Hunting Grounds Rivals Deck Review: The Forest Fights Back
Welcome back to Path to Glory for another review, this time for the new Hunting Grounds Rivals Deck in the Spitewood box. While Deadly Synergy failed to deliver on a plotless deck like we’d hoped for, at least Hunting Grounds came without a plot card, meaning you get to smash it together with whatever might interest you in Nemesis. Branded as a Strike deck, Hunting Grounds functions a bit differently from its predecessors in that it focuses more on fighting in friendly territory rather than charging into enemy territory. Historically referred to as “counterpunch aggro,” you’ll see this theme pop up throughout the deck and has typically been leveraged by slower warbands that can pack a significant punch. Given that the introduction of the Aqua Ghyranis feature tokens further incentivizes your opponent to enter your territory, now seems like an optimal time for that playstyle to see a bit of a resurgence. Let’s get into the deck!
Objectives: Prey Comes To Our Boughs
Kicking off the objectives, we have a surge in Back Off!, which scores immediately after a friendly fighter’s attack pushes an enemy fighter into a different territory. Nice that this doesn’t require a successful attack and also nice that it says “pushed” to cover cases where you are using grapple instead of driveback. There are a lot of instances where you are trying to do something like this, whether for your own scoring (think like Certain Aggression from Realmstone Raiders) or to deny your opponent’s scoring (think like Bloody Momentum from Reckless Fury), so there is some natural synergy with desirable play lines. That said, killing fighters with your attacks won’t score this for you, so you can end up in some awkward scenarios where you suffer from success against hordes. There will also be a number of instances where, just as a result of deployment, you might draw this in your opening hand with no immediate opportunity to score it. It’s not bad, but I think you’re only likely to be interested if you have a lot of accurate, but low damage attacks at your disposal.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Bloodscent scores for one glory in the end phase if any enemy fighters in friendly territory have 2 or more damage tokens and/or are vulnerable. If you are the underdog, you can score this if they are in enemy territory instead. The value of this objective is so heavily tied to your warband’s propensity for being the underdog. If you are rarely underdog, I think it’s a little too matchup-dependent for my taste. Conversely, if you are playing a warband like Gitz which can regularly access underdog, the card is practically free. I think it does land slightly on the positive side of the playable to unplayable scale, but there are significantly better 1-glory scores out there.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Hands Off! continues the theme of our prior surge, scoring immediately after driving back an enemy fighter off of a feature token. While it is a bit odd that this one didn’t keep to the “push” language, I think it is actually the better of the two options. The game is already pretty feature-token centric at the moment (mostly due to PnP builds, which also stagger themselves to make this easier for you), so the addition of two more feature tokens in Spitewood should only make this even easier to score. Once again, not needing to succeed on the attack further increases the value here, but keep in mind that you still won’t be scoring it off kills.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Do they not call it home-field advantage across the pond? Something about this one just hits my ear wrong, but I digress. In any case, Home Advantage is a surge for your opponent failing an attack against a friendly fighter in friendly territory. Your opponent is going to miss eventually, so presuming you plan to just set up camp in your own territory (which this deck wants you to do anyway), I think this is pretty good. A bit of a bump if you have consistent access to multiple Save dice, particularly if you are interest in playing EotK as your Nemesis pairing. I could see something like Thorns grabbing this plus Immovable and getting great value out of their 2 Dodge Save rolls. Special shout-out as well to DKK for having the best Warscroll support for making this happen. Particularly early in the game (before your opponent has their accuracy upgrades down), your opponent missing and you scoring is a pretty strong way to get your snowball rolling.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Lead by Example is an excellent end phase option for leader-centric warbands, scoring for 2 glory if your leader attacked 2 or more times in the battle round and they are in your territory. Given his range access, Blackpowder probably deserves first mention here, but pretty much any big boy leader will make for a good option here (particularly the ones with Range 2+ access). I like the idea of pairing this with CtC since you can finesse this with Improvised Attack (Countercharge will help too), but there are enough pushes/teleports out there that this should be plenty doable. The hardest condition here might just be keeping your leader alive long enough to execute it.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
