Hexbane's Hunters

Welcome to our quick rundown of all the new cards with the Hexbane Hunters release. Make sure you catch our podcast coverage, including our experience on the tabletop with these vengeful zealots.

For coverage of the universals, follow this link.

First Impressions

[D]AVY & [P]HIL

The first thing you notice about this crew is the shockingly low wound count. The warband totals 14 wounds- more than the three fighter elites like Steelheart or Wurmspat, but with sketchier defensive profiles. For reference, it’s the same wound total as Garrek’s Reavers, but… spread across one additional fighter. Yikes. Let’s take a closer look at the fighters themselves:

I had a joke about Haskel but I can tell he didn’t think it was very funny.

The boss. That’s kind of a tough inspire. Even against hordes, you’ll still be fishing for a grievous crit to one shot someone. Against someone like Krushas… But inspiration has decent rewards. The pistols going up to two damage is about as solid as it gets for printed attacks. Three wounds and a single defense die, even inspired is indicating that maybe everyone is expendable in the name of finding and kilin’ witches. Or vampires. Or whatever.

But more important here is the core trick of this warband: Price of Victory. As long as you aren’t totally running out of hunters, you can really upend some of the usual dynamics of the game. You can risk a fighter early with an aggressive charge. If they get killed in return, you can start powering up your second wave. If your opponent tries to pick off your other fighters, you can reactivate your first fighter. Crucially, this softens the blow in later rounds if you feel pressured to charge with your best fighter early in the round. It feels most important for keeping close games competitive. If you’re already ahead, the free upgrade is less likely to be hard to afford. If you’re way behind, you may not have enough hunters for it to matter.

Also worth noting- it doesn’t have to be from an attack action. It can be from anything at all. A ploy, a gambit spell, your own gambits if you’re feeling saucy, or even lethals. So… keep an eye on that.

Also, also worth noting- this window doesn’t conflict with “after activation, or after attack action” reaction windows, which is important for not gumming up the game in weird ways. Unfortunately, Exiled Dead are going to shut this down which is a real bummer.

Spoiler alert: the dogs are not and cannot be hunters. More on that later.

She cuts and styles her own hair. With axes.

Brydget! She kinda feels like if you mashed together Saek and Karsus’s attack profiles and tossed them on Arnulf or Karsus? That volley rule! She has the honor of being your big damage threat early if you can get her adjacent early. The accuracy option is less alluring, but I think it’ll come in when you need to land a hit to shift someone off an important feature token. Make sure you notice that the first time you fire the volley pistol each round is your only chance to use it.

That inspiration is somehow even tougher than Haskel’s since she could outlive him if he bites it early and then needs some kind of power card help to get inspired. But inspiring is a big deal- the extra defensive die is clutch and she gets kinda nuts with her axes- three dice on smash, 2 damage is best of breed when it comes to scything attacks. She’s gonna die easy in some outings, but it’s nice to have the extra threat.

He’ll cut and style your hair. With axes.

Aemos might think he’s a bit bigger than he actually is. I mean… the mini is big, so I was surprised when he was only three damage out of the gate. His Reassuring Presence is a pretty big bubble, but don’t be like me and forget that it doesn’t apply to the dogs. It’s a pretty modest bonus for the single die defenders, but Silent Pock and Inspired Brydget can really get it humming. Or maybe someone’s carrying around a grody foot on a string (see far below).

Aemos gets accurate later… so that’s cool? He also can take decent advantage of damage upgrades like Great Strength. I think he’s a decent candidate for putting a hit out early to get Haskel in range of a potential kill.

Pock just noticed what Ratspike did on the floor.

What a weirdo. That’s a good starting gun. The knockback is situationally very handy. You can throw move R1, move 3 fighters out of counter-attack range with a hit or shift someone on guard off their spot. Two block uninspired for defense? And if you’re close enough to Aemos, then you’re at Glissette levels of defense, which we know is super great until it’s not.

