but the least HP 
(80hp). But it has deathstrike too!
Viewing this thread :: 0 registered and 1 guest
No registered users viewing
|
Jump Menu:
Show More
You can definitely get two runs with it, and that's generally going to be all you need. Card selection of the Priestess is quite good, and if you really want to make it more consistent you can run Rhynserra.
I just like my version with Death Sentence and Hypnotic Gaze a lot, and with Tarkon you don't need the Magic Shortsword as you will put them in a tough spot between cowering and letting you run everywhere with the Bugbear. With these slightly more efficient cards you don't need as much card draw and you can go on the offensive a bit more instead of having to sit back and wait for Lolth's Blessing to pay dividends. Having only 3 creature cards is fine because with Vampire Stalker playing the same role, you have a good chance of drawing at least one of them.
I might try out Hobgoblin Sorcerer because of INT/CHA so I can play Arcane Ritual and have more CHA figures.
IMO either Arcane Ritual or Blessing is going to just make the deck stronger. You burn a lot of cards on a Bugbear run, so if you can't draw them, you run a bigger risk of not winning on the first and not being able to set up a second. Also IMO, Tarkon doesn't really compensate for the Short Sword. Cowering can certainly disrupt you, but the Bugbear hits hard enough it's always going to sting and they usually can't be confident you don't just have Quick Jab or something to keep going, so it's very risky. On the other hand, defense cards of various sorts can be really problematic, and Magic Short Sword stops pretty much all of those. 
Heres my take on a custom Con/Cha warband. I call it El Cucuy. If you have any constructive criticism let me know.
Warband Commander: Delthrin "the Deadmaster" Everet or Snig the Axe 1x Dracolich 1x Lich Necromancer 1x Horned Devil 1x Kyuss 1x Skele Lancer 2x Vampire 2x Tomb Guardian 2x Hypno spirit 2x Skeleton 2x Zombie Order deck 4x Reckless attack 4x Grovel 4x Death Sentence 4x Defensive Advantage 3x Hypno Gaze 3x Death Grip 2x Unbreakable 2x Magic shortsword 2x Ray of frost 2x Mirror Image 2x Dimension door 2x Fear 2x Terror Revelation 
I am sure that you probably know this but the rules say that you can only have 12 creatures in a deck. Also you can only have from 30 to 36 order cards in your deck. Also, I disagree with a lot of the Palpster's advise. I think that the horned devil is a great addition to a deck that is built around constitution and charisma. I would get rid of the dracolich, the lich necromacy, and the disciple of kyuss. I would also get rid of all of my intelligence order cards and death grip. I can see how death grip might be helpful but I havn't found it to be good. I think that you need Undaunted Surge for this set. And with so many powerful constitution creatures, I think that Regenerate makes a lot of sense. I would also not use any magic circles.
So I really haven't had a chance to test this team out, as I just put it together today. But ever since I played the goblins, I fell in love with some of their play concepts. I've always liked goblins quite a bit in other fantasy stuff as well. Anyways, I own two sets of the Goblins and Undead and one Drow. So that is what I'm working with. I'm open to all criticisms and honestly, these Warband may be terrible to play if I gave it a shot. I'll follow up the list with a short description of some of my decisions.
Leader: Tarkon Draal Creatures: 12 4xGoblin Cutter (Lvl 1-Dex) 2xWolf (Lvl 2-Dex) 2xGoblin Champion (Lvl 3-Dex, Cha) 2xHobgoblin Sorcerer (Lvl 3-Int, Cha) 2xGoblin Wolfrider (Lvl 4-Dex, Cha) Orders: 30 2xReinforcements (Lvl 3-Any) 2xPiercing Strike (Lvl 1-Dex) 2xDeep Wound (Lvl 1-Dex) 2xQuick Jab (Lvl 1-Dex) 2xNimble Strike (Lvl 1-Dex) 2xNear Miss (Lvl 2-Dex) 2xSpring Attack (Lvl 2-Dex) 2xParry (Lvl 2-Dex) 2xRiposte (Lvl 2-Dex) 4xGoblin War Cry (Lvl 3-Cha) 2xHypnotic Gaze (Lvl 3-Cha) 4xDeath Sentence (Lvl 3-Cha) 2xTerrifying Revelation (Lvl 6-Cha) So, this is it. No certain idea on how this would finally run if put into the field. No really high level creatures so I'm not sure if I could pull it off. The idea behind this set up is to run in fast and wear down your opponent. There are a lot of cards here to get in multiple attacks, to wear down big units (4xDeath Sentence, 2xRiposte, 2xQuick Jab), with a lot of attack enhancers. I want to try to drain my opponents creatures and if they try to Cower, I have Tarkon Draal's ability to make Cowering even more devastating. I played a game last night with just the Drow set and I saw how often Cowering occurs. And if your getting games within only a couple of Morale points, Tarkon Draal's ability can make sure that last little bit is gone. A couple of specific Order card additions explained here. Deep Wound is used to not only enhance one attack, but to hit any bigger targets and hope to wear it down over time. It can even be played off of the Goblin Cutter fodder. If they let the damage in, they can't even cower the Wound's damage off. Reinforcements is to allow reoccurring access to all the lower level creatures being used. With Tarkon Draal's high starting Leadership, you'll be getting your Creatures into play quickly. Getting back around to your lower Leveled creatures once they were taken out will be useful. Last Order card I want to explain is Terrifying Revelations. Despite its high Level Requirement, half of the creatures have CHA and are levels 3 and up. You'd only need one creature to assist it at that point and a direct 3 Morale loss can be pretty big, especially with Tarkon Draal's morale drain ability. I think the creature chooices are pretty self exlanatory. All but two have DEX, using most of the Order cards. Half have CHA, utilizing the rest of the Order cards easily. Their decently low level over all and I'm hoping can wear down the opponent. I'm hoping to be able to keep them out as a squad, especially for the Champion. The Wolf Rider is fast, has high HP, has the relevant abilities, and can let me get another Goblin out a turn early (or even a Wolf). Despite not having any INT based Orders, I think the Hobgoblin Sorcerer would actually have a lot of use. It has CHA, a great ranged attack, and can possibly protect my other creatures. Also, he is another creature for Goblin War Cry. Well, this is what I've thrown together. Let me know what you all think. I hope to ultimately have four of everything in my collection so I can make fully refined Warbands. But, I think this may not be bad for now. 
I have recently been contemplating building a goblin warband.
However, it seems that we have a few differnt choices when it comes to Order and Creature cards. When I build mine, I would like to focus on getting in as many attacks as possible. Therefore, I will be running 4 copies of Quick Jab, Quick Shot and Death Sentance. Golbin War Cry will obviously be included as well. My warband will most likely consist of 4x Goblin Cutter, 3x Goblin Archer, 3x Hobgoblin Sorcerer, 2x Goblin Champion. Card draw is important for any warband, so 4 copies of Arcane Ritual are a must as well. I'm in the same boat as you, however, and I currently do not own a single copy. Its at the top of my "want-list". I haven't settled on a final decklist, but this is the start that I have come up with. I want to be able to draw into lots of extra attacks, swarm the field with goblins (Strength in Numbers) and unload with a well-timed Goblin War Cry. I have fears that this deck will get owned by lots of ranged attacks and it may have difficult with moving around the board (Unending Horde may fix this). I am eager to hear how your warband works out. Please try to post deatils of your first few games and let us know what works and what you are having trouble with. Good luck with it.
I went ahead and created the goblin deck that I mentioned above.
