Zhufbar Engineers, Stubborn Refusal, A Glorious Death.
These are the cards useful in fighting against D+GA Combo.
Dragonmage + Gromril Armour = basically invincible?
pancerek said:
Zhufbar Engineers, Stubborn Refusal, A Glorious Death.
These are the cards useful in fighting against D+GA Combo.
ZE only work if DM is the only Unit in the corresponding zone and A Glorious Death only if DM attacks. Actually, I think the FAQ ruling made Stubborn Refusal weaker (though it still works vs DM) in the sense that previously, you needed only assign = HP, rest went to capital, so Units with Toughness survived and you could use SR. Now, the forced killing means less Units with damage on them remain on board after an attack.
Yup but with the former ruling your opponent couldn't have overassigned damage, what wasn't very often situation actually (according to my games against Aryan 
).
pancerek said:
Yup but with the former ruling your opponent couldn't have overassigned damage, what wasn't very often situation actually (according to my games against Aryan ).
Why not?
"Note that more damage
can be assigned to a unit at the attacker’s discretion,
in anticipation of the Toughness keyword or other
damage cancellation effects, but a minimum damage
equal to the number of remaining hit points possessed
by each defending unit must be assigned to
each defender before any damage can be assigned to
the defender’s capital." (p. 12)
If you wanted, you could assign 10 damage to a 1-HP Unit.
Sorry, there should be "didn't have to" instead of "couldn't have to"
pancerek said:
Sorry, there should be "didn't have to" instead of "couldn't have to"
Which to me was a plus, at least you could damage the capital zone with DM + GA defending it with a regular attack.
cyberfunk said:
Bloodthirster/Rip is one of the best combos in the game and people should be playing it regardless of the presence of Dragonmage in the meta. For two cards and a barrel (two for Chaos), you get:
Opponent's attack does seven less damage. Assign five uncancelable damage to opponent's attackers.
OR
Your attack does five more damage. Damage may not be canceled.
So, you have one use that is extremely strong against rush and another that is extremely useful against stall. Take into account that virtually all Destruction decks are running 3x Warpstone Excavation and thus have a hard time defending at least one of their support zones, and it's too good to pass up for most decks. (Warpstone doesn't affect Ripped units for the same reason Grimgore doesn't trigger when Ripped). I play BT/Rip in one of my two Orc builds (Mob Up in the Skaven version), and in most of my Chaos variants. In Chaos, the eight hammers to play BT normally is not all that hard to come by against Order opponents, if you decide you want to do it.
It IS a great combo but it's not THAT great. You get a Bloodthirster to use for 1 measly turn, which frequently isn't enough to win unless it's the last bit of damage you need and even then it's not a guarantee that he'll win you the game - especially not against the Dwarves or a Dwarf/Empire hybrid where RoV is being used. I'd rather save the BT for when I can actually put him into play permanently. That's not to say I won't use that combo from time to time but I don't use it as frequently as some do.
Is RoV Rune of Valaya? If so, then at least BT does negate RoV completely for the turn he is in, since nothing can be cancelled (and Rune of Valaya uses the cancel term).
Wytefang said:
cyberfunk said:
Bloodthirster/Rip is one of the best combos in the game and people should be playing it regardless of the presence of Dragonmage in the meta. For two cards and a barrel (two for Chaos), you get:
Opponent's attack does seven less damage. Assign five uncancelable damage to opponent's attackers.
OR
Your attack does five more damage. Damage may not be canceled.
So, you have one use that is extremely strong against rush and another that is extremely useful against stall. Take into account that virtually all Destruction decks are running 3x Warpstone Excavation and thus have a hard time defending at least one of their support zones, and it's too good to pass up for most decks. (Warpstone doesn't affect Ripped units for the same reason Grimgore doesn't trigger when Ripped). I play BT/Rip in one of my two Orc builds (Mob Up in the Skaven version), and in most of my Chaos variants. In Chaos, the eight hammers to play BT normally is not all that hard to come by against Order opponents, if you decide you want to do it.
