I am looking for general suggestions on which board is best for a skaven deck. Skaven seem to be somewhat midrange if you look at them on their own, so I would like a faction that played on that. I would really like a way to protect my low HP units, but im not sure there is such a card among the current destruction pool. Orcs look tempting for their ability to control anything in the game. Pillage, Rip dere 'eads off, Smash-go-boom, Troll Vomit. They even have some units that seem ok. With the Deathmaster coming, there may be an uptick in the amount of Blessing of Isha played so orcs can counter with Night Goblins. Lobber Crew also looks nice after the deathmaster takes out the smaller units. Chaos has some things that I like with their direct damage making Deathmaster more usable, and Horrific Mutation making the opponent suffer that much more. I also like the speed that Warpstone Meteor can add. As well as the Wolves of the North quest to allow more attacking (Greyseer?). I am really looking to maximize the number of skaven so that I can use Chittering Horde as effectively as possible. Are the skaven doomed to be only really usable in rush decks right now?

Actually, the way High Elves are right now with such high loyalty costs, if you could play that quest for so cheap and get a loyalty icon out of it, it would be great just for that. I think in general though, quests are weak. They have a decent restriction in how they are played in that you cant just move a unit in the quest zone onto it, and they typically make you sacrifice the unit questing. Quests need to be more powerful to have decent playability. A quest that gave you a resource for each counter removed would be ok if it was cheap enough to play.

There are cards that cannot be targeted by some things. So it does matter on whether the cards target or not.

Shrine to Taal - Forced: After your turn begins, choose one target unit in this zone. That unit gains P for each of your developments in this zone until the end of the turn. I'm sure everyone knows what it does, but someone asked me today, "Does this work to pump my unit before I generate resources"? I looked at it, and I said, "I guess so since there is that action window before the kingdom phase now". Am I correct in my interpretation? Is Shrine to Taal super uber amazing now? Or is this how it has always been and I just missed it?

FiendishDevil said: I'm not pidgeonholing Brutal Offering. I'm just making the observation that nearly all competitive Destruction deck builds focus on the Battlefield at some point during the game. And yes, Brutal Offering is good against Orc, but that is a clear example of why it is "situational". It's too situational for my tastes, you pretty much only play it when you have Battlefield disadvantage. Since I generally build my Destruction decks with a Battlefield advantage as a goal, I don't see Brutal Offering as a viable card slot in my decks at this time. If and when Destruction is able to build a decent disruption/mill deck, then I will be seeing much more possibilities for Brutal Offering. I didn't say you were pidgeonholing Brutal Offering, I said you are pidgeonholing destruction decks. Not all destruction decks play to the battlefield. I think Chaos is a good example of this. A controlling (sniping) chaos deck will protect its quest and kingdom zones while shooting at you and once the coast is clear and they have built enough resources in a turn, then they can plop things into the battlefield for a big attack. On top of that, the deck I posted actually takes advantage of damage on my units in some cases, or just gets rid of it. If I have an Urguck in the battlefield and I deal 2 to everything in battlefields with Brutal Offering, I can then spend the damage on Ugruck as though it was resources, basically making the Brutal Offering free (resource cost anyway). I also have Bloodsworn who will heal the 2 damage as soon as the opponents units die. Chaos Knights are just big enough that they won't die from it. Also, your "situational" statement, while true, is not so bad of a drawback. Orcs will most likely be the most played deck. There are also times against non-orc opponents when it will be useful. Heck, even against Judgement decks, it can atleast be a development that won't force you to throw down cards that could be put to better use in the matchup. I am just saying that it is better than Pestilence in my deck. Pestilence hurts me too much, and doesn't do enough against orcs or anyone else for that matter other than a mirror match.

This is what I thought it would be. I would like to add though, that I think the rulebook should clarify better. I believe that attachments should be pulled out as its own thing, or that non-attachments should have a sub-category so to better clarify this. Support (Location) or some such. Or they could have said non-attachment support cards. They have Attachment and Siege as subcategories of support, but the "locations" like contested village don't and I think they should. It would make things easier in the future.

FiendishDevil said: Brutal Offering is not worth playing imo (with the current card set). It's far too situational of a card and hurts you as well. Since Destruction relies strongly on the battlefield, it's almost stupid to be using Brutal Offering except as a reset card when you've already lost battlefield advantage. Against most Order decks, Brutal Offering doesn't do much. I think its a bit shortsighted to pigeonhole all destruction decks as aggro. The battlefield is the zone I play to last and I find Brutal Offering to be better against Orc Rush than Pestilence.

