Orcs

3x Lobba Crew
3x Crooked Teeth Goblins
3x Goblin Spider Riders
3x Followers of Mork
3x Snotling Pump Wagon
3x Clan Moulder Elite
3x Veteran Sellswords
3x Squig Herders

3x Contested Village
3x Warpstone Excavation
3x Choppa
2x Rock Lobba
1x Basha's Bloodaxe

3x Innovation
3x We's Bigga
2x Waaagh!
3x Seduced by Chaos
3x Pillage

agg's descption of the deck can be found here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp , but I thought that as well as post the deck to the deck forum I'd offer a few thoughts.

We feel that this is the fastest deck that has been shown anywhere (although we do think that a couple of changes will make it even faster). We have sacrificed any sort of board control for speed, so it may not be the best possible Orc deck, but your opponent must see their answers very quickly otherwise you'll steamroll them. The economy is incredibly efficient (needing only four resources per turn) and there are only two cards in the deck that cost more than two resources. The Orc cost-to-power ratio is frankly stupid at the moment and there are only six guys that have a potential ratio of worse than 1:1.

The only non-blitz cards are Lobba Crew and Pillage but these fulfill the same function. They should be used early to try and force your opponent to keep replaying their first turn. You have more cheap cards than him and are far morely likely to come off better if the first three turns of the game are resets. You might win on turn five rather than turn three, but if your opponent is still trying to play what they consider to be their standard turn two cards then the effect is the same.

Like all Orc decks the potential for a ridiculous turn of playing your entire opening hand is possible and at the moment we can't see any way of beating an Orc deck that can manage that (plus they gain 50 points). This is why the deck was designed. It doesn't matter what your opponent's tricks are, if they can't get to to turn four who cares? The irony is that apart from Pillage and Lobba crew the Orc cards aren't individually that overpowered. The problem is that the deck can play a critical mass of cards that are efficient which creates an overall effect of a blitz dck that is just too fast. The Orc design themes should not be 'burn two zones' and 'play efficient cards'.

crowdedmind said:

LOL, I ran both of these in my Chaos deck I took to our regionals. Yea, they are both overpowered!

I have been thinking about this deck on and off since Saturday, especially given the Bloodaxe Lobber Crew combination. I wonder if a better bet might be Offering of Blood, 2 cost for 2 damage to each section of your opponents capital if the Bloodaxe is in play.

The Axe is comming out. It only rarely sees play and we've decided not to add a second and switch Seduced for Chillwind (which would mean that the Axe doesn't cost you any tempo). The Rock Lobbas are amazing. They let you attack a second zone in the same turn and for four resources lets you deal four damage before your opponent can place a development (lob a guy during your attack and again during their pahse zero). It also lets you deal damage in response to your opponent playing a fog, which near the end of the game can be massive.

I have been planning a control build that uses Offering of Blood, Boar Attack, Rock Lobba etc in combination with the Axe to sleaze multiple zones, but at the moment it's not quick enough to compete with blitz and Dark Elves eat you alive (as you need a lot of cheap units which die to Vile Sorceress and We Need Your Blood).

I'm not sure this is the fastest build (just my opinion, no offense) but it looks pretty nasty, regardless. Basha's is a slow card, really. What's the combo you referred to? I'm wondering if I've missed noticing it?

One other disappointment is that thematically, the Orcs really aren't a fast rushing army at all. They mob up and build their forces with their Waugggghs and such and then attack in huge green waves. The current Orc abilities somewhat mimic this but a better, more accurately themed solution would be that the Orcs can attack with large numbers (which is one reason why I love the Wolf Rider card as it really enhances this idea) but take a bit to get going (which is the exact opposite of the current situation).

A more thematic unit mechanic for orcs, instead of having so many cheap "rushy" units, would have been units that cost 3 or 4 or 5, but come into play as multiple units.

For example, the pump wagon has several units on the picture. It should have cost 4 and put 3 orc units with 1 power and 1 HP into play. You could represent the copies with dice or whatever (I would prefer they made actual full card art with no text box to use for this). They could make a 1/1 orc token pack and have multiple units put varying amounts of orc tokens into play. That way they dont really rush, but they swarm.

An interesting idea Darkdeal but I just don't want to deal with token units yet. Who knows, maybe it will come out though.

Wytefang said:

The combo is the Bloodaxe with Rock Lobber.

You attack with all of your units including the one with the Axe on it. Once you have passed the assign damage stage you sacrifice a unit to the Lobber. The Lobber damage is doubled by the effect of the Axe giving you the possibility of burning two zones in one turn if the Lobber attack zone already has some damage on it.

