I wanted to move back a little
with what I write about and this time I will be discussing one of my favourite
past times, Warhammer 40,000 Conquest, by Fantasy Flight Games. I first heard
about this game shortly after it was actually announced and was straight away
on the bandwagon before they even stated a release date. I knew I wanted to
play as the sinister Dark Eldar faction, one of my favourite factions in the
actual table top game and one of my favourite factions regarding the 40K lore
also.
I originally only planned to
take the helm of the Chaos and Dark Eldar factions, both I played in the table
top game and both have a great lore attached to them. Dark Eldar was my primary
focus however I eventually ended up procuring pretty much all the factions for
one reason or another and I took a bit of a like to Ragnar Blackmane, the 2nd
Space Marines faction warlord released. I’m not overly familiar with the Space
Wolves in the table top game but I found myself thinking about what a cool
warlord Blackmane could be. At this time I also found myself watching a lot of
videos posted up by the Hive Tyrant on YouTube and wound up watching a video
interview with the runner up at the 2015 world championships, who played as
Ragnar Blackmane.
I noted his deck list down as
it really appealed to me and almost was exactly what I had imagined what I
would play in Ragnar with a few certain exceptions. I paid close attention to
the interview and made a lot of mental notes on how Seth (2nd at
worlds) felt about how to play the deck, I can’t even lie; I agreed with pretty
much everything he said also. I personally feel like Space Marines are one of
the few factions that do not require allies to be used as they have so much scope
with what they can do in a game and their cards really lend themselves to
Blackmane’s ability. I should probably note here what he actually does though:
Ragnar Blackmane:
Faction: Space MarinesHand Size: 7
Resources: 7
Ability: Reaction: After your warlord commits to a planet with an enemy warlord, deal 2 damage to a target enemy unit at that planet.
Now when you think that there are 2 ways to win a game of conquest,
kill your opponent’s warlord or claim 3 planets with the same icon. This
ability is spectacular, not only does it target your opponents warlord should
you wish, it can also target another army unit at the same planet and that
means you can thin your opponents herd before the combat even begins.
Luckily Ragnar’s signature
squad also aids in his plan to lynch your opponent’s warlord, as if you chose
to you can move any number of the ‘Blackmane’s
Sentinels’ from other planets to the planet where your warlord commits to.
Not a bad move to make when you want to make that final attack or even scare
your opponents warlord away from a planet you want to fulfil your win
condition.
If you also look at Ragnar’s
signature event card ‘Blackmane's Hunt’
which allows you to recommit your warlord to an adjacent planet after you have committed
your warlord. This card can be fantastic in so many ways, from allowing you to
successfully hit your opponent’s warlord with your ability if you haven’t
committed to the same planet as your opponent. Also allowing you to hit your opponent’s
warlord with your ability and then jump to the adjacent planet to conduct a
battle there should you have no interest in battling your opponent’s warlord
directly that turn.
Looking to the other Space Marine specific cards to see what aids in Blackmane’s Hunt (Yes there is a pun there) we get an automatic include in the form of ‘Drop Pod Assault’ with the wonderful text: “Target a planet where a battle is taking place. Search the top 6 cards of your deck for a [Space Marine] unit with printed cost 3 or lower. Put that unit into play at the targeted planet, and place the remaing cards on the bottom of your deck in any order.” OMG right? So you can drop a potentially nasty unit to a planet where your opponent’s warlord is attempting to battle it out and potentially deal that killing blow to the enemy warlord. If you just look at the options for a cost 3 unit with Space Marines you are looking at some pretty tough hard hitting units straight off the bat:
1. Blood Angels Veterans (Core
Set)
3 ATK and 3HPWhile this unit is ready, it gains, “Interrupt: When this unit is assigned damage, prevent 1 of that damage.”
2.
Honoured
Librarian (Core Set)
4 ATK and 2HPEnemy units cannot attack this unit while you control a unit not named “Honored Librarian” at this planet.
3.
White
Scars Bikers (Gift of the Ethereals)
2ATK and 3HPThis unit gets +2 ATK while it is at a planet with a warlord.
4.