For what its worth, I said that our games "rarely" go past turn 6, not that they never do. You also don't need to be able to burn a zone the turn after you Judgement. If you do it when it hurts the opponent the most, you can be assured a win just because you are several turns ahead of them on kingdom and battlefield and they wont be able to recover. Also, this thread is a little old. The deck has changed. Units: 3 Pistoliers 3 Talabheim Detachment 3 Reiksguard Knights 3 The Greatswords 3 Reiksguard Swordsmen 3 Free Company 2 Johannes Broheim 3 Runesmith Support: 3 Shrine to Taal 3 Gate of Sigmar 3 Keystone Forge Tactics: 3 Judgement of Verena 3 Forced March 3 Twin-Tailed Comet 3 Will of the Electors 3 Demolition! Quest: 3 Infiltrate! I am considering droping the Shrine to Taal for some Contested Villages.

I have a list that is Chaos/Orc with a sniping theme and it is just brutal. I will post the list for you to mess with. About the Dark Elves, they really only have a couple cards that could go into a sniping deck and I think it makes splashing Orcs too hard if you play with the Dark Elves. My list also goes against what I usually do and it is 55 cards; Chaos Units: 16 3 Chaos Knights 3 Festering Nurglings 3 Bloodsworn 3 Savage Marauders 2 Nurgle Sorcerer 2 Chosen of Tzeentch Orc Units: 5 3 Lobber Crew 2 Urguck Neutral Units: 5 3 Poison Wind Globadiers 2 Greyseer Thanquol Attachments: 5 3 Cloud of Flies 2 Horrific Mutation Chaos Tactics: 5 3 Brutal Offering 2 Flames of Tzeentch Orc Tactics: 8 3 Troll Vomit 3 Pillage 2 Smash-Go-Boom! Support: 9 3 Warpstone Meteor 3 Contested Village 3 Chaos/Orc Alliance Quest: 2 2 Wolves of the North Urguck is REALLY good with Cloud of Flies on him. Savage Marauders are also a really good first turn into the kingdom zone. 2 power for 3 resources and he can defend if need be? Sounds good to me. I chose to stay away from Pestilence because I don't want to hit my units in the kingdom/quest zones and against Orcs, I really prefer to get to the 2 HP mark, that makes Brutal Offering a little better IMO. I may also cut a Troll Vomit and a Warpstone Meteor to put in 3 Warpstone Excavations. A one time corruption seems easier than the every turn of the Meteor, but the meteor gives me more power. I also have a problem that the Meteor can't be played turn one.

Lobber Crew can be used to add power to your kingdom and has a nifty ability if you wanted to use it. Also, although you don't play skaven, you can throw in a Greyseer or two that you can place in the quest zone and still attack with.

I can agree with both sides a bit here. In an orc rush deck, if you plop down 2 WE in the quest zone turn one and have something else you can do with the 3 resources you have, you are in a really good position to win as you are going to be drawing a lot more of your efficient beaters and more cheap support to lay into your quest/kingdom. It is going to get out of hand cumulatively. I don't think it is as game ending as some are making it though. If you have a decent enough start with one of the other factions, you can hold off the small units of the orcs and possibly run them out of cards since they started so fast. Empire can lay down some counterstrike units, which are really deadly for orcs, or use Forced March to move the orc units to the quest zone making them draw out faster. Dwarves have some decent defensive cards to either cancel all the damage, or heal damage, or even force the opponent to pay a resource to attack with units. Chaos, since orcs play primarily to the battlefield, have a wrecking ball in Brutal Offering given that orcs have small HP, land a sniper in there somewhere after that and its really hard for orcs to recover.

I'm torn on this issue. The single game matches are fun in that you get to see more opponents. The best of 3 match system lets you learn the opponents deck so that you can change your course of action. I think that best of 3 requires more critical thinking skills, but could potentially deter a lot of people from tournament environments if their matches are finished in 10 minutes and then they have to wait for an hour.

It actually seems perfectly thematic for someone like chaos or dark elves to Hex or Curse someone. That is a lasting negative effect that can really only be properly shown as an attachment. Also, looking at the database, there seems to be no cards that destroy support cards that specifically target an opponent. So all cards currently available that destroy support cards could also be used to destroy a support card played on your unit. Another note, it would make Grimgor Ironhide more playable in a midrange orc deck if they did expand into the curse/hex idea as he could clean all your guys in the zone you play him in. A neat possiblity could be something like [Hemorrhage - Attach to target unit. The unit that this is attached to takes 1 damage at the beginning of your kingdom phase.]. Something like that would be decent to play on your opponent, and could be really good on an orc that gets bigger with more damage (Ugrok Beardburna). Another curse could be something like [Curse - Attach to target unit. The unit that this is attached to becomes corrupted at the beginning of your kingdom phase]. There are lots of possibilities.