No Business Here is the inverse of Get Stuck In, with the added caveat that the target also needs to be flanked/surrounded. Once again, not needing to actually hit the attack is a pretty sweet boon here, but certainly warbands like Hexbane’s Hunters, Thorns (thanks to the new Warscroll), and Sons of Velmorn that can more easily access those flanked attacks are the most natural partners. Looking at this deck’s counterpart in Deadly Synergy, you would really appreciate the plot card effect helping you out as well. While you do have to wait for your opponent to start engaging with you, once the scrum has started, this should be pretty trivial, barring some very cautious positioning on the part of your opponent.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Keeping with the theme, No Trespassers is a kill surge for taking out an enemy fighter in friendly territory with an attack. As far as kill surges go, you could certainly do worse, but even just comparing it to our previous entry, there’s still quite a bit to be desired here. Rather than just needing to make an attack, this one needs you to succeed and kill, which can be a tall order at times, particularly against elites. Given that there is already some inherent matchup dependency from all the “do X to an enemy fighter in friendly territory,” I’d say this one probably misses the cut in a lot of instances.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Pinned! is the poster child for the upside (and the issue) at the core of the deck. 3 glory just for driving someone back into an edge hex is either obscenely trivial or deceptively difficult, with very little in-between. If you expect a lot of BARF and the like, probably this card (and the deck at large) becomes very achievable. However, if your opponent has a lot of passive scoring and doesn’t need to come to you, there can be a lot of clunk in the objective package here. Even imagine the weird game of chicken you’d be playing in HG mirrors! Bonus points to warbands with a ranged focus here like Profiteers since they’ll be driving people back more frequently than others (who would generally just be killing their opponents), but that is a very difficult card to rate. Bit of a meta call, much like the deck itself.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Ready or Not is next, but unfortunately you’re probably not planning to include it in many decks. A lot of the current deckbuilding meta runs on how good the 2-glory cards in a deck are and this one is simply not it. I feel like the latter half of this card is just a misprint and you should only need to satisfy the damage/adjacency for the fighters which are in your territory, but that’s not what it says. Honestly, even if it did, this card would still be a tall order, particularly against more passive warbands.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Spoiling for a Fight is basically the inverse of Into the Fire, and I think it suits the playstyle nicely if you are running a big boy-type warband. Since you’re planning to hang out in your territory anyway with the deck, you just need to make sure you’ve got sufficient positioning tech to pull off that requirement. You’re generally trying to set up this kind of situation with Kainan or Mollog anyway, but it is fair to say that the card isn’t for everyone. Like the rest of the deck, this does require a bit of input from your opponent too.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Well, it took until the penultimate objective card in the deck, but we finally got a card that actually incentivizes your opponent to come to you in This is Our Turf! It’s too bad that it’s only 1 glory worth of incentive, but I like it quite a bit nonetheless. It lends itself well to my beloved hordes with movement economy like Reapers or Hexbane’s Hunters (of course Gitz as well). Hard ask for your opponent to outnumber you on this one if you’ve got enough bodies and are determined to stay in your own territory, I just wish there was more of this “come over here and do something about it” scoring in the deck.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2
Sadly, Usurped closes us out on a pretty low note, as it asks you (without stating it directly) to Overrun onto a feature token that a target was standing on before you attacked them. With how token-centric PnP in particular has driven the meta, and with the introduction of the Aqua Ghyranis tokens, we are primed for some scoring which interacts with knocking fighters off of tokens, but this is just so far from what that needs to look like to be effective. If the wording were such that you just had to take it from them that turn or something (via Duellist, Sidestep, etc.), I could maybe buy this one, but relying strictly on Overrun is going to leave you disappointed more often than not. Keep Overrun as a “nice for me if it happens” thing rather than something you have to do to score a card.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Ploys: Tricks Of Root And Thorn
