Michael: Hello folks! Michael here. Today, I will be going into a very in-depth deck analysis of Hunting Grounds by going through the strengths and weaknesses of this deck in Nemesis as well as comparing it to other decks in the format.
Hunting Grounds is often viewed as a ‘bad deck’ which, imo, is just fake news and people not wanting to put the reps in. As someone who likes the color green, and picked Hunting Grounds to play partially because it is literally my favorite playstyle of all time (sit-at-the-back aggro) and partially because there is green on the deck icon, I put a lot of hours into this deck and want to help you understand it better 🙂
So let’s get hunting!
OBJECTIVES
The weakest link in Hunting Grounds is by far the objectives, specifically the 1 glory ones.
Surge wise, Hunting Grounds is not very good. I would categorize the surges as follows:
A-Tier: No Business Here
B-Tier: Home Advantage/No Tresspassers
C-Tier: Back Off!
D-Tier: Hands Off!
F-Tier: Usurped
It only really has two, max 3 ‘good’ surges. And by ‘good’ – I mean playable. I know a lot of people love playing Back Off! but it has a HUGE weakness in the Guard action and just hold in general, but so does this deck as a whole.
The strongest surge in this deck is definitely No Business Here but even so it gets outclassed by like a quarter of the surges in the game. It doesn’t require the attack to hit, the biggest strength of the card, but there’s better versions of it in BA (3 of them to be precise) and several stronger alternatives in other decks which don’t fit the same category. The category of ‘make an attack’ is insane, but the condition is weird but doable.
No Trespassers as far as kill surges go is pretty good. Other kill surges in the game are questionable at the amount with No Trespassers honestly being one of the best ones. Maybe Strong Start competes with it, but I’d rather thave No Trespassers. The biggest weakness is it specifes an ‘attack’ must kill. Opposite of No Business Here, the category is weak but the condition is good.
Home Advantage is one of the key surges in this deck – more on this later. It’s super warband dependent and the alternatives in other decks are usually stronger (Immovable in EotK doesn’t need a miss, only to survive) so the entire strength of the card depends on the warband the deck is paired with. If paired with a good warband (like the 2-Shield Thanatek’s Tithe), it’s SUPER good. If paired with Shadeborn’s one dodge, maybe not, but it’s not bad in it’s category of ‘miss attacks’.
Back Off and Hands Off are in the same category and it’s a category unique to Hunting Grounds of drive someone back, and to be brutally honest this is one of the worst surge categories in the game. It gets shut down by power cards, warscroll abilities, good positioning, but most importantly, killing your enemies and the Guard action. This makes them both extremely undesirable though if you were to take one then Back Off is probably better as it is wayyy more flexible!
Finally, Usurped is arguably one of the worst surges in the game now with only one surge in it’s category of ‘Overrun’ in the game right now – that being All Part of the Plan in Nexus. Unless you are paired with Raging Slayers or have another guaranteed Overrun, it’s just a worse Hands Off which is already pretty bad.
So overall Hunting Grounds surgers are in 3 Groups relative to other surges:
- They are either strong in their category, but the category itself is a little weak, (No Trespassers, Home Advantage)
- They have strong categories, but are weaker in the category, (No Business Here)
- Or they are just pretty bad (everything else lol)
Obviously this isn’t the best of shows for our deck but hey – at least it’s not Raging Slayers, right?
On to the end phases. Hunting Grounds has a 1-1-1-2-2-3 glory split, which means that it does have access to a ‘glory bomb’ which inherently makes it valuable in Nemesis format.
