Gryssele’s Arenai Card Review (Championship)

Hello! Welcome to my review of the cards of the new warband, Gryssele’s Arenai, in championship format!

First, I will go over the fighter cards and give them a grade from A+ to F, showing how viable they seem. Next, I will go over the objective cards, and finally the power cards. I hope you enjoy this article!

Disclaimer: As this warband has never been tested in a competitive environment before, the grades might be way off. I tried my best to predict, but you have been warned!

FIGHTERS

Gryselle is the leader. She inspires either in the third round or when she rolls a crit in attacking (and hits), and when inspired, she becomes faster and more accurate. I really like the Acrobatic ability she has, it’s like the Wurmspat’s, however slightly better/worse since they use dodges, but these have 2 dice. The attack action is decent but gets pretty good when inspired. Overall, a pretty balanced, slightly overpowered fighter, especially when you consider the upgrades they have.
Grade: A

Kalexis is very fast. She has 5 move when uninspired but goes to 6 when inspired, tying with the Duke’s Harriers for the fastest fighter. She inspires by rolling four or more dice in an attack, but to help with that, she has her Blur ability. If you include every +1 dice card available to them and roll only successes, you can roll a staggering 40 dice (but that is every, every, every single card, and I didn’t bother checking if they work with each other). She is pretty difficult to inspire as she needs to roll 2 hits while having the Fury symbol, but she gains a lot when she does. A downside is her fragility; 3 wounds would have made her a lot better. Even though she does have the Acrobatic ability, it’s going to be hard to consistently negate a lot of damage. Overall, the pretty weak when uninspired but a real threat when inspired and upgraded.
Grade: B

Retaria, a.k.a Drusylla with 2 wounds, inspires via staggering (which I like). She has a built-in Stagger attack which is pretty accurate and she gains a lot when inspired, such as an extra dice, move, and permanent flying. Arguably faster than ‘The Silver Blur’, since she can move through blocked hexes and other fighters. She is pretty accurate and can reach almost any fighter. However, she is also really fragile, and the Acrobatic ability doesn’t really help with 2 wounds. Overall, kind of like an assassin, as she can reach almost anywhere on the board with her flying.
Grade: B

Thrialla is literally Khamyss lite. They even have the same attack names! She is the one fighter in the warband who can immediately use the Combo keyword, and it is also her inspire condition. I like that the Combo attack does not need to be successful to use the Follow-Up. When she is inspired, she gains +1 move and +1 damage on the Whip, which allows her to do 3 damage. She seems to be the least accurate fighter so far, and the Acrobatic ability doesn’t provide much help either. Overall, I would use this fighter as the one who has to get close to the enemy, since she can hit multiple of them at once.
Grade: B-

Traxya was probably meant to be the defender of the team, however, she has the least accurate defense and most accurate attack. The attack is very accurate but very weak. She is the only fighter with 1 Shield in the warband, but she still has the Acrobatic ability. She has a cool ability where if she rolls a crit in defense, she gets to deal 1 damage to the attacker if they are adjacent. She inspires by using a critical ability, which seems to be the hardest one so far (since she only has 1 dice and 1 critical ability). When she is inspired, her 1 damage on a crit ability turns to 2 damage, which can be hilarious. She also gains +1 move. Overall, someone who can potentially be very annoying to fight but is very bad without card support.
Grade: B-

OBJECTIVE CARDS

Acrobatic Assault – A surge card that is scored if you move through someone and then successfully hit them, kind of like Ethereal Hunters from Drepur. Retaria is the only one who can score this without card support, but she does have a very accurate attack to make the second condition easy. If Retaria dies, you will need card support to score this. Another downside is you have to get close to the enemy, and with your 2 wounds, it’s probably not going to end well.
Grade: C

Blood on the Sands – First of all, isn’t Gnarlwood a forest and not a desert? Where did these guys get sand? Second, this objective is worth one glory and requires you to be within a hex of an enemy fighter with a wound token not in your territory. The problem is, once again, your fragility. A counter can be to try to score this last activation since your opponent can’t hit you back. Personally, I think this is slightly worse than Blood in the Deeps. However, it can be easy to score in some cases, especially close to the end of the game.
Grade: B-

Bloody Show – A 2 glory objective for each enemy having a wound counter. This can either be very easy (against 3-4 fighter warbands) or very hard (6+). Since you all have Range 2 attacks and Combo, you can potentially damage several enemy fighters in one activation without getting too close. It gets easier to score the farther into the game you go, but in Round 1 it can be problematic. I think it’s worth taking for 2 glory, just mulligan if you get it Round 1.
Grade: B+