Wytefang said: Looks sleek, fast, and pretty deadly. However, for my tastes, your deck is just too small. Sticking to 50 cards may help your deck stay focused but against any delay-style deck (Empire, Empire/Dwarf, Chaos/Dark Elf Sniping/Card Removal) you'll be in trouble after they survive your initial rush. Also, I can't imagine that deck being as dangerous without Totem of Gork. I nearly consider it a must-have for any Orc Rush deck (if there is anything like a sure-thing for the Orcs it's the Totem of Gork or Waaaugh, of course). Remember, just because M:TG players worry about card ratios doesn't mean you have to do the same thing here with W:I. You control your draw amounts and can adjust your drawing ratios accordingly. I'd relax a bit with the 50-card deck minimum. I've played a ton since getting the game early at GenCon and I can safely say that sticking to a 50-card deck doesn't guarantee a victory as much as many here may claim or might think. Good luck! Cool deck either way!! I think orc rush is the deck you should most want to stick to 50. If you add cards to boost your mid to late game, you will not get as explosive of a start, making it so the opponent survives more often to the middle game. Once at the middle or late game, all your "weenie" units you have in the deck because you had the idea of rushing, are pretty bad draws. I think with any deck except orc rush, you can make a decent argument for more than 50, but if you do that in rush, you won't be able to rush every game and that is going to cost you games. I would cut the 3x Grimgor's Camp, 2x Troll Vomit, 3x Pillage, and 1x Mob Up, and add 3x Clan Rats, 2x Greyseer Thanquol, and 2x Totem of Gork, and 2x Ugrok Beardburna. The Grimgor camps can be replaced by units that can be used in the quest or kingdom zone like Clan Rats and Greyseer Thanquol. I have found that 2x Mob Up is enough. The Ugroks are just really good with all your self damage. The Totems aren't great, but they act as Waaagh 4 and 5 if you don't draw an actual Waaagh!.

Wytefang said: You need more cards to really maximize the strength of any Empire deck - it's just not worth crippling its inherent strengths to limit the deck size so much. But you already knew my stance on that from our chats on BGG. You are wrong. Nobody needs to add cards just to add cards. They need to serve a purpose in the deck. If I need to add cards, suggest cards to add and give reasons other than "your deck is only 50 cards and you will get decked out". A note though, I have never had it happen to me, or had it happen to an opponent as our decks are tuned to a point where we rarely see past turn 6. edit: maybe we are getting our lines crossed somehow. I will state, in case this is a cause for our disagreements, that I am not a casual player. I will play everything as competitive as possible. Thats the reason I typically like minimum deck size.

Wytefang said: darkdeal said: Its a decent card, but if you had the choice, just running another unit is probably better. The only power pumping support card that really sees any play is choppa and that is just because it costs 1 and the orcs still need really cheap units to fill the whole. If orcs get another 1 cost 2 (like spider rider) attack unit and choppa is the worst card left in the decks (probably not though) then it would be replaces. A couple of thoughts: 1. The following statement is solely your opinion and may not reflect reality among the W:I masses: "The only power-pumping support card that really sees any play is Choppa." So Totem of Gork is never used by Orc players? I don't mind anyone sharing their tactical, strategic, or just general opinions about the game but please try not to pass them off as factual when the reality may not match those claims. I don't mean this harshly, by any means, just be aware that there are a "million" experts out here, each of whom will claim that certain cards are the new hotness or the "most used" or "most important" for any particular deck. 2. I disagree that running another unit is better, especially if we're not just talking about Orcs - there is no 2 Cost, 0 Loyalty Unit that provides 3 Power when both Attacking and Defending. Now perhaps in a strictly Orc deck, it's too slow (even waiting a single turn to uncorrupt it may be too slow for the needs of an Orc rush-style deck) but for general use it's fantastic, imho. First, I should have clarified better, but my meaning was attachments. Second, you are getting a bit too aggresive in your attack on me as if I were trying to pass anything off as fact. I was merely stating that the only 'attachment' that really see's play is Choppa. You can look through all the decks published on any site about W:I and see. Sure there are a few others but they are used seldom or in decks that people make because they dont feel like having access to 3x of each card. Third, running another unit is almost always better given a similar cost to power ratio. The attachments require a unit to be already in play and do nothing alone. Secondly, most attachments only give the power boost when attacking and/or defending and add nothing to the power count of the quest or kingdom zone. Fourth, in talking about the cannon specifically, it corrupts the unit it attaches. That makes it so you can't attack with it the turn it is played, and you can't defend with it on your opponent's turn after it was played. That is a pretty rough drawback.