Pinned, the aforementioned ‘glory bomb’, is imo the (second) easiest to score glory bomb in the game. Strip the Realm (StR) is the most common one, and close behind is Unrelenting Massacre (UM) , and Supremacy is probably the easiest to score. Pinned fits into UM and StR’s category of being more of an opponent-doing-something rather than you-doing-something like Supremacy. And unfortunately, despite being the easiest to score of the 3, it’s also the one that inherently denies the least glory. Unless you are playing against Reckless Fury/Raging Slayers (or Emberstone Sentinels ironically) there really isn’t much enemy-territory related objectives in the game right now, which means an opponent doesn’t lose much for just not entering your territory compared to Strip forcing an activation each round and Unrelenting just being a ‘you can’t charge’ card. Also, the enemy still can enter your territory – just not near the edges. So while being the easiest to score it has some major weaknesses that keep it in check compared to other cards
(TLDR – Pinned is slightly lower power level than other 3 glory end phases, but not by a noticeable amount so pls keep running it)
The two two-glory end phases in Hunting Grounds range from ‘literally busted’ to ‘worst end phase in the game’. Lead by Example is an example of an absolutely stellar 2 glory objective, being (warband dependently) one of the easiest 2 Glory objectives in the game right now. It’s a) hard to deny, b) only requires two activations to score, and c) not luck based. In other words it’s everything you want. With the proper warband, Lead by Example is insane! So why isn’t Hunting Grounds picked more for the objectives? Well… introducing Ready or Not: probably the worst two glory end phase in the game. It is literally the last 2 glory objective i’d play in the game – INCLUDING Uneven Contest. It is a) super deniable, not only by your enemy but also yourself, b) requires not only high model count but also high damage, and c) requires a serious misplay on your opponent’s part. There really isn’t much else to say, it’s just wayyyyy too easy to deny and wayyyy to hard (if not impossible) to force. Also, killing fighters denies it as a strike deck. What the card design?
Now for the questionable part: the one glory end phases. In the rivals deck, I’d argue all three of them are playable but like just missing one little itty bitty thing to make them good. Bloodscent is great on paper but with the slight caveat that it requires underdog status like 90% of the time, unless the opponent does invade in which case it’s quite nice. Still, in a Bo3 it gets shut down pretty hard because if your opponent just doesn’t come to you you don’t score it.
Next, This Is Our Turf. This is the most picked one glory EP I see in HG decks, which makes sense as on paper it’s the only card in the deck which forces opponents to come to you. Which is obviously good cause it has synergy with the rest of the deck. It does have two caveats though, with a) it’s only worth one glory so it’s not nearly as big of a threat as Supremacy and b) your opponent can match it 1 for 1 unless your warband has extra movement economy AND HG is the biggest lockdown deck in the game right now so you will literally be denying your own glory by playing your own power cards. Like it’s not a bad card, it’s just not good enough. Personally I stopped putting it in a lot of my HG decks cause I spam play Thanatek who doesn’t have movement economy and this card is just always denied, so it ends up being a one glory brick in my hand.
Finally, Spoiling for a Fight is a sleeper objective as well. It’s probably a good pick in conjunction with This is Our Turf cause it once again begs your opponent to come to you. It does follow the theme of ‘leader is in friendly territory’ as does Lead by Example. However it’s just again quite difficult to setup despite being arguably the easiest of the three 1-Glory cards. It’s just too much work for a one glory reward.
This is the general issue with HG cards (apart from Pinned and Lead by Example): too much work for too little reward. Ready or Not should genuinely be a 4 glory end phase, and the three one glory cards can all potentially be worth two glory. They are slightly easier than some other two glory stuff but INFINITELY harder than some one glory cards in the game right now. Look at PnP: we have ‘delve once’ printed on two one glory cards while here you need to do some leader acrobatics and get all fighters in the right position. BA has cards reading ‘damage or kill SOMETHING’ while HG needs you to wound something, not kill it, and have it be in a certain spot (or be losing). This, imo, is the biggest weakness of Hunting Grounds at the moment relative to other decks in the game.
As a general trend, HG has really good ‘high glory’ cards and really bad 1 glory cards. It’s surges are either bad or there are better versions of them (doesn’t mean the ones with better versions are bad per se), and the one glory cards should all be worth either 2 glory or be made easier. This means HG (from an objective standpoint) is best paired with decks who only need to take 1-2 cards objectives, cause then you just take the really good Lead By Example, Pinned, No Business Here and so on and you’re happy! However, if you want HG to be your ‘main’ deck, I’d suggest looking at literally ANY other deck in the game apart from RS. Like, you know it’s bad when REALMSTONE RAIDERS has better objectives than you.
