection tech bringing them back wounded anyway. If you are worried about facing some of the more passive decks I expect to thrive off these types of cards, I think packing [Lethal Ward] to punish your opponent for trying to greed this will be really nice, as will [Chum the Waters]. I’d be very careful about attempting this with a vulnerable fighter, but I do think it is overall a really solid objective.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Portents of Doom is just [Nine Fates] but as a universal objective. If I was not a fan of it on Pandaemonium, which is the only warband with its own power card which allows them to swap the positions of tokens, then I’m not much more of a fan here. Yes, this deck does give you some objective value and placement manipulation, but HO will almost always be better off focusing on how many objectives they hold rather than the exact value of them. It can be really good if you happen to get handed objectives 4 and 5 during deployment, but otherwise will be quite a pain.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2

We were SO CLOSE to a much-needed [Dominant Position] reprint with Positive Foreboding. If you thought maybe the former was a bit too easy, at least they added the extra condition that one of the tokens needs to be within 2 hexes of no one’s territory. The problem is that, in addition to making it more difficult, they also reduced it to just a measly 1 glory. Again, HO does not farm their glory off kills to the extent that aggro does, so packing your deck full of 1-glory end phase cards is just not going to keep you competitive. I would’ve been thrilled to see this at 2 glory and back in the game. It’s not unusable at 1, but holding more objectives than your opponent is often not a trivial thing, so it can potentially be a lot of work for very little payoff.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Further confusing the design of the deck, we have Prevention over Cure, which is a 1-glory surge after an opponent’s activation if there are more enemy fighters out of action than objectives held by them. I say it’s confusing because, while this works in the sense of trying to hold more than your opponent and steal their tokens, this feels more like an aggro surge. If you’re playing Reapers or something and your plan is to just table your opponent, this is probably a pretty solid late-game surge. It is pretty subject to draw sequencing, but even with just 1 kill you can potentially be scoring this, it’s really not too bad. Cards like [Hidden Lair] or any [Distraction]-type cards can definitely help a lot here, it’s an interesting deckbuilding piece and further supports (but also weirdly can counter) the [Ferocious Rampage] style of play (which I still think is a heavily underrated objective).

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Written in the Skies is the final in a series of 1-glory end phases for this deck, scoring for holding either Objective 0 or 6 or holding objectives adding up to precisely 6. I’ve already gone over the first couple iterations of this type of card in the set, and this one is actually the worst due to needing one of three specific upgrades active in order to potentially satisfy the first condition. This is just not good.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2

Our last objective in the set is the now standard 2-glory surge of the deck, this time with Your Lucky Day. This scores after an opponent’s activation if you hold objectives adding up to exactly 7 and one or more enemy fighters are out of action. This has decent odds to just be hold 2 and have an enemy dead, but having to hold exactly 7 is problematic. Incentivizing yourself to not hold certain objectives because it won’t work with your surge is just really counterproductive for your end phase cards. If you’re playing stuff like [Supremacy] or [Claim the Prize], you can’t spend your time dancing around holding certain objectives. Those cards require you to dedicate 12 activations to trying to hold as your opponent tries to deny you, not selectively jumping on, off, or around tokens.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2

Our Favorites

• Mark: Held in a Bloody Fist
• Aman: Devoted Offerings
• Zach: Hanging On
• George: Held in a Bloody Fist

Gambits

Our first gambit is A Pact Sealed in Blood, which allows you to draw a whopping 3 power cards if your warband holds three or more objectives at the cost of dealing damage to one of those fighters. You can also use it even if you don’t hold 3 just to intentionally damage your fighter. While this would appear to be an odd choice, it can help you circumvent [Freezing Venom] while also synergizing with [Pure Carnage] type of gameplay. Within this deck, the intent obviously looks to be synergy with Held in a Bloody Fist, but I like the fact that this can work just fine in a number of other scenarios. Plaguepack could use it to proc their Glorious Sacrifice for a much-needed corruption while Dread Pageant, Grashrak’s Despoilers, or Ironskullz Boys could use it to set up an inspiration. The spike potential of drawing 3 power cards is also phenomenal and makes this a fine play on [Supremacy]-style horde HO.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Bursting Power gives you a 50/50 to ping each fighter within 1 hex of a chosen objective token. While this can be fairly mean to something like Reapers or Exiled Dead, I do think I prefer [Lethal Ward] here. While the spike potential here is technically much higher, I am often happy to trade off some of that peak for consistently hitting the one fighter that I want it to.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 3