Exult in Violence – While this is a one glory objective, it should be an auto-score in Rounds 2 and 3, assuming your fighters are still alive. This is very similar to cards like Move or Die, where they don’t give a lot of glory but they GIVE it for sure.
Grade: A-

Faultless Display – This seems decent. You have 3 dice on some fighters, but some have 2, and Thrialla has 1. If you trust your attack dice, run it. If you trust Thrialla, run it. If you don’t have many other options, then this card is good, but there might be better surges out there since we all know the dice go wonky when you have cards like this.
Grade: B

Grandstand – Prepare for some math (I just was preparing for my math test, sorry). Assume you have all 5 Flourish gambits in a power deck of 20 cards. The chance of you drawing one of them in your hand is 25%, and the chance of drawing 2 of them is 10%. Since this objective requires the attack to succeed, those Flourishes must be discarded since that is how they work. This means that you have a 10% chance to even have a shot at this by drawing the Flourishes, but then, you must roll the successful roll, and after that, those 2 Flourishes are discarded. In my opinion, not worth it for 1 glory.
Grade: C

Har Kuron Hurricane – I think you should get the 2 glory for saying the name 10 times fast with no errors. It’s easier than the condition it has. First, you need 3 fighters in enemy territory. in case you couldn’t tell already, I believe these guys are pretty fragile. Or, they need to be inspired. At this point it should be a third end-phase objective, since it’s really hard to stay alive in enemy territory but all your fighters inspire in the last round.
Grade: B-

In Praise of Khaine: The 3 glory objective of this warband. It’s really hard to score early game, since you have 5 fighters and cannot charge them all at the beginning. Second, you need your opponent to cooperate and charge their own fighters around since it might be hard to wound them all. It does get easier to score later in game, though.
Grade: C+

Lethal Spectacle – The better Grandstand. As shown by the complex calculus before, the chance of having a Flourish in your hand out of 20 power cards (assuming you are using all 5 Flourishes) is 25%. This means that you have a 25% to meet the first condition, and then you just kill someone. Much easier than Faultless Display; however still difficult.
Grade: B-

Ritual Performance – This is a really good objective. First of all, its first condition is relatively easy – Roll a crit (and hope your opponent doesn’t). The second condition is harder, but the first condition is easy enough to seriously consider running this card.
Grade: A

Storm of Blades – As Hexbane has taught us, the Due Process of completing this objective is worth it. It’s even easier with these guys since they have combo attacks to make it easier to hit multiple times in one activation.
Grade: A

Warrior-Faithful – Once again, you need your opponent’s help. They either need to kill one of your fighters to allow you to charge them all, or they need to get adjacent to them. It gets much easier in the later rounds when one of your fighters is dead; however, for 1 glory, it does not seem too tempting.
Grade: B

POWER CARDS

Daring Flourish – Flourish number one. A nice accuracy buff with +1 dice, but it debuffs you with -1 Defense. This one needs to go away ASAP, and luckily it should since the +1 dice lets you get more hits. If you DON’T hit, and the Flourish stays, you might as well say goodbye to your fighter.
Grade: B+

Executioner’s Flourish – Flourish 2. Basically gives all fighters +1 damage, but only crits count as successes. Not really good unless you are rolling 3 dice. The downside on this one isn’t very major if you mess it up.
Grade: B-

Fatal Flourish – Flourish 3. This one has a MAJOR downside if you mess it up since you only have 2 wounds each (except your leader). If you mess up, you will be left on one wound and susceptible to pings. However, it does give a pretty big bonus. Combo these Flourishes together to create a big explosion of damage (it’s guaranteed, whether or not you hit).
Grade: B

Frenzied Speed – You get +2 move in the next activation. It’s pretty straightforward. What might lead some people not to take this card is your already-pretty-high move of 4-5. It’s a good card, just not for this warband.
Grade: B-

Gory Reward – I like this card. Since we know you have a 25% of having a Flourish in hand (assuming all the same things as before), you have a 25% as well as the dice roll to get glory for a power card! The attack doesn’t even need to hit!
Grade: A

Leaping Flourish – Have you ever thought that Retaria brags too much about being a flying fighter? Not anymore! This card is good against blocked hex enjoyers and people who like to build living walls of fighters (ahem, Deintalos). Other than that, it’s kind of useless. The one redeeming quality I can think of is that you sometimes have a fighter blocking a way to your target; now you can just go through them. Another one is that the downside is easy to avoid, so you can use this to score those Flourish objectives ‘risk-free’.
Grade: C+

