StrategiCon Feb 2020 - DC Playtest Frenzy Part 2
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 4:50 pm
Dain Dwarf-Lord vs Dan’s Dwarf-Pack
Starting Characters: Thorin III Stonehelm; Balin (DC); Nain, Son of Gror
Starting Stage Cards: Trusted Companion (on Thorin III), Son of Nain, Dwarves Heirlooms
Starting Minor Items: Dragon Marked in Red, Jewel of Beleriand (on Nain), Arrows Shorn of Ebony (on Thorin III)
The one and only DC game on Saturday was a rematch with Dan to bookend the previous night’s engagement in Eriador, with the venue changed to Dragon country. My Dain deck has been in existence for a few years now, but I tightened it up to the 30/30 format and added Dragon Marked in Red from the Necromancer set. Son of Nain retrieves Strength of Ered Engrin and non-unique dwarf characters dumped into the discard pile from the sideboard at the avatar’s first opportunity, while Dwarven Heirlooms allows the company to start with the Jewel and Arrows. Thorin III with Trusted Companion controls the DC manifestation of Balin, since Dwarf-Lords can do that sort of thing, while Nain carries the Jewel to make him a more palatable 5/7.
The resource side works for all the usual high-value targets in Dragon country, though am still mulling the mix of items against either Clad for War or Legacy of Smiths. Carc starts in the sideboard but is also targeted for the initial dump to the discard pile, as this ally is playable at any tapped non-haven site in Northern Rhovanion. The 8 DC cards include some very nice supports such as Old Grudge, Children of Aule, and Pale Enchanted Gold (not to keep, but to assist in influence attempts). Profitable Trade is also here, though the recruitment of the Wood-Elves is problematical and is perhaps better suited for a longer game/thicker deck. However, the main conceit of the deck is the use of Dragon-Feuds to cancel Dragon and drake attacks, so the hazard side is well over the 12-creature minimum, to include the otherwise hard-to-play Ash-Drake from the Necromancer set. Combined with helpers such as Leucareuth at Home and five Marvels Tolds/Voices of Malice, Dain hopes to roam Dragon country in relative safety and quickly gather enough MPs for the Day of Reckoning.
All the best plans in the world are well and good, but Dan beat me to the draw and raced around the Withered Heath, gathered up most of his items (some of which were ones I wanted, obviously), getting past the autos with his ever-present Risky Blows, and booked out of Dragon country before my own drake hazards appeared. I tarried around Northern Rhovanion a bit and sideboarded in replacement items (including the Magical Harp) so I can complete my own missions. Unfortunately, during the return to the Iron-Hill Dwarf-Hold, I declined to play a Dragon-Feud (even had 2 drakes in hand as well) in hopes of waiting for a better/outbound turn, when the party was accosted by a Fire Drake, resulting in the demise of Thorin III. Luckily I was able to obtain enough faction MPs to be within a couple of points of Dan by the game’s end, so after some disappointments the deck started to show some resilience.
I did notice Dan playing this same deck later on in the weekend, though his main anchor, Thrain, had bitten the dust against a very energetic challenge deck that our new core member from Salinas-Monterey (Kaonee) was playing. I confirmed with Dan if he really liked Thrain a lot, and given that his deck also delved somewhat into the Under-Deeps, I promised Dan I’d compose a Thrain Dwarf-Lord deck for him next time.
Necromancer vs Ralph’s Fallen Gandalf
Starting Characters: The Grimburgoth; Baduila; 2 x Sly Southerners
Starting Minor Items: Dragon Marked in Red; 2 x Open to the Summons
The Goblin King was a last-minute confirmation for the gaming convention this past weekend, and we were very happy to have him join the festivities. He joined me on the drive back home Saturday night (I never stay at the hotel location, as I have farm chores back home every morning), and going there and back again we talked quite a bit about his past MECCG experiences. I’ve only been playing this game only 10 years, and I am always amazed at the marvels told of the tournament scene back in the 1990s and the early 2000s. We also talked about possibilities for future tourneys this year and next…more on this later.
