Michael: Hello-hello! Today we have a special article dedicated to the lovely warband known as Grymwatch. We are also continuing our streak of articles brutally murdered by rules changes.
Anyways, the focus of today’s article is Grymwatch (as stated already). Myself and Quint (who you may remember from the Deck written in the stars and who starting today is a full-time writer for Staggerers as well – so say hi to him!) are going to be delusionally debating about many different deck options for Grymwatch. We focus on Cata/HG, PnP/HG, and I can’t be bothered to list the rest so you better go read the article to find out all the other cool stuff! (spoiler – there’s a lot of it)
Ok this intro is already very long so I’ll cut it short, let’s get to debating!
Cata/HG: A Cataclysm waiting to happen
Michael: Cata/HG is one of my favorite pairings in the game and when we first started writing this article as a joke I built a CtC/HG deck for Grymwatch and sent it to Quint. After taking a little closer look at it, I came to the conclusion that I found the next PnP/CtC. Simply watch:
Spread Havoc = Spread Havoc
Hounds of War = Against the Odds
Set Explosives = Broken Prospects (fairly easy two points)
Wreckers = Wreckers
Uneven Contest = Torn Landscape (two points which come from controlling three tokens)
Pinned = Strip the Realm
This is our Turf = Desolate Homeland
So after coming to this slightly delusional conclusion that 2025-PnP-CtC still lives in 2026, I decided to do the only natural thing I play this deck in the quarter finals of the Vassal League against NRD BreeS.Pi with his WnR/RF Dromm (I will call him Brees for now – thanks for the game btw!). Keep in mind, this happened pre-Grymwatch nerf. In Game 1, I held absolute dominance for most of the game but that can be attributed to us having literally the worst Round 1 of all time after which the score was a whopping 1-0 and Brees had to discard 5 glory worth of objectives. I then managed to lockdown Herax and kill Dromm, using the insane killing and lockdown power of the deck to isolate the Gorehulk as the sole capable charger. Game 2 was a lot closer where I lost 6 out of my 7 fighters but still managed to win due to a slight misplay from Brees where he Enraged the wrong fighter, causing me to not only Overrun but also score Set Explosives. While Unequal Contest wasn’t scored in either games it was definitely possible in Game 1 (I elected to not score it to keep it a surprise) and it was the card that forced the wrong fighter to charge, according to our post-game talk!
After proving that this deck has legs, I obviously want to try to it against a different warband. Ideally one where the play line is more ‘normal’ and I don’t have to worry about Enrage for 95% of the game! And boy did my wish come true – enter the Vassal League Semifinals!
Being a trained professional, I knew taking this deck to a semifinals match is quite a questionable decision, so I was actually planning to take PnP/DS. So when my opponent, Nerver, asked me what deck pairing I was playing, I naturally responded ‘CATACLYSM HUNTING GROUNDS!’. It was then that I learned I have 0 control of my vocal cords. Yay. (this also happened pre-nerf)
Anyways, Nerver very kindly brought Wurmspat Blazing Reckless – conveniently the World Champion warband. So here I am, sitting stupidly while staring at my epic first hand containing not only Wreckers but also Spread Havoc and two lockdown ploys. Anyways, turns out the secret to beating Wurmspat is very simple – just hit your two sword attacks! By the end of Round 1 I very skillfully killed Sepsimus and left Ghulgoch vulnerable (all due to Sunder the Realm). Somehow the 4-health Fecula died before 1-Health Ghulgoch because of Killing Blow – the card – and Ghulgoch was stuck due to Poor Footing.
Game 2 went quite the opposite where I hit a grand total of one attack (I’m not complaining after Game 1 though) and ended the game with a solid glory difference of -12. Still, for a fighter that was getting hunted from literally turn 1, Duke Crackmarrow survived for an unholy 7 activations due to the plethora of Hunting Ground stuff that say ‘you can’t kill me this turn’! Despite getting utterly destroyed I was still relatively comfortable and felt like I could have made a comeback if I really tried but my heart wasn’t really set on it.
Game 3 was crazy.
Enter Ghulgoch, stage left. Ghulgoch is to have Headlong Charge, Blades of Putrefaction and Outburst.
ACT 1 – THE CHARGE
Ghulgoch charges into Crackmarrow. Attack connects. Loud squirch. Outburst. Hammer. Dead Crackmarrow. Turn 2.
Yeah so Crackmarrow was literally dead turn two but it was VERY far from over. Sepsimus once again got walloped by Gristlewel leaving him on two health, but he did get a heal AND Great Fortitude. I did get Perfect Cut and started setting up Uneven Contest by inconspicously moving onto Token #5 and delving. My some MIRACLE I scored Wreckers after whiffing Sunder the Realm because Crippling Blow came out in Round 1 and the bats were able to (even with Nauseous Revulsion!) roll 2 crits!