First, the warband: Commander: Snig the Axe Creatures: (12) 4x Goblin Cutter 3x Goblin Archer 2x Goblin Champion 3x Hobgoblin Sorcerer Orders: (30) 4x Quick Jab 2x Quick Shot 2x Nimble Strike 2x Feint 2x Unending Horde 4x Goblin War Cry 4x Death Sentence 4x Strength in Numbers 2x Reinforcements 4x Arcane Ritual Tiles: Goblin Tile #1 Undeath Tile#1 Goblin Tile #3 Undeath Tile #4 Once I had the deck completed I challenged my roommate to a game. My roommate uses a lot of ranged creatures and a couple of Dragon Knights in his constructed warband. I knew that all those ranged attackers were going to pose a threat to my goblin team. Game 1 was a nightmare for me. I tried (against my better judgement) an aggressive approach and went full-tilt toward my opponent. It didn't take long for him to pick off my level 1 creatures with his Drow Wizards and War Wizards. Game 2 I decided to play it a bit more safe. I stayed behind cover and didn't really get to do much of anything. When his half-orcs were on top of me, they easily took out several goblins at once due to their "splash-damage" attacks. Things were not looking good for my goblin team. Game 3 went much better. I played a passive-aggressive strategy. I got the few treasures that I could and when his creatures started to get close, I moved my entire team into the Magic Circle room on Undeath Tile #1. My opponent ended his turn just out of reach of my creatures movement speed. Using Unending Horde, I was able to get all of my creatures in range. I popped two Goblin War Cries, and proceeded to unload on him. It was glorious. My little level 1 creatures were dishing out massive damage and getting their revenge on those damned half-orcs. When the dust settled, I had eliminated all of his deployed creatures. On his turn he deployed 2 Dragon Knights and another Half-Orc Thug. On my turn I had the goblins retreat back into the room. This is where things turned a little odd. We were at a stalemate. I didn't want to exit the room in fear of ranged attacks, and he didn't want to get close to me in fear of another goblin ambush. Essentially we kept drawing our order cards and passing the turn. Eventually, out of boredom, he moved in a bit too close. On my turn I used my second Unending Horde and another Goblin War Cry. I was able to deal enough damage to take out a Dragon Knight and a Half-Orc Thug and won the game. Overall, I really enjoyed the deck. It is very fast and extremely explosive. Obviously, there is a problem with ranged attackers and not having enough movement speed to close the gap to get into melee combat. Therefore, i am going to make the following changes: -1 Reinforcement -2 Feint +1 Nimble Strike +1 Quick Shot +1 Unending Horde Since I had such a difficult time with movement, adding a third Unending Hoard seemed elementary. Nimble Strike gives that little extra movement and damage, so I want to try 3 copies, but may even go up to 4. Quick Shot was great with either the sorcerer or the archers, especially with Goblin War Cry active. I am not sure what tiles will work best with this deck. I feel that I need to have a lot of cover available for my goblins to help protect them against ranged attacks. However, I am not sure that I made the best tile choices initally. I will have to look through all the options again and see if I can come up with something better. I am eager to see how the changes I made work. I will be sure to post results. Please feel free to leave feedback and opinions. I would be interested to hear what you think. -Jim
Looks like an awesome Warband, especially with that last game. And I'd imagine Snig the Axe is a perfect Leader for these type of band (especially with his high Creature Hand).
The hobgoblin sorcerer cannot use quick shot. Also, I am surprised that you didn't include the bugbear. He would be able to do amazing work with a goblin war cry.
Hello guys im from Mexico, and i just bought the game a week ago, pretty awesome i say.
My local store seems pretty excited about this product so we will hold tournaments in february and start from there. I want to show my warband, its a two sting of lolth warband with some tyranny of goblins order cards: Demonweb spider x4
Hmmmm im gonna try the Malistros as commander, it should work well for treasure hunting.
I really like tarkon cause i hate the cowering option and this commander has a great starting leadership too. Some changes to my warband or the order deck? its a pretty funny deck with everyone popping out of nowhere thanks from the priestess and mastiff abilty. I was thinking on taking scheme and deep wound, should i grab two more lolths blessings and some other dextery card?
So far my gaming group feels like Kalteros is the boss of this game.
We have 2 each of the drow, goblins, and cormyr boxes. With that, I think the best warband you can make would be something like this: Kalteros 2x Drow priestess 2x Drow wizard 2x Umber hulk 2x Drow house guard 2x Elf archer 1x Drider 1x Dwarf cleric Cards: 4x quick jab 4x quick shot --best way to deal extra damage and at the same time burn enemy immediates 4x scheme 2x lolth's blessing --would be 4x lolth's blessing if I had the cards; turn your priestesses (and cleric with scheme) into card drawing machines 4x piercing strike --turns your umber hulks into unstoppable snipers, esp combined with quick jabs 2x acrobatics --your umber hulks can scuttle, making them impossible to tie down and thus nearly impossible to kill 2x loping stride --your umber hulks can control over half the map with this upgrade 4x near miss 4x narrow escape 4x close call --good defensive immediates are a must 4x fairy fire --necessary if the enemy has high hp creatures, tough as nails, dwarven defenders, etc 2x stealth --make your card machine priestesses unkillable forever and/or turn them into an extremely dangerous wild card 4x into the fray --having movement cards in your deck is a must; otherwise your opponent can always exactly calculate exactly the distance he needs to move to be 'safe' That's a lot of cards: 44. The min is 30. But, this warband can be a card drawing machine; in a long drawn out game it's possible to get through 30+ cards, and all of these cards can certainly be useful. The only way it can really go wrong is if you start out with both priestesses and no schemes or blessings for them, or vice versa draw all the schemes and blessings but the priestesses are on the bottom. However, more often than not this warband will wreck house. If you get the right upgrades for your umber hulks they can utterly dominate the board; confusion gaze+burrow+30 damage is mad. If you get two lolth's blessings on 1 priestess and then stealth her, your opponent can do nothing. With 2 wizards and 2 archers and a dwarven cleric you should have the upper hand in most ranged stand-offs. Your priestesses can summon the drider as a meatshield or to just gum up the works on your opponent if they get into a tight spot, which is nice. The house guards are fairly mediocre but they can be used to open chests and can use the great majority of your cards, so they will always be useful. With Kalteros' leadership advantage, you can deploy the most powerful starting warband; you can then use that map control to secure more treasure chests than your opponent and use those chests for more order cards, making your warband only more powerful. Your opponent is faced with really only 2 choices: dying sooner by rushing forward to attack with inferiour forces, or dying later by turtling up and then getting overwhelmed by order cards when you have a 3 or 4 to 1 advantage in cards.
It sounds like you might be misunderstanding the rules a bit? Scuttle doesn't make anything impossible to tie down, because if you start next to an enemy your speed is still locked at 1, even if you can shift. All Scuttle/shifts do is make it so you don't have to stop if you move next to an enemy mid-move.
Ah is that so? Then yes, we definitely misunderstood the rules, thanks!
Edit--Burrow, Fly, Scuttle, etc, are still limited to movement 1 if the creature begins its move adjacent to an enemy creature, right? As far as I can see, this movement limitation is only removed in 2 cases: a card/power that says 'Shift X squares' (but not 'Shift creature's movement') or 'Slide' allows the creature to move that many squares regardless of whether the creature begins its move adjacent to an enemy creature.
So aside from shift X squares cards or sliding powers, the Umber Hulk cannot freely disengage from combat if it is engaged by at least 2 or 3 creatures (if only 1 creature, it can easily use its power to slide that creature away and then move freely, and possibly even kill a second creature with its attacks).
Any love for an adventurer-based warband? What do people recommend if you want to go that route? Can Valnar be a top-tier commander if you are pure-adventurer?
Yeah been trying to make a pure adventurer band work for the last few days but it keeps getting smashed by Kalteros and his card-drawing machine.
I think it's certainly possible to make a warband that uses a bunch of adventurers and therefore can use Heroic Surge, which is the big appeal of that plan. Either Str/Con (focusing on some combination of Dragon Knight, Dwarf Cleric, and Half-Orc Thug) or Int (focusing on Drow and War Wizard) seem pretty good. But they're not really Adventurer bands exactly since Heroic Surge is the only thing you really want to run Adventurers for. Valnar, sadly, just seems awful. His ability isn't good enough to make up for bad stats. 
MrFaloon, how do you feel about the fact that your deck has no defensive immediates?
btw I won a game against kalteros and his mega dex card machine today with this warband 2x war wizard 2x dwarf cleric (would like to drop the sorcs and make it maybe 3 clerics and 3 war wizards but don't have the figs) 2x hobgoblin sorcs 2x dwarf defender 2x drow wizard 2x elf archer 4x daring attack 4x quick shot 2x arcane scroll 4x heroic surge 2x healing potion 2x faerie fire (would love 2 more faerie fires) 4x shield 4x patch up 2x defend ally 4x into the fray 2x fireball (obviously I'd love 4 of these too) 2x arcane ritual (another card I'd love 4 of) 2x level up (for defenders or sorcs, or drow wizards to cast fireballs) 4x forceful strike Commander is Rhynseera, aside from my any's, half my cards are int and half str, so it's critical I be able to cycle cards if I get bad luck of the draw. This force is a bit slow, but with the amount of ranged firepower it brings you can control a great deal of the battlefield anyway, so you shouldn't get much behind in treasure if at all. It is tank enough to survive a blitzkreig and hits back super hard.