My new Necromancer deck was a straight adaptation of my existing Lidless Eye/Dragon Faction deck, with the beefy Grimburgoth and Baduila replacing Troll Commanders. I use Sly Southerners for their Orc Scouts attribute to sneak past the Dragon site autos, though Unabated in Malice has been and will continue to be an issue with this approach; however, these Half-Orcs are in the company of Men only, so they do not make the company overt and thus avoid the + hazard limit of the Necromancer avatar, plus they count only 1/2 towards the hazard limit. In the deck are minion Nain who will sit at Dol Guldur to use Voices of Malice, and also the Mouth, who may stay at home and retrieve cards from the discard pile, or recruit Dragon factions himself if the need arises.
The minion Dragon Marked in Red is so much better than the hero version, and I included two copies of He Wields Great Dominion to hopefully get one on the board early. Orc-Cuirass and Bloodspike are nice additions to the weapons rack and help fulfill the 8-card minimum, while Deadly Laughter is a nice answer to all the anti-minion Elf and Maia hazards. I used both copies of Large Warrior Loose during the game, though it’s unclear whether they were all that effective. On the hazard side, I supplemented the usual northern-tier drakes with Tidings and Unabated in Malice from the basic game, along with DC cards Ta-Fa-Lisch (as a trap card for hoard-item sites) and Fruitless Victory (to recycle high-value creature hazards, especially in case I run into Alatar). I did think about Consumed by Dragon-Fire, and though I didn’t get around to it, this card looks like a potential late-game clincher *if* you can cash in the greater item (Wormsbane, in particular) to recruit a Dragon faction and still retain the 2 MPs.
The board was set and I didn’t expect that either The Goblin King or I would be interfering much with each other’s plans. I did not draw the Necromancer initially, but I dutifully played Revealed to All Watchers to successfully retrieve my avatar during my first hazard turn, played him at the beginning of my next org phase—and proceeded to sideboard! I compounded the error by not realizing what I had done until I drew cards for my initial move from Dol Guldur to Sarn Goriwing, until the major item I thought I had top-decked did not appear. I sheepishly looked up at Ralph and told him he was supposed to remind me to never ever sideboard after I play Revealed—we had a good laugh, but that set me a turn behind and things went downhill from there. The worst was when both Grimburgoth and Baduila were injured and had to slink back home to heal up. In spite of having successfully recruited a couple of Dragon factions, I had to sacrifice items to do so, so it was time to concede.
Balin Dwarf-Lord vs DC Balrog
Starting Characters: Nain; Threlin; Gulla; Thorin II
Starting Stage Cards: Trusted Companion (on Thorin II), Oakenshield (on Thorin II), Son of Fundin
Starting Minor Items: Shadow-Cloak, Shield of Iron-Bound Ash (on Threlin); Elven Cloak (on Gulla)
Sunday afternoon finally saw my first and only match with Chris all weekend, as he was indisposed with both a Hero Arda and a Dark Arda game and with Gandalf Gene on some pretty in-depth rules discussions. What transpired was the wildest and certainly the most entertaining game I’ve played in a very long time, probably since Gene and I engaged in a 3-hour long battle with *basic hero challenge decks* back in 2013 during ConQuest at Sacramento. The battle swayed firmly to one side, then tipped towards the other side, and settled in a hard-fought stalemate after both decks cycled.
Minion Nain from the basic game is probably my most-used character, as he is in virtually all the minion decks I’ve composed and is present in many Fallen Wizard decks as well. Being a sage certainly makes him useful, as does the very manageable 3 mind. Threlin and Gulla go together quite well, with one controlling the other and offering complementary skillsets; Gulla’s home site of Carn Dum came into play in this game. Most of all, I was fascinated with making Thorin II the muscle of Lord Balin’s party, to the extent that I started Oakenshield on him instead of going with Balin, Dwarf of All Trades. Going forward, that will be my choice, as the ability to recycle *directly to your hand* all of my customary resource cancellers on both the hero and minion gives Lord Balin a very nice edge. And this is the way the Company should have been from the beginning—Balin has the wisdom to be the leader of the quest to regain Erebor, while Thorin provides the muscle.
