Intro
Hello and welcome back to Path to Glory for another warband review! Today we’ve got the first (new) Destruction warband in the Embergard season with Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz, a collection of Gitz with a troggoth that, despite my usual disdain for Destruction aesthetics, I actually quite like visually. They’ve also been billed as a Flex warband “with a tinge of Mastery,” which seems very up my alley mechanically. They come at an interesting time given that Zarbag’s Gitz are already doing quite well in the competitive scene, but these guys look very solid in their own right while carving out a much different niche. Without further ado, let’s see what they’ve got in store!
Warscroll
Inspire
The warband’s inspire condition is dead simple: inspire a fighter after they delve. As far as controllability, this inspire has to be one of the most on-demand in the game. Move or charge onto a token, delve, done. Yes you get staggered, but you should be able to do that math on whether or not that is worth it depending on the board state. Still, I think this will actually be a bit more nuanced than it would first appear, particularly when it comes to your most potent offensive pieces. Yes, you want them to get inspired so they can go out and start smashing stuff, but you may have to make a decision between the two quite often in the first round, short of pushes like Sidestep to scramble onto a token and delve it prior to going for your big charge. That said, the warband does have some built-in tech we will cover shortly to help with this issue. Furthermore, we’ve seen “power-up” mechanics in the past where warbands will sacrifice a little early game efficiency for a later game boost and seen it pay off. Considering how well this inspire condition synergizes with one of the most consistent objective packages in the game right now (Pillage and Plunder), I think you’ve got plenty of motivation to spend some time delving, even in situations where you aren’t attacking as much while executing a more passive game plan. On top of that, there will also be plenty of cases where you can charge onto a token and have the best of both worlds anyway, so really not much to complain about here, this is a great inspire condition.
Trophy Huntaz
EDITED: Our first warscroll ability to discuss is sort of a once-per-game ability called Trophy Huntaz. Very simply, at the beginning of your first Action step in the first round, you pick an enemy fighter with a Health characteristic of 3 or more to be “da trophy,” which means you’ll have +1 Attack dice when targeting them, but apparently until the end of the game. Interestingly, based on the wording, there is no end to the persistence of this effect, even in cases where the fighter is raised. I suppose we could use an FAQ on this given that the rulebook states abilities which are not specified to persist only last until the end of the round, but that just doesn’t quite feel like the intent to me. Still, probably the correct ruling for now until we get further clarification although it will knock the ability down a peg if that is the case. While I don’t see the need for a pseudo-keyword of “da trophy”— this could easily have just read “pick an enemy fighter, melee attacks that target that fighter…” — the ability itself is excellent. Every single warband (so far) has at least one fighter with at least 3 Health, so you don’t have to worry about it bricking in any matchups. While we’ll get into the warband’s offensive output a bit later, an extra die will be a significant accuracy boost on most attacks and can really help you sprint down big threats much more rapidly than you otherwise would, particularly in cases where you can combo the effect with additional damage from grievous. Straightforward, but a very powerful warband-wide stat boost, if only towards a single target.
Da Bait
Da Bait is a surge ability and is usable as many times as the trigger comes up in the game. Immediately after a friendly minion is slain, push your leader up to that fighter’s Health characteristic such that they end adjacent to an enemy fighter. This is obviously another very strong effect, as this is a minimum of a 2-hex push, which can also allow you to continuously make attacks with your leader without charging. Since (spoilers) it looks like he and Uglug will be doing the most heavy lifting in terms of offensive output, this kind of improvement in activation economy is much appreciated. It also lends itself to a bit of understanding in regards to fighter deployment, encouraging you to dangle one of your minions with your leader placed in the midline to push up and take their place if they happen to die. The restriction of landing next to an enemy fighter, while needed for balance purposes, does mean you need to be mindful of your positioning, but being able to land next to any enemy fighter (not necessarily the one who slew your minion) should maintain sufficient flexibility as a repositioning tool, especially if you get the chance to push onto a token for a delve before you’ve charged with Borgit. Even if you are not planning to make attacks after the push, the ability can open the door for token or territory-specific scoring as well. Extra push is always nice to have.