I'm not surprised you were able to win with that band, it seems pretty good. I do think Arcane Scroll is not very important; the card disadvantage sucks and you're running Rhynseera which should be enough to make sure you don't get too hosed by variant orders. I've found that two stats is pretty easy to support in this game. I'd also suggest cutting Patch Up; only 4 of your guys can use it and they aren't the most important (and the Dwarf Cleric only gains +10 off of it which is pretty marginal). Grovel is a lot better here IMO. On another note, I think obsessing too much about falling behind on treasure isn't all that important. It's certainly nice to gain some extra morale, but it isn't the be-all or end-all. I won a game once where I cowered for 11 of my 12 morale on turn 1 (though admittedly I got Call to Battle on to gain some of it back.) Deficits suck but they're not unbeatable. Card deficits are worse, but one thing I love about this game is there's no one resource axis where if you fall behind on it the game is almost certainly over - if you make it up in other areas you can pull it out if you play better than they do.
Arcane Scroll I like because it's a card that I will always be able to play, but you're right about Patch Up. I've spent a long time agonizing over what defensive immediates to take for this warband, Grovel is more useable certainly though I hate to allow my morale to get nickel and dimed. It's something that I think I will need to isolate variables and experiment with many many times before I come to a solid decision. In addition I've agonized over whether to replace my hobgoblin sorcs with something else. They can't quick shot and they can't heroic surge or get Block without a level up so they're definitely the worst creatures in my band. I've gone back and forth with the Half Orc Mercs, but the Mercs only have 5 range; they don't have map control the way 10 range does, they can't use Int without a scroll, and they only have an extra 10 HP. I wish I could just bring out 10 guys, or that I had more clerics and mages instead.
Yes, the only creatures that I want more of are the singles, naturally, a war wizard, cleric, or drow wizard would all be wonderful. Unfortunately, I live in Northeast China, there is no such thing as an LGS for at least 2000 miles lol. Periodically when someone in our gaming group goes back to our home country, we'll pick up gaming supplies. Right now we have a guy in Australia who is going to bring back 2 each of the Undeath and Orc boxes when he comes back in March, but until then I'm quite sure we're stuck with what we've got, which is 2 each of cormyr, drow, and gobbos.
One thing I like about Arcane scroll is that it fouls up enemy assumptions. It's bad enough wondering whether I have fireball in my hand; wondering where I have a scroll and might cast that fireball with any one of my creatures makes it that much harder to plan around. For example, if I only have a single drow wizard out, he can safely assume he's safe from a fireball, but if I also have a cleric out, I might give the cleric a scroll and cast it with him. The level-ups give me the same benefit of course, I'd much rather have more level ups, but again, gotta work with what I got.
Played a few more games today; the adventurers wrecked a spider deck and a gobbo deck; in 4 games my total losses was something like 2 dwarven defenders. I decided to ditch the Arcane Scrolls after all, they didn't see any play and I've had enough games with this warband that if they haven't seen much play by now they're not needed. I also subbed in some Half-Orc mercs for the sorcs mostly because against a spider deck or a gobbo deck they do good work against the level 1 stuff and I have enough long range stuff to control the board without the sorcs anyway. Besides, my opponent needed the sorcs for his gobbo war band.
Is it possible to make a gobbo deck that is competitive against the Kalteros machine or the invincible adventurers with only 2 boxes? Seems like only 2 bugbears and 2 sorcs isn't enough. I want to make a gobbo deck next and let my buddy try out my adventurers warband. My thoughts on creatures right now: 2x bugbears 2x sorcs 1x devil 2x champs 2x archers and that's about all I really like out of the goblin box tbh =[ Right now I have two thoughts about how to finish the band 1x Umber Hulk (this guy is nearly a must-have vs the adventurers, once they get into the right formation they become nearly impossible to break without a ridiculous amount of order cards, or this guy to ruin the formation) then Choose Snigg 2x shadow hound or Choose Kalteros 2x priestess Snigg goes fairly aggro obviously, whereas Kalteros tries to get an engine going with blessings and schemes and maybe even a ritual on a sorc Unfortunately we need to share rituals so this band can't get more than 1. Of course we also need to share everything so if this band meets the existing Kalteros card engine band then both bands will have to split the priestesses and get somewhat neutered. 
What about goblin cutters? I think they're great because you can summon them to gain morale later with Call to Battle on the sorcerer and they are rediculously good with goblin warcry, or MULTIPLE goblin warcries, since you can have four of them on the field. I woul choose tarkon draal to stop the cower.
4 cutters 2 archers 2 sorcerers 2 champions 2 bugbears done, incredible deck right there. Between call to battle (with reinforcements to get back your lost cutters) and strength in numbers I think you can have a decent hobgoblin based engine, not to mention putting arcane ritual on him. Then you can sit in your magic circle next to you starting zone until you have the opportunity for a big goblin warcry turn. It sucks that you have to share ritual. From what I've played in similar situations it seems like whoever winds up drawing their "engine" card wins most of the time if each deck is trying for it and each only has one copy out of thirty cards. Maybe you could substitute a lloths blessing into each deck and then pretend its an arcane ritual and then both decks can play with two arcane rituals?
Is call to battle an Undeath thing? I don't seem to have it =[
I'm not a big fan of cutters because the adventurer band I run eats them for breakfast. Most will never get into melee before getting killed with ranged attacks, and those that do can do very little with Block10 dwarves, defend ally, shield, and patch-up on levelled up defenders and clerics on the front lines. So far to be honest the only thing that has beaten the adventurers has been an utterly overwhelming order card advantage; like literally a 2 if not 3 to 1 advantage. You have to be able to play an order card for every attack against you, and at least 2/attacking creature for each attack you make to put a dent in those guys. So far only Kalteros with double priestess seems to be able to pull that off.
You're right, it is in the curse of undeath box.
Call to Battle 3 Charisma Minor Attach this card to this creature: Tap: As a standard action, deploy 1 creature now. If this creature is in a Obviously a great card for your champions to play... in combinaion with smart cutter placement ahead of time you can easily get some flanking going. That and some death sentance(s) thrown back and forth between you champions can really put the hurt on and break up the formation.
Yeah that stuff all sounds fantastic but we won't be getting an undeath box up here in China for a month and a half =[
Do you think gobbos can work without that great stuff?
I think so, as long as the deck is focused around good cards like piercing strike, quick shot, quick jab, death sentance, goblin warcry, arcane ritual, nimble strike, stealth, vial of poison, shadowy ambush, maybe sneak attack is possible with bugbear assistance (then untap :D) and champions. Ray of frost is certainly good on the hobgoblin who isn't busy summoning, then your cutters would get plus 10. The minors that let you get off second attack are top priority because they let you maximize the number of attacks, and therefore the bonus damage, you can get out of a turn where you drop a few goblin warcries. I suppose it will depend on how many of these cards you have access to as I immagine the adventurer warband probably wants to run quick shot and quick jab.
You might have more issues busting up a clumped formation without the slides, but with the mobility afforded by these dex cards and forward the horde you should be able to move in and take out the dwarven defenders when the time is right. Then you can really unload on those adventurers once they no longer have block 10 protecting them.
