order cards. Almost any creature can use any card at any time so it doesn't
require the right draw or situation to pull things off.
Creatures:
Umber Hulk x2
Drow Wizard x2
Elf Archer x2
Half-Orc Thug x3
Wolf x3
Order Cards:
Quick Shot x4
Feint x 4
Piercing Strike x4
Spring Attack x3
Nimble Strike x3
Near Miss x2
Riposte x2
Grovel x2
Quick Jab x3
Uncanny Dodge x3
Can't wait to build a Int based deck once Curse of Undeath comes out though.
Creature cards (12)
3x Goblin Archer
4x Goblin Cutter
2x Hobgoblin Sorcerer
1x Goblin Champion
2x Goblin Wolf Rider
Order cards (30)
(Engine)
3x Reinforcements
3x Arcane Ritual
(Aggro)
4x Goblin War Cry
4x Quick Jab
3x Shattered Weapon
3x Feint
(Mobility)
3x Nimble Strike
3x Forward the Horde
(Defense)
4x Shield
Commander: Snig the Axe
Creatures:
3 Goblin Archer
4 Goblin Cutter
2 Hobgoblin Sorcerer
2 Goblin Champion
1 Horned Devil
Order Cards:
(Any)
3 Shattered Weapon
4 Grovel
2 Reinforcements
(Cha)
2 Rally
4 Goblin War Cry
4 Forward the Horde
4 Death Sentence
2 Strength in Numbers
(Dex)
1 Leap Away
1 Narrow Escape
3 Nimble Strike
It really does want the Arcane Rituals in it for extra card draw, though.
Cheers,
Merric
How are the Grovels treating you? Using Shield makes me a bit more reliant on the Sorcerer I guess, but since over 50% of the time I'm using it to protect my Sorcerer because everything else on my list is expendable, I didn't find that a problem. Your version is much less reliant on Reinforcements too since you have a huge guy at the top end to tide you by if you start running out of cards. Death Sentence of course makes sense with the Devil. Not sure that Rally does enough work in your warband to justify the inclusion.
Creatures are:
Drow Wizard x4
War Wizard x2
Elf Archer x4
Copper Dragon x2
Umber Hulk x2
Drow Priestess x1
I only put the Priestess in here for doubles and drawlying extra order to protect my ally or myself from the Dex defenses. I like to play ranged, speed, and defensive wise.
Order cards:
Acrobatics x4
Loping Stride x4
Quick Shot x4
Quick Jab x2
Close Call x4
Stealth x2
Vial of Poison x2
Stalk x4
Spring Attack x2
Web x4
Mirror Image x2
Shield x2
Open Portal x2
Arcane Ritual x2
Faerie Fire x4
Fireball x2
Scheme x2
Lolth's Blessing x2
Since most of these I can use on other creatures I thought that these would be good. With the little bit of Wis, I figured that the number of Order cards I could draw would be good in this set up. Using the champion with a high starting Order hand size would help this out perfectly.
The result was that I got enhililated. My "friend" would shoot me and then back away. It only took a few turn for my moral to be completely gone. Meanwhile, his moral might have actually increased. My conclusions are that, if you play this way: generally lower level creatures are more effective (because of most order cards being designed for lower level creatures), that dexterity is the best ability to base your deck around (since dexterity based order cards and creatures and the most plentiful), that decks work best when tailored narrowly to one ability (because then you can use all of the order cards in your hand), and that making ranged attacks is extreamely valuable (because you can get in more hits with ranged attacks).
When the curse of undeath faction pack comes out on November 20th, intelligence, charisma, and constitution based warbands will become much more formidable than they are right now. But right now the only seemingly viable alternative to dexterity is strength.
A house rule that I plan on trying is to require that a player's order cards cannot be more than half focused on any one of the six abiltiy statistics (dexterity, strength, constitution, intellience, wisdom, or charisma). The purpose of the requirement is that it would cause a lot of unusual builds to be more viable. Also I don't like the idea of warbands with four of the same creature. Instead, I would recommend a house rule that requires that either one or two of any creature can be in a warband. This has the benifit of forcing players think harder about how their characters fit together.
Drow Priestess
Giant Spider
Demonweb Spider
Acrobatics, Loping Stride, Fire Trap, Parry, Scheme, Lolth's Blessing, Spring Attack, healing potion, Near Miss
Commander: Aliszandra Malistros (she provides the spiders and drow with two extra movement)
The strategy of this warband would be to stay out of the fight long enough to draw a lot of order cards. The serious weakness of this set it that it only offers one order card that adds damage (fire trap). And since there are no level 1 immediate action cards, the Demonweb Spiders would be totally vulnerable to any attacks. The remidy to this problem would be to not play the level one spiders until the end.
We've been doing monthly tournaments at my store, so I've got some reasonably refined lists and have accumulated a fair number of figures to make Standard lists. (We use the Canadian-style prize structure where everyone drafts figures out of boxes each tournament, and we've had 3 or 4 so far.) Anyway, I've got 3 current decks. Our next tourney is Sunday the 25th and I haven't decided which one to run yet, they alll seem pretty good to me.
Snig Toolbox
This deck's basic idea is to build up cards and leadership with the Hobgoblin Sorcerer (Arcane Ritual/Strength in Numbers) and then use that along with the flexibility of Snig to bury the opponent in cards/dudes. The large goblin cicle tile has tons of annoying terrain, which makes it hard for them to rush you before you can get going, and Snig rules. With a 5 creature hand you'll draw the whole deck quite quickly, so you can bust out the Shadow Mastiff, Umber Hulk, and Horned Devil right at the perfect time (hence Toolbox). The Shadow Mastiff is especially awesome with Snig since it pops up at the start of your turn to kill a straggler or break up the enemy's advance. The order deck also has some low-copy cards that are sometimes huge blowouts because with 4x Arcane Ritual you're going to draw most of the deck most games. Early on you focus on grabbing treasure and setting up; unless your opponent has a similar engine you don't need to get super aggressive.
Snig the Axe
3x Hobgoblin Sorcerer
3x Goblin Archer
3x Goblin Champion
1x Umber Hulk
1x Shadow Mastiff
1x Horned Devil
4x Grovel - Just one defense card in the deck since Snig makes losses way less important; I like Grovel because everyone can use it
4x Death Sentence
4x Strength in Numbers
4x Arcane Ritual
3x Quick Jab
3x Nimble Strike - It's important that this works on Goblin Archers and boosts their ranged attack
4x Piercing Strike - The Goblin set made this slightly worse but it's still one of the best attack cards in the game IMO
2x Goblin War Cry - Not everyone's a goblin and I hate drawing tons of these early, but sometimes you need to swarm something to end the game
1x Shadowy Ambush
1x Fireball
Tiles: 1x Large Goblin Arcane Circle, 1x Large Cormyr Arcane Circle, small pieces mostly irrelevant
Bugbear Bowling
This is probably my favorite of the decks to play. The whole plan is to create an uber-Bugbear Berserker (usually involving Undaunted Surge) and use it to to murder huge numbers of guys in one or two glorious turns of bloodshead. Because the Bugbear gets a full untap every time he kills someone, you can use Stalk, Shaowy Ambush, etc between attacks to get the next target into range. Support is Wisdom dudes for card draw and so that the Bugbear can get patched up by a Dwarf Cleric in a pinch, plus some small spiders to grab treasures, mess with line of sight, and sometimes sneak in a Piercing Strike like a jerk. It's possible the card draw isn't necessary but I like it for insurance. An arcane card draw variant is probably also possible, but I prefer the Wisdom one because needing to stand in Arcane Circles leaves you vulnerable sometimes and the Bugbear doesn't want to have to play defense. Also, the Drow Priestess can use a bunch of the good Dex cards to get a hit in out of nowhere, and the Dwarf Cleric can scheme and use Str/Con cards.
Tarkon Draal - I think Rhynsera would also be fine here but 8 Ld can let you start Bugbear/Wis dude/Spider and cowering is appealing against a Bugbear
4x Bugbear Berserker
3x Demonweb Spider - Against ranged attackers, spawning one of these guys in an inconvenient spot is better than Grovel, it's sweet
3x Priestess of Lolth
2x Dwarf Cleric
3x Lolth's Blessing
2x Forceful Strike - Mostly lets the Dwarf Cleric knock people into Bugbear range, or if you just want to hit for 80, but can also set up Priestess finishes
1x Spring Attack - I don't love this card since it has no damage bonus, but sometimes you just want your Bugbear to move super fast
3x Undaunted Surge - Remember this card increases all melee attack damage, even fixed amounts like Shadowy Amubush or Seize the Opportunity!
2x Shadowy Ambush
3x Scheme
4x Seize the Opportunity - This card is unreal. It gets boosted by Undaunted Surge, and if it kills the attacker, the attack fails and the Bugbear untaps
2x Piercing Strike
2x Tough as Nails - Don't be afraid to use this card on a Bugbear on their turn even if you know you're going to replace it with Undaunted Surge on yours
4x Quick Jab - Remember not to kill guys with this card before using your standard since you'll miss untaps and are less likely to draw out immediates
2x Uncanny Dodge
2x Stalk - I normally hate minors that move you and do nothing else since they cost a card, but sometimes you just need to get your Bugbear around
Tiles: Not super important, but I use the tightest spaces/most cover I can find, since it lets the Drow Priestess hide and in general the bugbear doesn't like getting shot. Suggest avoiding anything with an Arcane Circle though, or lots of rough terrain; mostly you want a bunch of walls to hide behind to mess with ranged fire but not Bugbear movement. Since none of your guys use Arcane Circles there's no reason to let War Wizards pop up in annoying places.