On this positive note, onto the power cards!
PLOYS
The ploys in HG are, imo, where this deck truly shines. Let’s do a quick shuffle of them into categories:
- 1x Ping/Extra Attack
- 2x Accuracy
- 2x Defensive
- 2x +Range/Mobility
- 2x Mess Opponents Up
- 1x Token Manipulation
The Ping/Extra Attack category is, in my completely unbiased opinion, the most OP ploy category in the entire game. And Audacious Denial is, ignoring it’s slightly major caveat, the BEST extra attack ploy in the game, barely overtaking the only other contestant of Improvised Attack. Audacious Denial is not only a melee attack, meaning it can score a ton of surges Improv can’t, it can also be modified. So we can make a potential 2 DMG attack in a power step, or we can add Cleave/Ensane/Keen Eye or anything really. This is insane – why is no one playing it? Well, mainly cause it’s condition to be played is a) the attack has to target an enemy adjacent to your leader in friendly territory and b) the attack has to have a Base Damage 1 and be melee. Most leaders in the game do not have a Base Damage 1 melee attack. Still, this card is super insane and if a warband can play it they definitely are from my experience. Improv Attack is still like infinitely better but only cause it doesn’t have these huge caveats.
Some warbands might not seem like they can run Audacious Denial but always check the second attack!
The accuracy ploys in the deck are Deny Invaders and Secrets of the Realm. Deny Invaders is a slightly-strictly worse Determined Effort. It’s telegraphed and only ever adds one die while only working on fighters in friendly territory. It’s not a bad effect cause ‘your territory’ usually makes up a little less than half the board, but still, accuracy has seen better days. The nice thing is it does combo very well with Audacious Denial cause it lasts a whole turn for your whole warband.
Secrets of the Realm is on paper super op cause it’s a mass stagger. However, it only works if you are adjacent to an enemy or a feature token in friendly territory. Which is a big caveat. Still, it’s a better Sudden Blast as far as Stagger ploys go. It’s biggest issue is that Raging Tremors exists which is basically a better version of this card.
Hidden Snares is a unique take on a defensive card in that it debuffs an opponent rather than yourself, something not seen anywhere else apart from Mirror Shield in Nexus and Death Throes in EotK. This means a) Thanatek is immune to it lol! and b) it scales depending on your opponent’s strength. Against a 2 Sword Gristlewel, this card is nuts, making him go to one sword. Against a 4 Hammers/Cleave Gorehulk, maybe not, cause the accuracy difference is like 7%. It’s biggest caveats are that it targets only one enemy and only in your territory next to a feature token, which enemies will be avoiding anyway, so it’s usefulness is way worse. Also Death Throes is just better version of the card, unless you don’t know who your opponent will attack, in which case Hidden Snares is maybe better?
The next defensive ploy in the deck is Paths Unknown, which is the single best defensive ploy in the game except maybe Fireproof/Growing Concerns. Maybe. Paths Unknown guarantees one of your fighters just won’t get attacked in the next turn. This means on warbands who don’t want a specific fighter to die, such as Grymwatch, Sepulchral Guard, or Thanatek, this card is beyond busted. Sure, you can argue that ‘oh i don’t know who my opponent will attack then this card is useless’. No? You basically force your opponent’s hand by playing this card, as they now HAVE to pick a certain target for their charge. Paths Unknown is one of the most OP ploys in the game right now with it’s only caveat being that the target must usually be in friendly territory, which is a very fair price to pay for such insane power level.
The only non-Nexus Range buff available in a Rivals deck is in Keep Them at Bay, a hilarious ploy which lets you give all your attacks that target an enemy in your territory +1 Range, to a max of 2. This is quite nice with the caveat that you shouldn’t be playing HG as a Range 1 warband but oh well. On paper, it’s a really strong card but in practice it’s quite hard to get the most use out of. Still if you are lacking the Range, there is no other way to do it in the game apart from Nexus, so this card is automatically best in category! (with Nexus, it’s kinda Last in Category so ignore that pls).