Hi Hautamaki,
for that deck the best defence is a good offence, better mobility, and more morale only 3 cards in the game will prevent just one of the dragon knights in this deck from killing anything it wants to in one turn one costs you two cards, one requires INT 5, one kills your creature at the end of your next turn (unless it gets removed) even then, if I've timed my strike properly, you're going down and I can probably throw cannon fodder in the way to protect my damage dealer from reprisal I do play defensive cards in other decks, but that is another story. I rgeretted that last night though - played the following draw demon (and lost by 1 turn with enemy on 1 morale) kalteros - 4 x war wizard, 4 x drow wizard, 4 x drow blademaster (all adventurers, you see) 4 x arcane ritual, dimension door, heroic surge, mage hand, portal stone, spring attack, behind enemy lines 2 x stealth ran out of order deck by turn 6 or 7, had looted all but 2 treasure (mostly so enemy could not gain morale and to get more cards) enemy did gain morale from hulking attack (think a few shields need to go in deck) highlight was when 1 drow wizard managed to deploy behind enemy lines in one turn (and stealth as enemy had come hunting me), then next turn appear on last treasure (a 3 in the goblin small tile room), standard to loot one, mage hand to loot other, portal stone to take last and teleport to portal (next to my start area at other side of map), then move to my deploy to gain 4 morale...in 2 turns he had visited 3 of 4 corners of map looted 3 treasure for 2 cards and gained 4 morale for me...did someone say adventurer decks are slow? trouble was opponent just hunkered down then plonked a dracolich that split the firepower I could target at any other creature in half think I need a bigger order deck here, I had 4 turns with no orders to draw and only 2 portal stones left in hand (with no treasure on board) also really looking at swapping 4 x war wizard for 2 x war wizard and 2 x dracolich so I can play 4 x terrifying gaze for endgame mix of goblins and undeath is amazing - deploy an archer or cutter each turn to gain as much morale as what you loose from it being destroyed - recycle then when they die with gobbos I find timing is critical - while you still have just first 3 sets try stuff like blast of force to slide a big enemy where you can really hurt it without exposing yourself hypnotic gaze one of my favourites currently - so good for so many situations - good card to look forward to I do love snig, but agree tarkon is best when you want to do death by a thousand tiny cuts you can also try stuff like shield and either the sorceror in the circle or grovel / leap away that way he can tap and so can the target - you can get prevent 40, or even 70 (shield + leap away), who would waste 50-80 damage to kill 1 cutter? but when he can potentially dish out 60 damage with one card (shattered weapon) and by helping a champion flank, it's well worth saving them he's also there to stop your archers getting overrun, and to rush treasure at the start cutters are so underestimated - just watch out for bugbears and fireballs can't wait to try out the orcs, really looking forward to wisdom cards
The wolf idea sounds cool for taking down horned devils or other beefcakes, but the adventurer deck we run only has 60HP guys and lower--but makes up for that big time with Block 10, clerics healing, 4x shield, 4x defend ally, and 4x patch up (which even works against piercing strikes unless the piercing strike does enough damage to 1-hit kill the target from full HP). It's quite rare that an unlevelled-up defender will be exposed to attack; usually there will be a cleric or Half Orc running interference on the defender(s) until they get levelled-up. Since Rhynseera starts with 6 cards and can dig, generally speaking in my hand I'll have 1-2 shields, 1-2 defend allys, and/or 1-2 patch ups. Generally speaking on any given round I am prepared to play 3 different defensive cards from 3 different sources on 1 guy, plus if he is exposed to melee attacks he'll almost certainly have block 10, and even if I'm short on order cards I usually have a cleric out to at least heal 10 by the time real combat starts. This band is slow so it will very rarely get the first round of melee attacks in; it needs to be able to survive a bumrush with enough left to counter hard, so I filled it up with nearly 50% defensive immediates that can be played on a single creature from multiple sources. The offensive firepower comes mostly from this deck's ability to focus fire with multiple high-damage long range attackers, quick shots, and heroic surges. I also have some Fairy Fires, Daring Attacks and the +30 damage Slide 2 squares card.
This deck's only weaknesses are a fast attack if it gets a really poor starting draw, or since it's a bit slow a Kalteros card engine can often get enough order cards to completely overwhelm it. With Gobbos I'm not sure if I can really exploit those weaknesses; probably a fast-attack strategy is my best bet, and just hope he gets a lousy starting draw.
It seems to me like the best way to counter a bunch of Block-10 Dwarves is to just use bigger Con dudes (or Magic Short Sword, but that's lame). A Horned Devil can one-shot a Dwarven Defender through a shield with a Reckless Attack, so they'd have to protect with with say a patch up from the Defender and a Shield from the Cleric (which puts you equal on Leadership/Morale expended, but up on cards). Beefed up trolls do similar good work, but aren't quite as outrageous. Plus since you're running Con creatures you can use your own Tough As Nails to really hurt the low damage output of Defenders/Clerics/Thugs without the aid of order cards.
Another good way to deal with a Cormyr block is to just run a bunch of forced movement out of Int or Str, or Umber Hulk/Hypnotic Gaze. Their guys rely on synergies that require them to be adjacent to each other, so if you can knock them out of position they're just underpowered dudes.
Yes, that's why the Umber Hulk is such a popular choice in our games. As far as the devil, I like the devil, and I'll take one. But the dude is a fairy fire magnet and unlike tough as nails, there is no limit to the amount of fairy fires you can put on him. If the adventurer deck has ~8 cards in their hand and ~15 leadership of guys out there is a very good chance they can take down the devil in 1 turn with plenty of damage to spare. So if you are going to send in the devil against that block, he better be bringing a lot of friends to capitalize on killing 1 defender, otherwise you're just gonna be trading 6 morale for 2. The CHA (and DEX for gobs/bugbears) movement cards would seem to be critical here, because the adventurers dominate ranged combat it's absolutely essential you can keep your guys in cover until you can make a coordinated attack with everything you have in a single turn. That's impossible if you don't have an abundance of good movement cards.
Alright played a couple games with the gobbos last night, I think I pretty much got them to work. The first game I got wrecked, I did the Shadow Mastiff thing where I summoned them into a fight across the board, but made some pretty bad errors in placement and movement.
The second game I started off doing basically the same thing; I got a couple of Stalks so I launched a surprise attack on his Wizard/Cleric duo from across the board using my Sorc, Goblin Champion, and a summoned Shadow Mastiff. I successfully took down the Wizard but he had enough defense to keep the cleric alive, so both my champion and my shadow mastiff were stuck in melee and only my sorcerer got away. Next turn he brought in another wizard to finish my Shadow Mastiff and so I was down by 3 morale. Rest of the game, I turtled in my starting area, waiting for the right cards. He moved out very slowly and cautiously and built up his Adventurer block, eventually camping on a magic circle next to my start area. He got Arcane ritual too, so that was bad. Second last turn of the game, he had a War Wizard, 2 Drow Wizards, a levelled-up Defender, 2 Elf Archers, and 2 Clerics all clumped up in perfect defensive formation. I had my sorc, a priestess, and 2 archers on the board. Still, he didn't advance. Last turn, I brought out an umber hulk, another sorc, and a bugbear--plenty of unused leadership. The umber hulk pulled a cleric out of the line of a dwarven defender, and attacked the cleric, which elicited a shield from a mage. Good, 1 down, 2 to go. Then my sorcs and goblins combined to take out his now exposed dwarven defender. I had to use a stalk to get the last goblin archer into range. I made a dumb mistake here as I had a Death Sentence that I could have used first on my umber hulk to possibly get him to waste another card, but I forgot to play it. Anyway, luckily for me I was able to take down the defender with my ranged attackers. Then I stalked in the bugbear and he went to town, as I had 3 quick jabs, another stalk, and a piercing strike. He took out both elven archers, a drow wizard, and the war wizard for the win. He had just gotten an into the fray; before then he was sitting on 3 heroic surges and 2 fireballs; 1 more turn and he could have moved his war wizard into position to fireball my whole warband twice, then shoot twice, it would have single-handedly wiped me out. So I won by a whisker in actual fact. My warband: Horned Devil (probably not useful, will not take him next time) Umber Hulk (definitely useful, might take 2!) 2 Bugbear Berserkers 2 Hobgoblin sorcs 2 goblin champions 2 priestess of lolth (against the adventurers I can use all their cards, but I'm still not sure if they're worth having) 2 goblin archers Order cards--way too many! I can't even remember all the order cards I had but it was over 50. Definitely need to trim the deck. After the first game I ditched the poison vials and a few other things; I need to ditch some more. I'm debating ditching the rest of my defensive cards. I think the best way to play this warband is the theory that a good offense is the best defense; you should aim to be the first one to attack, and to wipe out everything the enemy has with that attack so that you don't need to worry about being counter attacked. To that end I'm thinking of mostly focusing on movement and attack cards, especially attack cards with movement like nimble strike and spring attack.
IMO you should definitely cut Stalk, it's one of the worst cards in the game. Not so much because the effect is bad, but because if you're running Dex you already have Spring Attack, Nimble Strike, and Shadowy Ambush, so there's no reason to burn a card on movement alone when you could get better value.
I take your point about the dual use cards being better than Stalk alone considering both cards use up a draw, but I like having the Stalks in there for my archers and sorcs because I don't particularly want them to be getting into melee combat, nor can the archers use Shadowy Ambush. But I'll give it a shot and see how it works, I definitely have too many order cards anyway.
