I experiences in a resent game that Aldaris has grown in power since Brood War introduced the Leadership cards. In the vanilla game, it is nearly impossible to achieve his special victory without using the advantage in CP - the cards were simply no real alternative for him. Now with the Leadership cards, he has a major edge on following the goal to win by "the End draws near" cards. Why? Because in every stage there is something to bring him near that goal in a very useful way.

Stage I, obviously, is needed to activate the Special Victory per se. This is important because many players won't anticipate this. If they plan to go with any other Leadership card than their Special Victory Condition, they need to go for CP, and you just added 30% to the effort they need to achieve that goal. Save for you of course, which can come in handy should your event-card-plan fail.

Stage II offers you the possibity to mess up order stacks, which is nearly invaluable. Not only can you defend your precious positions much easier, no, the main purpose is to create discarded orders, thus forcing enemies to draw event cards. Or obstructing them, for that matter. You have to watch closely what happens across the bord and empathize a lot with your enemy. You don't want them to come down on you like angels of revenge, but you want to mess up stuff a bit. Here you need some social qualities, or the board will hate you. Use this power never against those neutral to you, except it gives you a real edge, or else you'll find yourself swarmed by some guys remembering that eliminating you rids them of their 20CP-problem.

Stage III then is the real hot prize. Both Leadership cards will help you a great deal. When you can see that no one will reach the 20CP the round following stage III, you'll go for the 8 orders. That'll make a hell of drawing cards for everyone if you do it right. 15+ event cards in a six-player-game ar a minimum. That means nearly the whole ******* pile is drawn, which ends in certain victory for you. If someone can reach the 20CP and no one is likely to prevent it, you simply skip the "Check for normal victory" and "Check for special victory"-steps of the Regrouping phase and hope the best for any stage III cards already drawn. The likely event is that no two "The end draws near" cards are drawn. So, you'll go for the 15CP. Aggressive expansion is the key. You only have four orders, use them wisely. You need to bring havoc to reach the number and remember - the CP are countes in the Regrouping phase. Hit any one around you, especially guys not expecting it. This is the last round of game, and your the only one to enforce the will of the Conclave!

All in all, chances to win with Aldaris' special victory are much better with the Leadership cards. Since the other two stage I cards are not that good (especially the Conclave Fleet is highly overrated in my opinion and the re-depleting of areas only matters should you be in a desperate position which isn't something to build a strategy on), it is a likely choice to enforce the special victory of Aldaris.

Well, after reading this somebody could think it's the only way to win as Aldaris - to choose SVC in 1st Stage.

But that's not true. Of course, by choosing another card you somehow limits your possibilities of winning (to CPs), but you are gaining interesting options if you want or you have good conditions to expand or to build up. Conclave Fleet will let you to easier defend new bases, you may even use this card to invade somedoby in neighbourhood suprisingly. All this helps in gaining CPs. Richies of Aiur lets you to gain your most expensive units (Archons, Carriers etc.) as fast as possible, but you need to be in safe place to do that. You can also easier buy Psionic Storm, which may be usefull in next stage.

In Stage 2. you really should consider choosing a hero - Fenix. This hero (thanks to High Templar cards with Splash damage (!), huge health bonus, its versality) may be as deadly as Kerrigan. Personally i think it's the best available hero in game. Almost nothing can survive a fight vs Fenix with reinforcement cards. Especially if you recharge them.

But even if you chose Khala Devotee, you won't lose much. This card will let you screw any defence or assault planned by your oppotent. Especially in 1v1 games.

So that, if you chose expansion / building up before, stage 2. cards are pertect to strike your oppotent(s) with your forces.

But when Aldaris really shines in agression, is the stage 3. Will of the Conclave is excelent because of one more reason: you place double orders each time! There are very few situations, in which you couldn't use this ability to crush at least one of your oppotent. Just because of the way orders are executed. Use that option wisely and you will be able to mess up everything on board - not only because of drawn event cards.

To sum up: Aldaris may be very dangerous oppotent in each game, you should never underestimate its possibilities.

My point precisly. Aldaris won greatly by the expansion. I'm sorry if I rose the impression that Aldaris can't win with his other cards, of course he can. I just think special victory is his strongest method now, compared to the vanilla game, where it was clearly the weakest. In marking out that difference I may went a bit too far, my apologies.

IMO Aldaris' special victory is one of the weakest leadership card. From 10 games we got to Stage II max once, because elemination happened sooner. And when you play more than 2 players you have to collect lots of CPs. So winning by normal victory has never occured in our games.

You are doing something wrong. Pretty much everygame should make it to stage two, some games don't make it to stage three, but stage two should pretty much always happen unless you are doing something drasticly wrong.

I didnt mention: I meant we didnt reach Stage II in a 1v1 game. Even so we always ended the game with elimination victory. I dont know how you play but if you bother each other from the very start of the game (in the first round), somebody is going to come out badly. (Or maybe after the second or third round) The point is, you cannot get so many event cards to get to Stage II and you dont have time to expand and collect CPs. In this way when you dont leave your opponent alone you may have the chance to win the game until the third round.

If you dont attack each other in the first round but you expand to other planets, research technologies, buy units, if and only if you will get to Stage II but then you play an endless battle. Bacuse to reach 15 CPs you have to play at least 7-9 rounds (not to mention with more than 2 players - lots of CPs). I think it is meaningless to play over thousands of rounds.

In the end I think from Aldaris' leadership cards when you may undeplete two areas is very effective because you begin with 9 workers and you have got two extra resource.

That is my opinion and we dont play wrong just we play definitely differrent as you.

Two player games are a lot easier to get elimination victory in but unless you are playing against someone who has no idea how to defend and counterattack you should still make it to stage two.

elimination is best and most interesting victory

we always play survival and it ends from 2 to 9 rounds

so its always better 2 take leadership cards with extra resources, speshl units not points

Oh yeah, good ol' Aldaris. I don't often get down to play the Board Game, but whenever I do, I really like Aldaris. I will try and apply this strategy the next time. Thanks for posting it, Stefan.