Resource items are a very good blend of old-school weapons and DC additions, perfectly suited for Clad for War and aided by the availability of Crimson Hood (a staging card for Balin that is also a helmet!). I even threw in a couple of Legendary Hoards to play against my own Scorba at Home, which just seems to be a much more approachable target than Smaug at Home out east. The hazard side was a typical Free Peoples creature mix supported by Chills and supplemented by three copies of DC Dwarves Warparty. Naugrim is there to beef up the Dwarf hazard creatures even further, and the combination of Threat of Many Feet and Flooded to the Surface helps defend the Underdeep surface sites that constitute the greater part of my site deck. I even threw in Ibun for flavor—a fellow group member said the card art looked like it was drawn by a 2nd-grader, and I have to admit that I don’t totally disagree.
Chris professed some bad luck with dice rolling for the underdeeps movement, and early on this certainly seemed to be the case. His main party was running afoul of my pumped-up Elf Lords on the surface, and even the Balrog appeared to stumble—rather, hit his head on the roof of a cavern during a Breach the Hold attempt. Meanwhile, my main party was putting on a clinic, starting with Frerin and the Blue Mountain Dwarves faction showing up on Turn 1, though Lord Balin himself did not appear until Turn 4. Turn 2 Orcrist at Carn Dum? Check (with Gulla cancelling the auto). Turn 3 Durin’s Axe at Mount Gram? Check. Turn 4 recruitment of Goldberry at Tom’s House? Check. Turn 5 Khazadshathur at Goblin Gate? Check. The traveling party was well-armed and the mostly Orc autos were easily handled, especially with an Old Grudge on the board, and I opted to keep the party together for safety and the sheer intimidation factor. Things were going so well that I drew but declined to use two Longbottom Leafs, endeavoring instead to quickly get through the deck and call. I should have known things would get worse when a huge Orc Battalion arrived when I was leaving Angmar—pumped up by the number of characters in my company (divided by 2), we calculated the attack as 6 strikes at 10. It arrived at the tail-end of a string of orcs propelled by Two or Three Tribes present, but luckily I had a Flatter a Foe in hand, supplemented by not 1 but 2 Friend or Threes!
I sought one final mission to retrieve the Book of Mazarbul at Moria when things went downhill—I remarked to Chris that his main party had just retrieved the minion Arkenstone over in the Wilderlands, so he ought to drop by and show the treasured jewel to Thorin, and sure enough, he did! As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a CvCC against the now-weakened party, and it was with a great deal of fortune that the wounded party was able to slink away to freehold Rivendell for some temporary refuge. If I recall correctly, Chris’s party included two of the new Orc Archers from Necromancer—each can tap to give -1 to both prowess and body to a strike, which is downright frightening in CvCC! I did manage to draw my own Arkenstone during the getaway, so I remarked to Chris—who was still having issues with the Balrog’s missions—that before the end of the game I will try to get Thorin II back on the board and reclaim his place at Lord Balin’s side. I sideboarded in a Smoke Rings even though the draw deck was wearing thin, walked back to the Blue Mountain Dwarf Hold to heal up, and in walks Thorin a turn later, followed by a Fellowship! (Only one per company is allowed per DC rules.)
With the deck cycled, I told Chris I was ready to make the attempt with a revitalized party, but realized too late that the Stones was too far to reach, so I had no choice but to walk back into the teeth of the opposition and revisit Carn Dum. Thorin was last seen fleeing Moria to the north, with the Book in one hand and the Arkenstone in the other—he forgot if he dropped or lost or sold the Book for some food along the way, but at least he remembered where the Arkenstone was, lol! In any case, the party grimly marched to Carn Dum, met another 2 or 3 Tribes, and deftly avoided another Orc Battalion with a Ruse courtesy of Threlin—which I now realize I *should not* have been able to cancel had Chris specifically declared the attack to be keyed to the dark-hold, as I don’t think I had either a Secret Entrance or a Crack in the Wall in effect during this last battle, but we were caught up in the moment at the end of a long weekend, so the cancel went through. Gulla cancelled the auto, and the Arkenstone was with the good guys once again! Points were pretty much at a standstill at the end of that turn, and even though Gulla corrupted and ran away with his Durin’s Axe, it was the last check during the Day of Reckoning and everyone else in the party had already benefitted from the Fellowship. Chris and I shook hands and called it a day.
