Fork Over the Destiny, Handsome

A Stolen Destinies reveal is coming this weekend in London, and I'm nowhere near ready.

Previously, when attempting Dragon Lord challenges, I've used the mighty Lord Netheryn as my champion, even if I have yet to meet with success. Following AEG's Christmas bundle deals, I'm now adequately enough stocked with Overlords and Dragon Lords to have several attempts at taking down more DL and possibly even a cohort or two. It's just that, without my favourite triple-classer warlord available to use, I'm going to have to think up some new schtick.

Huntress Volda does have the familiar cleric/fighter mix going on, as well as the 'whoops, try again' aspect if she happens to die just before finishing the opponent. Tanning Knives all the way, or something.

The Lady of Mercy, of course, has the cheese factor of amplifying the number of hits that the army can pull off, and the stunning ability is none too shabby either. May feel a bit cheap using her, though.

Then there are the myriad of possible combinations that are waiting out there in those cards, one doubtless worthy enough of a victory. It's just finding the time and dedication to simply sit down and run through the process of working out which ones are useful. Some people have the knack of just sitting down and throwing out a deck list or concept really easily, but I'm more likely to just put it off for as long as possible.

At this rate, I may have something ready during the actual journey to the capital...

Back - and Feelin' Mystical...

Hmm, been a while since I updated this. Almost two months! I'll get better in the future, I promise. Tonight, I guess the fact that I had to slog through updating these blogs for Blogger's new Google features (whatever they are) was kharma's way of punishing me.

Well, I took second place in an eight-person tournament in Barnstaple on the weekend. Not the weekend just gone, but the one before. Shows just how much I'd forgotten about this here blog. Still, so long as I'm updating more often than Dyer, it's all good...

I played Biana the Mystical, lobbing flaming death onto the heads of her enemies and racking up a pleasing number of bonus levels over the course of the event. She destroyed Etra Bloodvine in short order; what does she care if her d'Ilchant Keepers are thrown back a rank or two? That doesn't prevent her from burning your face off, so Biana's still happy. Druids don't seem to have great AC or skill, particularly...

Sargok was next, and as much as a NoThRoG frontliner may hate Etra, so a spellslinger isn't good news either. Take out the Truggs in a barrage of magic missiles and those Grudurks lurking behind them are really left twiddling their thumbs. If possible, NoThRoG seem even more vulnerable than druids...

But since I only came second, I must have lost, right? Correct. Dyer's Tavis deck floored me, but then that's hardly a surprise. Even with his errata, he's still a beast of a warlord, cutting down the low-level pleebs that wizards field with no undue problems, and packing enough spells of his own to total the Astral meatshields that I threw up to hold him off. Vicious.

Still, Biana still remains as my favourite wizard warlord currently. It's not just her escalating efficiency that appeals (although that does resemble an old Ter-Soth deck that I put together, which involved a dirty combination of Spell Mastery, Innate Ability and Magic Missiles for exponential fun), but her OPG order. Wizards in general are reliant upon their hand for dealing out damage, whereas fighters can happily still attack even without anything useful in hand. Biana can guarantee throwing out at least some offense on a critical turn, which is usually enough in most circumstances.

Here followeth the deck list:

Biana the Mystical
Acolyte Dorra
Taika the Disjoined
d'Ilchant Keeper x3

Betray Fate x3
Boil Blood x2
Fiery Bolts x3
Final Power x2
Magic Missiles x3
Retributive Strike

Acolyte Dorra
Adina x2
Alexa Genecourt x3
Ghed Carel x3
Ghed Nuri x3
Olivark the Quiet
Prewitt the Benighted x3
Xaros the Mist x3

Damothien's Dungeon x2

Death's Call
Figurine of Wonder x2
Living History x3
Ring of Vorn x2
Wand of Negation

Numerous

How many decks can one have assembled before they become too many? Now finding that I can't fit all my Warlord decks into one Battle Box, I'm asking myself that question.