Yeah discipline about cards is a really hard thing. I learned it for Magic, so it's easier for me to port to this game, but it is definitely a rough lesson to pick up. Basically the trick IMO is to stop thinking about "when might this card be good" because every card sometimes will be good, but instead to think about when and how often it's bad. I stopped running dedicated movement cards with a very few weird exceptions (like Stealth in pure combo bugbear) because I found it just almost never was worth the card invested in it. Movement is awesome to have, but it's just so much better when you get it as a package deal.
Oh, keep in mind Nimble Strike is great for archers too because it allows a boosted ranged attack or melee attack! So you can use it to shift your Goblin Archer 3 out of combat, shoot for 30, then run away six squares. It's unreal for skirmishing for that reason. 
Warband: Swords of Death Note: thinking about changing out Bugbear for 2 more Assassins and the goblins for 2 Drow wizards but I am going to test this first.
Drizzt Hunter
Nice warband, quite similar to what we play, a few questions/comments 1) Why the assassins? I'm not a huge fan of lvl 4 things that only do 20 damage; the hidden blade thing is a pretty bad special ability for a lvl 4 guy, they only have 80 HP which again is low for lvl 4, and while the range attack is neat it's only 5 range so it's not granting huge map control, and it doesn't synergize with your weak special ability. Bugbears are way better imo. Goblin archers have the same 5 range 20 damage attack at level 1, if you're thinking of ditching the gob archers, ditch these things instead imo. The bugbears can use your high level dex cards, and they can get way way better use out of them since they have higher base damage, higher base HP, and their ability to untap on a kill is 10x better than the ability to deal a measly extra 10 bonus damage which can be Blocked anyway. 2) Drow wizards are amazing, easily my favourite lvl 2 creature, I'd take 4 if I had the figs. 3) Your deck can burn through a lot of order cards, yes, but you say yourself you're ready to move out when you have 10-15; that's leaving well over half your order cards in the deck, so obviously you don't need that many. When I start using a new warband, I always take way too many order cards too, and then trim out the ones that don't see use until I get down to a reasonable number. For your super card draw engine you can justify maybe up to 36-40 order cards, but I don't see how you can justify 56 once the warband is 'finished'. I've never had a 'finished' warband with over 40 cards, not even a super draw engine band. Therefore I think you need to seriously consider which order cards you can cut. My recommendations would be: vial of poison, fire trap, deep wound, feint, secret passage, uncanny dodge, and riposte. Those are cards that are either too situational in use, or that you already have better versions of; in both cases they are using up space in your hand and keeping you from getting the cards you really need and would rather have. Especially your Wis; if you get a priestess but don't get her cards, it's a real drag as Kalteros with only 3 creature cards. If she doesn't come out and help you put pressure on the enemy, you have play completely different and it puts you at a serious disadvantage--even moreso if she's clogging up your creature hand, or sitting on the board doing a whole lot of not much eating up 3 leadership points.
The main reason for the Drow Assassin is because they had 20 20 (5), but after reviewing and thinking on what you said, I agree that they would be better replaced with the Drow wizards in the long run. I will test this group out when I get it in the mail then afterwards there will be a lot of adjusting. If and when I add the Drow wizards, if I put 4 of them in I might consider a couple Int order cards but that is hard to say until the time comes. I really appreciate the advice; it helped me reconsider things that I already doubted so it is good to have a second opinion.
In the interest of sparking up discussion, here's a crappy idea for a warband I've been mulling around.
Commander: Tarkon Draal 4x Goblin Wolf Rider 4x Goblin Archer 4x Goblin Champion 3x Hobgoblin Sorceror I'ma little over the 12 creature minimum, but since Wolf Riders can 'replace' themselves I think that's ok. 4x Shattered Weapon 3x Leap Away 4x Goblin War Cry 3x Loping Stride 4x Dispel Magic 4x Hypnotic Gaze 4x Nimble Strike 4x Narrow Escape 30 card minimum seems necessary here since we don't have card draw, and I'm not sure adding Arcane Ritual so that a Sorceror can sit in a magic cirlce is worth it. I don't really think I'll be taking advantage of the sorcerors tap ability much; I'll probably need him up front shooting things. The basic idea is to abuse the ranged power of Goblin Archers (which is rather absurd for a lvl 1). To do this we use the Goblin Wolf Rider's speed to hunt down range 10 targets early, alternatively he can easily body block melee attackers and use Hypnotic Gaze to put the enemy in a more favorable position. Normally I'd say Shattered Weapon and Leap Away aren't very good, but I kind of like them here since you get a big effect out of a single card, coupled with the fact that using them on a wolf rider isn't so bad since their options are now (a) kill the weakened rider only to have it replace itself, while being plinked to death by archers, or (b) ignore it and try to kill your archers, while being plinked to death by archers. So, how bad is it? As a side question, what's everyone's meta game looking like? Mine is just me-the goblin guy, my friend with the basic undeath set, and my other friend with a lot of sets who can never make up his mind as to what to play, so he never sticks with anything, so I have no idea what's out there besides what's in this thread.
Well, you have 43 levels worth of guys in your warband, and that's way too many to churn through in a real game so I would consider cuting it down to twelve so you can ensure you draw what you really want. I would cut the Hobgoblin sorcerers based on your order cards, since there's nothing special about them that the goblin champs can't do, and if you're not putting them in magic circles they really don't add anything and for all intensive purposes would be better as drow wizards which cost one less level and do just as much damage. But if you have the choice between one sorc and three goblin archers, the choice is obvious!
Shattered weapon is definitely a good card on wolves, or on goblin archers when somebody gets too close. Maybe death sentance instead of loping stride? Extra attacks are a bit better than movement cards imo
I agree with Comrade one, you really need to get rid of the Hobgoblin Sorcerer they aren't doing anything for you and you can't deploy them if the goblin rider dies either.
I played the following warband at Game Summit in Gatineau this weekend.
Commander: Morgana 4 Skeleton Warrior 2 Tomb Guardian 3 Dwarf Cleric 2 Skeletal Rider 1 Feral Troll 3x Reckless Attack (+30 attack, -10 HP) 2x Feral Vitality (?not sure on the name: +20 attack, gain 10 HP) 4x Hulking Attack (+20 attack, gain 1 Morale) 4x Scheme (draw 2) 4x Defensive Advantage (prevent 20, draw 1) 2x Tough as Nail (Block 10) 4x Undaunted Strike (+10 damage) 1x Killing Strike (100 damage) 4x Patch Up (prevent or heal 20) 2x (prevent 50) This is the ultimate turtling warband IMO. All your CON cards are accessible to all your creatures except some cards can't be used with Skeletal Warrior without help. Morgana's ability is pretty strong and it allows you to always have defense during your opponent's turn. You obviously use your cards first, but it will allow you to hold the fort while you draw more. A mere Skeleton Warrior with Tough as Nail can stand up to a lot of damage while your larger guys put on Undaunted Strike and bash on to finish the job. You pretty much nullify all the swarm warbands with Tough as Nail and Tomb Guardian. There will be some awesome cards in Blood of Gruumsh for this warband, and you may want to replace the Troll with a Cleric of Gruumsh at that point. Dwarf Cleric's ability though is pretty key here. Between Cleric, Tough as Nail and Undaunted Strike, you should never have a negative card attached to your guys. You might actually want to bring in Shattered Weapon, though I think -10 HP is better than -10 damage, and both are resolved by a single Dwarf Cleric activation.
