If you’re a fan of Warhammer Underworlds you’ve most likely heard of Rivals. Unlike the other formats in Warhammer Underworlds, Rivals only uses either a warband’s faction cards or a pre-made Universal Rivals deck, making it great fun for new and old players alike. The Rivals decks are also used in Nemesis format (mixed in with your warbands faction cards). At this point there are a number of Rivals decks available to choose from.
“Okay… but which one should I use?”
This is a question I’ve found myself asking in the past. While the deck names are often thematic, they’re also not incredibly helpful at telling you how they play. It’s hard to know without diving in and reading up on each card, or even testing them out through trial and error.
We’ve attempted to put together a quick guide to each Rivals deck including a brief summary of how they play, which types of warbands they might work best with and a few important cards. Hopefully now you can see what each deck is good at doing with just a glance, so you can jump straight into a game.
Latest update: August 2023 – Updated to include the new Paths of Prophesy Rivals deck.
Jump to:
- Paths of Prophesy Rivals Deck
- Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck
- Toxic Terrors Rivals Deck
- Seismic Shock Rivals Deck
- Beastbound Assault Rivals Deck
- Fearsome Fortress Rivals Deck
- Tooth and Claw Rivals Deck
- Daring Delvers Rivals Deck
- Deadly Depths Rivals Deck
- Illusory Might Rivals deck
Decks no longer legal in Rivals format:
- Vainglorious Raiders Rivals Deck
- Patient Lurkers Rivals deck
- Maze Breachers Rivals deck
- Silent Menace Rivals deck
Paths of Prophecy
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Wyrdhollow |
General goal
Paths of Prophesy is very much an objective-focused deck. In fact, the majority of cards don’t require you to do much attacking at all.
There’s no plot card for the deck, which means there aren’t any special rules to worry about, and opens up more options when using the card in other formats.
The deck is built up of 6 surges, many requiring you to hold objectives and play cards, and 6 timed objectives, many asking you to hold a certain number or combination of objectives. There’s potential for the glory to add up quickly when you’re in the right place, but also a smart opponent can really disrupt your game plan. You will need to be a little careful that some of the cards about holding certain objective tokens can conflict with each other.
While the deck doesn’t offer a huge amount of offensive capability, there are some great cards to help give you moves around the board, and cards like [A Pact Sealed in Blood] and [Fair Fortune] to help speed up your card usage.
The deck has a total of 18 glory available, with 5 of those coming from the potentially tricky [Complete Harmony]. As with most Rivals decks, 6 of those cards are from Surge objectives, so there are plenty of opportunities for mid-round scoring.
Which warbands work best?
Any warband who is typically designed for chasing objective tokens will naturally love this deck, for example The Starblood Stalkers or The Grymwatch. In addition you might want to look for warbands who have additional move mechanics (e.g. Sepulchral Guard/Zarbag’s Gitz), warbands with the Flying trait (e.g. Thorns of the Briar Queen) or warbands with Raise mechanics (e.g. Spiteclaw’s Swarm)
I’ll give an additional shout out to Skabbik’s Plaguepack, who have a few range 2 attacks, meaning you can attack safely from an objective, as well as the Befouler ability to dissuade enemies from attacking you directly.
Just be careful to avoid warbands who rely heavily on the Beast keyword (looking at you, Exiled Dead), as those Beasts unfortunately can’t hold objectives.
Key Cards
Voidcursed Thralls Rivals Deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Wyrdhollow |
General goal
Voidcursed Thralls is a deck based around spreading the aforementioned ‘curse’ around the battlefield – both to your own fighters and enemy fighters.
The Voidcurse has some rules laid out on the deck’s plot card. When a fighter is Voidcursed, they can’t make actions other than moves, attacks and charges (ruling out some special actions some characters have), can’t make range 3+ attacks, can’t be driven back, and their defence characteristic is changed to 1 Block.
At the beginning of each round you can select 1 of your fighters to become voidcursed if you don’t have any already. But don’t worry, there are 7 different cards in the deck to help you spread that curse further, as well as others buffing your Voidcursed fighters.
The deck contains 19 scorable glory from objectives, which is fairly high. Part of that is because of [Reshaped Realm], which asks you to have every fighter (on both sides) cursed, for a whopping 4 glory. It’s a challenge, but definitely scorable if the game goes your way. You have 6 surges, some of which are relatively easy to score, like [Surrendered Will] just for cursing an enemy and [Involuntary Interdiction] which can work either by one of your Voidcursed fighters killing an enemy or a Voidcursed enemy killing one of yours.
Which warbands work best?
