Greetings, boyz! Today I will be talking about the universal cards provided to us with the Hedkrakka’s Madmob’s expansion. If you’re interested in my review of the warband itself, you can find it here.
So, without further ado let’s jump into the cards - we’re having a standard number of 30 universals to review. At the end of this review, I’m going to provide my Top 5 cards of this expansion.
While rating the cards I will be following the system as below:
1 - a very powerful card. You should take it in nearly every deck. A staple.
2 - a very strong card that you should consider taking. Might not always make the cut, but should usually contend with other options.
3 - a situational card that might prove to be good in certain situations or with proper card support
4 - a weak card. You might find a use for it, but in general, most often you’ll be better off with other picks.
Universal Objectives
Feast and Famine - right now this is mostly Crimson Court objective. And it applies to a hunger build only. We haven’t seen any other warband tap into hunger so far. Overall for aggressive hunger build, this is fairly decent. But a dead card for anyone else.
Rating: 3
Fleeting Primacy - this is a weaker version of Temporary Victory. In fact, it is also a weaker version of Hidden Purpose. It’s unlikely that this one will be ever restricted, so it might be a nice alternative to the above cards in your hold objective deck. You could also go for stacking this with the other two for a good synergy in surges. Overall it’s decent, but a bit difficult for 1 glory. I don’t think it holds the ground on its own but could supplement other hold surges well.
Rating: 3
Lie in wait - the first condition of this card is turning it into a weaker Supremacy. Holding 3 objectives is not an easy thing in the current shape of the meta. And it’s pretty much dead for most traditional hold objective warbands due to lack of hunters in their ranks. The second condition is far more interesting. Having two objectives held fits well with modern hold objective strategies. Quarry requirement takes some effort, but there’s enough quarry tech, that is compelling for a HO player, to make this work without too much trouble. And that’s a solid 2 glory end phase then. With more cards like this, we might get solid quarry builds to appear in the meta. And that’s more diversity, so a good thing.
Rating: 2
Magic Morsel - so, this is a very similar situation to other hunger-based cards. It’s mostly good for the Crimson Court. However, the second condition makes this card pretty much dead - there’re very few wizards on the table and even fewer wizards, who will have 2 or more upgrades on them. So it’s a bit funny card - one scoreable mostly in vampire mirror matches.
Rating: 4
Moment of Glory - this surge is pretty good for warbands with a global, fairly easy, inspire condition. It’s not that great for a 3 man warband - losing one of your fighters makes this card a dead one. The notable exception here are Cursebreakers - those guys can inspire easily and can do it very quickly. Yet, should you draw this later in the game it’s very likely that one of your models is already taken out of action. I believe the best warband to run this is Hrothgorn Mantrappers.
Rating: 3
Myriad Incantations - currently virtually 0 gambit spells are being played. So, if you’re rocking Cursebreakers, Eyes of Nine, or a similar team with a couple of spells in the deck, then this is an easy objective to score. I wish there was more support for magic playstyle in the game again.
Rating: 2
Primal Display - if you’re able to one-shot enemy fighters, or you’re Madmob’s member - this is a pretty good card for you. Technically speaking you could work around this with other ways to obtain Primacy token, but in general, it’s best for heavy-hitting warbands.
Rating: 2
Primal Supremacy - if you think Supremacy is too easy, you’ll love this one. I’m struggling to find a single reason to include this card in your deck.
Rating: 4
Show No Fear - unless you’re expecting many Hrothgorns in your meta, this card is very difficult to score. And for only 1 glory it’s not something to build towards.
Rating: 4
Wasteland - this is a quite nice addition to Feed the Beastgrave decks. It’s also functional for any warband that has some objective flip/destruction options available and decent enough to be used. In general, I don’t believe it would have a good place in any deck outside of FtB ones.
Rating: 3
Universal Gambits
Claim to Domination - it’s a pretty good option for an aggressive warband, that wants to have many fighters in enemy territory. For Madmob player it is a potential inspire from a ploy. Play this after the opponent’s activation and move one of your fighters into their territory to gain the primacy - this is doable even in your first activation versus more passive teams.
It could also be used to counter things like Proud Runner. If you have enough fighters in enemy territory just play this in the second last activation - that way last-minute Proud Runner shenanigans are being shut down. For less aggressive warbands it’s probably not that good.
Rating: 3
Cunning Paths - I like this ploy. Play this on a quarry, or with Outrun Death, and suddenly you’ve got a very fast fighter, who can flip even 3 objective tokens in a single activation. Play this on a fighter who can move through occupied hexes and you can flip the tokens from under the opponent’s feet. This can be fairly soul-crushing for them. On the flip side - this could also be used as a defensive tech to flip lethal hexes back to being an objective. The only problem I can see is that this amount of flip tech is making Feed the Beastgrave a little too easy.
Rating: 2
Fury Barbs - this is an interesting defensive card. I like the fact that this is a reaction, rather than a “next activation” ploy. It can be fairly painful - especially for 2 dice attacks. Sadly, it does nothing against fury-based attacks which are quite common.