Starting Characters: Thorin III Stonehelm; Balin (DC); Nain, Son of Gror
Starting Stage Cards: Trusted Companion (on Thorin III), Son of Nain, Dwarves Heirlooms
Starting Minor Items: Dragon Marked in Red, Jewel of Beleriand (on Nain), Arrows Shorn of Ebony (on Thorin III)
The one and only DC game on Saturday was a rematch with Dan to bookend the previous night’s engagement in Eriador, with the venue changed to Dragon country. My Dain deck has been in existence for a few years now, but I tightened it up to the 30/30 format and added Dragon Marked in Red from the Necromancer set. Son of Nain retrieves Strength of Ered Engrin and non-unique dwarf characters dumped into the discard pile from the sideboard at the avatar’s first opportunity, while Dwarven Heirlooms allows the company to start with the Jewel and Arrows. Thorin III with Trusted Companion controls the DC manifestation of Balin, since Dwarf-Lords can do that sort of thing, while Nain carries the Jewel to make him a more palatable 5/7.
The resource side works for all the usual high-value targets in Dragon country, though am still mulling the mix of items against either Clad for War or Legacy of Smiths. Carc starts in the sideboard but is also targeted for the initial dump to the discard pile, as this ally is playable at any tapped non-haven site in Northern Rhovanion. The 8 DC cards include some very nice supports such as Old Grudge, Children of Aule, and Pale Enchanted Gold (not to keep, but to assist in influence attempts). Profitable Trade is also here, though the recruitment of the Wood-Elves is problematical and is perhaps better suited for a longer game/thicker deck. However, the main conceit of the deck is the use of Dragon-Feuds to cancel Dragon and drake attacks, so the hazard side is well over the 12-creature minimum, to include the otherwise hard-to-play Ash-Drake from the Necromancer set. Combined with helpers such as Leucareuth at Home and five Marvels Tolds/Voices of Malice, Dain hopes to roam Dragon country in relative safety and quickly gather enough MPs for the Day of Reckoning.
All the best plans in the world are well and good, but Dan beat me to the draw and raced around the Withered Heath, gathered up most of his items (some of which were ones I wanted, obviously), getting past the autos with his ever-present Risky Blows, and booked out of Dragon country before my own drake hazards appeared. I tarried around Northern Rhovanion a bit and sideboarded in replacement items (including the Magical Harp) so I can complete my own missions. Unfortunately, during the return to the Iron-Hill Dwarf-Hold, I declined to play a Dragon-Feud (even had 2 drakes in hand as well) in hopes of waiting for a better/outbound turn, when the party was accosted by a Fire Drake, resulting in the demise of Thorin III. Luckily I was able to obtain enough faction MPs to be within a couple of points of Dan by the game’s end, so after some disappointments the deck started to show some resilience.
I did notice Dan playing this same deck later on in the weekend, though his main anchor, Thrain, had bitten the dust against a very energetic challenge deck that our new core member from Salinas-Monterey (Kaonee) was playing. I confirmed with Dan if he really liked Thrain a lot, and given that his deck also delved somewhat into the Under-Deeps, I promised Dan I’d compose a Thrain Dwarf-Lord deck for him next time.
Necromancer vs Ralph’s Fallen Gandalf
Starting Characters: The Grimburgoth; Baduila; 2 x Sly Southerners
Starting Minor Items: Dragon Marked in Red; 2 x Open to the Summons
The Goblin King was a last-minute confirmation for the gaming convention this past weekend, and we were very happy to have him join the festivities. He joined me on the drive back home Saturday night (I never stay at the hotel location, as I have farm chores back home every morning), and going there and back again we talked quite a bit about his past MECCG experiences. I’ve only been playing this game only 10 years, and I am always amazed at the marvels told of the tournament scene back in the 1990s and the early 2000s. We also talked about possibilities for future tourneys this year and next…more on this later.