It IS a great combo but it's not THAT great. You get a Bloodthirster to use for 1 measly turn, which frequently isn't enough to win unless it's the last bit of damage you need and even then it's not a guarantee that he'll win you the game - especially not against the Dwarves or a Dwarf/Empire hybrid where RoV is being used. I'd rather save the BT for when I can actually put him into play permanently. That's not to say I won't use that combo from time to time but I don't use it as frequently as some do.
As Dam says, Valaya is canceled by Bloodthirster, which is why the combo is especially good against Dwarves. If I'm playing Chaos, I do sometimes put the Thirster into play permanently against Dwarves, but sometimes you just don't have enough guys they will usually start throwing Zhufbar Engineers to the BT when he shows up, so you are trading 2-for-1 a lot of turns, and setting up Rangers/Stand Your Ground for them.
Again, the more common play is simply to flip up the Bloodthirster in front of a big attack to take full advantage of his HP/hammers while skipping the eight resource barrels and attrition ability.
If you are going to include this combo then you should be doing it x3 with both pieces which will let you use the combo once in a standard length game and potentially give you the chance to put him into play at a later point in the game. If Engineers are being sacrificed to the Thirster AND he has alreayd don his job of getting a much needed combat damage for a round or two through, you can always sacrifice him to the Engineers and not have to worry about multiple units from that zone... of course, you'r opponent will only have three engineers, and that 2 for 1 ratio shouldn't be too big of a hit since you are building with the BT in mind and should have a few units to feed to him, not to mention that Engineer is going to probably get killed off at some point or another and you'd still have to sacrifice someone without the added benefit of stopping all damage cancel.
Just depends on the game situation really and how you build and play your decks.
dormouse said:
If you are going to include this combo then you should be doing it x3 with both pieces which will let you use the combo once in a standard length game and potentially give you the chance to put him into play at a later point in the game. If Engineers are being sacrificed to the Thirster AND he has alreayd don his job of getting a much needed combat damage for a round or two through, you can always sacrifice him to the Engineers and not have to worry about multiple units from that zone... of course, you'r opponent will only have three engineers, and that 2 for 1 ratio shouldn't be too big of a hit since you are building with the BT in mind and should have a few units to feed to him, not to mention that Engineer is going to probably get killed off at some point or another and you'd still have to sacrifice someone without the added benefit of stopping all damage cancel.
Just depends on the game situation really and how you build and play your decks.
No argument on running 3x each; I'd run a half-dozen of each if I could. 
Dwarves do indeed have only three Engineers, but... sometimes they come back.
A Dwarf player that is wasting his "Stand Your Grounds" for the Engineer is my ideal opponent. What I dread is me finally icing Kazador and having that stumpy pop right back up in a better zone than he was in the first time. You can substitute Kazador for any of the high toughness units or high HP guys, and it is still frustrating as all hell. A guy that makes me sacrifice a peon when he leaves play... that I can handle.
Scenario: You have Bloodthirster, Chaos Knights, Fledgling Chaos Spawn in BF and swing in to their BF, killing a Mountain Brigade and doing a couple points to capital. They float out a Zhufbar Engineers to battlefield and reinforce other zones. Your turn, Chaos Spawn and Chaos Knights bite it, and if you swing into BF, the Engineers are coming right back to trade with the Bloodthirster. If you play another guy to BF, then Engineers are trading with them and forcing the Thirster to kill himself on your next turn. That's quite a bit better than playing the King, whose toughness is canceled by the Bloodthirster.
Sure, sometimes you can float out some Savage Gor/Chaos Spawn/Nurgling fodder, but sometimes they have Dwarven Ranger or Master Rune of Dismay, or both. Again, I'm not saying the Dwarves beat you every time, I'm just saying that these kind of shenanigans encourage you to Rip the Bloodthirster rather than spend eight barrels on him to start a war of attrition that generally doesn't help you.
My bad, I didn't meanto imply that Engineers were not good (they are in every Dwarf deck I've made) nor are they always the worst thing to bring back, but that is a very specific situation you've created, and when I look to bring back a card by way of SYG I am looking at my longer term goals more often than my immediate needs. The Thirster is a resource sink. If he was Ripped into play I'm bringing back Kazador, if he was purchased out right the decision becomes a little more complicated, with having to take into account how many units he has in the BZ, how many I have, which each are for both of us, how long it has been in play and what the rest of the board looks like.