Since the blood of gruumsh cards were discovered I have been trying to come up with the most efficient way to create a warband to take advantage of vorpal sword. It's level 4 any, but you need to have humanoid. If the creature it's attached to deals 50 damage in melee to another creature, the target is destroyed. It seems obvious to equip magic short sword so the damage can't be prevented and the target is garunteed to be destroyed. There are only 5 creatures who can use this card without needing a one-time use damage booster: Ogre Since it has 50 damage it is easy to use - you only need to attach vorpal blade and a magic short sword and you're good to go. Horned Devil It only has 40 damage, so it would need to attach undaunted surge before attaching anything else. It’s got speed 6 and flying, which are both good, and reach, which is excellent. Dragon Knight It only has 40 damage, so it would need to attach undaunted surge before attaching anything else. However, it has two main advantages – it is only level 5, and it is an adventurer, allowing it to take advantage of heroic surge. Unfortunately, it is only speed 5. Wereboar It only has 30 damage, but it has the beast keyword in addition to the humanoid keyword, and therefore achieve the required 50 damage by being supported by a level 3 wisdom creature with two beast master cards attached. It has the lowest level (lvl 4) Goblin Wolf rider Similar to the wereboar in that it has both beast and humanoid keywords, but less feasible because it’s base damage is only 20, and would require THREE beastmaster cards on the field. I think it is safe to rule this creature out. Beastmaster route Spoiler: Show 4 Drow Priestesses 4 Spiders 4 Wereboars
4 Vorpal blade 4 Magic Shortsword 4 Beastmaster 4 Overseer’s Whip 4 Lloth’s blessing 4 Unbreakable 4 Tide of Iron 2 Tough as Nails Based on who we choose to wield the vorpal blade, there are two obvious ways to go about making this deck. If it’s a wereboar, obviously we need a wisdom creature to support by equipping beastmaster. If we choose the priestess, we can also equip lloth’s blessing to act as a draw engine. Four our last 4 creatures, lets just pick up 4 spiders since they are beasts and will therefore also gain the benefits of beastmaster and overseer’s whip and can be summoned by the priestesses. With their speed, they will make excellent treasure hunters. Consider choosing Aliszandra to further accentuate this. Since we have WIS, Scheme, change of plans, and overseer’s whip are considerations here. For 30 cards, we can have 7 different cards x 4 copies + 2 extra cards. So on top of our “core” of 4 vorpal blades and 4 magic shortswords, we would choose 4 beastmaster, 4 lloth’s blessing, and 4 overseer’s whips. Four our final 2x4 + 2 cards, we need to think about how best to take advantage of having a creature on the field that can kill anything in one attack. So what do you give the girl who has everything? Mobility. The ability to get to the target you want and make that key attack. Therefore, 4 relentless advance would work nice. Also, 4 tide of iron can help us move fodder out of the way. Four our last two cards, I think that tough as nails would be nice to help prevent your wereboar from being widdled down by weenies, although it’s a pain in the butt since you have to attach it before you attach anything else. The main weakness of this deck is that your wereboars are relatively weak to justify attaching all these cards to, and therefore they are more likely to be killed off before you can make the huge card investment worthwhile. For this reason I think unbreakable would be a nice immediate to take the place of relentless advance, so we’re not hurting our already relatively squishy uber-unit.
Death Sentance (& Heroic Surge) Route The main idea is to use the hobgoblin sorc and keep it 5 spaces behind whoever has the vorpal blade. Using forward to horde to shift both of them 3 and death sentence to make an attack, you can burn minor actions on your hobgoblin sorc and take out multiple units on the same turn. Initially, the sorc needs to spend some time sitting in a magic circle with arcane ritual so that you can draw up your cards. I chose elf archers as treasure grabbers because they have speed seven and ten range and therefore can stand back while working with the hobgoblin sorc to pick of smaller targets unworthy of a good vorpal blading. Depending on the space in each possible deck I also added unbreakable (they’re all CON), warning shout and shield so that you don’t lose your uber unit as that would be a damn shame. I chose Rhynseera as the commander because she has lots of orders but these creatures are higher level and therefore it might be nice to start with a Kalteros for the increased leasership, or even a tarkon draal to stop their smaller units cowering off your archer/hobgob shots (and he has 8 leadership – enough to open with a dragon knight and a hobgob! Woohoo!) Tarkon Draal (5 + 3 = 8!) 4 Dragon Knights 4 Hobgoblin Sorcerers 4 Elf Archers
4 Vorpal Blade 4 Magic Shortsword 4 Undaunted Surge 4 Heroic Surge 4 Death Sentence 4 Forward the horde 4 Arcane Ritual 2 Unbreakable
Rhynseera 4 Horned Devils 4 Hobgoblin Sorcerers 4 Elf Archers 4 Vorpal Blade 4 Magic Shortsword 4 Undaunted Surge 4 Death Sentence 4 Forward the horde 4 Arcane Ritual 4 Unbreakable 2 Warning Shout
Rhynseera 4 Ogres 4 Hobgoblin Sorcerers 4 Elf Archers 4 Vorpal Blade 4 Magic Shortsword 4 Death Sentence 4 Forward the horde 4 Arcane Ritual 4 Unbreakable 4 Warning Shout 2 Shield
Vorpal Blade feels like more of a 1-or 2-of to me, to use late-game to finish the game quickly. Early on, if you're capable of smacking something for 50 it's probably going to be dead regardless of the blade, and if you're stuck with a vorpal blade but can only swing for 40 (which is still a pretty impressive hit) you're sitting on an order card that's not doing you anything.
That said, I agree, if you get that warband up an running the paintrain isn't going to be making any stops.
I hate the Sword cards generally. They both have abilities that look great on paper and then only benefit a very limited set of creatures. They need to have entire decks built around them and even then I'm not that impressed with the results. I was *really* impressed with Magic Shortsword + Bugbear until someone reminded me that the 'no creatures in play' win condition only occurs at the end of the deploy phase, meaning you can't combo kill with it, meaning once you've had an explosive turn you go back to a bunch of inefficient cards who can burst damage really effectively but can't sustain that rate over the entire game.
Vorpal Sword is win more. If you're dealing 50 damage in one go, you've killed something.
Been mulling over this warband:
Band of Assassins 3 Goblin Wolf Rider 3 Vampire Stalker 3 Elf Archer 3 Drow Priestess (36 total levels) 3 Vorpal Blade 4 Vial of Poison (to be used with Vorpal Blade) 4 Stealth 4 Death Sentence 4 Quick Jab 3 Magic Shortsword (to be used with Vorpal Blade) 3 Shadowy Ambush (ditto) 4 Lolth's Blessing 1 Scheme (30 Orders) I've not decided on the Commander and map tiles yet. Any suggestions?
I plan to use this warband in tournaments.
The Pain Train Commander Drogar - Creatures ignore difficult terrain Creatures-35 levels 3 Bugbear berserkers 3 dwarf clerics 3 gravehounds 4 orc archers 34 Orders Immediates-10 2 tough as nails 2 unbreakable 2 defensive advantage 4 patch up standard-14 2 sneak attack 2 nimble strike 2 shadowy ambush 2 sacrifice 2 feral vitality 4 scheme minor-10 4 quick jab 2 magic shorsword 2 into the fray 2 furious bellow I'll play the orc tiles or any that have provide alot of cover since my warband is melee focused. The tactics are very straight forward. Scheme until I have a large order hand while my gravehounds, berserkers and orcs scramble around for treasure with impunity. Equip a Magic short sword and begin the slaughter.
WRT Above ^
I think the goblin wolf rider is the entire point of that deck because it is level 4 it can use vorpal blade. Elf archers are good treasure hunters and can stay safe far behind the lines, pestering low hp units while the vorpal blade takes down the big boys. That being said, I would definitely increase shadowy ambush to 4 and take away a scheme. Maybe take away a lloths too but thats more personal preference. Overall I like the deck as a different take on Vorpal Swording things (using cards each time to acheive that magic 50). Ultimately this only works until you run out of cards but you could certainly kill enough morale before that. Thought: the only unit that isn't doing too much other than sitting their lolthing about is the priestess. What if you ran drow wizards with arcane ritual as your engine instead? Sure they're squishy but they can be more useful and give you a ton of board control. Commander Choice: When elf archers are involved, and you just them to finish things off, cowering comes up frequently so make them pay. Make the really think hard about it. Also if you had vorpal but not magic short sword drawn yet then stopping the cower is pretty important then too. As far as tiles, you've got speedy units in the goblin rider (8), bugbear (7) and elf (7) and your elves like wide open spaces so I would say that terrain that is more open would be advantageous since you can cover that ground quickly if need be while slower units might not be able to make the haul. WRT The Pain Train Why the gravehounds? A level 2 with 10 damage just seems like a waste of leadership to me :/
Defenders can't use anything, they're str con.
Clerics can use wis, bu not lloths as it requires evil Thats why I'm saying maybe use priestesses instead of clerics, so that you would be able to use lloth's blessing plus they would be able to shadowy ambush should any dire situations require it.
I just got into DC a couple of weeks ago. So far, I only have two sets of Heroes and one Lolth. With that in mind, the only thing I have used from Lolth are a couple of tiles.