The inspire feels easy enough, but it means you have to lose one of the very best boys:

Step aside Grawl, get outta here Lighaen, who even are you Riptooth?

The new best boys in town. I love this design. Making the first doggo worth no bounty helps mitigate some of the bleed that you would reasonably expect here. But even better (and something I somehow missed at first glance) is Loyal Hound. After a friendly hunter makes a move action you can move a hound. Yowza. This makes it much faster to set up something like Sudden Revelation or Horrors in the Dark. This means that many of your charges are going to come with support. Notice that you can move one dog multiple times as it scrambles around, faithfully distracting the unfaithful while you shoot them in the face. Really good call not letting these guys become hunters or some of the interactions in this warband would get outta control.

Objectives

Before we get too deep in to the cards, I want to first acknowledge that those of us who get way into the weeds on this stuff tend to really focus on Championship format play above all others. But it’s important to remember these cards are also looking to be balanced for Rivals and (maybe?) Rivals plus formats. So if every card isn’t a Championship banger, that’s ok. That’s why there’s universals and deck building.

Honestly, pretty decent for a kill surge. Have you seen this warband? Someone’s gonna die. I think it’s in the Championship conversation.

Haskel looking very stable and sane here.

A much worse kill surge. Like pitiable death but won’t work in friendly territory. Not a disaster of a card, but this will be Rivals only.

Take **that** random Skittershank fighter!

Great! You’ve got enough ranged fighters to make this happen early, even if you have to make four attacks, and later in the game, you should have the accuracy to score the second option more reliably. You have extra help from some of your power cards (Making a Point and Retractable Pistol). If you get a scything attack off (Let’s go Brydget!) then this is also accelerated.

Mmm, no thanks. Can play in Rivals and two glory End Phase are going to catch your attention, but this is real tough against elites and even if you pull it off you might have sustained too many casualties along the way.

Glad they’ve got more two glory end phase for rivals play, but this feels like another potentially big ask. I think you can lose fighters fast enough that you may struggle to score this reliably. You might still have two hunters, but it’ll be tough to pull the positioning off as well. Some small part of my brain tells me that this might be better than I’m giving it credit for, but I don’t think so.

I’m just impressed they got such a big pyre going with as damp as everything is down here in the Nethermaze.

Yes please! If you haven’t lost two hunters, then you’re on a street named Easy, friend. And three other objectives should be pretty reliable if you haven’t made a total mess of your surges.

Aemos is really going for the “more is more” vibe with this bandolier here.

This is fine. Hard to score in round 1 because you would have needed to draw four upgrades. And for one glory end phase scores, they need to be silky smooth reliable. But again, fine for Rivals, I think.

I like that Hexbane is showing his Art Homework and wants a sweet two glory payout.

Mmmm, mmm, mmm. Delicious. There’s that magic two glory end phase again, but this one feels pretty achievable. Maybe because there’s three options. The first is pretty unlikely but may crop up. You can work at the second. A savvy player may drop a fighter in neutral territory, but a push can get this live again. And if you’re going second in round 2, it feels pretty common to have an opponent get to six objectives. A good one to mulligan in the opening hand, but this is probably champs worthy.

I really don’t know what’s going on here. Is Drusylla trying to book it outta here with Slythael’s mask? With Slythael’s head? Is Haskel mediating a Shadeborn dispute? With dogs?

Hard to get pumped for 1 glory end phases, but this feels pretty reliable in round 2 or later. Maybe not against all those illusion builds. Can’t see it making the cut too often in champs, but maybe R+. And you know, obviously Rivals.

So… I liked this at first glance, but maybe a little less so on further reflection. This feels like a round 2 score almost exclusively. Round 1 you’re probably not taking losses heavy enough to be able to spread upgrades around to all your survivors and I don’t know if you can count on still having three fighters in R3. But maybe. I also don’t like the idea of having to plant upgrades on sub-optimal fighters to score this.