Sidestep is Sidestep, and HG having it as a huge boon. I won’t go over Sidestep because we all know Sidestep is Sidestep, so instead I’ll tell you which decks DON’T have Sidestep:
– Nexus (Pilfer)
– Raging Slayers
– Realmstone Raiders (A Step Ahead)
– Reckless Fury (Diving In)
– Countdown (Violent Blast)
This means that if you are playing one of the above decks (all of which have a Sidestep clone except from RS btw), you might consider HG just for Sidestep.
The most HG section of them all, there’s two ways to cook your opponents in the deck (arguably more but Paths Unknown and Hidden Snares fit better elsewhere), and both are OP. First of all, Mind Your Step is the only distraction effect in the game outside of Confusion (adjacency requirement) and Violent Blast (Stagger hex requirement). This means that HG is the only deck with a somewhat consistent Distraction, and to make matters better, it’s TWO HEXES. It’s biggest issue is that it only affects 17-22 hexes on the board, which is still more than Violent Blast’s 6-12 or Confusion’s 6/Fighter. Also you must end in enemy or neutral territory which can inadvertently lead to some glory for them but oh well.
Next, Poor Footing is a really strong lockdown ploy. It does get absolutely diffed by Growing Concerns in terms of ‘pls don’t charge me’ but it does last the whole round, which is insanely strong. It does have an atrocious range limitation but we can get around this by putting our Aqua Ghyranis hex (a feature token!) in smart spots to make the card easier to use. The effect of the card is super strong, the range not so much, but it’s better than the two other lockdown dedicated lockdown ploys in the game. I go over this card in way more detail in my Lockdown article so check that out for more info, but TLDR it’s a really good Lockdown ploy with it’s biggest downside that enemies get stuck in your lines so there really isn’t a need for them to charge anymore.
Finally, we have the waste of cardboard known as Mystical Misdirection, which is one of the only two token manipulation ploys in the game (the second being Switch Things Up). Mystical Misdirection gets diffed in literally every regard possible. It’s a) in a deck that DOESN’T MENTION SPECIFIC FEATURE TOKENS, b) only usable in your territory both ways. Like, I’m trying to give credit to HG but this ploy has literally 0 reason to play it. I tried to make a Challenge Deck for it once but failed cause the card is just so bad. My one deck with it was a Steel Garden one which focused on Uneven Contest soo…
So that’s the ploys!
As a general trend you might have seen that basically all the ploys said ‘this one is INSANE, but there’s a small caveat in that it’s only usable on like 17% of the board’. Several ploys also get outclassed by some other better options in other decks because the card do the exact same thing but without the caveat. The ploys ‘unique’ to HG – Paths Unknown, Poor Footing, for example – are very strong! Still, they almost all have a huge usability caveat.
Luckily for us, the meta atm is a very ‘RF or be RF’ed’, so we this huge caveat is very easily avoided. However, that is something i’ll talk about after we discuss the last part of the deck – upgrades!
UPGRADES
Again, a lot of HG upgrades are really unique and thus ‘best in category’.
- 2x ‘Jacks of all trades’
- 3x Defensive
- 1x Mess up your opponent
- 2x Weapon upgrades
- 1x Movement
- 1x Damage
I’ll start with the two ‘all of the above’ upgrades. The first one is Bounty of Ghyran, which is super op on some warbands (THANATEK) and super mid on other warbands. It gives you, depending on your warband, a different combination of +Move, Damage, Range, Dice, Save, or even maybe Health. So this card really depends on your warband. Most of the time it’s used as an Impossibly Quick clone or as a ‘haha my Thanatek gets access to his super OP dagger for one turn, good luck!’ (cheating in op attacks early game). It does have the friendly territory caveat but is still a strong card at best and one that does basically nothing at worst (on a warband like GWatch who inspire instantly anyway, for example).