Commander: Rhynseera Creatures (total level 31): 3x Elf Archer 3x Dwarven Defender 2x Dwarf Cleric 2x Half-Orc Thug 2x Dragon Knight Order Cards: 3x Power Attack 3x Daring Attack 2x Invigorating Smash 2x Killing Strike 4x Into the Fray 4x Heroic Surge 4x Quick Shot 4x Intercept 4x Defend Ally Tiles: Hero 3, Hero 2, Drow 1, Drow 4 The strategy behind this warband is to dig in on the choke point of Drow 1 tile with a quad of HOThug, DKnight, Defender, and Cleric. The attacks I have in the order deck are meant to beef up my low damage numbers, while I added Into the Fray to bring newly deployed units closer to the rest of my team. Heroic Surges allow the DKnight and HOThug to keep pounding away (especially once the opponent has tapped defending other attacks). The Elf Archers provide artillery support. Keep in mind, this is only using 2x Cormyr. The one thing I think (without input from outside help) could be changed is the 4x Quick Shot. They are there for the added artillery support, but I'm really considering replacing them with either Shove Aside of Disrupting Attack. Any input you guys could provide, keeping in mind my limitations (2 Cormyr and 1 Lolth), would be appreciated.
Think you can increase your warband's firepower more with:
-2 Elf Archer -1 Dwarven Defender +1 Drow Wizard +1 Drow Assassin +1 Drow Priestess -2 Intercept -2 Defend Ally +2 Scheme +1 Lolth's Blessing +1 Arcane Ritual
2 cormyr sets -> I would run double war wizard, double half orc thug, double earth elemental smash-things-together-and-aoe-them build (can throw in drow wizards for more ranged support)
specifically 2 spiders to hunt treasure 3 archers because I put faerie fire in now they hit so hard for their level and they still hunt treasure well 2 dwarf defenders to camp around your war wizards and half orc thugs and clerics 1 drow wizard took out the clerics 2 half orc thugs 2 war wizards 2 earth elementals to smash their trash together so you can aoe it any - 6 4 Heroic Surge - war wizard or half orc thug or drow wizard shoots again 2 Level up - for defenders or elementals who want block 10. Does their own ability apply to them if there is only one leveled up dw defender? It just reads "adjacent allies" so I would think not. dex - 4 4 quick shot - half orc thugs and drow wizards go pew pew pew str - 8 4 Defend Ally - now dw defenders can save wizards 4 Seize the opportunity - now earth elementals can slide enemies when they're attacked, therefore preventing the damage from the melee attack OMG OP int - 12 2 Faerie Fire 4 Shield - wizards can save each other or their friends 2 Arcane Ritual - because cards win games 2 Blast of Force - helps you position their creatures next to each other 2 Fireball So obviously the whole point is to position the enemy creatures together and then hit them up with massive aoe damage from the half orc thugs and fireball shooting wizards. I would run Rhynseera the Alarphon for her huge order hand and 2 of the same wide-open-magic-circle tiles from cormyr. Obviously the drow box hasn't contributed very much here but the spiders are probably better treasure hunters than archers with 10 extra hp. You could include the drow wizard but he can't use fireball.
CO--only 2 fireballs available unfortunately. Take the Drow Wizard--he can't fireball but he can use the other INT cards and best of all he can quick shot and heroic surge and get Defended, that's worth 2 levels easy. Drow Wizard is my fav lvl 2 guy in the game bar none. Spider treasure hunters are a waste of your creature hand space imo; you need to get a synergy going and Rhynseera, who you should take, only has 3 creatures in her hand. Spiders are going to clog that up and most likely the couple of extra treasures they might bring you is not going to be nearly as decisive as getting out a good combination of guys. It's essential you have out at the same time a cleric, a defender, and a solid ranged attacker. If you lack any of those pillars your block is vulnerable and inneffectual and probably going to get picked apart.
Oh and don't forget to take level up! Why wouldn't you take level ups when you're running defenders? Plus level up your drow wizard for fireball fun!
CO--only 2 fireballs available unfortunately. Take the Drow Wizard--he can't fireball but he can use the other INT cards and best of all he can quick shot and heroic surge and get Defended, that's worth 2 levels easy. Drow Wizard is my fav lvl 2 guy in the game bar none. Spider treasure hunters are a waste of your creature hand space imo; you need to get a synergy going and Rhynseera, who you should take, only has 3 creatures in her hand. Spiders are going to clog that up and most likely the couple of extra treasures they might bring you is not going to be nearly as decisive as getting out a good combination of guys. It's essential you have out at the same time a cleric, a defender, and a solid ranged attacker. If you lack any of those pillars your block is vulnerable and inneffectual and probably going to get picked apart.
Oh and don't forget to take level up! Why wouldn't you take level ups when you're running defenders? Plus level up your drow wizard for fireball fun!
darn wasn't sure about that. What a shame. Such a balling card. Also there is only one blast of force per cormyr set. Replace those two with faerie fires and level ups.
I agree about level up and the drow wizard - maybe take out a cleric. I'll edit my above post to reflect this. Made quite a few changes actually. Took out both clerics to add drow wizard plus a third level 1 and changed the level ones to archers since I remembered faerie fire is available. Works incredibly well with archers. Also took out the smash attack for the cleric card and put in seize the opportunity for the defenders and the elementas to use. If the elementals use it, it will prevent all damage provided you slide the attacking enemy away from you  On the topic of clogging up the hand: I would say that if you have more level 1s, you can churn through your creatures more quickly, especially at the beginning of the game when you have a turn or two to deploy before combat starts in earnest. And tbh I know everybody likes clerics but tbh 10 hp on your turn and 10 hp on their turn isn't that big of a deal when you could have more archers out behind your main line and they're doing double damage on their big important units thanks to faerie fire. It's like if you had a level 3 unit doing 60 damage with range ten. It's insanely good.
I'm still big on clerics. 20 HP per turn is pretty big; so is removing negative attachments. Faerie fire is absolutely a must of course, one of my favorite cards. Clerics can use the good STR cards and get Defended as well. I see them as pretty essential if you're going with the Defenders block. Their main and really their only drawback is 5 move. But when you're taking defenders with 5 move as well, you might as well have the clerics.
Agreed. Dwarf Clerics > Dwarven Defenders.
Also totally agree with ComradeOne on that creature-order combo. It's one of the most OP. Discovered it myself about 3 weeks ago. Lets you cancel an opponent's attacks with magic short sword, killing strikes, etc. Unfortunately, Earth Guardians at level 4 are cough*expensive*cough, so 2 sounds about right. Combos List Earth Guardian + Sieze the Opportunity Furious Bellow + Stomp (posted by Hautamaki) Disciple of Kyuss with Open Portal + Call to Battle - change your start zone:summon anything into the circle! Any other 2-element combos you guys discovered?
I do like EE/Sieze, but it does have the problem that there's not a good way to boost the damage on it, and EE can't use a short sword, so it's pretty vulnerable to just getting cowered.
Here's a ridiculous combo: Any lvl 4+ str guy with Furious Bellow and War Stomp.
Suicide Boarmers:
Commander: Snig The Axe 3 Orc Druid 4 Feral Vitality So the idea here is pretty simple: Beef up beasts with Beasmaster/Oversser's Whip, keep them alive as long as you can with healing, and when their time is up go out with a bang with Savage Demise, doing at least 30 but more likely 40-60 damage on your opponents turn. Use Snig's ability to instantly replace them at your Druid.
Death From Above:
Commander: Snig The Axe 12 Creatures: 28 tot lvls 4 Drow Priestess 4 Giant Spider 4 Demonweb Spider 30 Orders (18 S/12 M) 4 Stealth 4 Feint 4 Sneak Attack 4 Beastmaster 4 Lolth's Blessing 2 Scheme 4 Change of Plans 4 Cure Serious Wounds Odds of not getting any Priestesses in your starting 5 creature hand: 7% or about once every 14 games Basically the idea here is to deploy your first priestess and bank your leadership. Buff her up with Beastmaster and Lolth's Blessing. When you get Stealth and Sneak Attack, stealth this or a spare priestess near their start zone or next to their key creature. Then, after she emerges from stealth at the start of your turn, with your commander ability, deploy your spiders when you refresh and proceed to smackdown with Sneak Attack. If you have a spare Demonweb Spider that you don't need for the Sneak Attack, Feint tap them first if possible. Thoughts?