I have found that if I teach someone how to play by letting them use the orc rush, it lets them get the basics more easily. They are not at a point where they know to rush or could even do it well. I also don't use Verena against them as they don't know to build up developments. The deck I like to use against them is a Chaos sniping deck, that can beat the orcs on occasion. It is a good deck to show the action windows and timing. All-in-all, I stay away from Order decks for either the beginner to use, or to play against as they are a little more complex in how they play. Developments seem to be the harder thing for people to remember as there isn't some reminder in your hand and they typically interact with cards that the newbie doesn't know exist. I did do a follow up game or two letting the newbie use dwarves and I used orcs. After they get the basic rules, I let them use the more complicated order decks so they can get why developments are good and how to work with them. He stabilized and beat me (I played straight forward to the battlefield on purpose) and he really enjoyed how the dwarves work.

Ringarin said: Oh. One last thing that bothered me. There should be a neutral quest that lets you put cards from your hand back onto your deck. I like being able to draw a lot and have cards not being useless even if they aren't great as you can simply use them as developments, but sometimes you just want to put them back on your deck. Love the battle packs coming out so often. Wouldn't be too hard to make changes to the system as expansions come out so often. I'm sure lots of the problems I (and he) have with the game will be resolved when the cards that are already planned to come out are actually released. Hope this is the right spot to post this. This would be really good if it was an opposite Infiltrate! Overstocked 2 Quest. Forced: At the beginning of your turn, you may put up to X cards from your hand onto the bottom of your deck in any order. X is the number of resource tokens on this quest. Quest. Forced: At the beginning of your turn, place 1 resource token on this quest if a unit is questing here.

Maybe they are trying to reinforce a paper/rock/scissors thing for the game. Empire beats Chaos, Chaos beats orcs, etc. That is just an example, I don't know if that is really the intended setup, but you get the idea. I love buying 3x of everything just so when the next box expansion comes out, I will have all the Delf and Helf cards to make the best deck they can be.

Its a decent card, but if you had the choice, just running another unit is probably better. The only power pumping support card that really sees any play is choppa and that is just because it costs 1 and the orcs still need really cheap units to fill the whole. If orcs get another 1 cost 2 (like spider rider) attack unit and choppa is the worst card left in the decks (probably not though) then it would be replaces.

I find it to be rather "shady" that you can use the bolt thrower more than once a turn. It makes it so there is little reason to take your battlefield developments above 1 (2 or 3 if the opponent has sufficient toughness effects).

It depends on the ability of the support card. If you have a support card with a negligble ability, a unit will more often be better just for the fact that once your have your quest and kingdom zones built up sufficiently, the unit will have another purpose. As of right now, there are really only 3 neutral support cards that I play with any consistency. Contested Village - because there are no 1 cost for 1 power units that are allowed to play in quest/kingdom. Warpstone Evacuation - because orcs need to be as fast as possible and they dont care too much about quest/kingdom corruption. Abandoned Mine - Its just useful for the decks that play a lot of developments from your deck.

That is what I like about Skaven in the Orc Rush. You can build up kingdom/quest without losing an attacker. Greyseer can attack from either, and the Clan rats can boost other skaven as if they were attacking. They really do make it much easier to not worry about resources or cards.

mathulus said: The dragonmage abillity cancels assigned damage (unless the spoiler is wrong). Thougness cancels damage when applied. I'm sorry but no matter how you turn it, the dragonmages ability triggers first. Ok, I just assumed both were worded the same. Good to know it isn't even more degenerate than just the dragonmage alone.

My list is a little different, I will post it for comparison. Units: 31 3 Crooked Teef Goblins 3 Squig Herders 3 Followers of Mork 3 Spider Riders 3 Clan Rats 3 Veteran Sellswords 3 Gutter Runners 3 Clan Moulder's Elite 3 Rat Ogres 2 *Greyseer Thanquol 2 *Ugrok Beardburna Support: 11 3 Choppa 3 Contested Village 3 Warpstone Excavation 2 Totem of Gork Tactics: 8 3 We'z Bigga! 3 Waaagh! 2 Mob Up The main point is that you have several units that are usable on offense from the quest zone or the kingdom zone. Greyseer Thanquol and Clan Rats can both add power to the attack while drawing you cards or providing resources. Mob Up will get around some of the damage cancellation that is going to be croping up. I used to play 3 Totem of Gorks, but I found that I always would rather play a Waaagh! and the games go fast enough that you really don't need 3 of each. This deck should win by your turn 4 most often, opponent only getting 3 turns if you go first. The sniper decks don't worry me too much as they need to save resources to deal with your guys and they usually can't keep up. Empire can get sticky if they get out some counterstrike units, but they are typically costly to place, and you can just attack around them. Dwarves have the best chance to stall in my opinion, but you can attack around their guys and keep pressure on. In the mid game when they have some units with toughness, just flop out a Mob Up and take them out. It is pretty easy to get 3-4 units in the battlefield by turn 2, a Waaagh! on turn 3 will add 6-8 more damage, that is really hard for anyone to stop even with units where you attack.