Veteran
Brother Maxos (Core Set)
2ATK and 3HPCombat Action: Pay the printed cost of a [SPACE MARINE] unit in your hand to put it into play at this planet.
Straight away you have the options of some great hard hitting units
that if any were to be dropped at a planet with an enemy warlord could spell
certain doom for that warlord. My personal favourite is the ‘White Scars Bikers’, simply because they
get that extra attack power when at a planet with a warlord and that’s never a
bad thing when you are trying to get into combat with them. However there is
something to be said about the ‘Veteran
Brother Maxos’ suddenly being dropped in front of an enemy horde, he can
then use his ability to drop in more Space Marine units’ from your hand dependant on resources available to you.
‘Veteran Brother Maxos’ also
provides you the ability to drop in smaller Space Marine units, possibly drawn
through command struggle victories and this could also allow you to throw in
some cheap hitters to aid you in your determined victory condition. When using
the ‘Drop Pod Assault’ I would always
try to drop in a 3 cost unit to maximise the value you are getting from the
event itself and would leave dropping in any units such as ‘Tactical Squad Cardinis’ or ‘10th Company Scout’ to Maxos
as this means you can use your resources to buy larger units to begin with.
Other Space Marine faction cards are fantastic such as ‘Crushing Blow’ which allows you to deal
1 point of unpreventable damage when a Space Marine unit successfully deals
damage to an enemy unit and this card teamed with your warlord’s ability can
lead to some massive damage being thrown at your opponent in short succession,
as you can trigger the effect of ‘Crushing
Blow’ off your warlords printed ability.
Another card that I find an staple with this warlord when you are
attempting to hunt down your opponent’s warlord is the ‘Eager Recruit’, this unit has the AMBUSH keyword allowing you to drop this unit into play during the
combat phase and may also turn the tide in a battle where your opponents
warlord is present. This unit teamed with the previously mentioned cards can be
a sure fire way to beat your opponents warlord by sheer amount of sneak
attacks.
One of the other shining stars of this strategy is the ‘Primal Howl’ event card and this
cracking card allows you to draw 3 cards when your warlord commits to the same
planet as the opposing warlord. Also for an additional boost it also has 2
shield icons it is exceptionally good in this deck when you hoping to be in a
position to use this effect as often as possible.
Okay so following this quick brief I will reveal for those who care, the deck list that came 2nd in the world championship in 2015:
Total Cards: 50
Army Unit (29)
3x 10th Company Scout (Core Set)
4x Blackmane Sentinel (The Howl of Blackmane)
3x Blood Angels Veterans (Core Set)
3x Eager Recruit (Core Set)
3x Honored Librarian (Core Set)
3x Rogue Trader (Core Set)
2x Tactical Squad Cardinis (Core Set)
2x Veteran Brother Maxos (Core Set)
3x Void Pirate (Core Set)
3x White Scars Bikers (Gift of the Ethereals)
Attachment (4)
1x Frostfang (The Howl of Blackmane)3x Promotion (Core Set)
Event (16)
2x Blackmane’s Hunt (The Howl of Blackmane)
3x Crushing Blow (Gift of the Ethereals)
3x Drop Pod Assault (Core Set)
2x Exterminatus (Core Set)
3x Indomitable (Core Set)
3x Primal Howl (Descendants of Isha)
Support (1)
1x Ragnar’s Warcamp (The Howl of Blackmane)
I actually cannot describe how much I like this deck, I must admit to
net decking this to use (much to a friend’s annoyance) and so far I have seen a
great deal of success with it. One thing that does strike me about this deck is
that it does not include any allied faction cards and this is not a bad thing.
I actually share a lot of opinions with Seth when he is discussing this deck
with the Hive Tyrant on his YouTube channel. I am not a big fan of supports so this works
perfectly for me, I do feel that adding allies to this deck would weaken one of
my major combat tricks, ‘Drop Pod Assault’
and I would say that based on my preferred play style this is a great deck for
me.
However, nothing is perfect and as of late I have been looking at ways
to alter this deck to keep it as focused but to give it my own personal twist.