In Round 2, the power of this deck truly game to light. After winning the roll-off, I instantly lockdowned Ghulgoch. Paths Unknown onto Gristlewel made him unkillable as well, which was important as I could one-shot Sepsimus next turn – which did happen as a result of a very cheeky The Royal Hunt and Improvised Attack combo. All the Wurmspat stuck on the top half of the board gave me a free Shocking Assault as well as Set Explosives was set up.
Round 3 was where the power of this deck truly truly came to light. I won the roll off and was maybe a little too excited due to my opener which involved epicly whiffing into Ghulgoch with Crippling Blow (AGAIN!) and Poor Footing onto Fecula to lockdown the entire warband. After some shenanigans I proceeded to score Unequal Contest AND Set Explosives for a VERY VERY close win of 12-15. I say it’s cause of Unequal Contest and the lockdown cards – Crippling Blow coming online in R1 and shutting down Ghulgoch for the entire game after his first Crackmarrow-killing charge made the win possible despite having no Duke!
The semifinals really solidified my belief in this deck. It can work very well!
Unfortunately and justifiably Grymwatch were nerfed in the February patch. The small change made their Raise only in your power step. Will this affect the deck that much? It will for sure, yes. A core strategy here is to play with unpunishable fighters airdropping from the sky behind your opponent. Since that is no longer punishable, you have to play much more carefully with your Raises. In fact it opens up some funny lines where you can raise Gristlewel as ‘bait’ to distract an opponent from a fighter about score Unequal Contest! So while this is a nerf to the aggro power of the deck, the passive play and the aggro matchup doesn’t suffer too much.
Quint: After testing out HG/Cata myself I made some changes to Michael’s deck.
The power cards are mostly the same, but I swapped Shocking Assault for Back Off! and took away Wreckers. For this deck you have to be a bit passive, but sometimes simply run your ghouls across the board to get on a token. This makes Wreckers really hard, as you either need enemies to charge you, or hope they stand adjacent to the treasures you need (mainly the odd-numbered ones) so you can hit them when charging or overrunning onto them. Dropping it in favor of a slimmer deck seemed like the correct play.
A good strategy I found with this deck is to raise super deep into enemy territory, then using a push or move action to get on a token. If playing against aggro, they have to make a choice: either let you sit there and score glory, or charge all the way back into their territory, likely negating their own “be in enemy territory” plan.
Overall I liked this deck, but wasn’t in love with it. Especially the surges forced you to be kind of aggressive if your opponent wouldn’t come to you, and there wasn’t enough passive scoring to sit back and move every turn.
Michael: While I do see the vision behind Quint’s version I really dislike the drive-back surges due to their unpredictability and easy of denial through Guard. In addition, often times it’s better to go for a kill rather than a driveback. Our powers look exactly the same, so we agree there!
Treasure Hunting
Quint: After trying Michael’s deck I made my own version, with Pillage instead of Cata. This deck felt really fun to play when I played it against Wurmspat. In this game I was able to run around and simply avoid my opponent, standing on tokens in his territory with my raised fighters and forcing him to walk ever deeper into mine to get value or kills. I finally discovered the true power of Crippling Blow and Poor Footing, completely destroying my opponent’s plans with them two rounds in a row. With this pairing you will probably use inspires for defense, as two dodge in cover is simply a better 2 shield (you can’t get cleaved, and ensnare is less effective!). It also felt really thematic, with my zealous ghouls running around and scavenging in the dirt whilst biting and clawing at anyone that dared enter their domains.
Overall I feel like both of the HG decks have a lot of potential, with some crazy card combos and scoring potential. It definitely feels like a counter to the current meta, as 3 or 4 fighter elites (especially Wurmspat) really suffer when they are kept at bay and you run away from them.
Grymwatch especially are really good for the “come to me or I win” style that HG needs, as they have enough fighters to be able to move, whilst still having fighters to charge anyone that enters your territory. The raise allows you further flexibility, either pulling your opponents into two different directions or allowing you to immediately get a second charge with an inspired Gristlewel, punishing aggro even more.
Michael: My take on PnP/HG is a little different but the general idea is there.
The main difference is the devious power card distribution, but I don’t feel like there is any good ploy to play and after my hours of Grymwatch gameplay I noticed that weapon upgrades (such as Hidden Traps) are very helpful. I also ran a couple different objectives – mine focus more on Board Control through Careful Survey and a lack of drive buck surges (Pinned is too good to skip). Overall, the main idea behind this deck is to get weapon upgrades and just punish invaders who aim to deny your inspire with strong attacks and The Royal Hunt. On top of that you can invade if necessary using your Raise/high move speed. With the nerfs, the deck shouldn’t suffer too much outside of Hostile Takeover becoming a lot harder. I would still keep it in the deck however.