Moment of Rapture – While you can rarely use the heal part due to all your fighters other than your leader having 2 wounds, you can benefit from the inspire part. While 2/5 fighters inspire through making a successful attack, one who doesn’t is Traxya. And she gets that cool ability where she can do 2 damage if you crit defend! Another major use is that you can make your already-hard-to-kill leader even harder to kill. There are lots of uses, but only some are beneficial, and most of them are just for fun.
Grade: B

Paean of Slaughter – Has anyone ever heard of the word Paean before? Anyway, this card lets you re-roll an attack dice in ALL attacks of the next activation. This means that if you have a choice between this and +1 dice cards such as Determined Effort, you can’t go wrong with this since this is a warband that can actually make several attacks in one activation.
Grade: A

Spinning Flourish: Flourish Number 5: MEGA MIGHT SWING. All of you get Scything but lose Combo! The only one this downside really affects is Thrialla (assuming you don’t have any Follow-Up upgrades), however it buffs everyone! Imagine your leader goes in for a mega scythe when she is inspired, with her attack it’s bound to be good.
Grade: A+

Unquenchable Fervour – This card is insane, as let’s be real, if this card is played, would you give your fighter +1 damage upgrades to kill the enemy? I won’t, that’s for sure. This card lets all of your fighters, including the little ones, massively reduce the damage of an attack, and it also stacks with damage reduction from Acrobatic! And don’t get me started on this card affecting the leader!
Grade: A+

Blood Sigil – Since we are on the topic of making enemies depressed by reducing the damage done. This upgrade lets you tank MORE HITS. The crazy part is there is NO RANGE RESTRICTION. The strategy of using Hexbane cause he deals 2 damage at Range 3 doesn’t work anymore! If you stack these 2 cards, as well as include Acrobatic, on your leader, then you will have a chance at tanking 5 DAMAGE. FIVE.
Grade: A+

Devotee of Slaughter – This is a good card to give your little Arenai some buffs. I would personally just take Great Fortitude in case I would need my leader to stay alive (which I do). However, if you want more wounds, you can take both cards!
Grade: B

Devotee of the Blade – Imagine you are attacking someone with this upgrade. If they roll a Shield, that’s a success. If they roll a Dodge, that’s a ‘success’ since you take less damage. You also get cleave which is going to be a great bonus against certain warbands.
Grade: A

Gore-Drenched – You know all those objectives in which your fighters must go YOLO and run into the middle of enemies? This upgrade will let them stay alive for longer. It is kind of situational with the ‘adjacent to an enemy fighter with one or more wound counters’ part, but let’s be real, that’s not very hard to achieve.
Grade: A-

Kruiplash – An attack action to make use of your combo. It has Range 2, meaning you can attack someone with a Range 1 attack and then push them back and use this one. A downside is it only does one damage.
Grade: B

Lacerating Blow – The second combo upgrade and the only one with an immediate chance at having 2 damage. It is also the only Range 1 one, but it is pretty accurate at hitting on hammers. Lacerating Blow is a high risk (since it’s Range 1), high reward (since it’s Grievous 1).
Grade: B

Mistress of the Bladestorm – This is arguably the second-best upgrade in the deck. Since most of your Flourishes are REALLY GOOD, you will need them back in your hand! If you have a Flourish in your hand at the end phase, you can just discard it, draw up one extra card, and then draw it back again at the start of the round. The one downside I can think of is if you have Executioner’s Flourish (Grievious 1, but all attacks only hit on Crits) and can’t roll a single crit, you won’t be able to discard it.
Grade: A

Paragon of the Arena – The best upgrade in the deck! It is Great Strength, Gifted Ferocity, and Illusory Form all rolled into one! It also works multiple times in one activation due to Combo. You can make a first attack with the Guard token choice and then use the combo attack with extra accuracy with the dice choice!
Grade: A+

Piercing Strike – The last follow-up upgrade, this is a better Kruiplash. They are basically the same attack, expect this one has Cleave. Just take this one over Kruiplash, or take both.
Grade: B+

Star Performer – Considering how easy it is to inspire and how many dice you roll, this upgrade is going to be deadly. Other upgrades which let you count both symbols as successes require you to charge. This one? Yeah, you can stand still.
Grade: A+

And that’s it! Overall, I think this warband won’t be GSP or Hexbane tier powerful. However, they will leave a mark on the championship meta. I might consider releasing a follow-up article in a few weeks after we see what these guys can do in the real game and not just speculation.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope to see you again soon! I am working on a Beastbound Assault Rivals deck review right now; it should be up within the next couple of days. If you have any feedback on this article, please contact me on Twitter or Discord (VintroV2#0001). See you again soon!