One card I have considered putting in is ‘Know
No Fear’, a deploy action that allows you to move up to 3 Space Marine
units from your HQ to separate planets. I LOVE this card, I think when used
with your ‘Blackmane’s Sentinels’ it
can be a great way of getting those units to your warlords next target planet
in a ready state or even to set the
stage for a warlord bloodying that turn. The main question is, what do I take
out to replace it?
At first glance I am going to suggest ‘Promotion’, primarily because while I have had a few games with
this deck already I have yet to really use this card in any way that could be
considered critical to my victory. Putting the extra two command icons onto an
army unit is useful in itself but I found that if I think they will be sniped by
my opponent’s warlord of if I feel like they will lose the command I do tend to
send Ragnar to reinforce, often triggering his ability and / or stealing
command.
Another option I was thinking of pulling from this deck is ‘Exterminatus’, this card has also seen
little to no play since using this deck and becomes a candidate for removal
simply for that fact. However on the flip side of that, when I have been able
to put this card into use it has done me a massive service and even possibly
helped me pick up the win in the game I played the card.
I am hoping to take this deck to a local store championship late March
2016, so I may test out these different variations to involve ‘Know No Fear’ in the deck as I really
believe it could be a positive inclusion in the deck.
I also wanted to look into the units contained within the deck also,
now with the release of the Decree of War pack we have seen the release of the
‘Lone Wolf’ a new unit that has the
following: ‘Action: Exhaust this unit to move it to a target planet with an
enemy warlord and without any units you control.’ With 3 attack value and 3
hit points, this unit has all the potential in the world to fight it out with
an enemy warlord for a favourable conclusion. The main question is what do I
take out for this card?
I really do not want to be taking out the ‘White Scars Bikers’ as they are a smashing unit when going up
against a warlord or even on a planet with your warlord. My first thought was
to take out the ‘Blood Angels Veterans’
for the simple reason they have the same stats as the ‘Lone Wolf’ and the later unit providing the bonus of being able to
move to another planet to fight your opponents warlord. The negative effect of
this swap would be that the veterans are able to negate a point of damage dealt
to them when they are ready which can be a life saver in a battle of attrition
with other Space Marines or even Ork opponents.
The other readily available option to switch out is the ‘Honoured Librarian’, with 4 attack value this unit is a monster and also the fact it cannot be attacked while you control another unit not named ‘Honoured Librarian’ keeps it safe while you are able to stop your other units being killed, so in a tag team with the for mentioned ‘Blood Angels Veterans’ it can be one hard guy to kill off. However with every strength there is a weakness and this unit is burdened with only 2 hit points, meaning that any opponent playing a lot of Area Effect can cause this unit a lot of trouble and easily remove it before any serious attack can come from it. The ‘Lone Wolf’ however has 3 hit points, giving it a little more survivability in big skirmishes and even when going head to head with a warlord unit.
In review I have even considered switching out the 2 copies of ‘Tactical Squad Cardinis’, with there
only being 2 copies in the deck and in my local meta Area Effect sees little
play on the whole. However upon thinking back to the few games that I have had
with this deck, I must admit that in my first game using this build I played
both of them onto my victory condition planet and they actually helped
significantly in winning the game. I also started to think that if I took this
deck to an event not local to me that I may encounter more low cost builds such
as Dark Eldar or Tyranids and I concluded that removing this card would
probably cause a detriment further down the line.
Even after reviewing options available from other factions that could
be included in this deck, I have yet to really be happy with any of the options
available and the closest I have come to including an allied faction would be
the Astra Militarium unit ‘Elysian
Assault Team’, and simply because I would be able to drop it for free at a
planet where I would lose a solider or warrior unit, shockingly quite common in
this deck. However as addressed previously in order to include this I would
have to decrease the number of Space Marines in the deck, therefore decreasing
the odds of getting a unit out when using my ‘Drop Pod Assault’ and this card missing would be devastating during
a combat turn when it would be critical for me to hit something.
After careful consideration I decided to make some changes but simply
decrease the amount of certain cards and remove one particular unit from the deck.
To test the progress of these changes, I am currently noting a game diary with my
version of the deck and I hope to see if the changes I have made will actually
make a difference to the deck in a positive way. Should this turn out to not be
the case I will simply readjust the deck and try again, if everything fails to
provide decent results I will simply revert back to the original deck list.