Gittish Taktikz
Gittish Taktikz is a once-per-game surge ability you can use after Uglug or Borgit successfully attacks an enemy fighter which provides critical grievous to any minions’ melee attacks targeting that fighter for the rest of the round. Again, we have the introduction of a seemingly useless pseudo-keyword in “da mugginz,” and I have to say that I find injection of what is essentially flavor text with this and “da trophy” into the rules language of an ability to be undesirable. If the goal is to keep everything clear, concise, and beginner-friendly, introducing terms which don’t serve a real gameplay purpose will likely only confuse newer players when their focus should really be on the functional use of the ability. Rant aside, the functional aspect of this ability is just ok to me. While it pairs well with Trophy Huntaz in regards to both increasing the odds of landing the initial attack and the odds of achieving the critical grievous effect later in the round, there are a few too many hoops to jump through to get value out of this. I’d generally rather be saving my two key offensive pieces until later in the round (if they don’t have viable attack targets earlier), so forcing them to act early if I want a chance to use the ability is a bit suspect. Additionally, there’s no guarantee of payoff if either my minions are all slain (they only have 7 Health combined) or they happen not to hit and crit the target later in the round. I think you almost exclusively try use this against “da trophy,” but it’s not exactly going to define your gameplan. It’s a “nice to have” when it works in terms of board state/actually generating the effect, but I think that planning your turns around it can lead you to less optimal play patterns if you are not careful.
Reassuring Presence
Another surge ability to push fighters, Reassuring Presence allows you to, once-per-game, push each friendly minion up to 3 hexes, as long as they end up adjacent to Uglug, after an action step in which he used a core ability. Whereas our earlier push surge seemed primarily focused on setting “traps” to get out more attacks with one of your stronger fighters, this one feels more like a positional value tool that can enable your Flex engine. Maybe Uglug can’t quite charge onto that token you want to stand on and smash your opponent’s fighter, but he can bring a minion along with him to do the job instead. If you do manage to land on that token, the added bonus is that now you have an opportunity to inspire them as well. Alternatively, certain board states might lend themselves to body blocking Uglug with your minions to deny your opponent from countercharging him. I expect this use case will be a bit niche, but will still pop up from time to time, as I’d much rather lose one of them instead if my opponent is coming to clap me back. Lastly, this can let you reposition a minion such that you have a more feasible push off of Da Bait if they are killed. By positioning Uglug near enough to Borgit at the end of his core ability, you can keep this kind of hunting “pack” going where Uglug takes a turn, the minions follow him, your opponent slays a minion, then Borgit can immediate push up to punish them. Definitely a number of “bubbles” to keep in mind given the push distances, but should open up some good chances for skill expression.
Stab ‘Em Good
Rounding out the warscroll abilities, Stab ‘Em Good reminds me a lot of the old [
Circle of the Silvered Gravesalt]. It creates a nice disincentive for your opponent to come after your minions for a turn, which can potentially help you secure surge or end phase scoring for positional play in the process. It can also set up some awkward move/charge lanes for your opponent if you have a good grasp on which fighter they hope to use in their next turn. While I think you’ll likely be activating your minions a bit less frequently than the big 2 fighters in the warband, there is enough scoring payoff for simply taking a turn to move onto a token that there is some upside here. In addition to the disincentive aspect of this, you can use it a bit more proactively as well. For example, you can combo this with Lure of Battle to move up with one of your minions in the action step, then push an enemy fighter adjacent to them for a point of damage. With no restriction on pinging only undamaged or non-vulnerable fighters, this feels like a very strong finisher to me and is yet another rude way to punish Sotek’s Venomites just for existing. Still, it definitely feels more like a “nice to have” than a central component of your gameplan. I would not be surprised if you have a reasonable percentage of games where this does not deal damage, and there will even be a decent number of games where you don’t bother to use it/it has minimal effect on what your opponent was planning to do anyway.
Fighters
Moving on to the fighters, we’ll start with the leader, Borgit Wolf-Killa. He sports a physical profile of 3 Move, 2 Shields, 3 Health, and 2 Bounty with a melee weapon profile of 1R/2H/2D with critical grievous. Decently tanky for a Git, and that attack profile is a bit deceptive when you consider the extra die from Trophy Huntaz boosts both his accuracy and average damage output against that particular fighter. Things only get better when he inspires, gaining an extra hex of movement and an extra die on his attack. Between this very solid bundle of mobility, accuracy, damage, and the extra nudge he gets out of Da Bait, you’ve quite a potent piece for a 5-fighter warband. You’ll just have to be a bit cautious when it comes to matchups against other fighters with high accuracy, particularly in cases where the opponent has cleave, as 3 Health is very much one-shottable.
Next up is Uglug who, as you might expect, is the bulkiest of the set at a physical profile of 3 Move, 1 Shield, 5 Health, and 2 Bounty. While 2R/2H/2D with cleave might’ve been just so-so in first edition, 2 Damage at Range 2 is not so common anymore and this is pretty decently accurate, again factoring in that Trophy Huntaz can boost it further. Inspired, he adds an extra die on his Save roll, as well as grievous onto his attack for that coveted 3 Damage at Range 2 while retaining the flexibility to use the cleave instead for cases where you need the extra accuracy more than the damage. 5 Health and 2 Shields is remarkably bulky for a warband like this, especially when attached to a very solid attack profile. He’s no Mollog, but he’s plenty capable of being a dominant board presence given the tools at the warband’s disposal on the warscroll.