Of course, one wants a variety of decks assembled in order to prevent the possibility of boredom that inevitably arises from playing the same deck over and over again. hence why I have some decks assembled from each faction and every class. That does mean that my humble collection of rare cards is stretched somewhat thin, however; not all my clerics can have access to Sieze Life, not all my assassins can dish out a Knife After Dark, etc. This may lead to some sub-optimal decks, but so long as they're fun, who cares? And since I still have spare Spencers and Dominy's, I can build plenty more FreeK decks, at least...

Sure, I could swap cards in and out of different decks (indeed, my dwarf decks are forced to share the same starting line-up as I don't have enough Warsongs for more'n one deck), but then I'd have to continually be putting cards into and out of all the different deck protectors that I have. It's bad enough that some of my decks have to languish in my old 'clear' protectors rather than luxuriate in the ones with pretty pictures on the back.

Now, there are only three more decks than can fit into the BB (twelve being the number that I consider the comfortable limit of the box's capacity), so it's only three extras to carry around, but is that still too much? Only two days ago did I have a cull of two decks that weren't really pointful to playing (Xiathe sniper and Brikta smash), and as time goes on I will deconstruct those that fail to perform well even after tinkering.

The number twelve was good, though; I could select which deck I would play for a game by rolling a d12. With fifteen decks, the choice becomes harder to randomise. How important is that with regards to determining a sensible number of decks to tote around? probably not quite as valid as the weight of the bag carrying all these piles of cards, right? Well, it's not taxing my definition of 'heavy', so in that regard it's fine.

Since I have no spare deck protectors left now (having bought more last Friday, admittedly), fifteen shall now be the functional maximum, new ideas forcing out old ones when they occur. The number has developed naturally, so there's no need to arbitrarily punish some of the strange decks that I've put together recently.

Except that Ablung one. I don;t know what I was thinking, putting every card with 'Shadow' in its title into a deck and hoping that it would work...

Deverenians at Large

In honour of the Stolen Destinies Dev week, you'll find a Dev-related new fiction up at the Alderac forums. Penned as it is by Jon Sherefkin, author of the Skyyrek story, I urge you all to go and read it, as it's told with his customary flair.

Of Medusan Lords and Deverenian Destinies

Up at the Warlord main page, there is a chance for people to submit their own ideas for the name of the latest Medusan Lord, a rather badass NoThRoG scout. Just be mindful that the closing date has now been extended to the 21st of this month, so don't be thinking that you've missed your chance!

While you're over at the site, you can also see the images for the warlords from the forthcoming Plane of Secrets expansion. Pretty cool, eh? Combine their sweet art with the fact that they're the first 'off-class' warlords for the factions for a while (by which I mean that the Deverenians get a rogue, the Dwarfs a wizard, the Elves a fighter, the Free Kingdoms a wizard and the NoThRoG a cleric - the Mercenaries' seemingly classless beastie is another matter entirely) and you'll begin to understand just how strange a place the Plane of Secrets is. Full of beauty and wonder, yes, but there are terrors there as well...

Third on the list of updates to the site (though not the least, by any means!) is the latest of the Stolen Destinies selections, this time for Deverenians. Who to choose? Taking into account the fact that all of you can read this time, I'm not going to reel off a list of candidates this time around. I'll just settle for telling you who snagged my own vote.

Sir Corwin Lorath. Not terribly useful from a gameplay point of view, but his minor storyline teaming up with Maxt Stormcrow to kill the emperor needs to be concluded, no? Little lvel 1 like him will need to hijack someone's destiny to get that achieved now, though...

Also, Sir Corwin was the piece of art that made me realise just how awesome an artist Jason Engle is. Random fact of the month.

You'll all be noticing the name 'Laela' on the SD list, and wondering who she is, and why you should bother to waste your vote on her. Well, while I'm not about to spoil the surprise that the Plane of Secrets has here (I'll leave that to someone else), you can extrapolate from her name what business she's about; not a knight or squire, and with no noble family lineage. Hmmm...