Ranged Adventurers
This deck is about using Str and Int to push people around and then shoot them, hopefully all at once either with Fireball or the Half-Orc Thug's Explosive Bolts power. There's not a lot of defense of any sort, but the idea is to lure them into traps where you can use Behind Enemy Lines and the various pushes to get them out of position and deal a bunch of damage to all their dudes. Also featuring card draw. (I do sometimes not have card draw in my decks, I promise! I had a Str/Con build I liked a lot without it but I took it apart to tinker. It's possible I have a card advantage addiction problem...)
Rhynsera the Alarphon - I don't have my cards on me so likely misspelled this. Tarkon Draal would likely also be fine but I like digging for Ritual
4x Half-Orc Thug
3x Drow Wizard
3x War Wizard
2x Dragon Knight - You almost always want to wait to deploy this guy with Behind Enemy Lines
2x Faerie Fire - Only a 2-of because it can clog your hand, but important if they drop a Dragon or something dumb like that
1x Blast of Force - For when some jerk tries to tie down a wizard in melee
4x Forceful Strike - This card is unreal good all the time, but especially when you're trying to knock guys into fireballs
1x Tough as Nails - Only the Dragon Knight can use it hence just 1, but you generally want it on him. I could see going to two with Rhynsera
3x Behind Enemy Lines - The flavor text is 100% lies, I don't think I've ever tried to use this to gain morale, just surprise attack the rear all day
1x Shattered Weapon
4x Arcane Ritual
4x Heroic Surge
4x Quick Shot
4x Shield
2x Fireball
Tiles: Use at least one Cormyr arcane circle large tile since it has good sight lines. A second of those is fine, but the Goblin arcane circle is also defensible since the cover/difficult terrain can help you channel attackers into a small area where you can more easily rock them with Explosive Bolts and Fireballs.
Those are my current decks. I might try to do a tournament report about Sunday's event, or even get some video if I can find a camera.
Commander: Delthrin Everet
4x Zombie
3x Skeleton Warrior
2x Disciple of Kyuss
2x Lich Necromancer
1x Dracolich
Order cards
3x Arcane Ritual
2x Call to Battle
4x Strength in Numbers
2x Unending Horde
3x Gout of Fire
4x Death Grip
4x Careful Attack
4x Reckless Attack
4x Patch Up
This is my attempt at a pure engine/control warband with long game inevitability. You play the Undead tile with an arcane circle 2x (small tiles are usually not very important, but they should not have arcane circles... don't make it easy for War Mage to screw you). Your ideal deployment is one of any of your INT/CHA characters with whatever bodyguards you can afford, hoping to have one of your 9 engine cards in hand, sitting away from combat for as many turns as possible filling up your hand with Arcane Ritual, getting Leadership advantage with Strength in Numbers and/or gaining Morale with Call to Battle. Be opportunistic if you can kill something and get extra Leadership, but your game plan is to build yourself up for multiple turns. You might need to intervene so as not to just concede all the treasures on the map without contest, but they're very low priority.
Your favorite deployment of course is Lich Necromancer, so that you can setup base anywhere on the map where you have a good concentration of treasure (ideally 3, but 2 is sufficient if you need to keep your important INT/CHA leader from danger). Otherwise you have to stick to the room nearest to your start position. Of course, a Dracolich start against Goblins or any weenie warband is probably a win for you, and Disciple of Kyuss is also going to be an issue for any warband that depends on melee attacks.
Investing cards on your INT/CHA guys will make them a priority target, so you can bring the battle to you. Set yourself up in a defensible position (sitting on a door for instance gives you the possibility of range attacks while having cover) and force them to overextend. With Leadership you gain from kills, set yourself up with a huge unbeatable army.
This is the theory anyway. I'll see if it works in practice this Sunday.
Important probabilities:
Odds of starting with an INT/CHA guy in hand: 85%.
Odds of an all INT/CHA hand: 4.5%
Odds of being utterly screwed and not getting any low level guy in your first 4 creature cards: 1%
Odds of having only one low-level guy and two INT/CHA: 36%
Tricky opening hands:
Dracolich + 2 small guys: Deploy Dracolich if you have engine cards in your starting 3, because you need to start the engine ASAP. Otherwise deploy your Zombies or Skeletons to try to draw into a better leader. Hopefully you have a Strength in Numbers (to quickly deploy extra guys) or Zombie + Call to Battle to start building up Morale ASAP.
Lich Necromancer + 2x Skeleton Warriors: You're fine. You can deploy your Skeleton Warrior at the end of your first turn without losing out, because you can deploy adjacent to the Lich.
Disciple + 2x Lich: Unless your opponent is playing a lot of Goblin Cutters or something, or you just have absolutely no engine cards in hand, go with Lich. Hope you roll right on the 78% chance of getting a Zombie or Skeleton to deploy next, or you might not last long this game.
2x Disciple + Lich: With Strength in Numbers in hand, I would deploy Disciple and the second one at the end of the first turn with any melee warband.
Dracolich + 2x Lich:
This is hard. I think you want Dracolich unless you have Strength in Numbers (hopefully 2 of them), because if you draw a Disciple next you're going to lose with Lich. Short range and mostly a glass cannon is not good if you can't deploy bodyguards. Dracolich is so impressive, you might be able to cower a bit, shoot lightning all over the map and drag out the game long enough to come back into it.
Commander
Delthrin Everet
His ability: Gain 1 leadership for each enemy creature destroyed during your turn.
Creatures
Undead: Vampire Stalker, Skeletal Lancer, Hypnotic Spirit, Skeletal Tomb Guardian, Warrior Skeleton
Goblins: Horned Devil, Goblin Wolf Rider, Bugbear Berserker, Goblin Champion, Hobgoblin Soldier
Lolth: Shadow Mastiff
Cormyr: Elf Archer
Order Cards
Undead: Magic Short Sword, Defensive Advantage 2, Unbreakable 2, Call to Battle, Hypnotic Gaze, Warning Shout 2, Regenerate, and Terrifying Revelation
Goblins: Acrobatics 2, Loping Stride 2, Feral Vitality, Undaunted Surge 2, Death Sentence 2, Strength in Numbers 2, and Mortal Wound
Lolth: Piercing Strike 2, Quick Jab 2, Fire Trap, Parry 2, and Near Miss 2
Cormyr: Healing Potion, and Into the Fray
Strategy Options
Call to Battle is potentially the worst choice of the order cards since it requires a magic circle to operate optimally and none of my other order cards or creatures make any use of magic circles. If I were to substitute the Hobgoblin Sorcerer for the Hypnotic Spirit then perhaps this could be resolved. Otherwise perhaps Call to Battle should be replaced by Portal Stone or Saving Throw.
Inspiration
The vampire is an amazing character and I wanted to include some of each faction in my set.
Ability Restriction on the Order Cards
Dexterity: 13
Constititution: 10
Charisma: 10
Any: 3
Abilities of the Creatures
Dexterity: 6
Constitution:7
Charisma: 5
Weaknesses of the Order Cards
I only have seven cards out of thirty-six that give me extra mobility. Ony one card, Into the Fray, gives one of my pieces an extra move as a minor action. Hypnotic Gaze, which I have two of, allows me to move one enemy three squares. Acrobatics and Loping Stride are the main order cards I am counting on to increase my mobility. Having two of each, I should be able to use them on either my bugbear or vampire who I hope will become tough, mobile killers.
Main Plan
I have inclueded a lot of attach cards that ought to enhance either my bugbear or my vampire. In total I have nine; they make up 25% of my deck. In addition to the four mobility cards I mentioned in the paragraph above I have three that will enhance my attacks and two that will help my characters survive. The offensive cards are magic short sword, which requires creatures to absorb the melee damage they are dealt, and undaunted surge, which adds ten melee damage to the creature it is attacked to. These work particularly well with the bugbear since whenever an adjacent creature is destroyed he is untapped. The vampire's slightly less awesome ability is the that he gains ten health every time he does melee damage to an opponent. The two defense oriented cards are tough as nails and regenerate. I only have one of each though so I cannot count on gaining them during a game. Conceptually, either the vampire or the bugbear can be come very impressive creatures as I add attach more and more order cards to them. I have another attach card not mentioned as part of the 25% since it dosesn't work on the bugbear. Although I did mention Call to Battle earlier. Unfortunately Call to Battle isn't a great card to play on a creature that already has a lot of order cards attached.
Commander
Delthrin Everet
Creatures (12)
Warrior Skeleton x4
Skeletal Tomb Guardian x2
Disciple of Kyuss x2
Lich Necromancer x2
Dracolich x2
Orders (32, because I can't decide which 2 to ditch):
Patch Up x3
Hulking Attack x4
Defensive Advantage x4
Reckless Attack x2
Feral Vitality x2
Warning Shout x3
Death Sentence x3
Unending Horde x2
Arcane Ritual x2
Fireball x2
Vampiric Touch x2
Gout of Fire x3
Lich Necromancer is by far the preferred card for opening hand, preferably along with a skeleton bodyguard. Failing that a Dracolich will do. Once you get a few kills in the Leadership bonus for commander kicks in and that's why this deck consists of higher average level than most decks I've played so far (if not all). I might have problems against a very defensive enemy like a turtle adventurer deck (haven't faced that with this deck yet). A couple of Strength in Numbers might help. These are wonderful if you draw them in opening hand, but completely useless further on in the game. Just about every card is more useful being drawn in the end game than Strength in Numbers so I left them out (for now, if I feel I am consistently struggling with Leadership in early game I might still add them).