Next, Hidden Aid is both an accuracy and a Defensive card so it’s in this section. Hidden Aid is a card with ‘Sidestep’ levels of power and the only other decks that have it are Blazing Assault and technically Deadly Synergy (with Titan of Combat). Hidden Aid is super OP as we all know and even has synergy with No Business Here in the very own deck, making it even better. One of it’s biggest strengths is it (wait for it) has NO caveats!
HG is really big on defensive upgrades, having 5 if you count the two mentioned above. Balance of Ghyran is a very strong deterrent to getting attacked, having a 42.1% chance of going off and having a VERY far range. For ‘big boy’ warbands like Hrothgorn, this card is super strong as they will often be taking damage 2-3 times, increasing the chance of proc’ing the card. However, if you are a 4 health fighter, chances are you won’t take this card since it will only trigger every other attack and you only can take 2 hits before dying. This means that it, like Bounty of Ghyran, has a really niche OP use case but most of the time it doesn’t do too much outside of Psychological Damage. It’s main (and only) competition, Parting Shot, it probably a better version of this card for the majority of warbands apart from 5+ health fighters.
Goading Defender is a better Impossibly Quick as it doesn’t break on a miss, but rather a hit. It also breaks if you get picked by a ploy which means careful of playing Sidestep too early or when facing Wrack and Ruin. It also only works in your territory. This seems like a lot of downsides but in reality these come up quite rarely as if you’re playing HG you should be sitting at home anyways and if you are getting picked by ploys, then well unlucky I guess. This is definitely a strong card in the +Save category, being only worse than Utter Conviction and maybe Sharp Reflexes depending on the warband.
True Grit is nice card on paper but in practice it’s super situational. It’s technically a +Save card, but it’s only good if you are a warband like Grymwatch who a) have a ton of 2 Save fighters and b) want to sit near your leader for whatever reason. So while the effect is super good, the target audience is smaller than RS’s fanbase.
Blocked! is a super unique card which can either be back breaking for your opponent or a waste of a glory point. It counters literally every playstyle in the game when played and positioned with properly, 50% of the time. However, it’s super difficult to get good positioning with and the fact that it only works 50% of the time makes it very unreliable sadly. It is nowhere near the strongest or the weakest upgrade in the deck or the game, sitting firmly in the middle of the pack imo.
HG has 2 weapon upgrades, the first one being literally one of the strongest in the game – Crippling Blow. It doubles as the best lockdown effect in the game while being of average accuracy and being Range 2. It only does 1 damage so as an attack upgrade it’s kind of mid, but you play it for the Lockdown effect anyway, which it does SUPER well – the best in the game. It also works with Audacious Denial which is REALLY funny. Overall, a really strong upgrade in the deck with the only caveat being it does 1 damage – not a big issue.
Hidden Traps is slightly worse. It’s more accurate and damaging, but it has only one range. On top of that, the Grievous it gets is conditional to quite a small area of the board which most of your deck already cares about so opponents usually just won’t visit it. This card does work REALLY well with Audacious Denial cause the +Damage is built in. As far as weapon upgrades go, it’s not the best at dealing damage (Coordinated Deathblow and Desperate Rage exist) and it’s not the best at being accurate (Entangling Strike exists) so it’s kind of on the lower-middle end of the pack. Thankfully we have Realmstone Edge bringing up the rear otherwise there would be a tough battle for last place.
some HG gameplay
Great Speed is in this deck and it’s another example of Great Speed is Great Speed. It’s a good card to have but it gets outclassed by Visions of Ruin and Headlong Charge, luckily there isn’t much speed options in the game at the moment so it’s stocks are high. Nothing too majorly helpful or damaging to HG’s place in the meta.
Finally, one of the the best upgrades in the deck is Killing Blow. You might think it’s condition to trigger is really counterintuitive cause if they are damaged they are dead but not all of us are playing warbands with base 2 damage so pls be quiet. This deck doesn’t have pings to trigger it apart from Audacious Denial (speaking of, the Grievous from this card stacks with it!). Still it’s a super strong card and probably one of the better conditional Grievouses in the game. Great Strength is obviously stronger but the 1 Glory price tag gives Killing Blow a huge edge. Gloryseeker and this card fill the same niche, I’d still rather have Killing Blow though (I’m a ping fanatic). It’s better than Spiteful Attitudes and Furious Might, though! So it’s overall a really good upgrade.