My new Necromancer deck was a straight adaptation of my existing Lidless Eye/Dragon Faction deck, with the beefy Grimburgoth and Baduila replacing Troll Commanders. I use Sly Southerners for their Orc Scouts attribute to sneak past the Dragon site autos, though Unabated in Malice has been and will continue to be an issue with this approach; however, these Half-Orcs are in the company of Men only, so they do not make the company overt and thus avoid the + hazard limit of the Necromancer avatar, plus they count only 1/2 towards the hazard limit. In the deck are minion Nain who will sit at Dol Guldur to use Voices of Malice, and also the Mouth, who may stay at home and retrieve cards from the discard pile, or recruit Dragon factions himself if the need arises.
The minion Dragon Marked in Red is so much better than the hero version, and I included two copies of He Wields Great Dominion to hopefully get one on the board early. Orc-Cuirass and Bloodspike are nice additions to the weapons rack and help fulfill the 8-card minimum, while Deadly Laughter is a nice answer to all the anti-minion Elf and Maia hazards. I used both copies of Large Warrior Loose during the game, though it’s unclear whether they were all that effective. On the hazard side, I supplemented the usual northern-tier drakes with Tidings and Unabated in Malice from the basic game, along with DC cards Ta-Fa-Lisch (as a trap card for hoard-item sites) and Fruitless Victory (to recycle high-value creature hazards, especially in case I run into Alatar). I did think about Consumed by Dragon-Fire, and though I didn’t get around to it, this card looks like a potential late-game clincher *if* you can cash in the greater item (Wormsbane, in particular) to recruit a Dragon faction and still retain the 2 MPs.
The board was set and I didn’t expect that either The Goblin King or I would be interfering much with each other’s plans. I did not draw the Necromancer initially, but I dutifully played Revealed to All Watchers to successfully retrieve my avatar during my first hazard turn, played him at the beginning of my next org phase—and proceeded to sideboard! I compounded the error by not realizing what I had done until I drew cards for my initial move from Dol Guldur to Sarn Goriwing, until the major item I thought I had top-decked did not appear. I sheepishly looked up at Ralph and told him he was supposed to remind me to never ever sideboard after I play Revealed—we had a good laugh, but that set me a turn behind and things went downhill from there. The worst was when both Grimburgoth and Baduila were injured and had to slink back home to heal up. In spite of having successfully recruited a couple of Dragon factions, I had to sacrifice items to do so, so it was time to concede.
Balin Dwarf-Lord vs DC Balrog
Starting Characters: Nain; Threlin; Gulla; Thorin II
Starting Stage Cards: Trusted Companion (on Thorin II), Oakenshield (on Thorin II), Son of Fundin
Starting Minor Items: Shadow-Cloak, Shield of Iron-Bound Ash (on Threlin); Elven Cloak (on Gulla)
Sunday afternoon finally saw my first and only match with Chris all weekend, as he was indisposed with both a Hero Arda and a Dark Arda game and with Gandalf Gene on some pretty in-depth rules discussions. What transpired was the wildest and certainly the most entertaining game I’ve played in a very long time, probably since Gene and I engaged in a 3-hour long battle with *basic hero challenge decks* back in 2013 during ConQuest at Sacramento. The battle swayed firmly to one side, then tipped towards the other side, and settled in a hard-fought stalemate after both decks cycled.
Minion Nain from the basic game is probably my most-used character, as he is in virtually all the minion decks I’ve composed and is present in many Fallen Wizard decks as well. Being a sage certainly makes him useful, as does the very manageable 3 mind. Threlin and Gulla go together quite well, with one controlling the other and offering complementary skillsets; Gulla’s home site of Carn Dum came into play in this game. Most of all, I was fascinated with making Thorin II the muscle of Lord Balin’s party, to the extent that I started Oakenshield on him instead of going with Balin, Dwarf of All Trades. Going forward, that will be my choice, as the ability to recycle *directly to your hand* all of my customary resource cancellers on both the hero and minion gives Lord Balin a very nice edge. And this is the way the Company should have been from the beginning—Balin has the wisdom to be the leader of the quest to regain Erebor, while Thorin provides the muscle.
