Pillage and Plunder has been a meta staple for the entirety of 2nd edition, and has been played by every strategy, from control to aggro. Reckless Fury however, has only seen meta play with Blazing Assault (and that one EotK/RF deck that never came back?). I’m aiming to change your mind on Reckless Fury WITHOUT Blazing Assault. PP/RF has been my favorite pairing for a while now. I’ve played it with the Zephyrites, Jaws and Emberwatch at tournaments, and many more warbands at my home games, and in this article I’ll show you exactly how to play it and cater to your style!

Gameplan

PP/RF has a relatively simple overarching goal: Get on tokens whilst making Charges. However, achieving that is the hard part. You’ll generally want to spend the first round setting up some damage and delving to score your endphases (which are always more important than getting kills!), mostly by delving consistently and forcing enemy charges by playing from a distance. This leads me to the next part: Using your range to keep enemies out of attacking distance, so they have to Charge you. Range also allows you to get more Charges off that land you on a treausre token.

In round two you’ll really want to focus on those objectives. You should sit around 14 glory, with at least 2 bounty of kills. However, those kills aren’t as important as keeping your fighters alive. Use your superior movement and range from your Power cards to keep fighters isolated and hard to pin down, whilst trying to flip territories, by driving opponents out of their own space and claiming it for yourself. Then, by the third round, you should have scored most of your end phases, and can focus on hunting down targets with your high speed and tricksy attacks. Using Braced or Headcase allows you to get Charged Out right before your turn, one of the main pieces of tech you should be using, to attack with your Voltron’d fighter again, when your opponent isn’t expecting it. This deck has a pretty high glory ceiling, so kills are not your priority. Only take them when you have good odds and a worthwhile target! In the case where you can get a kill or move onto a token and Delve it for an objective, do the Delve. You can never guarantee an attack, but movement? Nothing can really stop that.

Quick note regarding Treasure token placement: Place one or two tokens in your territory, around halfway through. This allows you to attack whilst still standing on them, giving you good leverage. Then, place the other tokens just across the halfway line, or deep in enemy territory, preferably next to a stagger hex. This pairing thrives off of flipping territories, so getting a good start on that is essential to success!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

The main strength of this deck is the shenanigans. You have a lot of pushes and teleports, in addition to self-charge, allowing you to get off diabolical attacks that your opponents won’t expect. Using cards like Canny Sapper or Tunneling Terror to get a charged out Ardorn with Keen Eye and Furious Might next to someone is so incredibly satisfying, and something you just can’t do with other decks.

In addition, this deck can play very aggressively, but more so, can win passively. Against opponents like Elethain’s Soulraid BA/PP, you can play back and wait to strike, as you have some consistent scoring from PP. Seeing as RF just has more glory than Blazing Assault, you don’t need as much kill bounty to win.

Something fun about this deck is the player expression. There are about 17 playable objectives, whilst most pairings have 11-13. This means you can really cater the deck to your unique style and play it in a lot of ways.

Weaknesses

The first and most glaring weakness of this deck pairing, is it’s convoluted win path. To score your objectives, you have to get on Treasures whilst charging, which isn’t easy, especially if you don’t have access to ranged attacks. It leaves the deck in a weird space between aggro and hold, as you can play it passively (PP has some insanely good passive scoring) or fit it more to an aggressive playstyle. Both ways are good, and depend heavily on the warband you’re pairing it with.

The second weakness is the Accuracy. Because you don’t have access to the BA power cards, you don’t have access to Accurate, Great Strength, Sharpened Points/Deadly Aim and Determined Effort. This leaves you with only Keen Eye as a + dice upgrade, meaning you will have a hard time against defense-intensive warbands, such as the Starblood Stalkers and Thorns of the Briar Queen. Especially if your warband needs to hit attacks to inspire (spoiler), you can easily be stopped by your opponent simply having better defense.

Warband Selection

To combat the weaknesses and access the strengths of the pairing, we have some very specific warband selection criteria:

The Warband must be 3-5 models. This allows us to reliably get Charged Out to access the strengths of the pairing: Extra attacks and moves. However, if you don’t run Unrelenting Massacre, you’re a lot more free in your activations (You only need charges to score Arena Mortis and/or Bloody Momentum, which can be done easily by mobile warbands).
The Warband must have access to range. You have to get onto tokens whilst getting Charge tokens, and, since there’s no easy access to damage, you have to attack a lot to make up for that weakness.
The Warband must be mobile. You have to be able to use additional moves to it’s maximum, and reach far-off treasures to Delve them. Any pushes or action economy buffs are very impactful.
The Warband must be accurate. You have to make up for the loss of every single accuracy upgrade that BA would give you, so your warband needs 3 hammers (inspired) at least.

With all of those criteria, let’s take a look at some of my favorite warbands for pp/rf:

Emberwatch
Thyrielle’s Zephyrites
Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz
The Farstriders
Jaws of Itzl
The Shadeborn
Hexbane’s Hunters

All of these warbands excel at either flipping territories or have very good movement, allowing them to get on tokens and maximize the use of tech and tricky cards.

The standard list

To make your PP/RF deck, there are a few staples, that you basically have to use. However, there’s a few cards that can be interchanged freely, depending on your Playstyle. Here’s a list of all of the cards that are (at least) playable. Note that this isn’t a definitive list and that each warband has their own strengths. Be creative!

Surges:

Always take:

Delving for Wealth
Share the Load
Hostile Takeover

Choose three:

Sally Forth (If you have access to Guard tech or are just generally hard to displace)
Best Foot Forward (If you have some accurate attacks)
Aggressive Claimant (Just a generally undervalued surge)
Frenzied Rush (If you’re Elite/4 fighter and can always score this with 2- fighters)

As you can see, we can choose whether to play more aggressively or passively here, as taking all three RF surges means we have to play a lot more in their territory than we might want to. Especially in this meta where counterpunch warbands such as Elethain, Jaws and Stalkers are so powerful, you should have a backup plan to play passively.