The upgrades in HG are pretty good as a trend. They are all either a) pretty good in a lot of scenarios, like Hidden Aid or Killing Blow or b) OP is like a couple scenarios, like True Grit or Blocked. Compared to most decks, this is pretty good consider that there’s stuff like Nexus where you run 2 upgrades ever. However, the meta also has stuff like BA which has 9/10 GOOD upgrades. So I’d say it’s a solid middle of the pack, maybe even closer to the top, of an upgrade package.
HG’S PLACE IN TODAY’S META
Now that we have gone over every single card and compared it to similair cards in the game, we can go over the deck as a whole.
In today’s Nemesis Format, the meta is overrun with Thanateks and Spiteclaws abusing HG. However most people choose to opt for lesser powered stuff, such as BA/RF, ES/NoP, and PnP/DS. These are the ‘big 3’ at the moment, with any combination of them usually working out as well. Edge of the Knife is also a common pick but less seen, and Realmstone Raiders/Raging Slayers don’t see too much play.
Deck distribution for the upcoming WTC 2026 tournament (credit to Honza).
Because invasion is so key to the meta right now, the biggest issue of Hunting Grounds in that about 80% of cards say ‘an enemy is in your territory’ is conveniently dealt with. So don’t fret about ‘oh no, I won’t be able to score anything’ cause chances are your opponent needs to come to you!
The ACTUAL biggest issue with HG is the Guard token – it counters Pinned and a lot of drive back surges (hence I don’t reccomend them) and is also quite easy to do, just say ‘I go on Guard’. This makes playing against any combination with 2 Guard ploys very difficult. Ironically Realmstone Raiders is the hardest deck, cause it has Manipulated Fate as well.
I’ll go over how HG into a couple prominent decks:
BA/RF: Hunting Grounds is often seen as the ‘best counter to RF’, which is 100% true. It punishes enemies invading you and gives out move tokens, both of which RF hates. However, what people often fail to mention is that RF is usually paired with BA which adds a little more killing power than we bargained for. Against an evenly matched BA/RF, it really comes down to card draw. If you draw your move token cards in R2 or 3 it’s literally gg for you but without that it’s a tough matchup. The goal of HG in this matchup is to score Pinned and Lead by Example whilst denying as much of RF as possible – we aren’t able to deny Bloody Momentum easily but the other high glory stuff is very doable. It also depends on your second deck, because BA/RF makes your territory quite a killing ground, you have to either be able to match that or defend against it – making CtC the best pick as a second deck (for kills and defense power) or ES (for raw defense buffs). Overall, HG is a strong deck against BA/RF but it’s not an easy matchup by any strecth of imagingation.
ES/NoP or ES/PnP: Both of these decks suck into HG – or that’s what common consensus is (it’s kinda true). From my experience, it’s way easier to play into ES/PnP but then it comes down entirely to token placement. The weakness of PnP compared to NoP is that PnP needs access to 3 tokens, which means chance are one will be in your territory. Against NoP, your second deck is what makes all the difference. NoP loses a lot of glory from not attacking compared to PnP so if your second deck can challange ES in glory, you have a favorable matchup. With PnP, if you can contest the third token in a way that scores you stuff while ideally denying enemy Broken Prospects (pretty hard) and Torn Landscape (pretty easy), you’re good to go. Also literally the most important part in this matchup is token placement, with perfect placement the matchup is ‘winnable’ and with bad placement it’s gg, go game 2 from literally activation one.
DS/EotK: I want to mention this pairing just cause it’s so popular at WTC this year. This is a really good matchup for HG, just because DS EotK has to invade but it doesn’t have the speed to do it, so they go in one by one and then you can farm the enemy with your empowered power cards. Mostly anything aggressive without BA SIGNIFICANTLY favors HG for this reason. BA is a problem because it ups the warband’s killing power by a ton, without it, HG actually has time to slow down the offensive in order to countpunch. RF/DS, RF/EotK, DS/EotK, and RS+Deck of Choice are all super good matchups for HG.