Wytefang said:

Wytefang said:

Andwat was referring to the axe/Rock Lobba combo. As the Axe doubles all damage dealt to capitals during combat actions taken during combat that deal damage to the capital also have their damage doubled. The axe means that a timely Rock Lobba will deal four damage to their capital.

How would you speed up the deck? We're dropping the Axe and a Seduced for Thanquol but past that we're running out of cheap cards that are efficient. We've also toyed with adding Clan Rats (who would have a reasonable number of targets) but the only units that we can cut (Followers of Mork and possibly Squig Herders) are making We'z Bigga worth including as we're not willing to run it with only the Clan Moulder Elite as a viable target.

out side the changes i have said before im not sure how you can make it faster.

you can play all your cards most games in your first 2 turns, and its easy to do 8 damage very fast. that puts your oppenent on a very quick clock.

i mean one game i played 8 cards in my first turn and 6'ed a zone, im not sure how you go quicker than that consistanly, but if you want to post a faster deck feel free.

So I copied this deck and played it some today. I took out the Bloodaxe for another Waagh though. I was not impressed. It lost 2/3 of its games against my DE/Skaven deck (more control than rush) just because of the inconsistency of it. It plays so much acceleration and utility that it wasn't very good at rushing. There were hands with 2 Innovation, which normally would be good, but when you draw pillage, and wez bigga, and lobber crew, and the other support cards, you aren't left with much to use the acceleration on. I think I will be taking out the innovations and putting in more units. Wez bigga may get cut as well. I prefer the orc rush to have more skaven in it to help with quest/kingdom development with units that still add to attack strength. I'm not sure Pillage matters either. You should be able to win by the time pillage would matter.

Maybe there were just a lot of poor draws when I played this deck, but it doesn't seem optimal at all.

I played maybe twenty games against this. If you can get it to stutter or he gets a bad draw the deck does struggle to recover, but the point is that most of the time it will simply kill you on turn 4 or 5, a god draw will kill you quicker than that. I also picked it up a few times and was surprised how many mistakes I made with it. I'd recommend anyone wanting to try this deck to play several games with it - it's really strong.

Also as the guy being pillaged / lobba crewed - those cards are riduculously powerful for their cost and both being within the same faction.

For sure, t2 lobber + pillage is rough on pretty much any deck. If their first turn was an alliance/clan rat/whatever-2-cost and a spider rider you're already in a world of hurt.

But against rush, who cares if they pillage your Warpstone Excavation or Contested Village when you have units beating their face? The problem was it is supposed to be rush and it didn't do that. There is too much non-rush in the deck for it to compete against rush. In my opinion, this deck lacks focus. It is trying to be rush while at the same time have control elements to beat control type decks like bolt thrower. Rush should beat bolt thrower decks anyway, so there shouldn't be a need to include the cards against them. The inclusion just reduces the chances of beating a more dedicated rush.

My rush deck wins a vast majority of its games by turn 3 to 4. It is a "glass cannon". If the rush is stopped, it will lose, but the opponent has a very small time frame to do so and it usually doesn't happen.

Pillage is a good card, just not needed. We'z Bigga and Innovation are too redundant when you are taking units out of the deck to play both. Play Innovation and cut the We'z Bigga (they do the same thing, why damage yourself?). Lobber Crew is incredible, I was just saying that it doesn't do much if you aren't drawing units to attack with.

darkdeal, would you mind posting your deck if you feel that it's faster and more consistent? Innovation and We'z Bigga let you play more units early on, whereas replacing them with units will not speed up the deck as you still only have 3 resources available on turn one. You also mentioned developing your Kingdom, but Orcs don't need more than four resources per turn (although ideally you want to draw about four cards each turn). I'm confused by your comment that Pillage doesn't work because you win before you need it: Pillage is best played in the first couple of turns.

If you are going first your best starts (barring crazy hand-emptying madness) are either:

1. Lobba Crew plus something. Any Warpstone Excavations go into the Quest zone.

This allows you to generate four resources on turn two which either means two units or a unit and Pillage, plus you can Lobba Crew to reset your opponent's board even further.

2. We'z Bigga into a Squiq Herders (Quest) + something. Any Warpstone Excavations go into the Quest zone.

This start sets up your turn two production and means that you'll be drawing 3 cards on turn two.

If you are going second then you're looking to apply pressure to your opponent straight away. You want to be making units and attacking with at least four power. If you have any spare resources then develop your Quest to ensure that you keep drawing into more units. Thanquol allows you to make a hybrid start if you go second by going to the Kingdom and allowing you to attack for two damage.

The most important decision you have to make when playing this deck is whether or not you keep your opening hand. What might be considered a good start for most decks is not for this, so you need to learn to evaluate your hand and see if it will give you the massive early boost that you need. a good rule of thumb is that if you can't play half your hand on turn one you need to really consider why you want to keep it.