Courtesy of the best boys, this feels pretty darn easy. As long as you’re pursuing an aggressive strategy, this feels scoreable throughout the game. But again- one glory end phases…

Does Pock have eyelids? I don’t think Pock has eyelids.

Yeah, solid. Surges you can potentially score without rolling dice, and without being forced to put fighters in spots you don’t want are always going to get my attention. This is going to start in the mix for me on the reg. That second caveat seems pretty unlikely to trigger often, but it doesn’t hurt for it to be there. And it makes you keep your eyes peeled for Adaptive Strategy reprints or similar cards.

I think anytime your faction cards can present 2-3 champs worthy surges and some two glory end phases to consider, you’re feeling ok. I’m not blown away, but it doesn’t feel like a Wurmspat situation either.

Gambits

My co-host, Phil had to talk some sense into me on this one. I was kinda lukewarm, figured your health is so low that this won’t matter all that much. But you’re going to get upgrades out and this kind of reaction speed damage reduction is historically very powerful. Strong consider.

Do you want to get jealous Godsworn in here? Cause this is how you get jealous Godsworn in here. I lurrrrrve this card and it’s design. I know this warband has ways of cheating out upgrades already, but this one won’t cost you a fighter to do so. And if you don’t need the free upgrade because you’re fat and happy on glory? Just pay for it and this card will replace itself. Easy peasy. Even better, this warband has some hot fire in the upgrades. This is going in every Hexbane deck I build until someone can convince me otherwise.

Everyone knows the Royal Butcher loves his raves.

So you can make an awful lot of the board lethal with this… but it does max out at one damage because it expires as soon as damage is caused. I think the situations where this is really meaningful are just too few and far between to really make this worthwhile in championship play. I guess you can make the board a hostile work environment for Spinefin, though.

I didn’t think Hexbanes would be the ones to bring rocket jumping to Underworlds. But here we are.

I skipped this in my first build, but that might be a mistake. It’s not just powerful because you can reactivate a fighter that already charged. It’s powerful because your opponent has to now worry about any fighter that has charged, so long as you can play out some upgrades. Pretty spicy. Notice that it won’t work during the activation step if you use Price of Victory, because it needs to be in the power step. But it’ll work if someone is super rude and pings Brydget to death like some sort of rude person that is rude.

Brydget really hogging the closeups for these gambits…

Hrrrm… I… don’t know. I’m realizing I read this wrong a few times. Aemos could chop a gnoblar in half and use that to inspire Haskel. That’s hot. I think my first reading was that this had to inspire the fighter making the attack, but it’s obviously not. Needing to kill to trigger is kind of a tough ask at times, but getting Haskel and Brydget inspired is pretty great. Plus there’s an extra power card? I think this is great in Rivals, and worth trying out in champs. I can’t wait to hear how wrong I am in this confused, possibly lukewarm take.

What’s important here is that this attack benefits from any upgrades you pick up- re-rolls, Gloryseeker, a Lucky Horseshoe. Those really turn this attack on. If you see a gambit that lets you make an attack out of phase, there’s a good chance it’s worth your while. Plus it helps with due process, and might help with other objectives like Winged Death or Branching Fate.

Hunh. This shuts down the rest of the current power step and the next one (other than upgrades). Yowza. This seems like it probably started without the power step restrictions. Notice that while you can’t play it in your opponent’s third or fourth power step, but you can play it in your third or fourth power step. This makes sure you can’t lock down your opponent entirely, since they’ll have the first chance to play in your power steps. Worth investigating. I like the head games. People like to hold that confusion or sidestep, but this has those nasty No Time vibes. And also, someone is finally sticking it to Stormsire and Vortemis. At last.

Aemos’ expression is the best thing about this card

Oooof. Real stinker here. This is Determined Effort with two extra restrictions. Gross. You’ll find use for it in Rivals, where a little accuracy bump never hurt.