As for the rest of the Order deck, it's a healthy mix of Con and Int/Cha. Half the deck consists of Con Orders that will protect my 6 skeletons or help them hit harder (with added advantages of drawing cards or gaining morale). The other half of the deck consists of Cha and Int cards that are all usable by my 6 Int/Cha ranged creatures. Basically my Int/Cha creatures lead from the back and aid the Skeletons (Unending Horde, Death Sentence, Warning Shout) while occasionaly laying down some fire themselves (Gout of Fire, Fireball). Vampiric Touch is there to make sure that my Leaders survice direct contact with enemies a bit longer, should any get to them.
Let me know what you think...
I will suppose that some of your card choices are due to being limited to 2x of them. IMO you will likely find Death Sentence to be a bit underwhelming in this warband due to the lack of heavy hitters on your frontline, so I'd cut those and add 1x copy of something else. Patch Up, Warning Shout or Gout of Fire are all excellent choices. An extra Gout of Fire would be a good idea. IIRC Death Sentence is melee, which means Gout of Fire is +30 damage but Death Sentence will at most be worth +20, even if you were to use it on a Dracolich. It's the sort of card you want to use on a Feral Troll, Bugbear or Horned Devil (maybe a Goblin Champion with Flanking active), not level 1s or 2s.
You forget that the Skeletal Tomb Guardian has a very nice side effect when adjacent to multiple enemies (which you would first maneuver him into before using Death Sentence of course). Also, the nice thing about Death Sentence is that you can either draw out Immediates and follow up with the extra damage cards which then go through unopposed or do it the other way around (granted, without the extra damage). Gout of Fire, while being very good (there's a reason I've included 3) is one attack, which can be prevented. I'd rather have a little versatility and keep it in there.
I will admit that Death Sentence was already on the list of cards to go if I decide I need others, like Strength in Numbers if I feel I need them, or maybe Call to Battle.....or more Reckless Attack, or Tough as Nails or Faerie Fire, or Web...there are tons of cards which could be good. The difficulty with Deck Building isn't what to put in, but what to leave out ;)
An extra Gout of Fire would be a good idea.
"Gout of Fire: Level 3 INT, Standard - Requires Ranged, Make a ranged attack that deals Weapon + 20 damage" Maybe one of us is mistaken about the effects of Gout of Fire. But unless this order card can used in conjunction with the Dracolich's special ability, I think Gout of Fire is lacking a niche.
Why am I seeing so many decks running Delthrin Everet? Does everyone else play in a metagame full of level 1 dudes? You have to kill 4 enemy creatures (with only 3 starting orders!) before he has a single stat better than Kalteros, at which point the game should be almost over. What gives?
Why am I seeing so many decks running Delthrin Everet? Does everyone else play in a metagame full of level 1 dudes? You have to kill 4 enemy creatures (with only 3 starting orders!) before he has a single stat better than Kalteros, at which point the game should be almost over. What gives?
Delthrin Everet heavily incentivizes your opponent to cower, and every time your opponent cowers instead of taking damage or just letting his creature finally die, you're winning a bit more. That's also why I hate 'cannot prevent damage' cards... cowering is damage prevention so Magic Shortsword and such does not give your opponent the rope to hang himself with.
The fact he's also stellar against what was the best warband before Curse came out (Goblin swarm) is gravy.
However, since it appears I'm the only player locally who realized the power of swarm and everyone is now packing 3 Fireballs and extra stuff just to deal with me, I'm switching over to the other Undead commander.
It seems to me that the danger of playing Delthrin Everet is mostly that your opponent will only bring out his high level characters. And you will be left only killing a few of them before the game ends. However, it is the low level characters that are most effective. Perhaps the point of this commander is to incentivize higher level creatures.
I kind of disagree that lower-level creatures are more effective, though. There are certainly advantages to running a bunch of dudes, but there are a lot of cards that scale quite well with higher levels, or that really punish swarms. It seems pretty balanced to me at this point.
Even aside from that, though, four dudes is a whole lot to kill, and since you're not running Snig, you've got to kill four dudes and then get the extra guys into position, and even then you've just gotten to the point where you started 10 LD and otherwise have the worst stats in the game. He just seems bad to me, even if you expect a swarm. If you think you're going to be facing down infinite dudes, I'd rather just build a deck that's effective against that than run a commander that might be.
I kind of disagree that lower-level creatures are more effective, though. There are certainly advantages to running a bunch of dudes, but there are a lot of cards that scale quite well with higher levels, or that really punish swarms.
Yesterday I had 4 Zombies take down a Dracolich by themselves. It was a thing of beauty. The Dracolich was able to kill one and severely bang up the remaining three (they only had 10 HP remaining each) but I consider that more than an even trade, all things considered.
Good use of cover (that Lightning Breath is sort of scary) and overconfidence on the part of my opponent.
Absolutely, and Zombies are good for that too (other than being slow, hence needing overconfidence) because they're really hard to take out for a level 1.
On the other hand, I've killed 10+ levels of level 3 or less guys on one turn with a Bugbear several times, but conversely barely pulled out a super close game with my tuned Int/Cha deck vs. the Undead starter box. Optimization talk aside, one of the awesome things about DC is that things tend to be close enough in power that good gameplay is always important. (And as you point out, overconfidence will almost always kill you, that's part of what happened to me vs. the Undead box.)
I kind of disagree that lower-level creatures are more effective, though. There are certainly advantages to running a bunch of dudes, but there are a lot of cards that scale quite well with higher levels, or that really punish swarms.
Yesterday I had 4 Zombies take down a Dracolich by themselves. It was a thing of beauty. The Dracolich was able to kill one and severely bang up the remaining three (they only had 10 HP remaining each) but I consider that more than an even trade, all things considered.
Good use of cover (that Lightning Breath is sort of scary) and overconfidence on the part of my opponent.
It's easy to get overconfident with one of the "big guys". My goblins took down a Dracolich the same way. Cutters and Archers pack a nasty (and quite massive) punch when being allowed to gang up on a single opponent.
2x Goblin Archer (best 1 drop in the game, has DEX)
2x Hypnotic Spirit (CHA, basically wins any 1 on 1 confrontation long term)
2x Goblin Champion (more CHA, DEX, flanking is decent in a melee warband)
3x Vampire Stalker (core of the band with...)
2x Bugbear (oh yeah, this can escalate quickly)
1x Horned Devil (a final CON, CHA bruiser at the high end of the curve, could be the 3rd Archer)
2x Magic Shortsword
3x Death Sentence
3x Hypnotic Gaze
4x Defensive Advantage (hey, no Scheme, Lolth's Blessing or Arcane Circle)
2x Unbreakable
2x Tough as Nails
4x Undaunted Surge
4x Quick Jab
3x Nimble Strike
3x Spring Attack
I call it Chessmaster. Other former Dreamblade players will get the reference. I am going to be playing it with either the 8 or 9 Leadership commander. I think Tarkon because I want them to wish to refrain from cowering.
I can certainly see posibilities for Spring Attack and the Bugbear. Bugbear with an Undaunted Surge could kill a creature with one hit, then you could play Spring Attack, move six spaces, kill another creature, move six more spaces, kill another creature, move seven spaces, and then attack a fourth creature for thirty damage. Using only two order cards and your bugbear you would have split 120 damage equally between four creatures.
Hypnotic Gaze is your only card that lets you move your opponents and since it is useable by two-thirds of your creatures it is likely to help you set up the battlefield the way that you want.
I think 2x Magic Shortsword is good because you just will never get an opportunity to kill multiple creatures even with Tarkon as a commander unless you can force damage through. You don't want 4x because they'll just get stuck in hand, and even 3x is a bit pushing it.
Commander : Tarkon
Creatures (no change)
2x Goblin Archer
2x Hypnotic Spirit
2x Goblin Champion
3x Vampire Stalker
2x Bugbear
1x Horned Devil
2x Magic Shortsword
4x Death Sentence
4x Hypnotic Gaze
4x Defensive Advantage
2x Unbreakable
4x Undaunted Surge
4x Quick Jab
3x Nimble Strike
3x Spring Attack
I never drew Regenerate and there is not a single time I thought it would have been a great card to draw, so I cut them back and will be putting in the last Hypnotic Gaze and Death Sentence. Death Sentence isn't great with Bugbear but is stellar with a boosted up Vampire and serves as extra Quick Jab for speedy healing. Hypnotic Gaze is just really devastating and when they know you have it, it often forces your opponent to play suboptimally just so they don't get blown off by a well timed Hypnotic Gaze.
Never drew the Magic Shortsword so I'm seriously considering cutting it due to it being somewhat less than useful. I'd like the fourth of Nimble Strike and Spring Attack, though I don't actually own the Nimble Strike... Unbreakable is also a bit underwhelming at time, it could easily be a Close Call or some other level 3 DEX card to allow use by Goblin Champion.
That looks pretty solid. Although the Goblin Champion is....well...a sub-optimal creature, I get why you would want to include it on account of the Dex/Cha combo. Let us know how this warband performs in future encounters.
Goblin Champion is slightly fragile but will almost always hit as hard as a Vampire without a +10 damage boost card. If anything, I think the Hypnotic Spectre is the creature that is subpar in general (though it is an excellent treasure hunter). Almost all the mobility in the warband is in the DEX cards.
curerntly we each started with a set and then drafted from 1 of each set. we also allow trades.
Currently I am the goblin player here it is:
2x Horned Demon
2x Vampire
2x Goblin Archer
2x Wolf
1x Bugbear
1x goblin Wolf rider
1x 4 armed skeleton
1x gravehound
(My ideal list is 3 vampires, 3 horned demons, 3 archers and 3 gravehounds.)