End Phases

Always take:

Broken Prospects
Arena Mortis

Choose 4/5:

Unrelenting Massacre (If you are certain you can get some kills and have a low fighter count. This means you HAVE to play aggressively)
Strip the Realm (If you have range and accuracy to get people off tokens)
Torn Landscape (Generally good, but hard with 3 fighter warbands)
Against the Odds (Generally good)
Lost in the Depths (Generally good)
Bloody Momentum (Good for aggressive and tanky warbands, like elites, that like being in enemy territory anyways)
Arena Mortis (Generally good, especially with additional move tech to surprise enemies)
Aim for the Top (Good for accurate warbands)

As you can see, there’s a lot of cards that are just generally good. These cards are nice and can slot in any warband (that can play this pairing). However, they often don’t give you as much glory as the other options. So, think for yourself if you want to play a more greedy deck with UM/StR, or a more consistent deck with a lower glory ceiling? Both are good, and once again, depend on your playstyle.

Ploys

Some of the most important cards in this pairing are the ploys, as they allow us to do the silly things that make it work. Control tools like Catch Weapon and Reckless Attitudes can force scoring (or take away entire activations), whilst Wary Delver can give us the defense we so desperately need. Here’s my staples and possible substitutions:

ALWAYS go in the deck:

Reckless Attitudes
Sidestep

Probably go in the deck:

Wary Delver (For all the 2 defense warbands, amazing card)
Braced (This card is so insane, I love it so much, good with basically any warband to surprise opponents and activate your upgraded fighters)
Trapped Cache (There’s not a lot of damage in this pairing, so this allows you to pick off annoying fighters and damage enemies to screw with breakpoints)
Diving In (Just a really good and fun push that allows for nice repositioning)

Optionals:

Commanding Stride (If you think your leader will survive, take it. It’s incredibly strong, but a bit risky. Every 4+ health leaders should consider it)
Crumbling Mine (If you have Torn Landscape)
Explosive Charges (If you struggle with Move)
Brash Scout (If you need attacks to inspire. Very nice on Zephyrites)
Tunnelling Terror (The silliest of cards. Nobody expects it)
Catch Weapon (Good control piece to dissuade opponents from attacking, good for fragile warbands)
Outburst (Take this only if you desperately need more damage, to inspire or just because you have no good attacks. Also good on warbands with throwaway fighters (like Hexbane’s Hunters or Jaws of Itzl)).
Push Through (Incredibly annoying card to play against, very good with almost every warband. Do keep in mind that most leaders aren’t eligible for this card (I definitely didn’t make this mistake with Emberwatch like 3 times…))
Quick Shift (Mainly for Hexbane’s Hunters and other warbands with “free” move actions)

There’s a lot of choice with your Ploy list, and something I keep tweaking during my deckbuilding process. Its a combination of pet cards (Tunnelling Terror), situational cards (Crumbling Mine) and tech cards (Quick Shift). So, pick and choose what you like for yourself!

Upgrades

Sadly, the upgrade selection is a lot more linear than the ploys. Take:

Keen Eye (You know why it’s here)
Swift Step (Allows you to get more charges off whilst still getting on treasure tokens to delve them. Auto-include)
Canny Sapper (The main “shenanigan” card. Incredibly fun, can get your fighters out of dodge or into the fray, and incredibly flexible)
Gloryseeker (You really need this damage, don’t skip your veggies)
Headlong Charge (Even on Zephyrites, the fastest* warband in the game, it’s still insane. Take it if you can. It’s good)

Then choose from the following:

Great Speed (Because you already have Headlong Charge, only take this if you really struggle with movement and don’t have Explosive Charges (Unless you want a 7 move Stormcast, then be my guest))
Burrowing Strike (Especially good for warbands that don’t have access to 2 damage (Zephyrites), especially at range two)
Tough Enough (Very good in a meta dominated by BA, and with a lot of Shadeborn players (no like, why are there so many Shadeborn players!?!?))
Impossibly Quick
Excavating Blast (Gives range to your fighters, just generally good to get your charges off)
Furious Might (The ultimate tech card. Needs a lot of setup, but if you do it correctly, gives you a consistent source of grievous. I really enjoy this card, but it is kind of hard to use in comparison to something like Gloryseeker)
Headcase (I LOVE HEADCASE)

For this process, simply eliminate the two cards that aren’t necessary to fill in the weaknesses of your warband.

Closing Thoughts

Will RF/PP be a meta deck? No. That’s why I love it so much! It isn’t exactly a linear gameplan, and you often have to think on the fly and improvise to win games. It’s incredibly satisfying and rewarding to pull of ploy combo’s to setup 3 attacks with Ardorn and kill off an entire warband.

However, if you are looking for the next BA/PP, this isn’t it. It has slightly higher scoring, but severely lacks in consistency, mainly in it’s accuracy, and, worst of all, isn’t a good pairing for the top warbands at the moment of writing (Soulraid, Stalkers, Thorns). This means it will always be an off-meta pick, but also means you can use a lot of cards that otherwise never see play!

So, if you do want to try it, send me your decklists and results in the Staggerers Discord server! With that, happy deckbuilding, and don’t be a Wary Delver, but a RECKLESS DELVER! Have a great day!

Zephyrites pp/rf guide

Jaws of Itzl pp/rf guide

*Technically, Starblood Stalkers are faster at 6 move, however, they cannot push across the entire map in a power step 🙂