Here is the deck list now that I have made some changes highlighted:
Army Unit (29)
3x 10th Company Scout (Core Set)4x Blackmane Sentinel (The Howl of Blackmane)
3x Lone Wolf (Decree of Ruin)
3x Eager Recruit (Core Set)
3x Honored Librarian (Core Set)
3x Rogue Trader (Core Set)
2x Tactical Squad Cardinis (Core Set)
2x Veteran Brother Maxos (Core Set)
3x Void Pirate (Core Set)
3x White Scars Bikers (Gift of the Ethereals)
Attachment (3)
1x Frostfang (The Howl of Blackmane)
2x Promotion (Core Set)
Event (17)
2x Blackmane’s Hunt (The Howl of
Blackmane)3x Crushing Blow (Gift of the Ethereals)
3x Drop Pod Assault (Core Set)
1x Exterminatus (Core Set)
3x Indomitable (Core Set)
3x Primal Howl (Descendants of Isha)
2x Know No Fear (Gift of the Ethereals)
Support (1)
1x Ragnar’s Warcamp (The Howl of
Blackmane)
Nothing too drastic changed, I wanted to keep all the cards in there
really, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. I really
wanted to keep ‘Exterminatus’ in the
deck as I love it when your opponent builds up on a planet and you just clear
it in one card, so I dropped it to 1 copy as it is very useful still. I also
just straight swapped my ‘Blood Angels
Veterans’ for the ‘Lone Wolf’.
I took the deck and had a 5 games with it, making changes as I went
based on how I felt the deck played with the changes I had made originally and I came to a
couple of conclusions as a result of these games. I decided I needed ‘Exterminatus’ more than I needed ‘Know No Fear’, so I decided to only
include 1 copy as a backup measure. For the ‘Lone Wolf’ I simply decided against it after replacing the ‘Blood Angels Veterans’ for 4 games, I
never managed to use their ability once and I decided to revert back to the veterans,
who were far more useful in my 5th tester game against Eldar.
Army Unit (29)
3x 10th Company Scout (Core Set)4x Blackmane Sentinel (The Howl of Blackmane)
3x Blood Angels Veterans (Core Set)
3x Eager Recruit (Core Set)
3x Honored Librarian (Core Set)
3x Rogue Trader (Core Set)
2x Tactical Squad Cardinis (Core Set)
2x Veteran Brother Maxos (Core Set)
3x Void Pirate (Core Set)
3x White Scars Bikers (Gift of the Ethereals)
Attachment (3)
1x Frostfang (The Howl of Blackmane)
2x Promotion (Core Set)
Event (17)
2x Blackmane’s Hunt (The Howl of
Blackmane)3x Crushing Blow (Gift of the Ethereals)
3x Drop Pod Assault (Core Set)
2x Exterminatus (Core Set)
3x Indomitable (Core Set)
3x Primal Howl (Descendants of Isha)
1x Know No Fear (Gift of the Ethereals)
Support (1)
1x Ragnar’s Warcamp (The Howl of
Blackmane)
Sadly after a lot of thinking and over planning there is only 1 change to this deck but I feel it will prove to be a good change and will help to get me some solid wins. I will also be keeping a log of how well this version of the deck plays
in comparison to the original version of the deck and leading up to our first
local tournament I want to make sure I am taking the most optimum version of
this build, as I also intend to take this deck to a store championship a bit
further away and I have my eyes on the prize (first round by at a regional), so
I want to be as competitive as possible really.
For anyone still left at this stage of the article I would like to say
thank you for sticking with it, this has been a real unproductive use of my
work time so many thanks for indulging me and sticking around. I want to
quickly shout out to my team mates over at SOS (@siteofshite) you can also
follow me too (@bigboss010) and also recommend checking out The Hive Tyrant
(@The_Hive_Tyrant) on YouTube for some Conquest videos and podcasts.
Hopefully I may even try this with other decks that I come up with that
I want to expand upon or maybe just write up a tournament report… oooh that
could be fun! Well that’s it and thanks for reading.
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