I know I've ripped Empire in my earlier blog, but after learning how to use it, I have to say I'm impressed.

I've played 5 games of Empire vs. Chaos with my wife. She totally killed me the first 2, then I won, she won, I won. Chaos 3, Empire 2.

I did see that others shared my view that Empire just couldn't hold their own very well, but I've since changed my mind. The key to Empire is the QZ and cheap cards. The cheap cards gives you the advantage of possibly playing 2 cards on your first turn, and most likely being able to play 2 or more with 4 resources on your 2nd turn. The reason the QZ zone becomes more important is the cheap cards will cause you to go through them faster. Once you have about 5 resources set up in KZ, you really could possibly go through 5 cards. Remember, Empire has 0 cost tactics and units (Peasant Militia) and of course development cards. You need to make sure you have QZ working for you, and fast. You will need to feed the KZ as well, and I'm not saying ignore it. All I'm saying is with other races, I ignored the QZ on the first few turns, and I don't think you can do that with Empire and be successful.

The 2 games I won, I was lucky enough to get a Huntsmen in my hand, they only cost one and that allowed me to play 2 cards on my first turn. My 2nd turn I was able to have 4 resources, and again could play 2 cards feeding both KZ and QZ.

In the last game we just played I was able to build up to 4 draws from QZ and 7 Resources from KZ. I protected my QZ with a Reiksguard Knights (Counterstrike 2), this made my wife much more wary of attacking that zone. With The Greatswords(gains a power when a unit enters same zone for one turn) in my BZ with Pistoliers going in and out to give extra power to my Greatswords, I was able to hold my own and the game was very close. I had burned her QZ and my BZ was about 2 damage away from burning. By making sure I was getting plenty of cards each turn, I also had a better chance of getting the rather vicious Judgment of Verena, which I did get I believe in my 5th turn . That destroyed all unit and support cards in zones w/out developments. Unfortunately for my wife, she only had developments in BZ and so she was pretty much stripped of her resources. Then I did a Forced March(Move a target unit from one zone to another) to her only unit in BZ, Chaos Knights, and moved it to her QZ. Because I had a ton of cards in my hands with7 resources to play, I was able to load my BZ with units on the next turn, my Greatswords getting a power for each unit entering the zone that turn, and was able to finish off the KZ zone for the win. To my wife's credit, she did get my BZ zone burning right before I was able to deliver the coup de gras.

So I've changed my mind. Empire does require a lighter touch, but after a few games, I think you will see that if you can quickly get units spread out in your KZ and QZ with the cheap cards, you can put together a machine that pumps out units. Combine those units with the some devastating tactics, and you can definitely win using an Empire Only deck.

One of these days people will believe me when I say the races are evenly matched.

It just takes some time getting used to what the strengths and weaknesses of each race is and then figure out how to maximize your strengths and shore up or minimize your weaknesses as you play.

As I've said in other places, the key to Empire is Balance, then Cards, from what I've seen. Chaos wins with strong Resources at the start, then a focus on cards helps it. Orcs are Resources & Cards equally, imho. Dwarves are focused on a careful build-up.

I now see what Dormouse has said all along, that the races are definitely balanced, all things considered.

I can also say that no particular focus is necessarily "key" to any deck's success at this point, as you can so easily manipulate your economy to help get you whatever you need and fairly quickly. A specific starting focus may help some decks, in particular, but overall, I don't think any focus is truly THAT critical to ANY deck. Just my opinion, though, yours may vary of course.

What nuetrals are you using in your Empire deck? That's key, oddly enough, too.

My Nuetrals Cards were:

2-Contested Stronghold

2-Contested Fortress

2-Warpstone Excavation

2-Forgotten Cemetery

1-Armoury

1-Contested Village

ventura72 said:

I don't use warpstones in my Empire deck, it interferes with the biggest strenght that Empire deck has: mobility.

Btw, if you have greatswords and Johannes Broheim fielded at the same time move Johannes after every phase between greatswords zones (even in your opponents turn to buff up defense!). It almost feels broken if you have two greatswords in the battlefield and Johannes in kingdom zone at the beginning of your turn (and to my knowledge you can move Johannes after your opponents battlefield phase to there) you can beef up each greatswords 2 power even before recruiting new units to bf zone.

Lafi said:

Btw, if you have greatswords and Johannes Broheim fielded at the same time move Johannes after every phase between greatswords zones (even in your opponents turn to buff up defense!). It almost feels broken if you have two greatswords in the battlefield and Johannes in kingdom zone at the beginning of your turn (and to my knowledge you can move Johannes after your opponents battlefield phase to there) you can beef up each greatswords 2 power even before recruiting new units to bf zone.

Greatsword gain the Power until the end of the turn, moving Johannes during the action step at the end of your opponent's battlefield phase means they have the extra Power for the end of your opponent's turn, which probably ends right there and then. Or did you mean move Johannes from BZ to KZ so he starts your turn in the KZ?

End of Kingdom Phase, move him to BZ for +1 on each Greatsword, end of Quest Phase move him somewhere else and end of Capital Phase move him to BZ again does give +2 to Greatswords.

Yeah, move him around to get defence power for greatswords and then in the end of your opponends turn move to kingdom zone. Then you can start moving him around again in your turn. Extra resources & pistoliers are great for buffing greatswords after enemy has declared attack on greatswords zone too .

I was a fool to think greatswords as lame units at first

With regards to using Warpstone Excavation.

I acutally think this card is a little underated. Granted I wouldn't want anymore than2 in my deck, but it may help you in pinch, and if you're not playing against Chaos, you can easily uncorrupt a unit that enters the zone after WE is played.

Or, if you really don't need that extra hammer that bad, you can always use it as a Development.

ventura72 said:

How is it underrated? I have 3x of them in both of my destruction decks, but I really would not want even one in my pure empire deck because it severely weakens moblity of the deck (can't move units to defend the zone, can't move Johannes through the zone without getting unit corrupted).

That's a good point about Empire and using Warpstone Excavation. I only thought about playing units out of my hand, not moving them around into that zone. What I meant by underrated is that its a free card that can help, and I usually don't hear anyone say anything kind about it.

I'm not sure why people would say empire is underpowered. They are simply very defensive in nature. Counterstrike on so many units makes it difficult for the opponent to attack. Great defense against ork decks with lots of 1 life creatures.

BUMP: for the thread name. I initially though this could be a discussion of the Twin-tailed comet card. I managed to purchase a second individually on ebay and now feel super prepared for the Uber cards that will be in Arcane Fire .

Wytefang said:

I prefer to play the dwarves and I agree to your post, but the challenge is not to get overrun while bulding up... Any thoughts on that ?

Dwarves got some amazing cards in the last couple of BPs. Go check out the decklists in the deckbuilding forum - Dwarves are probably the strongest deck with units in it.

Clamatius said:

Exactly, the post which you quoted Tuathach77 is going on 9 months old, and there has been many packs released in that time.