Audacious Denial is our first ploy, enabling you to make a 1 Damage melee weapon attack with your leader against an adjacent target, with the caveat that both fighters need to be in friendly territory. Extra attack actions are always potent effects, but there are a lot of leaders whose natural attack profiles will unfortunately price them out of using this card. Still, the upside here is a potential ping and push, which will make it attractive enough for which it is better suited. Card seems particularly well-suited for Kurnoth’s Heralds, for example. Notably, it also does not say that the attack can’t be modified, so slapping grievous on this can let you spit out a 2 Damage attack in the power step, which is pretty attractive. It will just be difficult, at times, to set up the exact situation to use it.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Deny Invaders is alright as far as +Dice gambits go, working on both melee and ranged attacks. It just continues to struggle from the matchup dependency of the other cards in the deck.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Hidden Snares simply has too many prerequisites for the actual effect of the card. For all of the hoops you have to jump through, only giving them -1 Dice for one turn just does not seem like adequate value here. Best case scenario, you get this late in the game when your opponent’s options are very limited, but it’s borderline useless in the first round. Even in the midgame, your opponent likely has more than one option they can go with in the next turn. I think if you make this a surge and just say you can use it any time an opponent’s fighter is going to make an attack in your territory, it would be a bit more interesting, but not likely to see play as written.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Keep Them At Bay can up your Range 1 attacks to Range 2 in the next turn when targeting a fighter in friendly territory. Certain warbands will appreciate the positional flexibility this gives them, whether to make the attack from a token our just set up a non-charge swing. Additionally, this works for the whole turn, so any “attack again” or power step attacks (which are modifiable) would benefit from this. but the Range 2 maximum will certainly limit the warbands that can actually benefit from this.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Next up is Mind Your Step, a 2-hex Distraction effect on an enemy fighter in your territory that must leave them in either neutral or enemy territory. While there are a number of stipulations on this card, a 2-hex push is incredible value. Your opponent can’t “fix” their positioning with a single 1-hex push of their own, and, outside of warband-specific abilities, has no single-ability recourse for getting back to a token if you used this to push them off of it. Lots of applications for this one, so I’m willing to risk matchups where my opponent might be less inclined to enter my territory just for the power spike of this card in cases where they do come to me.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Quite a swing in power level going from our prior entry to Mystical Misdirection, but this is simply a worse version of Switch Things Up, a card that was already pretty niche in its own right. Given that there are no objectives in the deck that care about holding treasure tokens (never mind cards that care about specific numbers), I really don’t understand what this is doing here.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1, Universality: 1
Another card which can be heavily influenced by the underdog status, Paths Unknown offers a very unique effect in preventing one of your fighters from being targeted by an attack in the next action step. In addition to potentially disrupting the flow of your opponent’s round, these kinds of effects are excellent for securing positioning for end phase scoring. This is particularly the case if your warband already has some good delay tactics at its disposal like Clawpack, Reapers, and DKK. Still, pretty much anyone playing this deck should get pretty good usage here, with that extra boost for easy underdog warbands of being able to protect an exposed fighter out in enemy territory.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Poor Footing lets you hand out a Move token to an enemy fighter, but only if they are in your territory and are within 1 hex of a feature token. While I like the control aspects of handing out move tokens, this one is just too positionally limiting to me. This is especially the case in the early game where the card is, for all intents and purposes, useless. If I am slotting a ploy that needs to come out at a particular time of the game to be useful, it better have a significant power ceiling to compensate, but I just don’t believe that is the case with this card.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Secrets of the Realm is on the lower end of usable for the stagger token ploys we’ve seen to date. The fact that you could maybe throw out more than one token is not nearly enough to overcome the positional restriction when cards like Misstep and Raging Tremors exist for a much more controllable stagger. On top of that, PnP being so popular means that most folks are handing you the staggers voluntarily anyway. I get why it’s in this deck, but I can’t see slotting it in Nemesis.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Well, nobody can complain about having access to Sidestep, not much more to say about the card we haven’t said already! Great way to finish off the ploys in the deck.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 3
Upgrades: Boons Of The Bound Glade