The fact that the Voidcurse affects a fighters defence characteristic means that the deck will work out really well for warbands who have a low natural defence. If you have a defence of 1 Dodge, then becoming Voidcursed is actually a boost to your defence. The flipside of this is that being cursed will be a handicap to tougher fighters, giving you a benefit over any tougher enemies who you can spread the curse to.
You also want to be cautious that your chosen warband doesn’t include too many ranged attacks, or unique actions, because once your fighters are cursed you’ll lose out on those.
Warbands who fit these criteria nicely might include Garrek’s Reavers, Spiteclaw’s Swarm or the Godsworn Hunt.
Warbands with multiple move mechanics such as Sepulchral Guard, Thorns of the Briar Queen, or The Exiled Dead would work well, especially paired with cards like [Unceasing Imperatives] or [Voidcursed Assault], but you’d need to be careful not to curse the wrong fighters and lose access to those actions. In that respect, Zarbag’s Gitz and Kainan’s Reapers would work best, as their movement mechanics are done through Reactions.
Key Cards
Toxic Terrors Rivals Deck
| Release | Wyrdhollow core set |
| Season | Wyrdhollow |
General goal
Toxic Terrors is a terrifyingly thematic Rivals Deck focused on loading up your fighters with poisonous attacks and inflicting them on your opponents.
The deck heavily revolves around the ‘poison’ keyword. There are 6 Poison gambits – most of which slow and weaken your enemies, as well as 9 Poison upgrades – mostly to buff the attack and defence of your fighters. That said there are also a few poison cards which help speed up your card draw, and even regain a card from your discard pile.
Most of your scoring will revolve around the use of the poison cards themselves, as well as successfully attacking and being in enemy territory. Interestingly, despite being a heavily aggressive deck, the cards don’t actually require you to do much killing, potentially making it easier to get the ball rolling against tougher warbands.
A bonus shout out to Hidden Lair which is a nifty gambit to temporarily block your opponent from being able to hold an objective.
The deck has 6 surges and there’s a total of 16 glory available from the objectives.
Which warbands work best?
There are 3 upgrades that can’t be given to a large fighter, so you’re going to want to avoid elite warbands, but otherwise this deck feels relatively usable for most warbands.
The deck would synergise well with warbands who have built-in control mechanics. Skittershank’s Clawpack come to mind, as their ability to hand out stagger tokens and net counters is already in line with this deck’s approach.
We’ve also seen players excited to try this deck with Mollog’s Mob, allowing you to stack a bunch of the Poisons on Mollog, offering perhaps a slightly different way to play with this deck.
Key Cards
Seismic Shock Rivals Deck
| Release | Wyrdhollow core set |
| Season | Wyrdhollow |
General goal
Seismic shock is a deck which delivers an arsenal of spells and magic abilities, with a heavy focus on both objective tokens and hazard hexes. The deck is pretty thematic, with essentially all of the power cards asking you to cast spells and/or be in the correct position.
The deck comes with 6 spell Gambits and 1 spell upgrade, as well as a bunch of other cards tailored tailored specifically to buffing your wizard(s). The flipside for most warbands is this means putting all of your focus into one fighter, which can backfire a lot if they’re taken out early. This deck will probably require a more cautious approach, using your other fighters to grab the more risky objectives, as well as protecting your ‘main man’ (or woman).
The deck comes with 6 surge objectives, with a potential 19 glory up for grabs.
Which warbands work best?
At the time of it’s release Seismic Shock is first magic-focused universal Rivals deck, so heavily magic-focused warbands such as Eyes of the Nine and Stormsire’s Cursebreakers* are naturally going to be drawn to it. It also seems well designed for the warbands it came with in the Wyrdhollow box – Ephilim’s Pandaemonium and Domitan’s Stormcoven*.
As a minimum you’re going to want a warband with at least one wizard. Warbands with either two wizards (e.g. The Crimson Court or The Exiled Dead) or a level two wizard (e.g. The Wurmspat* or Myari’s Purifiers) would fit this deck even better.
*Just remember this is a very position-focused deck, so you’ll want to make sure you have enough fighters to hold objectives and hazard hexes as required.
Key Cards
Beastbound Assault Rivals Deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Gnarlwood |
General goal
Beastbound Assault is a fairly aggressive deck, designed primarily around traditionally weaker fighters – Beasts, Minions and Companions. The deck also has a few nifty mechanics up it’s sleeve such as drawing additional cards and applying free upgrades.