The most accurate warband in the game (trust)
Quint: The main problem that the Grymwatch have is their accuracy. All of your fighters start with 2 swords, and only go to three, or four in the case of the Royal Butcher. However, from experience, we can all say that they have an uncanny ability to still hit these attacks. Especially if they are flanking.
It just so happens that there is a great deck that gives you a lot of ways to flank your opponent: Deadly Synergy. There are some really good objectives and power cards, but the end phases could be better.
Enter: Pillage and Plunder. This deck pairing has a lot of synergy (lol) in the objectives and power cards, as long as you don’t take Aggressive Unity. It forces you to unite and bundle up for melee attacks, which means that you can’t always simply move or charge onto a token to delve it, because you are forced to use at least 3/4 activations to make united attacks. In addition, Grymwatch lack access to consistent range two attacks to consistently get all three United melee attacks. Luckily, Pillage gives us more than enough objectives to fill in the gaps.
Sadly, Outmuscle was put into the Restricted list in the latest FaR, so we had to choose between Outmuscle and Delving for Wealth. Since we have a lot of tools to get around the board really quickly (raises, Canny Sapper, Tunneling Terror etc.), it’s quite feasible to take Careful Survey in this deck. This still leaves you with plenty of great objectives and a solid delving gameplan, whilst still allowing you to get the benefits of United.
As you can see we have a high glory ceiling with this deck, sitting at a comfortable 18. The nice thing is that we can use Battering Ram to force both Closed Down and Strip the Realm, and use Duellist to get on tokens and get our pseudo-overrun. We take a lot of the Attack Action upgrades like Excavating Blast to get some range, whilst the melee attacks serve as direct upgrades and ways to get range two united attacks, or attack whilst charging on a feature token more easily. The main focus of this deck is on the pillaging, whilst United gives you access to better defensive and offensive stats, and Deadly Synergy gives some great upgrades.
There is great difficulty in choosing the power cards for this deck. In DS there are three really good cards that aren’t played in a Power Step, so they cannot trigger Canny Sapper. In the end it leaves us with a lot of tools to get where we need to be and hit some important attacks, with Crumbling Mine existing simply to trigger Canny Sapper and guarantee some objectives. The upgrades are mostly stat-boosts, using almost all of the weapon upgrades this pairing offers.
With the balance update throwing some wrenches in our plans, this deck definitely suffers the most. There’s almost no more easy United charges, so you have to place your fighters deliberately. Try and keep the “bad” minions on the frontline and around no-one’s territory throughout rounds one and two. This makes both Careful Survey easier to score, as well as setting up some nice United charges. The Spitewood board with the Stagger hex in the middle would be great for this as well, since you take both Tunneling Terror and Canny Sapper, making it easy to get a fighter into neutral territory and possibly next to an objective for some synergy.
Michael: PnP/DS is what pre-February-Apacolypse used to be the second strongest pairing in my opinion (as I will not yield that PnP/CtC is op).
Unlike Quint, I feel GWatch can manage Aggressive Unity. I don’t really like Desolate Homeland myself, so it’s gone here. The main issue with my version of PnP/DS is that the surges are pretty bad, especially with Hostile Takeover getting hit by the Febpocalpyse.
Another pretty important notice is my deck notably once again has a 9/11 power card distribution. I feel there really is no ploy ‘necessary’ for my deck. Quint has Tunneling Terror in his version but I don’t really like it anywhere outside of Sepulchral Guard and Exiled Dead. Instead, I played Great Speed as it’s quite strong with Grymwatch. Also I took Great Fortitude in the upgrades rather than Excavating Blast, as from personal experience having the duke alive is kind of a wincon for the GWatch.
Yeah, overall the deck gameplan is the same – make attacks, delve tokens, score glory, win. The Grymwatch love unity due to their 2 Save when inspired and 3 Dice when inspired, and they love Pillage because let’s be honest – who doesn’t? While this deck suffers a lot from the Febpocalypse I don’t think it’s dead and it’s definitely still playable!
Raging Slayers found dead in ditch
Quint: Before the February 2026 rules update, I played a RS/EotK deck that focused on aggro with Grymwatch, using the re-roll to try and get enemies Tempered. However, since it has been reworked completely, I don’t see that pairing being viable any longer. The only two things I could think of was playing RS/DS to force Outmuscle and Closed Down, or playing it with Pillage to force Strip the Realm. However, it is already such a tax on your objectives to play RS that it probably isn’t worth it when there are way more consistent deck pairings out there. Especially now that the re-roll is gone there isn’t much to gain. So I fear no more raging ghouls 😦
Michael: Yeah I agree here. I guess the ‘Spinnerite Special’ (otherwise known as DS/RS) can still work because you technically get access to a lot of unity, which you then convert to crits. However, you can’t really capitalize off those crits and Overruns as you want Pillage or ES to do so, which is quite annoying.