Units: 31
3 Veteran Sellswords
3 Spider Riders
3 Crooked Teef Goblins
3 Squig Herders
3 Followers of Mork
3 Snotling Pump Wagon
3 Lobber Crew
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
3 Clan Rats
2 Greyseer Thanquol
2 Deathmaster Sniktch

Support: 11
3 Warpstone Excavation
3 Contested Village
3 Choppa
2 Totem of Gork

Tactic: 8
3 Innovation (We'z Bigga!)
3 Waaagh!
2 Mob Up (2 Ugrok Beardburna)

The cards in parenthesis are what I used to play, but with my DE/Skaven deck playing Call the Blood, We'z Bigga has become a liability. Because of that, the units that benefit from damage on them have also gotten worse. I don't really like Mob Up! and will probably cut it for another Greyseer and another Deathmaster just to increase the odds of getting them in my hand.

I also did not, and rarely do, mention putting supports into kingdom as a priority over quest. In rush decks that is just silly thinking. I almost always write it as kingdom/quest because nothing is absolute and there are situations where you would want to play things in your kingdom (or you have to with cards with Lobber Crew).

Before the Deathmaster came out, I played Rat Ogres in that spot.

Also, during play, I often had my first 2 support cards killed by pillage and my first unit destroyed with Lobber Crew and I still won. Mostly due to the Orc Rush deck not having much left in hand in the way of units.

For reference, here is the first draft of my DE/Skaven list.

Units: 30
3 Shades
3 Clan Rats
3 Vile Sorceress
3 Greyseer Thanquol
3 Deathmaster Sniktch
3 Poison Wind Globadiers
3 Gutter Runners
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
3 Walking Sacrifice
3 Rat Ogres

Support: 8
3 Contested Village
3 Warpstone Excavation
2 Har Ganeth

Tactics: 12
3 Hate
3 Chittering Horde
3 Call the Blood
3 Chillwind

I would like to add Innovation and maybe cut a Rat Ogre, but I haven't gotten to testing that yet. Call the Blood is pretty good anyway, but the Poison Wind Globadiers make it really good. Just another way to get rid of opposing Clan Moulder's Elite.

There are 6 scout units making it hard for controlling decks to keep a hand.

And, just like my orc deck, there are a lot of units that can be put into kingdom/quest zones to help build your economy while still adding power to your attack.

Walking Sacrifice is pretty good with Har Ganeth to draw an extra card every turn for free as well.

For my 2p, I just don't see how putting 3 copies of each of two cards which might be considered controlling (Lobba Crew and Pillage) into a deck with 44 other cards, all of which are foot-to-the floor eyeball-deformingly fast rush, can really constitute 'diluting it'. He's running every single available card with 1 / 2 cost with power equal or better than its cost.

If I may add a third penny; the crew and pillage are not played in isolation, you put men into the battlefield and pressure the opponent as well. Then if you set the opponent back a turn he simply doen't have the resources to stop you. It's a 'controlling' action, but it is extremely aggressive if you see what I mean.

Childlocksucks said:

Its not just Lobber Crew and Pillage that dilute the "rushiness". Its Innovation, We'z Bigga, Lobber Crew, Pillage, and every other card that is not a unit meant to attack. This deck runs less than half units meant to attack, meaning on average it will draw 3 attacking units in its opening hand. Most units in the deck are not impressive, its the amount of them you get into play that is deadly. So if a deck can deal with those first 3 or 4 units and then handle the 1 or 2 it may draw a turn, it's too slow for what it is supposed to do. Its really easy to stop 3 or 4 units when they have 1 or 2 HP each.

I'm sure there are god draws that can completely blow out most decks (triple hate on your first turn still trumps that though), but that is the opposite of consistency.

Right, I'm with you. You're talking more about the 'balance' of the deck. If you draw 3 choppas but have no allies to put them on they are useless, but that doesn't make them a non-aggressive or bad card. Similarly with We'z bigga - when held with one 1 heath ally it's useless, but in the right deck it's a powerful card which accellerates your aggression.