The deck also leans heavily into Denizen upgrades, which also allow your other fighters to benefit from the same buffs and objectives as the keywords mentioned previously. 8 of the 10 upgrades are Denizen upgrades, so the deck is still usable if none of your fighters have the right keywords. Still, having those keywords is a definite advantage in the first round. You’ll want to have 3 Denizen upgrades on your leader to score [Keen Collector] and eventually have all of your fighters be a Beast, Minion, Companion or have a Denizen upgrade to score [Effortless Teamwork].
The deck has a total of 16 glory available which is reasonable, but not huge. There are 6 surge objectives available, but they aren’t the easiest to score, many requiring multiple activations to set up, so you’ll want to stay focused on the gameplan.
Which warbands work best?
You want to be fairly aggressive with this deck, but you have quite a bit of flexibility in your warband choice as the deck gives weaker fighters an advantage.
Obviously it goes without saying that warbands who have multiple Beasts, Minions or Companions will work nicely. Blackpowder’s Buccaneers, Spiteclaw’s Swarm and Hexbane’s Hunters all come to mind.
The objective [Tireless Explorer] requires multiple move actions, which means warbands who also have move mechanics such as The Exiled Dead, Kainan’s Reapers and perhaps even Sepulchral Guard could work nicely without having to sacrifice as many actions.
The Gnarlspirit Pack could potentially do really well with this deck as they’re sturdy, hard hitting and can become Beasts on command.
Key Cards
Fearsome Fortress Rivals Deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Gnarlwood |
General goal
Fearsome Fortress is a fairly defensive deck. You want to hold the middle of the board and squat on some feature tokens. Ideally creating a wall to block fighters getting into your territory.
Ideally you want to place boards with as many hexes connected as possible and try to place as many objective tokens within one hex of no-one’s territory as you can. You should be able to place 2 as long as your opponent isn’t messing with your plans. One of the main unique features is that the Plot card for this deck allows you to place 1 additional available feature token within 1 hex of no one’s territory, which will help a lot for the objectives in this deck.
The Objective cards will only give you a potential 15 glory, which is a little low. That said, [Conquered Domain] will potentially allow you to score one or two more. There are 6 surges in the deck, most of which seem fairly easy to score. Some of the other cards such as [Raise the Walls] will require a little planning and placing/moving of feature tokens.
Which warbands work best?
You’re probably going to want a nice balance of fighters for this one. Enough that you’ll be able to old multiple feature tokens, while being tough enough to stay alive. Thankfully, cards like [Ready for Anything] can help temporarily boost the defence of weaker warbands. So you’re not too limited in your choices.
Unlike the Rivals decks released prior to this one, there are no fighter keywords mentioned on any of the cards, which means this deck is pretty universal, but there are three cards which mention Stagger, which would help warbands like Magore’s Fiends or Ironsoul’s Condemners inspire a little quicker.
5 of the cards in the deck let you ‘choose’ a friendly fighter, which could work nicely for Spiteclaw’s Swarm. Although they aren’t the sturdiest warband, being able to revive fighters will ensure you always have bodies in the right places.
This could be a decent enough deck for The Chosen Axes. There are 5 power cards which allow you to push fighters, which should help you negate their low movement and get them onto those tokens to inspire. Likewise, Thundrik’s Profiteers may appreciate the movement boost. The easily scorable surge objectives should also help them to inspire a few fighters early on.
While this deck is primarily aimed towards using the deck in Rivals, I’ll also add that this may be an interesting deck to use with the Gorechosen of Dromm in Nemesis format. They already have a few cards that require being around no-one’s territory, so there are already a few synergies.
Key Cards
Tooth and Claw Rivals Deck
| Release | Gnarlwood core set |
| Season | Gnarlwood |
General goal
With Tooth and Claw you want to be aggressive towards your opponent, pushing into their territory. You even have some cards at your disposal to punish your opponent if they aren’t aggressive in return.
This deck also uses a unique ‘Savage’ keyword. A fighter is considered Savage when they have one or more charge tokens, is staggered or has two or more wound counters. In addition when using this deck you can choose to stagger friendly fighters at the start of their activation. There are plenty of objectives that require fighters being Savage, and a number of Power Cards that make Savage fighters more powerful.
With 6 surge objectives and a total of 18 glory, you should be racking up glory in no time.
Which warbands work best?
This deck is obviously suited to aggro warbands, but you’ll also want an aggressive leader. You’ll also want to stick to warbands with a maximum of 4 or maybe 5 members if you want to be able to score cards like [Move or Die] or [Embraced Savagery].
Khorne warbands such as the Gorechosen of Dromm, Magore’s Fiends and Garrek’s Reavers will have a slight advantage with this deck thanks to the [Goreswamp] card. The Beast keyword also pops up a few times, so warbands with this keyword may fit well too.