Our first upgrade is Balance of Ghyran, which gives you a 42% chance to ping back an attacker after they hit the equipped fighter so long as they are within 3 hexes of you. A couple of housekeeping notes here, but, firstly, this does mean that a Range 3 attacker can drive you back and prevent you from using this ability. Secondly, while you might be able to declare this ability in the same window as your opponent’s Duellist, if they use that push to get out of the 3-hex range, you are no longer able to ping them (presuming they were the active player when they made the attack). All that said, this is still interesting as a disincentive for your opponent to attack your bulky fighters when they’re outside of kill range. I like the idea of this on the Nurgle warbands due to their significant potential for damage reduction to increase the mileage on the card, but particularly Wurmspat since this can also feed their inspiration. Similarly, Jaws also appreciate having an extra way to spit out some ping damage on their opponent’s turn. Still unless you are typically able to survive at least 2 hits on a fighter, the odds of getting value here are not the best.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Blocked! is an interesting control tool that feels kind of like what Pesky Nuisance was aiming to be. Sure, it only works 50% of the time, but when you have warbands like Sepulchral Guard that run entirely off of a single fighter, I could definitely see a scenario where you’re willing to slap this down on a raised fighter and use them to try and body-block for your leader. I can’t say it’s something to try and build/plan around, but there is some intriguing boom-bust angle to the card that I kind of like. Given that it is telegraphed, I would like to have seen it work a little more reliably though.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Bounty of Ghyran is next, an upgrade that enables you to inspire for a turn, but only while in your territory. Based on the wording, it also seems like you get to stay inspired even if you exit your territory during that time, since you don’t uninspire until the timing listed. This one is intriguing, mostly because it does not prevent you from becoming inspired later in the game, which was an issue for Do or Die from Countdown to Cataclysm. There are plenty of fighters who get significant stat boosts from inspiration and can have a hard enough time getting inspired that even doing so for just one turn (or two, if you use this leading into your opponent’s turn to get to your inspired Defence) might be roughly the equivalent of an accuracy and/or damage and/or movement and/or defence ploy. Some warbands also have generally difficult inspire conditions, so this can also serve to circumvent that issue, if only briefly.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Crippling Blow is a 2R/3S/1D weapon upgrade that gives the target a move token if they are in friendly territory. Notably, it seems that you actually don’t have to land the attack to hand out the move token, so there’s an interesting control element here. I feel like this is particularly suited to work in concert with Audacious Denial, as spending a turn and an upgrade slot just to make a 1-Damage (or maybe 2, if you have grievous on hand) attack can feel a bit bad when you could just be trying to kill the target instead. 2 glory is also a bit much to be asking for me, even with the move token not requiring a success.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Goading Defender grants you +1 Save while in friendly territory unless the equipped fighter is dealt damage or picked by a ploy. It’s basically a 2-glory illusion upgrade (though does not break at the end of the round). In an ideal world, you just get to hang out in friendly territory with your extra Save die. However, there are enough ways to pick enemy fighters and/or ping them that there is a legitimate risk of throwing this card down and actually getting no value out of it. Keep in mind also that you are forgoing the opportunity to pick your own fighter if you want the upgrade to stick around, which can be very limiting in its own right. I’d rather just take the guaranteed value of something like Sharp Reflexes, but I suppose it is nice that this one can increase your Save characteristic above 2.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Our first upgrade reprint is Great Speed, which has established a very meta-relevant place for itself in second edition. The first reason for this is that the removal of longboarding and offsetting (combined with generally interactive objective card packages) has reduced the need for more than +1 Move in many instances. The second reason is that costing 0 glory allows you to treat it like an 11th, persisting ploy, which is really excellent value when considered in relation to a one-time +2 Move effect like Wings of War. Maybe it’s just the types of warbands I enjoy playing, but I find I have great difficulty skipping this card in any pairing where it’s on offer.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3, Universality: 2
Continuing the reprint party, we have Hidden Aid, arguably one of the best 1-glory upgrades in the game at the moment. While Brawler usage has risen to meet this card (and to counter the general preponderance of Gitz in the meta), the effect is still top notch. Not only has the better dice odds (on both sides of attacking and defending) proven invaluable, but the ability to access many support-limited effects (on warscrolls in particular) has truly cemented its spot in any Nemesis deck for which it is a legal inclusion.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 3