Pock is drawing the universal sign for “Please don’t use cleave on me”.

I don’t normally think all that much of these single activation defensive boost cards. If your opponent has anything at all they can do to stall for an activation this is kind of a dud. Situationally, this will have some great moments, and there’ll be some great stories about the time you played it after someone stacked Ferocious Bite, Great Strength and King of the Deeps or whatever, but I don’t know that it’s consistently good enough. Happy to have it in Rivals/R+ though.

Big fan! At first I thought this could be dead if the enemy fighter was in your territory, but at worst it’s a Determined Effort. At best, they strand and important fighter in their own territory and you get a lot of mileage out of this card.

Pretty solid showing! Some auto-includes, some competitive choices and very few duds. Really spicy.

Upgrades

Amazing benefits. Super thematic. Still flagged for a fighter with three wounds and one defense die. Just can’t do it. Have a blast with it in Rivals and maybe R+ though. Maaaaybe there’s a build where you super duper voltron Haskel? That would be fun.

Whhahaaaaaaat?!?! Accuracy bonus at any range? And ensnare? Gimme. Inspired Aemos with four smash, cleave and ensnare. Psycho Brydget with a scything from hell. Or a super volley blast. Or sniper Haskel. Man. Crazy good.

Soooo coool! Get Brydget in to a crowd of zomboids with this! Keep ‘em dead or get tons of glory. Range 1 gets a tiny bit awkward, but feels really worth it.

Pock don’t want, anybody else… when he thinks about you…

One of the best durability upgrades in the game. Restricted to a 2 wound fighter. Probably the only way you could print this. Great rivals card. Not for champs.

Do you get +1 Defence because no one wants to get near the nasty garbage you tied to your wrist?

Gross. But really good. Really, really good. Especially as ping proliferates. Take it.

A worse gloryseeker. But that’s still pretty good. When Savage Strength rotates, the value of this could go up nicely. I think you probably take it, even if quite a few of your fighters are doing things with R3 weapons.

Does it make sense that you can break someone’s Ferocious Bite but not their weird scar?

So, uh… this is also great. Brydget wants to scythe into groups with this. This is nice for shooting over the heads of the front line to land hits in the back. Kainan’s can get outta here with that trash Nadirite. Kunnin Krew can hate the playa and the game.

Stupid reaction blocking keeping me from machine gunning Exiled Dead during a danse activation.

Uh… for cool points if not for other reasons. But there are other reasons. I want to know why this pistol the size of Brydget’s thumb can shoot farther than most of the guns in the game (and all the guns in this warband). This can help score things like Branching Fate or Due Process. It’s going to end up a dead card if Haskel or Brydget go down, obviously.

Notice you can’t use Duelist’s Speed to escape a charger with this because you’d be reacting with an attack during a super action.

Also this after a move reaction window is going to mess with Kainan, Kunnin Krew and Gitz to some extent. Keep an eye out for other corner cases.

Situationally incredible but you’re probably going to live the dream pretty rarely. I expect it to have a few pretty cool moments in Rivals or R+.

Same with the other single fighter restricted cards. Just can’t do it. Fun to think about though. Support dogs will help this trigger in a bigger way. And it’ll always be at least +1 damage, because you had to have at least one success to hit. Enjoy in Rivals or R+ if you’re desperate for damage.

Wow. Wow. Some fire upgrades here. Lots of thriller, not much filler. I think they can only get away with this is that voltronning a 3 wound fighter with hot, hot upgrades is a lot more palatable than doing it to a larger fighter.

Summary

There’s a lot to like here, particularly in the power deck, but that’s because there’s a lot of ground to be made up for those fighter profiles. I’m really excited to see these guys on the table some more. Our first trial game was a blast (and you can hear more about it on our podcast episode).

That’s it! Our first try at a blow by blow blog style card review. Let us know if it was worth your while, or if you want to see more in the future.

The Mortal RealmsAugust 13, 20222 Comments