The two Mutation upgrades (which are applied for free if a fighter takes an opponent out of action) may be a great choice for The Godsworn Hunt who need upgrades in order to inspire.
Rippa’s Snarlfangs seem another great option with their aggressive leader, and perhaps even Mollog’s Mob (although you’d have to work a little harder to ensure your fighters are all in enemy territory).
Key Cards
Daring Delvers Rivals Deck
| Release | Gnarlwood core set |
| Season | Gnarlwood |
General goal
Daring Delvers asks you to chase feature tokens, while pushing a into enemy territory.
This deck makes use of a unique ‘Exploration count’ mechanic. Your Exploration count increases by 1 when you place a feature token during a round, for being on a feature token in enemy territory at the end of a phase, and for each friendly ‘Explorer’ (another unique keyword) in enemy territory. Note that you also lose 1 if you have a fighter on a feature token in your own territory at the end of a round.
This mechanic will work even better in multiplayer games with plenty of other boards to go for.
There are 6 surge objectives (although some are a little more difficult to score than others) and 18 total glory available to score across all objective cards.
Which warbands work best?
A fast moving warband is going to be essential to capturing your opponent’s objectives, and warbands with abilities to make multiple moves at once like the Sepulchral Guard and the Exiled Dead should rack up a quick Exploration count.
Cards like [Enshrouded Shot] (a decent range 4 attack) and [Flame Wisps] (which is more likely to land if used with a wizard) both help this deck to seem a potentially interesting fit for Eyes of the Nine.
Khagra’s Ravagers may also enjoy this deck, as they want to push forward and capture objective tokens anyway.
Key Cards
Deadly Depths Rivals Deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Nethermaze |
General goal
Deadly Depths is all about taking out enemy fighters while in (or near) cover hexes.
There are a couple of cards which rely on specific positioning such as being in enemy territory, so you’ll probably find yourself spread out across the board a little. Most of the power cards in the deck are designed to help you out with this, interacting with objective tokens and enhancing attacks.
The objectives only contain 3 surges, but there’s a potential 19 glory to score (not including additional glory from [Seeking the Deep Truths]) which is pretty decent.
Which warbands work best?
This deck is suited to aggressive warbands, but you’ll want to avoid a low model-count, as you’ll need to be spread across multiple feature tokens.
The deck is ideal for The Shadeborn as their fighters already love cover hexes. Another good shout may be The Dread Pageant, as taking wounds from cards like [Call of the Dark] and [Seeking the Deep Truths] will help you move towards inspiring.
Key cards
Illusory Might Rivals deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Harrowdeep |
General goal
The theme of Illusory Might is definitely it’s unusual playstyle.
It leans heavily into illusion upgrades – temporary upgrades which don’t cost glory – which means you have more options at the start of the game. A real gem in this deck is [Phantom Retrieval] which gives you the chance to gain back two illusion upgrades you’ve already used if you discard two in your hand, meaning you don’t have to be scared about using them too early.
There are 6 surge objectives which is great, but they aren’t really needed to get the ball rolling for this deck. In total, there’s 16 glory available from objective cards.
Which warbands work best?
Illusory Might aims for a bit of a flex playstyle. I feel like this was Games Workshop’s attempt at making the deck usable by as may pre-beastgrave warbands as possible. There’s not a large reliance on Keywords either, apart from a single mention of Assassin.
Some cards want you to be on objectives and/or in enemy territory, so warbands with push mechanics such as Thorns of the Briar Queen or Zarbag’s Gitz may enjoy this deck. Kainan’s Reapers and The Shadeborn could also do well with this deck.
Just make sure to avoid The Godsworn Hunt and Rippa’s Snarlfangs, whose inspire conditions have been updated to exclude illusion upgrades.
Key cards
Note: The following decks are no longer legal in Rivals format.
Vainglorious Raiders Rivals Deck
| Release | White Dwarf (consists of multiple card sets) |
| Uses cards from | Harrowdeep core set Nethermaze core set |
| Season | Harrowdeep / Nethermaze |
General goal
Vainglorious Raiders is about pushing aggressively into enemy territory, focusing attacks on some of your opponent’s toughest fighters. It rewards being aggressive with your leader and aiming to take out the enemy leader.
With 5 surges and a potential 19 glory to score from objective cards, you should be racking up glory easily.
Which warbands work best?
This deck suits aggro warbands with decent movement, but at the same time you want to avoid any fighter having a particularly high wound count to score Fallen Titan.