Order Cards:
1 Magic Sword
2 Tough As Nails
4 Undaunted Surge
4 Broken Weapon
4 Reckless Attack
4 Unbreakable
2 Hulking Strike
2 Defensive Advantage
1 Regeneration
4 Warning Shouts
4 Death Sentence
4 Gaze
2 +1 Leadership?
1 Level up
2 Patch up
(Ideal deck is):
4 magic sword
4 tough as nails
4 Reckless Attack
4 Unbreakable
4 Defensive Advantage
4 Death Sentence
4 Gaze
4 Warning Shout
4 Broken Weapon
4 Undaunted Surge
my group is doing a base set + draft system for our games.
That's... actually kind of awesome. I should talk with our tournament buddies to set up something similar for a league.
my group is doing a base set + draft system for our games.
That's... actually kind of awesome. I should talk with our tournament buddies to set up something similar for a league.
We all started with a base box (i was goblin, player 2 was croymyr, player 3 was drow and player 4 was undead.)
we then opened a 2nd copy of all 4 and put it in the middle of the table.
re rolled off for draft position. 1-4
then we draft in a first in first out order.
player 1 drafts 1 item
player 2 drafts 1 item
player 3 drafts 1 item
player 4 drafts 2 items.
player 3 drafts 1 item
player 2 drafts 1 item
player 1 drafts 2 items.
player 2 drafts 1 item
repeat untill you stop.
we did 24 drafts the first go round, but we think thats too many now. our ideal is to do 12 drafts then play a round robin tourney and then do another draft.
our tourney is a round robin so each palyer plays all others.
so we play 3 1v1 games.
then the lowest player and the highest player team up for a team game against the other 2.
after that we rank for the tourneyment
so If i won all 3 of my 1v1's i would team with the lowest player, lets say he only won 1 game.
we lose our team game and now im tied with 3 wins with whoever was in 2nd place.
we use the 1v1 games as a tie breaker, so since I beat the person I'm tied with in our 1v1 match I take first place.
as victory for being the overall winner of our mini tourney i get to pick the next box to open and add to the draft pile, As well as i get to take any 1 single pull before the draft begins. My team mate from the team game gets a free pick after me to give him incentive to play well during the team game even if hes last place.
then we repeat the draft with 1-4.
then play another tourney.
it's working fairly well the only issue we see is that if one player gets a deck that is too powerfull it makes it much less fun for the rest of the group. although after we do a few tourneys we plan to reset and swap starter boxes.
sadly I haven't been playing any Dungeon Command since I last posted my own warband, so I can't really tell you how it did (it was already updated from playtesting a previous version), but I'm hoping to get some games in during the holidays.
Soooo.....aside from more warbands, which I'm always interested in seeing, how have people done with the warbands posted here so far? Did they work like you imagined, did you edit them (how and for what reason?) I'm interested in hearing these things.
sadly I haven't been playing any Dungeon Command since I last posted my own warband, so I can't really tell you how it did (it was already updated from playtesting a previous version), but I'm hoping to get some games in during the holidays.
At this point I pretty much never lose, having about 90%+ win percentage. I am almost certain it's not my warband choice per say, but just that I have actually thought about this game a lot more than the other local players.
After one game, a change around.
Commander : Tarkon
Creatures (no change)
2x Goblin Archer
2x Hypnotic Spirit
2x Goblin Champion
3x Vampire Stalker
2x Bugbear
1x Horned Devil
2x Magic Shortsword
4x Death Sentence
4x Hypnotic Gaze
4x Defensive Advantage
2x Unbreakable
4x Undaunted Surge
4x Quick Jab
3x Nimble Strike
3x Spring Attack
I never drew Regenerate and there is not a single time I thought it would have been a great card to draw, so I cut them back and will be putting in the last Hypnotic Gaze and Death Sentence. Death Sentence isn't great with Bugbear but is stellar with a boosted up Vampire and serves as extra Quick Jab for speedy healing. Hypnotic Gaze is just really devastating and when they know you have it, it often forces your opponent to play suboptimally just so they don't get blown off by a well timed Hypnotic Gaze.
Never drew the Magic Shortsword so I'm seriously considering cutting it due to it being somewhat less than useful. I'd like the fourth of Nimble Strike and Spring Attack, though I don't actually own the Nimble Strike... Unbreakable is also a bit underwhelming at time, it could easily be a Close Call or some other level 3 DEX card to allow use by Goblin Champion.
I have only had the chance to play to non-constructed games of this myself and I have fallen in love with the game. I just looked over your warband and it looks awesome. Even has a few creatures I wanted to mess with.
I love the inclusion of Defensive Advantage. I know I've seen so much talk over the Ritual or Blessing but this card itself is a wonderful toolbox card. Any card replacing itself deserves to be looked at closely.
Now for the Magic Shortword, even though you haven't had a chance to use it, I imagine it would be a great card not only against Preventive orders, but also when they are cowering since that prevents damage, am I correct? Only running two seems like a good idea, and if sideboards were in this game, it definitely seems like it would make a great card for that.
At this point I pretty much never lose, having about 90%+ win percentage. I am almost certain it's not my warband choice per say, but just that I have actually thought about this game a lot more than the other local players.
I'm in the same boat, more or less. One of our regulars (who doesn't post here) has spent about as much time with it and tends to give me a run for my money; he won our November tournament, I won the December one, and we are pretty close in actual games too. There's one other person in our local meta who is pretty skilled, but he's got a lot fewer cards than either of us so hasn't managed to beat me yet (to his sadness) though he's gotten quite close and I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of time.
I've got three new post-Curse lists plus a new version of Bugbear Bowling that was so combotastic I took it apart for being basically intolerable. I keep meaning to post them here, but unfortunately now that I have time I realize I left them at the store, so can't do it at the moment.
I will say: I like the metagame a lot, with the exception of Bugbear Bowling. It's not quite unbeatable in a general sense, but it is infuriatingly non-interactive and there are some decks that seem to have no chance at all against it if it's competently commanded (namely anything without 90+ HP creatures). I don't have an exact list, but the variant that seems to work the best is roughly:
Aliszandra Malistros
3 Priestess of Lolth
3 Bugbear Berserker
4 Demonweb Spider
0-2 Elf Archer
0-2 Dwarf Cleric
(Elf Archers are the more combo build, Dwarf Clerics are if you want to have some kind of backup plan where you can stand and fight. Malistros is important because you get super fast spiders and so pretty much always get a lot of free morale, and 4 creature hand is really important.)
3+ Scheme
3+ Blessing of Lolth
(Lurking the Drow Priestess in the back ranks and drawing a million cards is super important since the whole plan is to dump cards into the Bugbear while it munches their team.)
2+ Stealth (My most important innovation post-Curse other than Magic Short Sword, I'm not normally a fan of Stealth but starting the degenerate run anywhere is just unreal)
4 Quick Jab
3+ Magic Short Sword (If you still think this card is bad, build and test this deck, it's infuriatingly good in here)
3+ Undaunted Surge
3+ Shadowy Ambush
2+ Spring Attack
0-1 Secret Passage/Into the Fray/whatever
(This is the engine: pop the Bugbear out of Stealth in the least convenient location possible, then proceed to murder their whole team. It's really difficult to stop because emerging from Stealth doesn't take your move, so the Bugbear can kill the nearest dude, untap, move 7, kill another dude, and only then has to start burning cards that allow moves like Shadowy Ambush or Spring Attack.)
The above deck core is 23 if you don't plus anything. So you can add more copies of engine stuff, or put in a few of the other cards that are brutally good with the Bugbear; good choices include Vial of Poison (of all things), Feint, Uncanny Dodge, Daring Attack (40 unpreventable damage + untap, whee!) and Seize the Opportunity; I or my friend have had good success with all of these. But it's really a brutal basic package.
Anyway, I don't think the game's fundamentally broken or anything, but if other people have played with/against similar decks, I'd love to hear what you think has a reasonable chance. I have a heavy hitter deck that can theoretically get there, based in large part on being able to camp the bugbear deployment area with a Dragon Knight, but it still feels pretty uphill. There are just so few things you can do to even interfere with a Bugbear kill run (Patch Up, local Dwarf Cleric, Cloud of Bats, and Seize the Opportunity sometimes do something) that you just get mathed out a whole lot of the time.
I think a Skeleton warband would have a shot against Combo Bugbear builds. My friend was trying to beat me up with his but he's not as enamored of swarm tactics as I am so he would be playing, IMO, too many top heavy guys in his warband, so I could often combo him out with Bugbear Berserker on turn 2 or 3. Killing a full Dracolich because it's the only thing on the table and you have Shortsword, Undaunted Surge and two Quick Jab, and therefore winning on the "wipe whole team" victory condition.
Skellies are 50 HPs at level 2, you can make it really costly in Order cards to try and kill them off. Skeleton Lancer can drop another one directly in play so that sort of cancels out a combo rush and forces more cards being spent. You of course need a build that can go after Priestesses quickly so you don't drown in card disadvantage either, but in theory you can do something decent I believe.
Once you have a decent anti-combo build, then the Combo Bugbear will need to dial down the combo pieces to shore up the matchup (right now I draw WAY too many extra Magic Shortsword or Undaunted Surge I can't use, or even sometimes Lolth's Blessing or Schemes that I don't want because I'm getting into the late game and I need my Priestess' activations for that little bit of extra damage). At this point other bands will get a bit more of a fighting chance. Overall the combo build plays a bit too many cards that I find aren't quite as efficient as I like in order to be able to finish off a full army in one turn. This means after you have a really explosive turn, if you didn't finish off the opposition they can possibly regroup and use more efficient cards and creatures to gain back an edge.
