I'd like a clarification on the way that Shrine of Nurgle applies to damage dealt within the battlefield stage. For reference, the text of the shrine is:

"Kingdom, Forced: After an opponent's unit is dealt damage during combat, corrupt that unit."

Now, my question is whether or not the Shrine affects only damage dealt by units, or also by other cards. So, for example, if i have a Chosen of Tzeentch sitting in my QZ, does any damage dealt by its ability corrupt a unit? I'm imagining it something like this:

1. Battlefield phase begins

2. Declare target of the attack

3. In the action window following, use Chosen's action to damage a unit

4. Shrine kicks in an corrupts it

Basically, it would be nice to know what classifies as damage dealt 'during combat' and what doesn't.

Any damage done during the 5 stages of combat qualifies as damage during combat, regardless of whether or not it was caused by a unit nit who is participating in said combat, one who is not, or a support, or tactic.

Nurgle Sorceror is a better option for this, even though his ability is pricier (3 resource vs 1). Chosen of Tzeentch can only damage already damaged Units.

Nurgle Sorcerer and Sadistic Mutation is even better. 3 resources for 2 damage to two different units!

RexGator said:

Except people with Toughness.

OT: Not that the Dwarves are doing that well. For us, the circle goes: Chaos beats Orcs, Orcs beats Empire, Empire beats Chaos, everyone beats Dwarves .

Wow. What kind of deck is your Dwarf player using? Damage reduction, redirection plus HE healing is a very potent Turtle build and can just grind other decks to dust, simply outlasting the onslaught. Abandoned Mine and City Gates make it hard to burn down zones before they get the cards they need to start removing damage from their zones. Toss in the quest Infiltrate with a Unit with Toughness to stymie directed damage and they should be winning some games just by tenacity alone.

dormouse said:

We have 1x Core + 1x Skavenblight, using mono-faction, all faction cards, mix in all the random, non-aligned Neutrals, minus Infiltrate Quest (which I hate). Current combo thus has 27 Neutrals, 13-13 split, one left over, except in a Chaos game, Order gets Marius, so 14-14 split. With Orcs getting 2 extra cards in the first BP, throw in two Neutrals first to even the numbers, then split the rest for 14-12 Neutral split. Have only splashed with DElfs, HElfs and Skaven a couple of times.

Just on a personal note, I hate even the idea of mixing Dwarves and High Elves, being a long-ago High Elf WH player and remembering their histories .

Might not sound like it from the above, but purely casual play, pick a faction, add random Neutrals, play.

If that is how you are playing then I understand the Dwafs losses. Infiltrate is a key card that makes blitzkrieg style decks come with a cost. You go for broke and rush out of the gate and run the risk of smashing yourself. No infiltrate little risk of a rush deck being forced to pay for that early over-extension. You've removed one of the built in checks. *shrug* I mean it is your game and as long as your players understand this and accept that check as not being there then it is obviously all good, but I would never play Dwarfs without the threat of that card in pre-concstructed. They are too slow, and designed to be that way.

In constructed without the benefit of a second Core Set or multiple Battle Packs to ensure getting out those necessary cards early Dwarfs are going to be at a disadvantage for another couple of BP's.

dormouse said:

Thing is, with just Core Set, Dwarves were tied with Empire for 2nd place (Orcs were WAY out in front).

And I think Dwarves would hate Infiltrate even more if they went against it, given random Neutral draw. Also, with Dwarves, putting Infiltrate out early means drawing it (1x in deck) and allocating a Unit to it, normally, want to splurge for more resources, so KZ is where the majority of Units go early on. As a result, QZ is probably the most burned zone overall, it's usually "given up" quickly enough.