A few cards in the deck reference the Hunter, Assassin, Brawler and Beast keywords, so warbands who have lots of these keywords will be at a slight advantage.
This could easily work for a lot of warbands. Skittershank’s Clawpack would likely do well with this deck due to their focus on enemy leaders, while The Grymwatch and Drepur’s Wraithcreepers are warbands that already rewards being in enemy territory. Hexbane’s Hunters reward being aggressive with your leader and also have a lot of the keywords that appear in this deck..
Key cards
Patient Lurkers Rivals deck
| Release | White Dwarf (consists of multiple card sets) |
| Uses cards from | Harrowdeep core set Blackpowder’s Buccaneers expansion Illusory Might Rivals deck The Exiled Dead expansion Nethermaze core set |
| Season | Harrowdeep / Nethermaze |
General goal
Patient Lurkers rewards a more defensive playstyle, letting your opponent come to you before counter-charging them. There are some cards requiring you to be on feature tokens, but more importantly also some which you can score if your opponent is.
There are only 3 surges, but as you’ll be playing more defensively you should have no issue with a slower first round. With 15 glory (but additional ways of scoring such as Glory from Encrusted Key and Waterlogged Map), this is on the lower end for Rivals decks, so you’ll need to keep an eye on the gameplan.
Which warbands work best?
This warband works well for naturally defensive warbands, but also has a few nifty ways of making weaker fighters a little more useful, so could work well with higher model-counts.
There are also a few references to the Assassin and Brawler keywords. Warbands who have these keywords will be at a slight advantage.
It could be interesting to see this played with a warband like Eyes of the Nine who naturally want to stay away from the enemy, but could also do quite well for The Exiled Dead (although note that a lot of their fighters can’t hold objectives) Spiteclaw’s Swarm, Morgwaeth’s Blade-coven or Thundrik’s Profiteers due to cards like Lead from the Rear that reward being cautious with your leader.
Key cards
Maze Breachers Rivals deck
| Release | White Dwarf (consists of multiple card sets) |
| Uses cards from | Harrowdeep core set Blackpowder’s Buccaneers expansion |
| Season | Harrowdeep |
General goal
With Maze Breachers you want to get into enemy territory and wreak havoc. Expect to spend a lot of time up close and personal with your enemies.
The majority of the cards are very aggressive, hitting hard and accurately, with some great options to boost defence like Unfazed.
The deck has 4 surges, which is decent enough, and a potential 16 glory to score from objective cards.
Which warbands work best?
Bottom line is that any aggressive warband who can hit hard and stay alive have a good shot with this deck. As a bonus, there are a few cards with the Hunter, Brawler and Companion Keywords.
This deck seems an ideal match for Xandire’s Truthseekers, who have all of the keywords already, as well as the durability to survive the game.
Other tough, elite warbands like Morgok’s Krushas or Ironsoul’s Condemners are strong choices, but this could easily be played with more rounded warbands who can make use of the keywords such as Skaeth’s Wild Hunt or Blackpowder’s Buccaneers.
Key cards
Silent Menace Rivals deck
| Release | Packaged separately |
| Season | Direchasm |
General goal
Silent Menace is a pretty straightforward aggro Rivals deck, but with some interesting attack upgrades and control mechanics.
You’ll want to spend a lot of time supporting fighters and focusing your attacks to give your fighters support and take enemy fighters out of action. You have a few power cards in the deck to help you achieve these objectives by increasing the reliability of your attacks and to heal your fighters. But more interestingly there are cards like Maddening Drone, Hypnotic Buzz and Extruded Snare that give you ways to mess up your opponent’s game plan.
There are a total of 5 surge objectives to score, and 16 glory available from objective cards. But the goal with this deck it to take out enemy fighters.
Which warbands work best?
As with Illusory Might, Silent Menace seems designed to appeal to as many warbands as possible. The varied attack action upgrades (some of which allow re-rolls) are great for warbands who don’t have the most reliable attacks, but it might be helpful to have a fighter with a range 3+ attack action to score Stinging Strike without having to rely on those upgrades. Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers come to mind, but perhaps Grashrak’s Despoilers or Kainan’s Reapers.
Warbands who benefit from supporting each other such as Da Kunnin’ Krew are also at a definite advantage with this deck. If you fancy a challenge, perhaps even Sepulchral Guard could work, given the attack action upgrades and their movement shenanigans to get in and support.
Key cards
Have we overlooked anything? Are there any warbands that are just perfect for a specific Rivals deck? Leave us a comment and let us know! If you enjoyed this article then be sure to check out the rest of our Underworlds content.
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nice article, just i need to test decks.