Shadowy Ambush is a melee attack, so it gets the +10, yeah. Also note the "wipe your team" condition only triggers if they have nothing at the end of their turn after deployment, so basically is just the out for if you manage to kill their whole creature deck without zeroing morale; they can always redeploy even if you kill their only dragon or w/e.
For that reason I actually think high HP guys are probably better vs. the combo than a bunch of lower ones. At least Undead swarms have a lot of HP for their size so that's likely to be better than goblins, but Shadowy Ambush or Quick Jab still kills a skeleton warrior and I think the Lancer is actively bad since if you replace they don't need to have a move card to keep grinding it out. Still, it could be that l2's that don't die to a single hit clog up the works some, that's worth testing out.
... and I think the Lancer is actively bad since if you replace they don't need to have a move card to keep grinding it out.
Unless you replace in the square that wasn't adjacent to the attacking monster. If I remember correctly you get to replace in any of the 4 squares of a larger creature. I could be wrong though, haven't played the Lancer yet and this isn't an issue with the Wolf Rider of course.
... and I think the Lancer is actively bad since if you replace they don't need to have a move card to keep grinding it out.
Unless you replace in the square that wasn't adjacent to the attacking monster. If I remember correctly you get to replace in any of the 4 squares of a larger creature. I could be wrong though, haven't played the Lancer yet and this isn't an issue with the Wolf Rider of course.
Fair point, I forgot that one was large. At least makes them need a Shadowy Ambush.
Also note the "wipe your team" condition only triggers if they have nothing at the end of their turn after deployment
Oh. We played that wrong.
That's a relief. This actually switches my impression of this warband and Magic Shortsword from 'Bah-roken' (God-tier) to tier 1, and it puts back Magic Shortsword to 'probably just win-more' instead of 'crucial combo piece that might need a ban' in my evaluation. I think this warband is good but I was only going to start playing this over my CHA-based version because I thought you could combo-kill someone in one turn on the early game. If the game has to last longer then I think the card selection is not efficient enough.
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 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.
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
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 would definitely try to get another Lich Necromancer in there (at least one). By far the most important creature in an Undead themed warband. I'd drop the Horned Devil for it personally, why even add that? Sure it's a decent enough creature by itself, but with an otherwise all Undead band that can deploy in the thick of the action with Lich Necromancer, why would you want to deploy a level 6 creature in your deployment zone and possibly have him only moving for one or two turns. Seems a waste to me.
I'd also drop the Zombies. They're not bad, but they'll clutter your creature deck and prevent you from drawing that which you probably need more. You could drop the skeletons instead, but skellies can use more Con order cards than Zombies can so I'd drop the Zombies instead.
As for the Order deck: why 2x Revelation? Your one Dracolich is the only creature that can use this on it's own. Otherwise you'll need your one Lich Necromancer AND your one Disciple of Kyuss. You'll most likely won't be in situations a lot where you'd choose to play Revelation over activating these creatures (if they are on the board at all) so this card will be dead in hand like 95% of the time (at least it would be if I were playing this warband). The rest of the deck seems solid enough. I run a somewhat similar warband, take a look back earlier in this thread if you'd like to see what I did with Order Cards (biggest difference that I don't run Vampire Stalker or Hypnotic Spirit)
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.
The rules state you need AT LEAST 12 Creatures in your deck, and indeed can have more. The same for the Order Deck, which must be AT LEAST 30 Order Cards. Generally, you wouldn't wanted more than those to increase your efficiency of using them, but I could see with certain Leaders and deck styles a little more make work.
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.
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.
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
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
Drow Wizard x2
Drider x2
Drow Priestess x2
Shadow Mastiff x2
Close call x4
Quick Jab x4
Feint x2
Piercing Strike x4
Deep wound x2
Spring attack x4
Web x4
Scheme x2
Lolths blessing x2
Grovel x4
Commander Tarkon Draal
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.
Yeah, I am not sure what I was thinking when I posted that. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
I chose not to run Bugbear beacuse his level is too high and I don't feel that he fits the theme of the deck. While he would be great with the Goblin War Cry, I don't think that he could add up to the damage that four Goblin Cutters would do in his place. While Bugbear is amazing when the Order deck is built around him, in this particular build I don't seem him being nearly as powerful.
Dualsparks, have you tried using Aliszandra Malistros as your commander? The extra movement speed for spiders and drow has won me quite a few games and the extra Creature and Order cards that you will start with are also quite helpful.
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?
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?
I like your list a fair bit overall. Nice dex-creature mix. I think your orders are reasonable, but I'd try to work Shadowy Ambush in there somewhere, it's an amazing damage boost and the dex guys often need it, since they don't hit very hard base. Nimble Strike would also be a nice fit. I find with heavy dex warbands I really want some things to boost damage because otherwise taking down something like a Dragon Knight can be a real chore.
I also think Web has gotten a lot less strong post Tyrrany of Goblins, because a lot of the guys you really want to lock down with it have Con, so there's a high chance it's just going to get thrown off by Tough as Nails or Undaunted Surge for not much good effect. I'd look at replacing the Webs with some number of Ambushes.
I think you're right Malistros would be a pretty reasonable leader choice; Speed 10 Driders are awesome, and 4/5 starting hands are pretty sweet. Snigg the Axe is also a pretty good plan for a deck like this. Most of your creatures are going to be showing up at the front lines, so being able to drop them and immediately activate them makes it very difficult for the opponent to do any kind of forward planning.
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 revised the deck. My primary opponent plays Cormyr with 4 clerics and 4 defenders and multiple elf archers.
1 Dracolich Cha/Int Lvl 6
2-3 Lich Cha/Int Lvl 5
1 Lancer Con Lvl 4
3 Vampire Dex/Con/Cha Lvl 4
2 Tomb G. Con Lvl 3
2 Hypno S. Cha Lvl 3
2 Skeleton Con Lvl 2
2 Zombie Con Lvl 1
Order deck (Organized by Ability Level)
Con 1 Con 2 Con 3
3 Reckless Attack 2 Defensive Advantage 2 Undaunted Surge
2 Careful attack 2 Tough as Nails
Cha 3 Int 3 Any 1
4 Warning Shout 2 Dispel Magic 2 Magic shortsword
2 Unending horde 2 Cloud of bats 2 Shattered weapon
2 Fear
2 Call to Battle Sidebar
3 Death Sentence Strength in Numbers Dimension Door
4 Hypnotic Gaze Feral Vitality 4x Defensive Advantage
This deck uses higher level than average miniatures but I feel with Delthrin my leadership can jump up after a couple kills or I sidebar a few strength in numbers. The Lich is absolutely important to deploy as soon as possible. It can set up as a mobile base away from my deploy area and start pumping my morale via C. to Battle and raising zombies. I play as many arcane circles as possible (two big tiles and little tile from Cormyr) and attach call to battle to a hypno spirit who jumps around the map and raises my morale. My vampires are my main threat with short sword and gaze. I play C. of Bats to protect my lich or vampire who is in a pinch. I'm not sold on the attach Con order cards but they feel more useful than my 4 copies of grovel. I usually lose peices to focus ranged fire, I just have to be more mindful of terrain. The hypno is excellent at breaking up formations and sliding enemies into damaging terrain via fear. What tactics do you play as undead? Does this warband seem solid? I have a tournament in 4 weeks.
I like your list a fair bit overall. Nice dex-creature mix. I think your orders are reasonable, but I'd try to work Shadowy Ambush in there somewhere, it's an amazing damage boost and the dex guys often need it, since they don't hit very hard base. Nimble Strike would also be a nice fit. I find with heavy dex warbands I really want some things to boost damage because otherwise taking down something like a Dragon Knight can be a real chore.
I also think Web has gotten a lot less strong post Tyrrany of Goblins, because a lot of the guys you really want to lock down with it have Con, so there's a high chance it's just going to get thrown off by Tough as Nails or Undaunted Surge for not much good effect. I'd look at replacing the Webs with some number of Ambushes.
I think you're right Malistros would be a pretty reasonable leader choice; Speed 10 Driders are awesome, and 4/5 starting hands are pretty sweet. Snigg the Axe is also a pretty good plan for a deck like this. Most of your creatures are going to be showing up at the front lines, so being able to drop them and immediately activate them makes it very difficult for the opponent to do any kind of forward planning.
i did this changes:
-2 deep wounds
+2 feints
-2 web
+2 shadowy ambush
-2 scheme
+2 lolth blessing
And set my commander as malistros
i won 3 games:
Goblin deck
Undead deck (swarming skeletons seems cool too)
and an adventurer deck
that was pretty close i was left with 2 morale
shadowy ambush was a great call against this deck, i hit hard and cover well
another thing, i should change the wizards or put others int cards?
i did this changes:
-2 deep wounds
+2 feints
-2 web
+2 shadowy ambush
-2 scheme
+2 lolth blessing
And set my commander as malistros
i won 3 games:
Goblin deck
Undead deck (swarming skeletons seems cool too)
and an adventurer deck
that was pretty close i was left with 2 morale
shadowy ambush was a great call against this deck, i hit hard and cover well
another thing, i should change the wizards or put others int cards?
I think the wizards are probably fine, they're quite nice Dex creatures since they have a long-ranged, hard-hitting attack and are only level 2. I think if you want to switch out creatures I'd start with the Shadow Mastiffs, they only really impress me with Snigg the Axe.
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!
Yeah it's an easy thing to be confused about; Scuttle is a fine ability but it basically makes you better at assasination runs rather than any harder to pin down. Also, Burrow lets you ignore enemy creatures while moving anyway, so the Umber Hulk already has a better version of Scuttle.