Thanatek CtC HG against some Spiteclaws with DS/PnP (i think)
So as we can see, in today’s aggressive meta Hunting Grounds can perform super well as long as Blazing Assault isn’t in the mix. If you are playing against a passive deck, it’s obviously harder, but even both Hold decks today require you to attack or invade to some extent (the ES Surges, Close the Vice, Slow Advance…) and it’s your job as a HG player to punish that. Obviously if you can’t do that, you lose, and it’s quite difficult to pull off. The main issues for HG are decks that DON’T want to interact with you to a significant extent. The biggest offender is actually the everpresent PnP/CtC, or really most decks with a heavy focus towards PnP cards.
Overall, I’d rank Hunting Grounds as a low B or High C-Tier deck. It can absolutely skyrocket in power depending on the matchup but it is kept in check by the strongest deck in the game (Blazing Assault) kind of hard countering it by killing it before you can get your counterpunch online. It’s really easy to mess up and lose against passive stuff, like ES, NoP, PnP, and CtC as well, but those matchups are all very winnable. However, a well played HG is a nightmare to deal with, so if you like high skill, high reward decks, and if you enjoy a challenge, I recommend HG to you!
HOW TO GET GOOD AT HG
Let’s say you (for some reason) decide to play HG. How do you play it well?
For starters, we are playing Nemesis so we might need a second deck.
CtC HG is my favorite deck pairing in the game, so I may be very slightly biased, but it’s imo the strongest deck pairing for Hunting Grounds. It provides everything HG wants – passive glory in the shape of Set Explosives and Spread Havoc, pings in order to get damage (something this deck lacks) and Killing Blow online, and accuracy. Countercharge is super op for No Business Here and Improvised Attack makes Lead by Example super easy. Utter Conviction, Paths Unknown, Growing Concerns, and Goading Defender make your fighters feel unkillable as well. I have an entire article dedicated to just this deck pairing so check that out for more reasons why it’s so op.
People often say ‘pair it with ES or PnP’ for passive glory and this is certaintly true and one way to play the deck! With ES, you are taking more of a flex-y approach where you don’t score any surges if your opponent doesn’t show up and score a ton if they do. I personally like PnP + HG a lot more, because it forces the enemy to come to you as you score like a ton of glory. It also gives you some nice aggressive TPs with Canny Sapper and Tunneling Terror, allowing you to flex very nicely. Finally, the best part of PnP is that it lets you play actually passive surges (crazy right?) and score stuff without leaving your territory, which is a huge boon.
I also cooked up a combo with Nexus, but this a true counterpunch build and it’s not really a ‘hold’ deck. Like you do literally nothing if the enemy doesn’t come and score a trillion points if they do.
Next, we have to pick a warband. There are obviously some that do it better than others.
My two conditions to make a HG deck good are the following:
– Must be able to score Home Advantage (so have a high save)
– Must be able to score Lead By Example OR Ready or Not (so have a decent leader/swarm)
Don’t ask why it’s so specific, I played HG like a million times and the warbands who were succesful met those conditions and the ones who didn’t weren’t.
This means that warbands with a leader who has a Ranged attack are ideal, and then warbands who have 2 Save die or other ways to make them harder to hit are even better. Also it goes without saying but they shouldn’t be forced to go in enemy territory – you hear that Quint? I don’t think HG is the play for Emberwatch.
Several warbands have HG Synergy built in the warscroll – The Grymwatch as we discovered with Quint have a nice little thing called ‘becoming OP on inspire’, and they inspire less fighters per bounty in their territory. Same with Starblood Stalkers, who are arguably better cause they can score Lead by Example as well.
Ylthari’s Guardians and Cyreni’s Razors were two warbands I really liked with HG. Cyreni has Hammertide for ‘come at me bro’ pressure and Ylthari have The Dwindling for a cheeky teleport back into your territory if you need to aggro!