Hidden Traps is another weapon upgrade, this time at 1R/3H/1D, but does tack on grievous if the target is within 1 hex of a feature token in friendly territory. While this is obviously designed to be an additional way to make use of Audacious Denial, it’s overall a bit more in line with what I’d be looking for in a weapon upgrade for this deck. Sure, it can’t knock out that 3 Damage hit for you, but it can definitely help you deal with those pesky 2-Health fighters that keep popping up in your territory and trying to delve your feature tokens. Still, there are several weapon upgrades in the wider meta that I would reach for first, so I could see a lot of scenarios where this ends up an 11 or 12th card, and it almost never gets played on elites who generally have access to profiles as good as this, or better, anyway.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1, Universality: 2
Killing Blow grants the equipped fighter’s melee weapons grievous while the target is damaged. For a deck that lacks Great Strength and Gloryseeker, this is about as good of a grievous upgrade as I think you could hope to get. Sure, it’s better suited to warbands that like to make a lot of ranged attacks and/or have access to ping effects (through their warscroll or otherwise) but it will generally be useful against any elite warband. It also lets you build in some nice grievous redundancy to your deck by pairing it with one of the aforementioned upgrades if you’re a warband that really needs to spread the runemark around and, in the right scenarios, will be a drop-in substitute for those cards.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2, Universality: 2
Our final card in the deck is True Grit, a 2-glory upgrade which can only be equipped by your leader and enables both shield and dodge to be considered successes for adjacent friendly fighters’ Save rolls. Note that fighters are not considered to be adjacent to themselves, but essentially putting adjacent friendly fighters on guard (except for the no driveback part) can still be a really nice effect. I think it’s fair to say that this will generally be better on hordes than on elites simply because you have more bodies you could cluster around your leader, particularly those with lots of movement economy or those that have lots of 2-Dodge access. Still, as far as elites go, I think Purifiers deserve an honorable mention here, if only because it could facilitate an inspiration. I do find the card very interesting, but I worry it looks a bit better on paper than it will be in practice, since it is difficult to score a lot of the currently available objective cards by clustering up too much. I wish it just worked on “fighters within 1 hex” instead so that you knew you were always getting some value out of it.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2, Universality: 1
Verdict: The Wild Waits Its Moment
Overall, I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in this deck, particularly in the context of where it will land in the competitive space relative to the original core set plotless decks. I think it is also pretty heavily outclassed (as a deck, plot or no) by its box mate in Deadly Synergy. While there are some neat pieces here and there, especially in the power deck, I think the overall theme of the deck has not quite been executed in the right way. If you want to score/use many of the cards in the deck, you are relying almost entirely on your opponent doing something for you to meet the prerequisites. This would still be ok if the deck also gave your opponent significant incentives to come into your territory to deny your scoring, but it doesn’t. Sure, the Aqua Ghyranis token will innately have this effect and there are some decent incentives for trudging forward in other Rivals decks, but I’m not sure that is not enough on its own. Nemesis format can remediate this issue if you have sufficient passive scoring from the pairing, but the friendly territory requirements fundamentally disrupt a lot of the value you can get from your deck in the first round. It also seems like a deck that will make for some pretty whack mirror matches, when they occur.
Despite my apprehension, there are some warbands which can make use of this. I think the premiere options will be those that revolve around some “big boy” leaders, since that will enable you to take advantage of everything the deck has to offer. Not technically in that bucket are Gardeners and Ravagers, both of whom I think can set up a Nemesis build where they can force a little more interaction from their opponent with this deck. Of course, PnP can always play that role quite well. However, I think the most uniquely impactful partner here (since PnP already has better pairings, in my opinion) is Emberstone Sentinels, as Iron Grasp and Supremacy offer some very important “hey if you don’t come over here and stop me, I’m going to score some stuff” options. With that forced interaction in mind, I think you could reasonably backfill on the surge objectives to avoid the usual ES trap of having to take something like Sally Forth. I think CtC also offers enough passive scoring to enable something along those lines too, so I like that well enough as a pairing. Lastly, I think there is some good overall play line interactions with Deadly Synergy, with some funny upside for scoring Pinned! and Outmuscle as a result of the same attack action.
Well, that’s all for this one. Let me know if you think I’m way off base on the deck, it just didn’t really move the needle for me on initial review, but I hope it proves me wrong. Until next time, we wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