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).
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).
Correct. Though, the card wouldn't have to say "Shift X squares" it could also say "Move X" or whatever. Basically, when a creature is next to an enemy, it's Speed stat is set to 1, trumping all modifiers. Since your free move for the turn is "Move your Speed", you can only move 1 if you start next to an enemy.
So, any card that calls on the creature's Speed (like Into the Fray) will return 1 if the creature starts the move next to an enemy. Any card that just lists a number won't care. So in theory if a card existed that said "Move 6 squares" you could get 6 out of it even if you started next to an enemy. Presumably they all say shift because if it were a move you'd have to stop if you moved next to an enemy, which would make it less useful and also probably confusing. Speed is also measured at the start of the move, not of the turn, so if you were really desperate you could use Into the Fray while next to an enemy to move back 1 to get free, then use your normal move at full speed (or vice versa).
None of the stock movement modes ignore starting next to an enemy, though all of them allow you to move past them.
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?
Adventurer band was pretty good when just Heart of Cormyr and Sting of Lolth were out. With the newest faction packs not bringing any new adventurers (IIRC) the adventurer warband has kind of lost it's appeal to me. Actually, it never had that much appeal to me to begin with since it was such a slow and defensive warband, but that's all just personal opinion. I haven't heard or seen much about adventurer warbands lately and assume we won't unless more adventurers come out in future faction packs (if there will be any). Of course, I still count several of the creatures with the adventurer keyword among the best creatures, but an all adventurers band....not right now (for me anyway).
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.
My current deck that has been treating me very well (background info being that I own two of every set, no more, no less):
Commander
Delthrin Everet
Creatures (12)
Warrior Skeleton x4
Skeletal Tomb Guardian x2
Disciple of Kyuss x2
Lich Necromancer x2
Dracolich x2
Orders (32, because I can't decide which 2 to ditch):
Patch Up x3
Hulking Attack x4
Defensive Advantage x4
Reckless Attack x2
Feral Vitality x2
Warning Shout x3
Death Sentence x3
Unending Horde x2
Arcane Ritual x2
Fireball x2
Vampiric Touch x2
Gout of Fire x3
Lich Necromancer is by far the preferred card for opening hand, preferably along with a skeleton bodyguard. Failing that a Dracolich will do. Once you get a few kills in the Leadership bonus for commander kicks in and that's why this deck consists of higher average level than most decks I've played so far (if not all). I might have problems against a very defensive enemy like a turtle adventurer deck (haven't faced that with this deck yet). A couple of Strength in Numbers might help. These are wonderful if you draw them in opening hand, but completely useless further on in the game. Just about every card is more useful being drawn in the end game than Strength in Numbers so I left them out (for now, if I feel I am consistently struggling with Leadership in early game I might still add them).
As for the rest of the Order deck, it's a healthy mix of Con and Int/Cha. Half the deck consists of Con Orders that will protect my 6 skeletons or help them hit harder (with added advantages of drawing cards or gaining morale). The other half of the deck consists of Cha and Int cards that are all usable by my 6 Int/Cha ranged creatures. Basically my Int/Cha creatures lead from the back and aid the Skeletons (Unending Horde, Death Sentence, Warning Shout) while occasionaly laying down some fire themselves (Gout of Fire, Fireball). Vampiric Touch is there to make sure that my Leaders survice direct contact with enemies a bit longer, should any get to them.
Let me know what you think...
Two tomb guardians but not a single 'fear' or 'hypnotic gaze'?
Fear and hypnotic gaze are both great cards from CoU that half your deck can use and which can also herd enemies into your tomb guardian (which then makes the daeth sentence worth more).
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?
Adventurer band was pretty good when just Heart of Cormyr and Sting of Lolth were out. With the newest faction packs not bringing any new adventurers (IIRC) the adventurer warband has kind of lost it's appeal to me. Actually, it never had that much appeal to me to begin with since it was such a slow and defensive warband, but that's all just personal opinion. I haven't heard or seen much about adventurer warbands lately and assume we won't unless more adventurers come out in future faction packs (if there will be any). Of course, I still count several of the creatures with the adventurer keyword among the best creatures, but an all adventurers band....not right now (for me anyway).
Adventurer decks are only slow and defensive if you build them that way...they can be very fast and aggressive...
Mine currently has:
Leader:
either of two HoC leaders, depends how lucky I feel about card draw, I like both for what this deck is supposed to do, but teh Alarphon is the 'safe' bet most of the time.
Creatures:
4 x dragon knight
2 x half orc thug
2 x human ranger
4 x drow wizard
Orders:
4 x Behind Enemy Lines
4 x Heroic Surge
4 x Into the Fray
4 x Quick Shot
4 x Spring Attack
4 x Killing Strike
4 x Forceful Strike
2 x Stealth
Starting draw and what the other person seems to be doing decide if I'm aiming to get a small guy at home wiith a big hitter into their start zone to cause serious damage from the start, or if I'm throwing down my big hitter at home with small runners to rush home and gain me 4 morale each (blockages aside they can easily run most maps from start to start in one turn by moving 18-19 with just 1 spring attack and either an 'heroic surge' to untap and add another standard to move or an 'into the fray', meaning 24 to 26 move in one turn!).
Incidentally, really want them to bring out a bard, a L 3 or 4 CHA adventurer, preferably with INT too. Really like idea of deploying a CHA adventurer behind enemy lines who can then 'call to battle' through an 'open portal'. There are ways of doing bits of this already with Level Up, but not all of it, and it currently needs lots of cards to set up.
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.
Yeah it's the problem with 1-of guys like the Drow Wizard; he's one of the best level 2 figures in the game and is a pain in the butt to get 4 of. I open and sell singles for my store from time to time, which helps, and we do tournaments where people draft boxes as the prizes, but if you don't have an LGS that does that, it gets really hard to accumulate those without getting 4 boxes which is expensive and gives you useless 8-ofs. I can see why the distribution works like it does, but it is unfortunate for custom warband creation.
And I see where you're coming from on Scroll, my experience has just been that I've never really needed it. And I hate cards that cost you a card and will never kill a creature or cost an opponent a card in turn.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
Magic Circle square, you gain 1 Morale before deploying.
works really well with your hobgoblin sitting in a magic circle in the back, giving everyone tap to block 10, and picking up an order card at the end of his activation, and being that he's the first you'll usually activate throwing down the goblin war cries on him. When not summoning creatures he can spend his standard to play strength in numbers.
This sounds obvious to say but target the defenders first? They're only 40 hp and they're not adventurers so they don't get block 10 unless they level up. I'm sure your opponent will do his best to position them behind the beefier units but maybe some bugbear stealth / vial of poison play would work or many of the cards where you can shift and then attack.
Another card which would be great in the deck (and I should have remembered you don't have access to yet) is
Hypnotic Gaze 3 Charisma Standard Choose 1 enemy creature within 5 squares. Slide that creature 3 squares. Make a melee attack that deals +20 Damage.
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.
One last goodie from undeath that will really make this warband shine:
Unending Horde 3 Charisma Minor Each creature you control other than this creature shifts 3 squares.
This is another great minor you want to play on your hobgoblin sorcerer as part of the first activation on your turn. This will allow you to position everything to achieve flanking bonuses and help your bugbears get ready to snag that first kill and untap BEFORE their move action gets spent.
I can now see why you're having a tough time putting it all together... these are some really crucial cards for this strategy!
Grab the pdf of all cards released so far from the thread located here.
Do you think gobbos can work without that great stuff?
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.
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
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?
definately.
sorry - meant to say - 1 wolf with a piercing strike followed by 4 cutters is 100 damage from 5 levels and 1 card - add in a war cry (means a L3 Cha, of course) and that's a horned devil that will really wish it had a friend with shield/defend ally
(can't tap to use own defence and can't use battle ready)
better yet - even if they fireball the lot (apart from one that did war cry), you're still 1 morale up
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.
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.
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.
In his deck, yeah. Nimble Strike is superior.
In general, though, Stalk is level 1 and a Minor, so I can see it being worth playing in bands that need mobility and are playing mostly level 1 DEX guys, so that Nimble Strike is not sufficient.
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
Commander: Kalteros The Sellsword
Creatures: 12
4 Drow House Guards (Lvl 2)
2 Drow Priestess (Lvl 3)
2 Drow Assassin (Lvl 4)
2 Bugbear Beserkers (Lvl 4)
2 Goblin Cutters (Lvl 1)
Order Cards: 56
(Any)
2 Secret Passage (Lvl 1)
(Int)
4 Faerie Fire (Lvl 2)
(Wis)
4 Scheme (Lvl 2)
2 Lolth's Blessing (Lvl 3)
(Dex)
4 Deep Wound (Lvl 1)
4 Quick Jab (Lvl 1)
4 Piercing Strike (Lvl 1)
2 Feint (Lvl 1)
4 Spring Attack (Lvl2
4 Near Miss (Lvl 2)
4 Riposte (Lvl 2)
2 Uncanny Dodge (Lvl 2)
2 Vial of Poison (Lvl2)
2 Stealth (Lvl 2)
2 Fire Trap (Lvl 2)
4 Close Call (Lvl 3)
4 Shadowy Ambush (Lvl 3)
2 Sneak Attack (Lvl 6)
Combat Tiles
Undeath 2
Drow 2,3,4
This warband has a ton of order cards, but it needs a lot so that it doesn't run out. The strategy the first two or three rounds is to collect as much treasure and convert it into order cards as possible. After that has been done, hopefully a scheme or Lolth’s Blessing has been drawn and you need to start playing those while you keep the priestess in a defensive position (because they cannot take a hit). After fortifying your position, you move your army to engage (when you engage you should have around 10-15 order cards). With that many order cards you will be able to dish out large amounts of damage while defending yourself.