The Delusional Double Plot
Michael: So I have been dreaming of Cata/Edge for a long time and luckily with November double plot lock was lifted allowing for it to finally live. One of the first warbands I tried it with was Grymwatch, forgoing the usual passive play line I have for them in favor of a more aggressive, kill-based playstyle.
My favorite part about this deck is how well it flows for doing literally nothing. Half the cards read ‘score glory if you were going to do what you already were’. The other half read ‘Score this in an end phase if each fighter is Tempered’.
The power cards help set up the ultimate goal of Trialing, with 6/10 ploys being pings or accuracy buffs. The rest of the stuff is mobility to set up yet more attacks and Death Throes for more survivability. The upgrades follow a similar pattern, being usually accuracy based, extra attack based, survival based, or Pesky Nuisance (which is hilarious here cause it can mess up several important Duke charges).
The strengths of the deck lie in it’s flow when it goes uncontested as well as the high amount of kill pings – actually tying with CataWrack btw – allowing for a very effective murder gameplan which doesn’t really have to focus on much else. This makes denial super easy – you can often dedicate an activation to simply moving on a token to deny Strip or Torn Landscape, and it sets up your deck as well!
The weakness, however, lie in it’s ease of denial if you have the tools. This deck can potentially auto-lose to BA, PnP, CtC, EotK, RR, and DS. Why? Cause all of them have Great Fortitude which is a one card investment to shut down Trial which makes up a significant portion of your glory and gameplan. If you are throwing ghouls at the enemy, you better have Trial scored to back up the bounty loss from those deaths. Same goes for Healing Potion, which is arguably even harder to block. The genuinely best way to win here is just to ensure stuff is really dead to make an enemy unable to Great Fortitude or Healing Potion their fighter. However, against a deck like Wrack which has no heals or health buffs, CataEdge absolutely flows and can steamroll them.
It’s still fine though trust
Quint: After the February 2026 Errata, Grymwatch got a bit of a wristslap. They can now no longer raise in their opponent’s power step. I think this is a healthy change because it changes how you have to play with Grymwatch. The most important thing is that you can now no longer punish aggro as hard as you could. They can charge in, kill Grystlewell and you can’t res and instantly charge back. This means you have to be smarter with your revives. Try and use it for positioning rather than countercharge, or revive the fighter deep in your own territory, so you can stil charge, but the raised fighter is safe (at least for now). An important thing to note is that you should always try and raise in a dual location, where your fighter can reach an objective AND charge an enemy. That way, no matter what your opponent does, they won’t completely disrupt your plans.
Another tactic to use is a distraction. Nobody likes having an inspired Grystlewel around, so place him tactically: Your opponent either has to run away, waste an activation on a 0-bounty fighter, or face his wrath!
In decks like Pillage or Cataclysm you often enjoy “flipping” territories. The new raise is great for this, as (especially aggro) opponents don’t often enjoy charging back into their own territory for a 2 dodge 0-bounty fighter. Use a sidestep to get them on a token or place them for a tactical united charge later on!
The most important thing to take away is that you can still do all of the stuff they did before. Now, your opponents simply have an opportunity to reply! And let’s be honest, if the Wurmspat player wastes a charge on Grystlewel, allowing your other fighters to safely grab objectives and delve as much as they want, are you really complaining? So use it against your opponents, and try and outplay them with the new mechanics! This warband is still insane and really good and fun to play with, so definitely do!
Michael: The main thing I have to say about the GWatch nerf is – as Quint very nicely put it already – if the Wurmspat player wastes a charge on Grystlewel, who by the way is worth 0 bounty, am I happy? Yes!
The main strengths of the Raise not only included on demand charging to any corner of the universe but also being able to just outright deny some objectives. Wrack and Ruin players know that Stay Close is literally impossible against Grymwatch, and that is still the case! Instead of being able to raise anywhere, you now need to raise in the back of the board. Oh no.
In addition, assuming you have last activation, you can always Raise then and just mirror the old Grymwatch where you have an unpunished charge.
So are Grymwatch dead from the nerfs? Well, you could argue being a member of the Death Grand Alliance makes them dead already. So yes. But gameplay wise, no. They are just more punishable now. Most of the decks we mentioned could really care less – stuff like Raise + Sidestep still work to get a free delve or Aqua, you can still deny stuff, you still get the fighter back on the board. Heck, against less experienced players it might even be a buff as they are now more concentrated on killing whoever you raised!
And that’s it for today! Hopefully the five or so decks provided today were helpful for you. If you were thinking of giving Grymwatch a spin, but were worried about them being too OP, let’s just say you don’t have to anymore! 🙂
With that, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback for myself or Quint, please reach out to us on the Staggerers Discord server – we would love to have you! Once again, thanks for reading, and hope to see you again soon!
Staggerers - A Warhammer Underworlds Blog 