Dangerous Objects allows you to stagger each enemy fighter within 1 hex of an objective they do not hold. If you draw this in Round 1, I think there are pretty decent odds of really popping off with this to stagger a bunch of fighters following the first activation. If you’ve played enough of certain matchups, you can often identify which starting hexes your opponent plans to occupy and capitalize on the tendency to grant your opponent the first activation. If you are playing something like a stagger Clawpack build, I think this probably makes the cut. Coupling it with a card like [Hidden Lair] can also increase its value on two fronts: stopping the hold (and therefore spreading the stagger more effectively) and getting off early staggers to prevent a delve that might otherwise reset a use of the card. Of course, it does lose value as the game wanes on and fighters die/reposition, so [No Safe Ground] is obviously the preferred option, but I think there is some play here as even just an accuracy gambit.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

In an homage to [Distraction], GW has now given us Easily Distracted, which still gives you that range-unlimited 1-hex push of an enemy fighter but at the steep cost of allowing your opponent a 2-hex push of any other fighter. If you really just need to get a fighter off a point, this can provide some value, but the fact that your opponent could just use the follow-up to push somebody back onto it is very annoying, especially because that 2-hex push could really screw over your own positioning. The only significant deckbuilding synergy I could see here is with [Mirror Move], as you could kind of bait your opponent into giving you a 2-for-1, but I am overall not super interested here.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 3

Fair Fortune is our first instance of a “free upgrade” gambit card that actually piques my interest. Normally, I am pretty down on these because glory should not be that hard to come by in a well-built deck, but the upside of granting you the upgrade while also potentially drawing a card is not bad. [By Order of the Vault] has seen some play with Hexbane’s Hunters for a similar effect and this can kind of accomplish a similar feat for horde HO. For example, use a Varclav action to scramble onto 3 tokens, play this to get a free upgrade and draw a card. There’s also some minor synergy here with Profiteers and [Sound Finances]. If you feel like your warband has really above average upgrades, this is a nice way to put down those potent effects off the rip, and it’s nice it can still do so even if you don’t max out its value by holding 3 objectives. Bit of a bummer if it comes late, as you won’t need the free upgrade at that point, but pretty good value early and no downside like we had with [Shady Bargain].

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Inconstant Predictions allows you to put two of your fighters on guard at the cost of staggering all of the rest of them. If you are running a more elite warband anyway, there’s a chance you can do this without much downside. I am assuming here that you can still use the card even if you have nobody to stagger, because that is the logical way to apply the effect, but obviously we don’t have the best track record of decisions regarding what constitutes “fully resolving” a card. I do think there is better guard tech out there overall, but this is perfectly serviceable and can do some silly things for a warband like Pandaemonium, especially on a Fearsome Fortress build.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Reversal of Fate allows you to flip a feature token within 2 hexes of a friendly fighter. We’ve been over this a few times, but the fact that this does not stagger a fighter standing on an objective really hurts the value of pretty much every flip card. Yes, it can support the absurd pursuit of Complete Harmony, but just take some pushes or [Drifting Tides] or something. Even [Swarming Darkness] is probably better right now and that card sees no play.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Slinking in There is fantastic mobility as a [Sidestep]+. Push 1 hex is already in a competitive spot for slotting into your deck, but the upside of pushing 2 onto an objective is fantastic. Probably the first friendly push card in the universal pool you’ll reach for. Not much more to say about it.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3, Universality: 3

Succour in Certainty allows you to Heal(1) a friendly fighter, but increases to Heal(2) if you hold 3 or more objectives. Since you only need to hold 3 at the instance you play the card, I think this is a deceptively doable condition. While I am not a flex Reapers fan, I have to admit this seems like a really good fit on them. Hold-centric gameplans with a big piece like Kainan really appreciate the survivability, especially in such a ping-heavy meta. Similarly, DKK seems like a nice fit here due to how critical Mannok is to the function of the warband, but you could certainly take this on warbands like SG or Grymwatch too in order to shore up the survivability of your leader. Pairs particularly well with [Impervious Delusion]. I think, in the right build, it’s probably better than [Healing Potion], but will certainly be far less ubiquitous.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Tread the Path gives you a move action a number of hexes equal to the number of objectives you held when you played the card. Realistically, this will mostly be a 2 or 3-hex move, but really that is pretty solid, especially if you have a lot of action economy already. SG once again come to mind here as a main beneficiary, since they are quite slow anyway and can keep spreading moves with the warband. Again, not super ubiquitous since most fighters still want to be able to charge at some point, but potential VCT synergy is nice and I could see replacing something like a [Sidestep] on horde HO with this card. I will say I would’ve liked to see an “X+1” here instead to make sure you actually get to use it even if you’re not holding yet.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2