I posted and discussed my Snig/Beastmaster tournament deck in the PAX tourney thread where I did a full report. I'm going to copy/paste the deck discussion here in case people want to talk about that rather than the tournament itself. Commander: Snig the Axe Snig has two huge advantages in this deck: large creature hand (since you really want to start a Priestess or at least draw enough 1-drops to get to it after initial deploy) and his special ability. If you can afford to start 6 Leadership, Snig's ability is a game changer like few others are, and in a deck like this where I expect my creatures to die frequently, it is utterly invaluable. There are some crazy tricks you can do with it too, that I'll talk about a bit later. Creature Deck: 3x Drow Priestess 4x Demonweb Spider 2x Shadow Mastiff 2x Giant Spider 1x Wolf I was slightly component limited here - despite having most stuff in full playsets, I only own 2 copies of Sting of Lolth and we haven't opened many for our in-store tournament prizes, so that's all the Priestesses, Shadow Mastiffs, and Giant Spiders I own, hence the random singleton Wolf. That said, I was glad to have another low-level creature, and with Snig's large creature hand I never really lacked a particular dude when I wanted it. And the Wolf's ability to tap defenders is often randomly relevant. So this could be the correct creature mix regardless. Another Giant Spider might be right instead, though, since the ability to use Shadowy Ambush unaided is pretty nice. Order Deck: 4x Lolth's Blessing 4x Change of Plans 4x Beastmaster 4x Quick Jab 4x Piercing Strike 3x Shadowy Ambush 2x Nimble Strike 2x Riposte 1x Close Call 2x Stealth The Wisdom suite: Change of Plans is a card that I hate playing because psychologically I hate to discard cards - I always feel like, "man these cards are all sweet, if I didn't want to play these cards, they wouldn't be in my deck, why would I want to discard something?" But it's a great card, and you really want either an early Beastmaster or an early Lolth's Blessing or both, or else your deck is just a bunch of kind of bad Dex dudes with sweet deployment rules. Which is fine but not really the point. Beastmaster is (joining Magic Short Sword) a card I'm pretty sure shouldn't have been printed as-is; it's like a Goblin War Cry that doesn't go away at the end of the turn, or an Undaunted Surge that works on everyone on your team and is allowed to stack. It might be ok as a Standard action, but as-is you can just hold them until you're ready to unleash spidery death, so you don't really risk losing them if you lose the Priestess. This card is dumb and takes this deck from reasonable to stupid. Lolth's Blessing is what it always was, a card that makes sure you dominate the long game if they can't kill your priestess. Attack cards: These are pretty straightforward I think, they're just IMO the best Dex cards, tending towards level 1 or level 3 due to the creature level distribution in the deck. Quick Jab is always good but is especially dumb with Beastmaster. Defense cards: Snig is this deck's primary defense card; except for a Priestess with cards attached, you don't really care if any of your other creatures die most of the time, so there are very few defense cards in the deck. TheRipostes are more like additional Quick Jabs pretending to be defense cards; you hold them until 2-3 Beastmasters are out and then use them to finish off dudes you couldn't quite kill on your turn. Close Call is there in case you need to save a Priestess or critically positioned Shadow Mastiff, but mostly I discarded it to Change of Plans. If I played again I might just run another Riposte or Stealth. Stealth isn't technically a defense card but was a late addition to the deck that rules, and primarily serves as defense. After having some trouble with Behind Enemy Lines and other ways the opponent could pressure my Priestess, like Bugbears popping out of Stealth or whatever, I realized that a great defense was just not to be on the board for a critical opponent turn! After that, I realized other stuff about Stupid Stealth Tricks, like that with Priestess + Snig, you can emerge from Stealth and then immediately use Snig's ability + the Priestess' ability to be a mobile spawn point to drop a bunch of spiders right after emerging from Stealth. Spicy! This deck is generally going to play like a classic late-game deck - the Priestess gets Blessing(s) and hides, while Demonweb Spiders go out and get treasure and get in the way and otherwise annoy the opponent. One critical thing to realize about level 1 creatures is that they're often more valuable if they're not next to an opponent - if no Beastmaster is going on, the 10 damage from the tiny spiders is generally pretty useless, but making one of the opponent's guys use their movement for the turn to go stand next to the spider in order to kill it is golden, so I'll often not take attacks with the spiders in order to stand them 1-2 squares away and just be annoying. Later in the game, the Priestess busts out 2-3 Beastmasters in one turn and suddenly the goofy little tiny spiders hit for 30+ damage and kill everything. If anything survives they all die, but you don't care because you can immediately replace them with Giant Spiders and Shadow Mastiffs without losing a turn (Snig!) and still doing 40 damage unless they managed to kill the Priestess. Sometimes you don't draw any Blessings but draw some Beastmasters instead and just kill people stratight up. The only games that are rough are if you don't get either and don't get any Change of Plans to dig for them, but with 12 total copies out of 30, that's very unlikely. (It also sucks if you don't get a Priestess but it's really easy to dig through this deck so that's very rare). Overall I think this is quite close to the ideal build for this deck, and that if you're in a tournament that allows Beastmaster as printed, it's a pretty good choice. Not sure whether this or the Bugbear Combo deck is better; they're both honestly pretty similar. Before I added Stealth to this one I felt like Bugbear had the advantage, but now I'm not at all sure - the Bugbear deck is more likely to be able to kill the Priestess in this deck, but you can just literally ignore their combo turn if your Priestess isn't on the board or doesn't have anything attached, and unlike the Bugbear deck all of your creatures are potentially dangerous once Beastmaster gets online.
So I got to play 3 games with Death From Above and lost one of them. Think I'll tweak the deck thus:
Warband name: Arachnomancer Commander: Snig The Axe 12 Creatures: 27 tot lvls 3 Drow Priestess 4 Giant Spider 4 Demonweb Spider 1 Wolf 31 Orders 4 Lolth's Blessing 4 Change of Plans 4 Beastmaster (no change to the core) 4 Web (this is a sweet action/attack deprival that you can easily play at range. They can't move or shift if they don't spend a standard action to remove it) 4 Riposte (with an average of 2 Beastmasters in play, these prevent 20 while dealing 30 damage) 3 Piercing Strike (for when you _have_ to kill something) 4 Stealth (spare Stealths can be discarded to CoP) 3 Stalk (gets your Priestess out of their line of sight so you can use Stealth) 1 Reinforcements Odds of not getting any Priestesses in your starting 5 creature hand: ~16% or about once every 6 games This deck is so simple and straightforward to play. Its tight combo of Snig, Priestess, Stealth and Spiders is what makes it tick. For friendly (non-competition) play, toss out the Beastmaster and sub in Sacrifice, Faerie Fire or other cards. In fact, you don't even need BoG if you drop the Change of Plans and replace with Schemes. I'd appreciate some constructive comments and suggestions.
vampire x4 stomp x2 quick jab x4 hypnotic gaze x4 strength in numbers x4 warning shout x4 heroes 2 tarkon draal
Need to test a deck for a friend of mine. The idea behind this deck is dual strategy: Swarm your opponent with a bunch of low level goblins while stalling for time till the big flyers get out. This is the initial version so there are much more than 12 creatures for now.
Warband concept: Swarm and Stall Commander: Delthrin Everet 15 creatures: 38 tot lvls Copper Dragon Dracolich Horned Devil 4 Hobgoblin Sorcerer (only 1 will be in play at any time) 4 Goblin Cutter 4 Goblin Archer 32 Orders (8 St/24 Minor) 4 Strength in Numbers 4 Death Sentence 4 Goblin War Cry 2 Call to Battle 4 Arcane Ritual 4 Fireball 2 Dimension Door 4 Heroic Surge 3 Level Up 1 Reinforcements I'll be testing it today and tomorrow. I'll post a report and tweaked version here later this week when I get the time.
Play report of Swarm and Stall (ver. 1):
All 3 of the games played ended with my Leadership in the low twenties but I realized that Strength in Numbers mostly clogged up my hand, so they're out. In one game, I was able to summon 2 dracoliches in the same round because of my Leadership shenanigans, but they didn't help me win that game. So the dragons will be replaced by Horned Devils instead. Here's the new version. Warband concept: Swarm and Stall (ver. 2) Commander: Delthrin Everet 15 creatures: 38 tot lvls 3 Horned Devil 4 Hobgoblin Sorcerer 4 Goblin Cutter 4 Goblin Archer 35 Orders (8 St/23 Minor/4 Imm) 4 Goblin War Cry 4 Call to Battle 4 Terrifying Revelations 2 Hynoptic Gaze (because of HD's reach, this works great even at 5 squares!) 4 Arcane Ritual 2 Fireball 2 Dimension Door 4 Defiant Stance (for the HD) 4 Level Up 2 Heroic Surge 2 Magic Short Sword 1 Reinforcements
I only have one disciple of kyuss so I used a sorceror as an extra ranged cha/int mini.
Post Your Reply
Please login to post a reply.
Jump Menu:
|