Rigg and Shamm are the first of our minion fighters at 3 Move, 2 Dodge, 3 Health, and 1 Bounty. This is the first time I feel like we really see that Trophy Huntaz baked into a fighter’s weapon stats though, as they sport a meager 1R/2S/1D attack with stagger. While they inspire to get an extra hex of movement and an extra die on their attack, I feel like a lot of their value is wrapped up in being “bait.” Dangle them in front at the start of the game and you threaten a 3-hex leader push if they go down. However, if your opponent ignores them, just keep using them to delve stuff and feed your objective deck instead. It’s a win-win. Having 2 Dodge off the rip is pretty nice as well, leaving your opponent with some pretty undesirable choices early in the game.
Our next minion is Snagz, who clocks in with a similar physical profile of 3 Move, 2 Dodge, 2 Health, and 1 Bounty. Nothing too crazy on his weapon at 2R/2H/1D, but, as his name implies, he’s got grapple on there as well. That said, I think he is my priority inspire for the minions, as he gains not only that extra hex of movement, but critically an extra point of damage on his weapon for a legitimately usable offensive piece. Very solid all-around fighter here given what you are working with in the big 2.
Lastly, we have Dregg at the same physical profile as our prior entry of 3 Move, 2 Dodge, 2 Health, and 1 Bounty. Bit of a misprint on his card with the melee weapon symbol, but that is a ranged attack at 3R/2S/1D with stagger, meaning he sadly cannot benefit from Trophy Huntaz. He does gain that extra movement and extra accuracy when inspired, but I think he’s more of a “charge onto token, score objectives” kind of piece, which is what you need out of your hangers-on in a warband like this anyway.
Conclusion
Overall, this is looking like a very strong warband to me. While there are a couple things which limit their potential to be absolutely broken S-tier (namely the potential for one-shotting Borgit and the relative difficulty in accessing charged out states that would allow Uglug and Borgit to do more work), this looks like a very solid and likely high-tier competitive choice to me. Everyone in the warband has access to 2 Save dice when inspired (4 of the fighters do even uninspired), there are nice mobility options baked into the warscroll, you’ve got really solid offensive profiles on your main hitters (and even at least one of the minions) and Trophy Huntaz really is just that good. While they fill a different niche than Zarbag’s Gitz and are maybe not quite at that power level, I think they are pretty close and will compete for the attention of Gloomspite Gitz fans at the very least.
As far as Nemesis play, it is hard to imagine not using Pillage and Plunder as the foundation for just about every deck you build with them. The smooth scoring profile for delving being further incentivized by the need to delve to inspire is a very natural pairing for them and will generally set your objective decks up pretty well. As far as partners, I think I’d generally reach for Blazing Assault first, not only because it is my favorite Nemesis pairing in general at the moment, but also because of just how well the power cards work with this warband. You want the Great Strength and Twist the Knife for more consistent damage output, of course, rather than relying on the innate critical grievous effects on the warscroll and fighter cards. The accuracy cards truly shine for them as well, particularly since Uglug can very conceivably be swinging 3H with a re-roll (or better) with cleave and grievous at Range 2. Even the defensive tech in there is helpful, as the warband appreciates the guard token from Shields Up as well as the potential defensive support from Hidden Aid on 2 Save dice. Some decent alternatives, if you are looking to stray from PnPxBA, would be to swap for PnPxCtC, which is arguably the most consistent objective scoring output in the game while also enabling you to take some nice weapon upgrades for the minions and pushes in Sidestep, Commanding Stride, and Countercharge. If we see some cards come off the forsaken list, I could even see a pairing of PnPxRF to enable your 2 hitters to keep activating while backing it up with the smooth objective package from PnP. If you are interested in straying from PnP entirely (which I would not recommend), I could see something like BAxES being interesting here. Despite there being a lot of overlap in the power cards, the push tech offered by the warband is enticing for setting up the Supremacy/Iron Grasp plan. Additionally, it would allow you to fit both Lure of Battle and Confusion for Stab ‘Em Good.
Whatever route you decide to go, I think this warband looks like a lot of fun and the minis are fantastic. There is certainly power here, but it is not as straightforward as just charge 4X and profit, which just makes me like them more. Have fun on your path to Gittish greatness and we wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