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.
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.
For the Order cards, I know that it is way too many but without play testing it I didn't want to cut something that could really help me. I agree with cutting riposte and uncanny dodge so that frees up 6. The other cards are more situational, I agree, but they are also life savers. Deep wound a lot of times will make them burn through a defense card that they normally wouldn't want to for 30 damage just so that they don't take the extra 10 every round. Vial of poison is a great standard to do before your guy can reach combat instead of wasting their standard (but after play testing might lose because only 4 of 12 don't have range). Fire trap I most likely will lose as well, but until I see the usefulness on the 3 trap tiles I have that is a hard decision. Also with the range that I have I can draw them into situations that fire trap can be very useful (I won't know until I playtest it some). Feint and Secret Passage I have both considered, but they have won the game for me both times I have drawn them. Since my warband works on getting as much treasure as quickly as possible, being able to move through walls and steal the enemies treasure is very clutch. Feint, on the other hand, is great for when you want to unload on someone minor to tap them then they can't do crap to prevent the attack…very useful for Bugbears killing spree.
All and all, though, I do agree with you on all the order cards you said to lose and after play testing it a few times I think that I will lose most if not all the ones you suggested. Those were actually the cards that I had considered losing (once I get my warband in the mail I will be able to test my theories).
I really appreciate the advice; it helped me reconsider things that I already doubted so it is good to have a second opinion.
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.
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.
The order cards are what I would really change though as you said you don't really care if you have shatter weapon on the wolf riders or the goblin archers so totally get rid of Dispel magic since you won't need it. I would also get rid of loping stride Death sentence is a good replacement for that or if you have the cards (or desire to buy them) 4 Quick shots would be extremely deadly. also get rid of leap away, the only advantage of the card is that you can use it on your goblin archers but then they are stuck there and won't be able to attack on their turn unless you have shatter weapon, instead get warning shout.
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) 
but the least HP 
(80hp). But it has deathstrike too!
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
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
That said, I agree, if you get that warband up an running the paintrain isn't going to be making any stops.
Vorpal Sword is win more. If you're dealing 50 damage in one go, you've killed something.
WereboarIt 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)
I don't think that you are allowed to attach two cards with the same name to a creatures. For example, you are not allowed to attach two beast master cards to one creature. Furthermore, I don't believe that your beast would be allowed to recieve the benifits from two different creatures who both had the beast master order card. The way around this problem is to attach undaunted surge to the Wereboar at the same time that a wisdom based character has the beast master order card. I am not one hundred percent certain of this rule, but I play by it.
WereboarIt 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)
I don't think that you are allowed to attach two cards with the same name to a creatures. For example, you are not allowed to attach two beast master cards to one creature. Furthermore, I don't believe that your beast would be allowed to recieve the benifits from two different creatures who both had the beast master order card. The way around this problem is to attach undaunted surge to the Wereboar at the same time that a wisdom based character has the beast master order card. I am not one hundred percent certain of this rule, but I play by it.
This is incorrect, you can attach any number of the same card to a creature and they stack. The only exception is that multiple instances of keyword abilities (like Block 10) don't stack. But multiple Blessing of Lolth, Arcane Ritual, Faerie Fire, etc all are pretty sweet.
The only exceptions are Tough as Nails/Undaunted Surge, but that's just because they remove all other attached cards when you play them.
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?
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.
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?
These are just my thoughts so not saying they are best. I think you should get rid of the goblin wolf rider you don't have any additional goblins that can use his deploy power, replace them with goblin champion which are a level lower and have the ability to do 10 more damage. The elf archers are pure crap change them out for goblin archers which do 10 more damage at the cost of 5 range (which is fine since the rest of your army is in your face). Too many stealths and Magic short swords cut them both down to two, increase shadowy ambush to three. Way to many lolths blessing for only 30 order cards also cut that down to 2 and lose the Scheme it is basically trade one card for two (which is awesome in a high card count but with thirty cards can slow you down).
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 :/
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 :/
The gravehounds were just to collect treasure (ignore difficult terrain+move 8 with Drogan) and as meat shields. Their attributes lined up nicely with my orders and tough as nails kept them alive long enough so that my engine started pumping cards. I did change up my decklist which I'll post on another thread later.
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.
:/
Thanks, COMRADEONE, for your help. I've incorporated your suggestions. See below.
Band of Assassins II
Commander: Tarkon Draal
Creatures-33 total levels
3 Goblin Wolf Rider (Vorpal Sword minimum level 4)
3 Vampire Stalker (ditto)
3 Elf Archer (treasure hunters, artillery support)
3 Drow Priestess (draw engine)
36 Orders
4 Vorpal Sword
4 Vial of Poison (to be used with Vorpal Sword)
4 Magic Short Sword (ditto)
4 Shadowy Ambush (ditto)
4 Stealth
4 Death Sentence
4 Quick Jab
4 Scheme
4 Change of Plans
Combat maptiles: Except for the start tile, any tile with large open spaces and no arcane circles will do. The Start tile => Drow 3, or any other tile that blocks line of sight (for Stealth to work).
General Strategy: Deploy your low levels ASAP and bank your Leadership. With the draw engine active, get a bunch of orders in your hands before deploying a level 4 creature. Then, once you do, Stealth it first. AFTER emerging from Stealth, gear up with the 2 Swords and proceed to assassinate. Properly equipped, 50 damage is enough to kill any enemy out there since they can't prevent the damage. Use this to take down their biggest guys or anything else with Arcane Rituals/Lolth's Blessings.
Substitutions: You can sub in Bugbear Berserkers or Drow Assassins if you don't have enough stalkers or wolfriders. If you end up without stalkers AND wolfriders, remember to leave out the Death Sentences.
If you don't have Drow Priestesses, you can sub in Drow Wizards or Hobgoblin Sorcerers. In that case, just remove the 8 WIS orders for 4 Arcane Rituals.
Goblin version:
-3 Vamp Stalker
+3 Bugbear Berserker
-3 Drow Priestess
+3 Hobgoblin Sorcerer
Orders:
-4 Scheme
-4 Change of Plans
+4 Arcane Ritual
Drow version:
-3 Goblin Wolf Rider
+3 Drow Assassin
-3 Drow Priestess
+3 Drow Wizard
Orders:
-4 Scheme
-4 Change of Plans
+4 Arcane Ritual
Hope I can proxy playtest one of these versions soon.
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 etc. tons of useful tips here
Thanks, swurvDESN, for your help. I've incorporated your suggestions.
wait what IT WAS I, COMRADEONE!
Haha. But looks good now. Still not sure if I would rather use Dwarf Clerics (not defenders, as written above) over drow priestesses with lloths blessing as an engine, mainly because in a pinch the priestess would be able to make could use of the order cards like shadowy ambush and quick jab. Another benefit would be that you might need less cards for the engine, aka just four blessings, but again this is personal taste. Then you would only have 32 cards and be relatively more likely to draw everything. If you then drop down to three each of vorpal and magic shortsword you'd be a 30 which is supposedly "optimal" but again probably best to playtest at this point and find what works out best in practice
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.
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.
-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
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
Horned Devil + Hypnotic Gaze
Any other 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.
Commander: Snig The Axe
3 Orc Druid
4 Wereboar
3 Boar
2 Owlbear
4 Feral Vitality
4 Victorious Surge
4 Change of Plans
4 Scheme
4 Savage Demise
4 Bone-Chilling Rally Cry
4 Beastmaster
4 Overseer's Whip
4 Cure Serious Wounds
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.
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.
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
hobgob sorc x4
goblin archer x4
stomp x2
furrious bellow x2
quick jab x4
death sentance x4
hypnotic gaze x4
strength in numbers x4
arcane ritual x2
call to battle x2
warning shout x4
tough as nails x2
heroes 2
goblins 1
grumsh 3
heroes 4
tarkon draal
The thinking behind this warband is to get out big beefy vampires because they have access to a suite of useful order cards and abilities. They are supported by hobgoblins who can use their cha powers to help call reinforcements/macro in the back while providing another creature to death sentance off of. Goblin archers are the treasure hunters because they gain protection from the hobgoblin sorcerers and they hit stupid-hard. Ideally your hobgoblin sorcerer can camp in a circle with arcane ritual and spam call to battle or strength in numbers to force the enemy to come to you. When the big fight happens your vampire will go in first, drop a furrious bellow into a stomp and then throw quick jabs. Another great way to initiate is to hypnotic gaze for a big pickoff when they think they're just out of reach. Then follow up your vampire's great positioning with death sentance and ranged attacks from the supporting sorcerer. Between tough as nails and warning shout(s) your vampire will be well protected against counter attacks. Tarkon stops the cower and provides great stats as always.
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.
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
My current deck that has been treating me very well (background info being that I own two of every set, no more, no less):
Commander
Delthrin Everet
Creatures (12)
Warrior Skeleton x4
Skeletal Tomb Guardian x2
Disciple of Kyuss x2
Lich Necromancer x2
Dracolich x2
Orders (32, because I can't decide which 2 to ditch):
Patch Up x3
Hulking Attack x4
Defensive Advantage x4
Reckless Attack x2
Feral Vitality x2
Warning Shout x3
Death Sentence x3
Unending Horde x2
Arcane Ritual x2
Fireball x2
Vampiric Touch x2
Gout of Fire x3
Lich Necromancer is by far the preferred card for opening hand, preferably along with a skeleton bodyguard. Failing that a Dracolich will do. Once you get a few kills in the Leadership bonus for commander kicks in and that's why this deck consists of higher average level than most decks I've played so far (if not all). I might have problems against a very defensive enemy like a turtle adventurer deck (haven't faced that with this deck yet). A couple of Strength in Numbers might help. These are wonderful if you draw them in opening hand, but completely useless further on in the game. Just about every card is more useful being drawn in the end game than Strength in Numbers so I left them out (for now, if I feel I am consistently struggling with Leadership in early game I might still add them).
