Although we're all veteran CCG players, my friends and I haven't been playing Invasion for that long, so we're all still learning the nuances of the game. I've built an Empire deck that splashes Dwarves and I have enjoyed alot of success with it. The main cog that drives my deck is Pistoliers + Shrine to Taal. As soon as I have Shrine to Taal down with 3 or 4 developments and I start hopping the Pistoliers using its ability, the extra resources, card draw and of course offensive power during the battlefield phase is hard for my friends to handle. If Pistoliers are unavailable, any creature and two Temples of Shallyas (with some clever effect stacking) can net a similar result. With the amount of resources and card draw I've been able to generate, I'm able to win simply with overwhelming defenses with pumped up attackers, or get silly with multiple Will of the Electors/Forced Marches and Judgement of Verena.

It seems like the combo would be easy to defeat either by simply destroying the Shrine or preventing creatures from being in the same zone at the beginning of the turn, but it seems like the combo goes off quite frequently for me. I face a Dwarf deck, a Chaos/Dark Elves and an Orcs deck regularly and only the Orcs deck has had some success against me.

Anyone out there finding similar success or have found other tricks with the Shrine? Have you found other ways to defend against the Shrine? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

After exploring the forums I've found the unofficial flowchart and it looks like no amount of "clever" stacking could get two temple of Shaylas to get the same effect as a pumped up Pistolier on the same turn. Oh well, I guess I could still use Forced March to get the creature to my Quest Zone if I had to. You learn something every day.

Aenarion,

I wrote up a session report on BGG yesterday about my success with Empire vs Chaos using the same tactic. I think it is not only one of the Empire's strongest combos, but one of the best in the game so far (behind only Bloodthirster/Rip perhaps and Will/JoV). So far I'm playing with only 1x core and 1x BP 1, so as I said in my session report, I think Empire is at a bit of a disadvantage in that environment due to the 1x cards required.

Johannes Broheim is obviously another combo piece with Shrine. He's more efficient than the Pistoliers once he's deployed (and a bit more sturdy HP-wise) but obviously more expensive and a hero, so if you want to bounce him around each phase, you have to make sure you have no other heroes out. Two other potentially big combo pieces for the shrine are City Gates which essentially doubles the acceleration of the Shrine and the Dwarf tactic Wake the Mountain for an instant 3 card boost. I also really like Innovation for a quick resource accelleration as you will always be putting maximum devs into Kingdom. Combining this combo with stalling tactics to slow down an Orc rush should produce a potentially very powerful (and quick) deck.

I'm hesitant to use City Gates only because I don't like the idea of not choosing the card that gets "developed" every turn. I never thought about Wake the Mountain though. That could be a great finisher card, but at two dwarf symbols, it would depend on how big a dwarf splash you're giving your deck. I normally play Shrine in my battlefield, so I've been using Burn it Down to take advantage. Do you think it's better to play it in your Kingdom zone? Thanks for the tips!

AenarionTheDefender said:

Two thoughts.

1. Abandoned Mine- This will let you draw back out the cards you really need from your development stack.

2. Surprise Assault- Think about dropping 8-10 indirect damage on your opponent for a 2 cost tactic. Imagine is you followed up with a Twin Tail Comet (as my opponent did Wednesday)

RexGator said:

I wouldn't be surprised that the rules allow a player to "overkill" one of his units / zone by assigning all the indirect damages to it at once. Afterall, no one will doubt that one can put 3 indirect damage on a Hammerer with 2 hit points and thoughness 1.

Martin_fr said:

This is another one for the FAQ I guess. As for where to put the Shrine, I'm a fan of Kingdom only because I can get resources as well as draws and attacks out of the Pistoliers. If you can get it out early enough, I think the huge resource + card advantage can be a game ender. But it is riskier since you will be stuck with the added power in Kingdom if all of your mobile units are killed. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, as you should have a decent card advantage after a turn or two, but I could see myself really wishing the extra power was in the battlefield. Depending on how the indirect damage question gets answered, it may end up always being a better bet to go with Battlefield because of things like Surprise Assault.

There is nothing in the rules that says you have to split up indirect damage amongst multiple units just as there is nothing saying you can't. This would leave me to believe that you could potentially over-assign damage to a specific unit, as it is not forbidden by the rules. I would however send this to Nate for confirmation. I can see the idea of over assigning being exclusive to direct or combat damage, for all the obvious reasons. The rules do not say this, but I would not be surprised if this was their intent. Note however if Surprise Assault is being duplicated by Twin-Tails Comet, it would be two separate effects each resolving independently of the other and as such any over assignment to one unit would almost certainly kill that unit and he would be unavailable to be assigned any damage from the other source.

Abandoned Mine would definitely make me feel better about laying down cards as developments. I always thought Surprise Assault would be too random to be reliable, but I can't knock it until I try it. I could see where multiple copies in one turn could be devastating though.