Rating: 3
Heeded Instinct - friendly pushes are always cool. This one is particularly cool because it allows you to push your quarry by two hexes. It’s great for many hold objective warbands, where some of the key fighters are quarry (thanks to Cryptic Companion for example). What’s also great is that very often your voltroned fighter in aggro is also a quarry (thanks to things like Strength of Terror, Charike Claws, or silent relics). An ability to push your stacked fighter by 2 hexes could mean attacking without having to charge. Commanding Stride was amazing for a reason, and this one is a more flexible version of it.
Rating: 1
Horrific Aspect - it’s a cool option if you’re playing something like Lost Pages build. Or any other list where you really would like to protect your wizard (like a stacked Averon for example). With this spell cast, any charge with a range 1 attack will not be possible. It still doesn’t protect you from Mollog or ranged attacks though. And ideally, you’d cast it with a level 2 wizard. With level one, you’ve only got a 50% chance for this to work.
Rating: 3
Predatory Impulse - a weaker movement ploy that supplements its +1 move with adding an ensnare to boost accuracy. It’s not bad per se, but I don’t think I would take this over Spectral Wings or Outrun Death. Ensnare isn’t that hot outside of specific situations, but could be considered as an element of tech against dodge-heavy meta. Overall it’s not a bad card, but hardly a strong all-rounder.
Rating: 3
Primal Power - It’s a cool card. It is very close to what I see as an optimal replacement for Innate mechanic for magic. You get a re-roll of your dice in a casting roll, and if you’ve got a primacy token, you’d get an extra dice as well. Super cool design. Will it see play though? Aggressive Cursebreakers might be very interested in taking this. Hedkrakka wouldn’t mind it either if you’d want to utilize his spell attack action. Outside of those two warbands, I don’t see a candidate who has both the interest to play it and the ability to obtain primacy reliably. But for those two above it’s a tempting option to consider - especially for Averon.
Rating: 2
Savage Contest - so… this is a Hunter/Quarry Twist the Knife. Hunter and Quarry keywords are fairly widespread by now, so this is a neat option to consider. For Hrothgorn this is something that works always. What’s very neat is that it doesn’t require you to drive enemy fighters back. So you can add that one extra point of damage even if attacking a fighter on guard. Very nice.
Rating: 2
Suffocating Heat - so… this looks like the card designed to screw with the Crimson Court players. Any fighter with a hunger counter will get a -1 move, which is big. Any fighter with 3+ hunger counters will get a -1 wound, which is huge. And any move action will generate hunger tokens. What’s interesting is that this effect works on everyone. So enemy fighters will gain hunger counters as well as friendly ones. And if you’re playing a list that cares about having those counters on your (or enemy) fighters this could be used as a hunger generation tool. Yes, having a -1 move is bad, but if you’re playing a passive hunger build you might not care about that so much. So in theory, if you’re at the start of the game and you want to build up counters quickly you could play this to ramp yourself up to 2 counters per fighter. You just need to be careful to not get to 3 counters too early in the round. The trouble with this card is that it does pretty much nothing against 95% of warbands in the game.
Rating: 4
Too Hungry To Care - it’s a neat niche way to provide accuracy. Works well mostly with the Crimson Court, but also could boost anyone using things like a Hungry Advance. Since it’s providing supports it can also synergize with any cards that give benefits or can be scored based on having supports in an attack. So.. decent if you have hunger counters, useless for anyone else.
Rating: 3
Universal Upgrades
Amber Realmstone - I’m not sold on this upgrade. If you’ll kill one enemy fighter with this card equipped, your fighter will get a +2 move. That’s quite useful, indeed. Kill two enemy fighters and you’ll get a move bonus, but also +1 damage to your range 1&2 attacks. That’s cool. Kill 3 or more - you’ll also lose one wound. And that’s very not cool. I think the key bonus to aim for is +1 damage, but to get there you’d need to kill 2 fighters with this card equipped. That’s already a tall task. But, assuming you’ve managed that, you now have a +1 damage bonus and it’s likely close to an end of round 2. Should you want to capitalize on your hard-earned bonus and succeed in killing another target… you’re getting punished for it by losing 1 wound. That sucks. You’re not even getting a single attack without a drawback after it succeeds. Just slap Giant Strength or something similar instead. Works right off the bat instead of making you wait for 2 kills with this model. And will never punish you. For me, it’s a hard skip on this card unless that Realmstone keyword will do something compelling in the future.
Rating: 4
Armour of Confidence - a 3 block Hrothgorn? I’ll take one. Very good for anyone who can get Primacy easily. It’s also a solid patch for your savage orruks who are stuck with a single dodge (or an option to make Toofdagga even more annoying). The power of this card falls apart if you’re not able to hold that primacy token though. Which is a pretty nice balancing factor.
Rating: 2
Biting Axe - it’s a solid piece of equipment - a 2 damage attack that hits on 2 hammers. With an option to deal 3 damage. Trouble is that without extra accuracy you’re likely to operate on a 24-28% chance for this to happen. Soultooth Dagger, Soultooth Spear, or some of the Amberbone weapons, in general, are offering a better value.