Resource items are a very good blend of old-school weapons and DC additions, perfectly suited for Clad for War and aided by the availability of Crimson Hood (a staging card for Balin that is also a helmet!). I even threw in a couple of Legendary Hoards to play against my own Scorba at Home, which just seems to be a much more approachable target than Smaug at Home out east. The hazard side was a typical Free Peoples creature mix supported by Chills and supplemented by three copies of DC Dwarves Warparty. Naugrim is there to beef up the Dwarf hazard creatures even further, and the combination of Threat of Many Feet and Flooded to the Surface helps defend the Underdeep surface sites that constitute the greater part of my site deck. I even threw in Ibun for flavor—a fellow group member said the card art looked like it was drawn by a 2nd-grader, and I have to admit that I don’t totally disagree.
Chris professed some bad luck with dice rolling for the underdeeps movement, and early on this certainly seemed to be the case. His main party was running afoul of my pumped-up Elf Lords on the surface, and even the Balrog appeared to stumble—rather, hit his head on the roof of a cavern during a Breach the Hold attempt. Meanwhile, my main party was putting on a clinic, starting with Frerin and the Blue Mountain Dwarves faction showing up on Turn 1, though Lord Balin himself did not appear until Turn 4. Turn 2 Orcrist at Carn Dum? Check (with Gulla cancelling the auto). Turn 3 Durin’s Axe at Mount Gram? Check. Turn 4 recruitment of Goldberry at Tom’s House? Check. Turn 5 Khazadshathur at Goblin Gate? Check. The traveling party was well-armed and the mostly Orc autos were easily handled, especially with an Old Grudge on the board, and I opted to keep the party together for safety and the sheer intimidation factor. Things were going so well that I drew but declined to use two Longbottom Leafs, endeavoring instead to quickly get through the deck and call. I should have known things would get worse when a huge Orc Battalion arrived when I was leaving Angmar—pumped up by the number of characters in my company (divided by 2), we calculated the attack as 6 strikes at 10. It arrived at the tail-end of a string of orcs propelled by Two or Three Tribes present, but luckily I had a Flatter a Foe in hand, supplemented by not 1 but 2 Friend or Threes!
I sought one final mission to retrieve the Book of Mazarbul at Moria when things went downhill—I remarked to Chris that his main party had just retrieved the minion Arkenstone over in the Wilderlands, so he ought to drop by and show the treasured jewel to Thorin, and sure enough, he did! As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a CvCC against the now-weakened party, and it was with a great deal of fortune that the wounded party was able to slink away to freehold Rivendell for some temporary refuge. If I recall correctly, Chris’s party included two of the new Orc Archers from Necromancer—each can tap to give -1 to both prowess and body to a strike, which is downright frightening in CvCC! I did manage to draw my own Arkenstone during the getaway, so I remarked to Chris—who was still having issues with the Balrog’s missions—that before the end of the game I will try to get Thorin II back on the board and reclaim his place at Lord Balin’s side. I sideboarded in a Smoke Rings even though the draw deck was wearing thin, walked back to the Blue Mountain Dwarf Hold to heal up, and in walks Thorin a turn later, followed by a Fellowship! (Only one per company is allowed per DC rules.)
With the deck cycled, I told Chris I was ready to make the attempt with a revitalized party, but realized too late that the Stones was too far to reach, so I had no choice but to walk back into the teeth of the opposition and revisit Carn Dum. Thorin was last seen fleeing Moria to the north, with the Book in one hand and the Arkenstone in the other—he forgot if he dropped or lost or sold the Book for some food along the way, but at least he remembered where the Arkenstone was, lol! In any case, the party grimly marched to Carn Dum, met another 2 or 3 Tribes, and deftly avoided another Orc Battalion with a Ruse courtesy of Threlin—which I now realize I *should not* have been able to cancel had Chris specifically declared the attack to be keyed to the dark-hold, as I don’t think I had either a Secret Entrance or a Crack in the Wall in effect during this last battle, but we were caught up in the moment at the end of a long weekend, so the cancel went through. Gulla cancelled the auto, and the Arkenstone was with the good guys once again! Points were pretty much at a standstill at the end of that turn, and even though Gulla corrupted and ran away with his Durin’s Axe, it was the last check during the Day of Reckoning and everyone else in the party had already benefitted from the Fellowship. Chris and I shook hands and called it a day.