Our Favorites

• Mark: Fair Fortune
• Aman: Slinking in There
• Zach: Tread the Path
• George: A Pact Sealed in Blood

Upgrades

Absolute Incredulity prevents objective tokens held by the equipped fighter from being flipped or moved. The flipped aspect feels more like a downside since it means you can’t delve to cover if you want to, but the cannot be moved is mildly interesting to prevent getting snaked by [Abasoth’s Screaming Idols] or [Drifting Tides]. I think I’d rather take [Quintok’s Static Rod] in most cases, but this does allow you to still use token movement tools to take objectives for yourself. The issue you’ll likely run into is that there will be a lot of instances where your opponent doesn’t care to move tokens anyway, so this does nothing in the matchup.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2

Deadly Defiance allows you to push the equipped fighter 1 hex after an activation in which they take damage or do damage. This seems really good for a nice bulky boy like Mollog, Kainan, or Hrothgorn that’s likely to take and deal a lot of punishment over the course of a game. The most obvious control you have over this is with lethal hexes, but packing in healing and damage negation will certainly play a role as well. It’s a really nice way to ensure holding a given position with a fighter you know can take a hit, as you can just undo your opponent’s driveback. I think [Duellist’s Speed] will still probably be the preferred option in a lot of cases, but this is a pretty competitive pick.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2

Profiteers players rejoice, you finally have some legit accuracy support again! Guided by Fate grants you +1 Dice if the attacker and/or defender is on an objective, no range limitation. I doubt you take this on Range 1 heavy warbands, but pretty much every Range 2+ fighter has been looking for a card like this. Of those, Blackpowder and Hrothgorn are the most obvious winners here, but there will be a lot of warbands packing this in. Unfortunately, it does simultaneously make Pandaemonium and Stormcoven more problematic as well. Being subjected to 4R/4-Dice attacks from Ephilim sounds pretty miserable. A pretty well-balanced way to make a Range 2+ eligible accuracy card, but probably still due for a restriction at some point.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2

Inviolate Prophet seems to be the next evolution of [Painful Brilliance], taking away an opponent’s attack die on non-adjacent attacks. GW giveth and GW taketh away. While this card will probably see much less usage than our previous entry, it’s funny that it will likely be targeted as a way to undo that effect. This could be a nice tech piece against the top dogs right now, but the requirement that the equipped fighter needs to be holding an objective is a pretty massive limitation in this instance. I just don’t see much of a way to clear out an upgrade slot for it outside of maybe Nemesis.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2

Nothing Special not only allows your beasts to hold objectives, but also makes it so that just being on a feature token counts them as holding an objective with a value of 0. This gives it a lot of synergy with Daring Delvers and Fearsome Fortress, or even just cover tokens in general. The target audience here is a bit limited given that it has to be a warband that likes to hold but also has some beasts, but I think the best fits are Gitz and Buccaneers. Making the squigs able to hold gives them a role other than being beatsticks or [Conquered Domain] token caddies, while making Shreek able to hold significantly increases the HO action economy of Buccaneers as a squad. There is some value in giving this to Skritter as well to synergize with the HO theme of the band, but at least he can still corrupt without holding. There might be other candidates I’m forgetting, but it’s not like you can exactly build around this effect on a very beast-heavy warband since it is just one card. The ceiling is decent but not absurd, just the general applications are pretty few so I don’t think it’s likely to pop up all that much. You’re also probably taking it for one or two particular fighters to use, so if they die you are left with a dead card you can’t even salvage.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Protected by the Unseen grants you +1 Defence while holding Objectives 4, 5, or 6. Since there are only two other upgrades that can proc the Objective 6 hold, you’re kind of forced to evaluate this on only the 4 and 5 conditions. It’s not quite as free-reign +1 Defence as you like, but warbands with the ability to get anywhere on the board should like it well enough. Spiteclaw’s Swarm and Grymwatch come to mind again here, but [Dark Inversion] or Pandaemonium’s [The Will of the Architect] can help mitigate some of the risk in general, especially on a Fearsome Fortress build. It’s not bad, but I think it really would have been ok if it were on holding any objective given the amount of ping and even enemy push/token manipulation tech in the game.

Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

We finally get essentially a [Stoneform] reprint in Stubborn Stance. Park a fighter on an important objective token and there they shall remain until they die or until you move them elsewhere. With all of the potential options for making move actions instead of pushing these days, I think there are some cool ways to skirt the downsides of this while still taking advantage of its effect. The pairing with VCT is again pretty attractive, as you can still reposition pretty effectively via move actions. Cards like [Drifting Tides] and [Bold Engineer] can also act as pseudo-pushes with regard to holding objectives to make it feel less of a hindrance. Not being able to simply take a [Sidestep] onto a token with that fighter might be annoying, but I think with the new move rules and the power card support for making move actions, this effect is quite possibly in a better environment now than it was in Beastgrave, even without [Restless Prize] and [Mischievous Spirits] at your disposal.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2

The Helping Hand allows you to swap the position of 2 feature tokens, then break the card. The problem, of course, is that this takes an entire action. While the odds are good your opponent will not be able to undo this action, this may not be the most effective use of your limited activations. Again, the Fearsome Fortress pairing is mildly intriguing here, but I’d generally rather just go out and take the objectives I need with moves and charges. With the heavy number requirements of this deck, I get it, but which ones you need to be standing on at any given time changes pretty frequently, so breaking after use is pretty rough for something that also consumes an activation already.

Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Unhallowed Aura lets the objective you are holding count as a value of 6, but it breaks at the start of a round or if you use the reaction to break it yourself, which you would really only do in an instance where you’ve accidentally counter-synergized with your objective hand. There is some mildly interesting synergy with [Stockpile] here as 2 glory for holding one objective, but once again the breaking upgrade essentially after you’ve “used” it is problematic. Additionally, if you want to use this for Complete Harmony and you haven’t drawn that yet, you are nearly forced to hold onto it into the next round. I would be pretty ok with this not breaking due to pretty limited objective card synergy in the first place, not exactly sure why they did it this way.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Watchful Eye allows you to, for the end phase, either add 1 or subtract 1 for the value of the objective the equipped fighter is holding. While this can again help with some of the numbering requirements enforced by this objective deck, I just have a hard time seeing the value in the grand scheme of things when upgrades are such competitive slots these days. Unless you are trying for Complete Harmony, I am almost certainly leaving it at home.

Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1

Our Favorites

• Mark: Stubborn Stance
• Aman: Guided by Fate
• Zach: Nothing Special
• George: Protected by the Unseen

Conclusion

Outside of the extremely poor selection of end phase cards in this deck, the core of the problem seems to be a conceit that the HO has so much control over the objective numbers that they can more or less get to wherever they need to. However, even if you just look at the power cards in this deck, there’s really not that much support for number control here. You can very easily get bricked on a number of these cards just because you didn’t happen to get the right tokens during deployment or upgrades in the first round. It also feels like they made a rule for themselves that the end phase cards couldn’t add up to more than 11 glory, then burned 5 of them on an objective that is practically impossible to accomplish against anyone who plays the game at a competitive level. Taking Tactical Supremacy cards (bet you haven’t pulled those out in a while!) in conjunction with the number manipulation in the deck is probably more suitable than using most of the end phases from here. That being said, the surges are pretty good and, as a Championship player, I am thrilled with the contents of this pack. I am just concerned about the fit in Nemesis due to the poor end phases, especially since that is the game mode they are pushing the hardest. Despite having some very good cards in it, this release feels less like a cohesive deck and more like the old style of universal releases, where there would be a bit of a theme but largely you were just adding some cards to the universal pool. I never expected we’d see a deck that seems more suited to Championship play than Rivals/Nemesis, but I think that’s what we have here. I don’t believe this was intentional, but I do think that will end up being the net effect of the deck. I’ll of course be picking up a copy for myself, but I would understand if a Nemesis player on a limited budget wanted to skip this one.

Anyways, thanks for reading and, until next time, best of luck on YOUR Path to (Prophetic) Glory!