Rating: 3
Famine’s Ferocity - I’m not sure who would take this. Duvalle or Gorath would need a Blood Chalice for it to be reasonably accurate. But then they’d never reach 2 damage level on this. Averon has 2 damage spell attack when inspired anyway. Headkrakka is a primacy boy and won’t have the option to generate hunger. It’s simply a card without any real target audience.
Rating: 4
Hunger for Success - hunger generation engine. And in clutch moments you can spend 3 of your hunger counters and take 1 damage to be able to re-do your attack. It’s pretty okay for an aggro hunger build. My only trouble is that in my experience Crimson Court does aggro better when Inspired. So I don’t think I would take it. Averon, Mollog, or turret Hrothgorn are decent options for this though. With them, it’s possible to stack up 3 hunger counters fairly quickly and have that backup option of attacking again. But I don’t think they would have an open slot for an upgrade that requires this much charging up.
Rating: 3
Hunger Siphon - another hunger generation card. The secondary ability to move counters around feels a bit useless, to be honest. Could maybe work to fuel some hunger-based upgrades like Hunger for Success, but in general, is not worth the slot unless you would like to generate a lot of hunger counters passively.
Rating: 3
Savage Agility - if you stick it on a well-defending fighter it could give some decent returns. High chances of a miss followed by receiving a point of damage might be a good deterrent. Other than that it’s not that compelling. If you want to gain the Hunter keyword just take a Soultooth weapon or something along those lines.
Rating: 3
Silent Sword - now, those are some decent stats! 3 smash attack makes it very accurate and 2 damage is decent. Condition to go to 3 damage is very situational, but what’s cool is that this weapon coupled with some other piece of silent relics gains more stats - Ensnare and another bonus depending on the relic piece you’d add to it. This also makes you a quarry, which is becoming a fairly attractive addition to the whole package. This is a very solid attack action upgrade.
Rating: 2
Soultooth Net - a better version of a Barb-laden Net! That’s a great tool to shut strong enemy fighters down. And you don’t need to be a hunter to use this. Very good upgrade.
Rating: 2
Spiteglass - this can work as a deterrent - your opponent will think twice whether it’s worth losing some of his upgrades for a chance to kill your fighter. And if you lose your fighter you can get a consolation prize of destroying an opponent’s upgrade. It’s a fun upgrade, but I don’t particularly like how passive this is. I like having control over my power cards.
Rating: 3
Top 5 cards
We’re now at the point, where we’ve gone through all of the universal cards from Hedkrakka’s Madmob expansion. Now I’ll present 5 cards I’ve found most interesting in this expansion (in no particular order).
Lie in wait - I really like the design of this objective. I’m not a fan of hold playstyle, but I do appreciate this card. I think it’s decent and further strengthens Hold 2 playstyle.
Cunning Paths - the flexibility of this card (being both defensive and offensive) and the sick plays you can do with it are great. I really like this one.
Primal Power - I’m a big fan of magic playstyle in this game. I’m still hoping it will return in some decent form and shape. It probably never will be on a power level of the Nightvault era, but there’s a good reason for it not to happen. Still, seeing cards like this one makes me happy.
Armour of Confidence - I like to Voltron strong fighters. It’s been something I’ve enjoyed before it became a menace on the tables. Armour fits in well with the idea of building an unkillable wrecking ball that will mop up the enemy fighters. So it gets my vote.
Silent Sword - it’s a very good piece of weaponry. And on top of that, it’s a part of a greater picture with silent relics. I’m hoping this will be tied to some objective and stacking those will become a valid playstyle. Voltron + gaining glory from having those equipped is definitely up my alley of fun.
Closing Thoughts
Overall this is a fairly balanced pack. It has a good mix of strong and situationally decent cards in it. Will you find here meta-defining cards? Probably not, unless Silent Relics will become a thing. There are some strong tools for certain archetypes like aggro, hold 2, Feed the Beastgrave.
Again this pack is heavy on hunger-based cards. And I get it - you need to reach a certain critical mass for a mechanic to be good. But the concern is that we’ve already got around 38 universal cards supporting this mechanic, but they’re still nowhere near from being a competitive - or even viable - way of playing for anyone except the Crimson Court. My impression is that even the Court is better off without hunger. Yes, they can be built for hunger builds that benefit from stacking those tokens, but I feel like it’s not even the best way of playing for them. And if THE hunger warband is, in general, better off without the hunger, then there’s something wrong about that mechanic. I’m still hoping that the situation will get better, but for now, it feels like a good portion of the universal card pool is just dead weight.
Primacy feels a lot better designed and much easier to incorporate into multiple warbands. Hopefully, this will even out a bit with the last two warbands, although it would take some minor miracle for it to happen.
So, don’t expect any shake-up in the meta. Some well-performing playstyles just got a bit better, FtB got a big buff and that’s about it. And it’s not a bad thing to be fair.
Is it worth getting this expansion? I think yes - there are quite a few cards of good value for most of the playstyles. And the warband itself is very fun. I’m also hoping we will get a new Relic playstyle emerging soon. Will it happen though? I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
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