Scrap Camp

(Tau / Elder)

Warlord

♦ Commander Shadowsun

Signature (8)

4x Shadowsun’s Stealth Cadre (1c) - 2/2/2

1x Communications Relay

2x Squadron Redeployment (1s)

1x Command-link Drone (3s)

Units (30)

3x Altansar Rangers (2c, Ranged) - 3/2/2

2x Vior’la Marksman (1cp, Ranged) - 2/1/3

2x Stingwing Swarm (1cp, Ranged) - 4/3/3

3x Fire Warrior Elite (dmg soak) - 3/1/5

3x Fire Warrior Strike Team (+1 Attach) - 4/1/5

3x Gun Drones (1cp) - 2/2/2 | (attach Area:2)

3x Shrouded Harlequin (1cp, Tap on death) - 2/2/1

2x Silvered Blade Avengers (1cp Tap on Attack) - 4/1/4

3x Recon Drone (2cp) - 0/0/1

2x Soaring Falcon (2cp. Mobile)

2x Eldar Survivalist (1c, +1R/D)

2x Crisis Battle Guard (3c) - 5/3/5

Event (6)

3x Superiority (1s)

3x Deception (2s)

Attachment (6)

3x Repulsor Impact Field (2s)

3x Ion Rifle (1s)

Support (0)

Ok, here is my 1st attempt at a non Chaos deck. Tau / Edlar. For the record as I think deck building might be a bit limited in the initial core sets days, I haven't looked at Buzz's deck yet.. I will as soon as I finish posting this one.

Anyway, as I discussed before, I think the understanding of the power in the Tau is a little unfocused by come. The focus in my mind is recursion, not the attachments themselves. These games are about options, and more cards in hand the more options you have, so the better you will do. A recursion mechanism like the one of the Tau Warlord is basically turning your entire discard pile into a secondary hand. As in all the cards in the discard are ready to play just like your hand.

Now at this time there is a pitiful amount of attachments, so he will get better and better, as will this deck. For now, I think this is a good start on it and it seams to run pretty well.

1st, getting the attachments into the yard for recursion maximises his power. All attachments have shields and while your opponent needs to choose wisely with whether to use a cards for shielding or a deployment, the Tau do not.

So use judgement, but discard those cards liberally as shields.

You will note a number of rangers, Gun Drones on these guys will make very juicy targets but also be great at thinning the battlefield. Another good target for the Gun Drones is Shrouded Harlequin . At 1 defence they are very hard to resist killing, this lure is basically a way to force their ability to go off. I found this very helpful, as is the other planet control card Silvered Blade Avengers . If you use a Tau attachment you can recur them after the Shrouded Harlequin dies, the target is just not a enticing.

Fire Warrior Elite and Fire Warrior Strike Team need no introduction I hope. The elite is a damage soak to protect the strike team. Get a single Ion Rifle on them and you suddenly have a 5/5. Try not to fall into the trap of over loading him, spreading the attachments out is probably better. Still Repulsor Impact Field and Shadowsun’s Stealth Cadre to make a 5/7 is pretty boss.

Deception has 2 shields, though it can also make a neat "heal". Bounce a wounded Fire Warrior Elite back into your hand to heal it on re-deploy, same for other key cards. Any tau attachments will fall off back into the discard for recursion.

Card draw is a thing for these guys I think. I decided to go with Eldar Survivalist rather than the neutral cards. That and a number of other command-centric cards like Soaring Falcon with mobile and Crisis Battle Guard with a whooping 3c.

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Some thoughts...

Biel-Tan Warp Spiders

To fuel the discard we could have used Biel-Tan Warp Spiders . Remember reactions are all may effects, so you do not have to scry, if you do not want to and even if you do the discard is also a may effect so you do not have to discard if you decide to scry. This is a pretty awesome way to fule the recursion in tau.

Or is it?

The drawback is that you have to reveal the cards you peaked at to your opponent. This can be a real problem. He is still a powerful card, especially if you are playing people with out 3 cores, as there card counts will be limited so trashing a good card will hurt a lot.

Still as far as Tau is concerned this guys is very close to what I hope will one dat turn up, some kind of draw 2, discard 1 or scry and discard 1, that dose not include a reveal to your opponent. It is precisely the kind of card I think would work great with this warlord, ideally you would want to peak at your own cards, and then discard the Shadowsun’s Stealth Cadre for recursion and keep everything else, then once you gave all 4 in the yard you can start milling. I ran this for a bit today and it worked well, it was just the revealing to the opponent really bugs me. I like my hand to be secret.

Ambush Platform

My mates I played with asked a lot about Ambush Platform and why I didn't run it. So just to avoid that let me say that there are not a huge amount of attachments, and they are really supposed to be discarded for shields, then played for free from the Warlords ability. So, if the deck is going right, you should really be paying for attachments at all.

Edited August 16, 2014 by booored

Hmm, I think the idea to mill them out of your deck, into your discard pile is a poor one. This encourages you to only be able to play 1 of them per turn, and it has to be played wherever you commit your warlord. This limits your flexibility quite a bit. Also, I'm not convinced that Biel Tan Warpspiders are more effective at finding attachments than the Earth Caste Technician would be.

Hmm, I think the idea to mill them out of your deck, into your discard pile is a poor one. This encourages you to only be able to play 1 of them per turn, and it has to be played wherever you commit your warlord. This limits your flexibility quite a bit.

This is really not a problem at all.

What happens is that your resources are free to spam units. Board presence is a HUGE thing in this game. It is fast and deadly. Getting as many units out as possible is a good thing. So you get more units out, you keep them alive longer to get even more units out by using shield, and during that time you buff the hell out the the ones you have out.

Also you can still play attachments normally if you like, but in most cases it is better to do it as a surprise rather than telegraphing your attachment in the deployment phase.

Also, I'm not convinced that Biel Tan Warpspiders are more effective at finding attachments than the Earth Caste Technician would be.

exactly why it is not in the deck. Also the reveal to all players makes it really unappealing to me. It is really a mill card, as a target vs your opponent.

Earth Caste Technician (draw 6, take 1 attach, rest on bottom) and Swordwind Farseer (draw 6, take 1, rest on bottom) are both decent fetch cards, but I absolutely hate putting 6 cards on the bottom of my deck. I know technically the draw odds are not statistically different, but seeing awesome cards going to the bottom of your deck in that number, coupled with the speed of this game knowing that you will probably not ever see them again is an absolutely all encompassing frustration that just pisses me off.

Until there are some draw from bottom of deck cards, I'll probably not play them. Though I expect smaller scys that have "put back in any order" will soon turn up and replace these cards?

The reason why the discard is still powerful is because the effect is transparent to card draw chance and resource cost and card limits. As long as the spider is alive it will be able to pay off as a additional bonus every time. No costs, no limitation of card count or draw chances.. it is a constant effect. Remember you are not discarding attachments only the Cadre. You should be discarding attachments for shields or playing them directly.

Edited August 17, 2014 by booored