As for the rest of the Order deck, it's a healthy mix of Con and Int/Cha. Half the deck consists of Con Orders that will protect my 6 skeletons or help them hit harder (with added advantages of drawing cards or gaining morale). The other half of the deck consists of Cha and Int cards that are all usable by my 6 Int/Cha ranged creatures. Basically my Int/Cha creatures lead from the back and aid the Skeletons (Unending Horde, Death Sentence, Warning Shout) while occasionaly laying down some fire themselves (Gout of Fire, Fireball). Vampiric Touch is there to make sure that my Leaders survice direct contact with enemies a bit longer, should any get to them.
Let me know what you think...
Two tomb guardians but not a single 'fear' or 'hypnotic gaze'?
Fear and hypnotic gaze are both great cards from CoU that half your deck can use and which can also herd enemies into your tomb guardian (which then makes the daeth sentence worth more).
I couldn't find the original post containing Palpster's warband so I hope this quote thing works.
I liked the idea of Palpster's Skele warband so I duplicated it to the best of my ability with the miniatures I had. I switched out a few cards because I wanted to.
Commander Delthrin Everet
Warband
4 War. Skeletons
2 Tomb Guardian
1 Kyuss
1 Hob. G Sorceror
3 Lich
1 Dracolich
Orders 31
2 Grovel
4 Hulking Attack
4 Defensive Advantage
2 Reckless Attack
3 Warning shouts
2 Unending horde
3 Arcane Ritual
3 Fireball
3 Gout of Fire
3 Str. in #'s
2 Tough as nails
Looking back on it the shouts could have been replaced by shields. I should have trimmed the Str. in #'s down to two and added two Sacrifices for a little more Oomph.
I couldn't find the original post containing Palpster's warband so I hope this quote thing works.
I liked the idea of Palpster's Skele warband so I duplicated it to the best of my ability with the miniatures I had. I switched out a few cards because I wanted to.
Commander Delthrin Everet
Warband
4 War. Skeletons
2 Tomb Guardian
1 Kyuss
1 Hob. G Sorceror
3 Lich
1 Dracolich
Orders 31
2 Grovel
4 Hulking Attack
4 Defensive Advantage
2 Reckless Attack
3 Warning shouts
2 Unending horde
3 Arcane Ritual
3 Fireball
3 Gout of Fire
3 Str. in #'s
2 Tough as nails
Looking back on it the shouts could have been replaced by shields. I should have trimmed the Str. in #'s down to two and added two Sacrifices for a little more Oomph.
While I certainly understand the extra Lich (I only have two or I'd have run 3), I don't really understand why you'd play a Hobgoblin Sorceror in there. It's not undead, so it doesn't benefit from Lich and can't use it's own ability so it's just a less than optimal ranged caster in this particular warband isn't it?
I couldn't find the original post containing Palpster's warband so I hope this quote thing works.
I liked the idea of Palpster's Skele warband so I duplicated it to the best of my ability with the miniatures I had. I switched out a few cards because I wanted to.
Commander Delthrin Everet
Warband
4 War. Skeletons
2 Tomb Guardian
1 Kyuss
1 Hob. G Sorceror
3 Lich
1 Dracolich
Orders 31
2 Grovel
4 Hulking Attack
4 Defensive Advantage
2 Reckless Attack
3 Warning shouts
2 Unending horde
3 Arcane Ritual
3 Fireball
3 Gout of Fire
3 Str. in #'s
2 Tough as nails
Looking back on it the shouts could have been replaced by shields. I should have trimmed the Str. in #'s down to two and added two Sacrifices for a little more Oomph.
While I certainly understand the extra Lich (I only have two or I'd have run 3), I don't really understand why you'd play a Hobgoblin Sorceror in there. It's not undead, so it doesn't benefit from Lich and can't use it's own ability so it's just a less than optimal ranged caster in this particular warband isn't it?
I've wanted to use morgana in this warband and restructure the order list to take advantage of her ability. i would be able to cut down my immediates from 11 to 8 and put in a few more standards.
Morgana build
4 war skeles
2 tomb guards
3 Lich
2 disciple
3 vampires
orders
4 hulking attack
3 fireball
3 gout of fire
2 str in #'s
4 Defiant stance
1 call to battle
4 arcane ritual
2 unending horde
2 mage hand
3 magic shortswords
3 dispel magic
With this build I was able to keep my morale quite high but my warband couldn't quite punch through a solid adventurer block. Magic shortsword didnt perform very good in this build and would serve better as Reckless Attacks. Morgana's isn't an ability that should replace almost all of my immediates. I should have included some shields
Tarkon Draal
3 Wolf Riders (Dex/Wiz/Cha) Beast goblin humaniod
3 Champs (Dex/cha) goblin humanoid
3 Wolves (Dex) beast
3 Drow Priestess
3 Goblin Archers
4 death sentence -standby
4 Goblin war cry -Keep
4 magic sword -keep
4 vorpal swords -stanby
4 lolths blessing -keep
4 schemes -keep
4 beast masters -keep
4 overseers whips -keep
4 change of plans -takeout
4 quick jabs -keep
4 piercing strike -standby
4 spring attack -standby
4 shadowy ambush -standby
4 reinforcements -keep
Wolf rider really shines. With the ability to use gob war cry, magic short sword, vorpal sword and take advantage of Beast master. This band of goblins is really fun to play. Yes the card count is still kind of high. I play with all of them on big games and if i'm feeling froggy slim it down to 32 or so.
Here's my take on the customized version of BoG:
Warband name: Orc Rage Combo (O.R.C. for short)
Commander Lokar
4 Ogre
4 Orc Chieftain
4 Orc Barbarian
4 Bone Chilling Rally Cry
4 Slice
4 Defensive Advantage
4 Tough as Nails
4 Regenerate
4 Fury of Gruumsh
4 Vorpal Blade
4 Magic Short Sword
BoG Maptiles
Strategy: So the whole idea of this warband is to push forward with your heavies and hang around their Start zone to harass them each round. Use your Slice and Defensive Advantage to cycle to your other orders. Vorpal Blade combo well with your Ogres, as well as Magic Short Sword if available. The other combo to try out is Tough as Nails, followed by Renegerate and Fury of Gruumsh. I'll be posting a play report next week.
Commander Drogar is the safe bet, others that might work well are tarkon/rhynseera
Tiles= a lot of Cover
Creatures
2 Earth Guardian
2 Orc Druid
2 Orc cleric of gruumsh
3 Orc drudge
3 Feral Troll
Orders-36
3 Charge
3 Hurl Rock
2 Hacking Frenzy
2 Bone chilling rally cry
2 Tide of Iron
1 seize the opp
2 Deflect
2 Victorious Surge
1 careful attack
2 bellow
2 tough as nails
3 patch up
2 tactical block
2 scheme
2 Blessing of lolth
2 change of plans
2 cure serious
1 into the fray
I just formed a group that deals primarily with Dungeon Command, check it out if you'd like.
I also wanted to add that the secret for building any good War band is to focus on specific and limited number of stats like STR, CHA, CON, INT, etc from what I've observed. 2 should be minimum and I think 3 stats is the best option.
Warband name: "Arti Party"
Commander: Rhynseera
Maptiles: open spaces with lots of DT.
Creatures-16
4 Elf Archer
4 Orc Archer
4 Drow Wizard
1 Hobgoblin Sorcerer
1 War Wizard
1 Disciple of Kyuss
1 Dracolich
Orders-36
4 Arcane Ritual
4 Spring Attack
4 Grovel
4 Shield
4 Leap Away
4 Quick Shot
4 Reinforcements
4 Dispel Magic
4 Faerie Fire
[solo variant alternate orders-30]
4 Shattered Weapon
4 Nimble Strike
4 Spring Attack
4 Ray of Frost
4 Blast of Force
4 Fireball
2 Vamp Touch
4 Gout of Fire
[solo rules for deployment: always lowest level creature first, before deploying higher level ones]
Thoughts?
Ok so one day I was thinking: Wouldn't it be cool if ALL my creatures could kill with one attack? To pull this off, 4 Ogres, 4 Dragon Knights and 4 Horned Devils are needed. Yes, I know, sounds impossible with so many levels of Leadership needed, right? Let's try anyway.
Commander: Kalteros (we NEED Leadership)
Creatures:
4 Ogre
4 Dragon Knight
4 Horned Devil
30 Orders:
4 Strength In Numbers (we NEED MORE Leadership)
4 Bone Chilling Rally Cry (we REALLY NEED MORE Leadership)
4 Undaunted Surge (except the Ogres, the rest need this to push their melee damage to 50)
4 Vorpal Blade (combine this together with Undaunted)
4 Magic Shortsword (the finishing touch - great against Tough As Nails and such)
4 Victorious Surge (in case you don't have an Undaunted to qualify for the 50 damage needed. Also heals)
4 Unbreakable
2 Hynoptic Gaze (for those elusive enemies that you can't quite reach, your HD can target somebody at max range 5 and still hit them because you have reach 2)
So, any thoughts?
[edit:] If you don't really like the idea of having Kalteros, one option is to use Tarkon and exchange the Magic Shortswords for more maneuverability cards like Relentless Advance.