No you can't play 50 cards like innovation, we'z bigga etc because they are supports to your stratergy, you have to have enough allies too. Where I disagree with you slightly is that I think the deck (and it should have 3 Thanquals in it imo) does have enough allies to be consistent. Sure sometimes you draw an opener of 2 innovation, 2 wez bigga, 2 choppa, 1 pillage and then you lose, but that is true for any deck.

cards like innovation and we bigger are there to speed you up. you can draws where you play 2 2cost units turn one, that is huge imo and should not be ignored.

putting a slow stream of guys is not as good in this game and playing a load striaght of, simply the more tempo you can get the better.

this deck on average gets 5 power out by its 2nd turn. you only need to slow your opp down by one turn and you will win 90% of games. i agree that you could have a problem with de/skaven but adding mob up doesnt do it. you should just win that game any way.

agg said:

You don't need any of that acceleration to do that. The problem is when people answer your few threats, do you have what you need to recover? A deck with more units and the ability to draw more cards will recover faster than this deck as you will draw too many useless cards that were only good on the first turn. 3 of each of we'z bigga and innovation is too many. Pick one and play 3 of that. Pillage doesn't need to be there. Mob Up doesn't need to be there. That was just a hold over from when I first built the deck when Mob Up came out. There really should be more skaven in here. Clan Rats and Greyseer Thanquol can both be played to the quest zone and still add power to your attack. They are weak HP wise, but they force the opponent to play around you and that is what you want. What happens with my deck usually is first turn Greyseer in Kingdom. Turn 2 I play 2 more skaven, if they are 2 Clan Moulder Elites, I am attacking for 8 on turn 2. Good luck losing that game.

When you say 'usually' you mean less than half the time after taking the mulligan, correct? If you really want a Thanquol/2 unit start why aren't you playing three copies of him?

The point of playing We'z Bigga and Innovation is to increase the chances of seeing one or two early on which allows you to force out an extra unit and gain more tempo. I think that if you don't believe Pillage is good then you probably don't understand the power of disrupting your opponent's earl y game.

crowdedmind said:

Disrupting the opponent's early game is meaningless against rush and pointless against control because you are going to win anyway. Rush doesn't care that you kill its Warpstone Excavation when it has 2 or 3 units sitting there beating you down and you just wasted 2 resources on a card that doesn't deal with the threats.

A player, almost always, starts the game with 3 resources to play units. Most units in an orc/skaven deck cost 1 or 2. So you draw 2 of the we'z bigga/innovation and a warpstone and 4 units I'll say. If all 4 of those units amount to about 7 resources to play out, you didn't need both of those acceleration cards as you can just play 3 or 4 resources worth on your first turn, and the rest on your second turn. If you are playing second in the game, then it may be relevant, but it doesn't matter if you are playing first as your guys can't attack that turn anyway.

Another reason you would want more than one acceleration card in your opening hand is if you want to play that many more units to your kingdom/quest zone. If you do that though, that is yet one more card that isn't attacking.

It would be more acceptable to play that much acceleration if the deck played cards that actually cost more than 2.

A defense of my deck about the Greyseer. I like to say "usually" so don't read too much into that as if it were a percentage. I played only 2 Greyseer because he is unique and I didn't want multiples in my opening hand. He is really good, but not manditory to get the damage there.

Look at this in the Orc Rush vs Orc/Skaven. The initial deck vs my deck. I have more units. Neither deck is that great at dealing with opposing units, and because of that, my deck will have more threats on the board. If you do your plan, and I do mine, I should win more often just from applying damage faster. That extra turn you give the opponent could also be just enough for them to stabilize to board and carry that to a win.

darkdeal said:

Just because a deck has more units doesn't mean that it will play more units. The race in blitz mirror matches is who can get more units on the table the fastest (and therefore burn two zones before their opponent). Cards that accelerate your deck are key to achieving this.

A better argument against We'z Bigga (and one that agg and I keep discussing) is that there aren't that many targets in the deck. We can live with Followers of Mork being a cheaper unit (however none exist), but the games when you do go first being able to play a Squig Herders that will let you draw two more cards on turn two is difficult to pass up. They could be Clan Rats to go with the newly-added Thanquol but Clan Rats are only useful with other Skaven (otherwise you're paying for a poor 2R unit). I really dislike playing units to the battlefield on turn one if I'm going first. They are resources that could be drawing you cards and your opponent can take their first turn seeing what they need to deal with (whether holding resources for We Need Your Blood is a good idea etc). I'd much rather develop my board on turn one when going first and then force out all my battlefield units on turn two and the accerlation of We'z Bigg and Innovation allow that.

darkdeal said:

so its who ever can play the most units and attack wins right?

so my deck is faster than yours because i have more acceration, so by that lodgic i would win right? because i can play guys faster.

plus if i can disrupt your draw and you can't mine then i will draw more cards and make it more likly i will win.

you dont need a lot of dudes to burn a zone.

now i agree that thanquel should be in there and ive added him but i dont agree that more units means faster, you only need 8 power

and i need less due to rock lobba.

i think having said all that there is really very little diffrence in the decks and if your happier runing your list then thats cool. i think the overall effect will be minor.