My favorite-favorite warband for HG is actually Thanatek’s Tithe, and before you skip this section HEAR ME OUT. So first of all, we do score Home Advantage because the Retainers exist. Second, we score Lead by Example cause Interdimensional Space Dagger and the insanely bonkers Ranged attack on Thanatek. Third, Thanatek absolutely LOVES Paths Unknown and all the lockdown tech. Fourth, accuracy helps generate cadaver. Pair it with CtC and it’s the best CtC HG warband and the best deck for the warband too.
The one thing I don’t really recommend with HG is Elites – disclaimer, I haven’t actually tried it – but on paper it’s just so difficult to pull off. Like yes you’ll be attacking with your leader a lot but part of what makes HG even possible is being able to spread your threat all around your territory, leaving as little gaps as possible to force your opponent into them. With elites, there’s going to be a lot more ‘gaps’ for your opponent to exploit. On the other hand, you can use some fighters as ‘bait’… it’s more effective but more risky cause it’s like 33% of your warband.
When deckbuilding with HG, I recommend using it as a secondary deck rather a primary deck. By which I mean don’t build for trying to score Ready or Not. HG’s strength lies in the fact that a lot of it is basically ‘make attacks, but in friendly territory’ which isn’t the brightest thing in the world to build around, but can be easily splashed onto basically any playstyle in the game (don’t do RF pls).
I won’t go over possible combinations with EVERY deck pairing but my ‘autoincludes’ are usually:
- Pinned, literally 100% of the time. It’s so OP, super easy to score, forceable with Audacious Denial/Mind Your Step, and limits opponent’s actions.
- No Businesss Here, one of my favorite surges in the game as it doesn’t need to hit the attack.
- Lead By Example/Ready or Not – of which Lead by Example is picked like 98% of the time, because it’s wayyy easier as a two glory card.
- Home Advantage – being the easiest remaining HG surge, though No Trespassers is usually an option as well. Often times you take both though. My main gripe with No Trespassers is it doesn’t score on ping kills and I usually play it with CtC so it kind of hurts.
The ploys and upgrades I went over in a lot of detail already, so just check out the ones there. Some are literally unskippable and then just check the niche ones for your warband/deck – the options change a lot depending on how you build!
Your goal with HG will heavily depend on your second deck again, but if there’s one strategy that’s crucial in all game plans – TOKEN PLACEMENT.
HG is one of the most feature-token heavy decks in the game right now. My usual go-to’s are putting treasures/aquas near edge hexes for Pinned, or if an opponent isn’t playing Hold, use them as setup for your other cards like Poor Footing and Hidden Traps. It’s super important to maximize the area within 1 hex of a feature token in your territory for Poor Footing!
Common mistakes that I make with HG that you should avoid are plenty, so here’s some of the more prominent ones:
- For the love of everything, please don’t stay only in your territory. Invade if you have to. You don’t actually lose too much glory if built properly and it messes up your opponents a lot.
- Next, don’t always put your first token in your territory – you can sometimes make creative uses for a ‘denial token’ which forces your opponent to throw THEIR treasure into your territory!
- DON’T AUTOPILOT AND PLACE THE AQUA IN THE BACK OF THE BOARD. Mainly for Poor Footing, because if an opponent goes on Guard + moves onto it you’re kind of screwed but yeah.
- Finally, don’t tunnel vision onto your cards. You might be trying to save Paths Unknown for a Twist the Knife + Determined Effort charge on the Duke, but sometimes it’s worth to throw it on a random Night’s Herald to force an action from your opponent! Same with other stuff like Mind Your Step – sometimes simply kicking an enemy out of your territory on Activation 2 will deny your opponent a TON of glory. HG cards are really flexible (once you overcome their caveats) so always keep track of ways to use them!
notice Renglaith at the back of the board? That’s the optimal way to play ‘Aggro Grounds’ (CtC HG vs. RS/WnR)
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed my very very long HG analysis 🙂
If you have any more questions or want some Hunting Grounds decks/advice, feel free to join the Staggerers Discord server and shoot me a message, I’m usually online! With that, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again soon!
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