I don't think this archetype will work well until I have the new BP with Wilhelm, so I can't test it yet. I'm curious if anyone is trying something like this already. The idea is to leverage Empire's resource advantage into denying the opponent's resources via support destruction and forced march + Wilhelm.

The thing I would be worried about with this plan is rush - it seems like this ought to work pretty well against midrange like dwarves.

3 Warpstone Excavation
3 Contested Village
3 Church of Sigmar
3 Derricksburg Forge
3 Dwarf/Empire Alliance
1 Shrine to Taal
2 Runefang of Solland
-- 18

3 Huntsmen
3 Pistoliers
1 Warrior Priests
3 Gryphon Legionnaire
1 Thyrus Gorman
2 Troll Slayers
3 Zealot Hunter
3 Wilhelm of the Osterknacht
-- 19

3 Innovation
1 Judgement of Verena
3 Burn it Down
3 Forced March
3 Demolition!
-- 13

If you're trying to hold them off resources, demoralize during phase 0 isn't half bad the first couple turns... as a rishadan port kind of effect. Or like boomeranging a land.

Yeah, I've tried that previously - I had a deck that I never posted with demoralize and infiltrate (n.b., not "infiltrate!" - as an aside, the fact that infiltrate and infiltrate! are both card names makes me facepalm) but I was never very happy with it. If your opponent could disrupt your card draw, you were just drawing cheap, weak effects so it wasn't stable enough for me. Even Mind Killer is kind of weak and that is really a better version of the demoralize plan.

Actually, in some ways this whole deck is kind of a revamp of a friend's similar deck with 6x scout and 6x support removal from 4-5 months ago. That one concentrated on messing up their quest rather than their kingdom, but I feel that Church of Sigmar is more synergistic with kingdom disruption than quest disruption.

The deck does look fun, and the synergy is probably why. I wish Hate was an empire card. Then the deck would look REALLY fun to me.

It kinda says something to me that Empire continues to run Troll Slayers, while it's looking more and more like a cut from the mono dwarf deck. Empire still needs more love from the designers!

Getting significant power in the battlefield is still a problem for Empire. You can do it with the attachments but obviously you are setting yourself up for your little guy to get eaten by a deathmaster or something.

In this deck, we're always going to want Wilhelm to take the drivers seat in the battlefield, so Thyrus isn't going to be on offense. Given that, we need an efficient, high-power unit - and we're developing the battlefield anyway for Burn It Down, so Troll Slayers seem like the natural choice.

I agree that the Slayers aren't that great in the actual Dwarf deck and they'll most likely get cut when Master Rune of Spite is out (if not before).

f7eleven said:

Yeah one guy from my playgroup plays a hellblaster deck with few units often using demoralize, infiltrate (tactic) at the beginning of opponents turn plus called back and it can really cripple oneself for a few turns because with 3 resources and 1 card it's hard to disrupt the opponents discard pile.

Called Back is an interesting idea. Might be better than Forced March in this deck.

x It isn't that different from the empire deck I built last week (at least card wise)... but the differences are interesting. I tend to opt for mono-race decks until I've lost enough times to get a real good feel for what cards need to come out and what OOR cards should go in (unless the theme demands biracial cards). I think your deck will have a better chance against the fxield here in Dallas. I've definitely come to the conclusion that I need heavier hitters rather than relying on the Runefanged Willhelm. I'm interested to see what my meta is going to be like when I move. I think perhaps I have won my last game for a couple of months xwhile I get adjusted.

Units 20

3x Huntsmen
3x Talabheim Detachment
2x Warrior Priests
3x Free Company
3x Gryphon Legionnaire
3x Wilhelm of the Osterknacht
3x Zealot Hunter

Supports 14

3x Warpstone Excavation
3x Contested Village
3x Church of Sigmar
3x Derricksburg Forge
2x Runefang of Solland

Tactics 17

3x Demoralise
3x Forced March
2x Judgement of Verena
3x Innovation
3x Demolition!
3x Burn it Down

Total: 51

I've been thinking Trolly Slayers and Dwarf Rangers (for the additional scout keyword). The idea was to attack their kingdom and hand. If they have limited resources it is difficult to play their best cards, and then the scouts remove those cards before they can get enough power into the Kingdom. Support destruction removes their kingdom supports. Verena is to get rid of units that may hit the table, but I'm not overly happy with it right now. Dropping it down to one would finally get me to 50 (The original was a bloated 67 as I wittled the deck down ). I've been thinking how much I'd like to make it Empire/HElf except I'm pretty sure the return to hand mechanic doesn't add enough to the deck on a competitive level (but the social player in me loves the idea).

Do huntsmen & warrior priests want to be 3x Mining Tunnels, 1x Dwarf/HE alliance? Moves your curve up a bit, but makes you more resilient to unit kill & gives you a ton of value being able to cycle your weak cards. Of which you have lots. (<3 empire). Point being, I'm not sure this is really a fast deck... its a midrange deck that leverages forge to get to the midgame and disruption to keep the opponent off anything backbreaking. So, it might be ok to slow down a hair in exchange for upping your card quality. (Or it might not!)

Too, might make Will playable as a 1-of if you can reliably cycle it. I am a miser at heart. And I think the first Will gives a lot of virtual card advantage if they know you have it, even as a 1-of - not sure the first will isnt the highest EV inclusion anyway given the amt of games you can mise with it.

Looking forward to Wilhelm - as we saw in testing today, big huge guys sort of lolcano over your defenses.

@dormouse, I'd definitely cut the second Verena. Talabheim seems slow to me - what role are they playing for you? I don't like Warrior Priests as a 3-of either... too vulnerable and too expensive for what they give you. Those dudes definitely want to be alliances IMO.

I don't like pistoliers in any deck that has WE, TD fills the same stat bracket essentially, with the added benefit of being able to put it back into play more often than not rather than sending it to my discard. Warrior priest is just away to shunt around indirect damage which is big down here. If I switch up to Dwarf then Alliance and Troll Slayers are pretty much assured in these spots, though the Rangers become a slightly harder question because I am a huge fan of thematic decks and they continue the scout theme which I've had so much pleasure using.

I just haven't figured out precisely whether I want to make this a go for broke deck or a fun deck.

And yes it is more a mid-game control deck with a number of disruptive elements to mess with the opening gambit and get it to the point where it achieves it's soft lock.

Having thought about it more, I like Called Back a lot more than Forced March. Yeah, they're going to play their unit again but it puts even more pressure on their resource generation. Also gives you something resembling a plan for dealing with big offensive units or units with attachments. Otherwise a simple Clan Moulder's Elite with a Choppa on it is kind of a big problem. If you're going for the heavy scout plan then you have a shot of hitting it out of their hand once you bounce it back, too.

As an additional bonus, you can play CB on your opponent's turn, which can be a pretty significant difference if you get into a damage race.

Called Back is precisely the tactic my EMP deck wants, and the return to hand effect is why I wanted to be able to make a deck allied with HElf, but there just isn't enough there to make it better than the dwarfs. I still like forced march as a supplement to Wil's shuffle effect moving all their biggest units into the QZ robbing them of their economy and stunting their battlefield.

It's a very "Greyjoy" kind of deck with some Martell attributes, which is to say the kind of deck I love to play.

I think that this deck has a lot going for it but I'm really surprised there aren't Scouts in the deck. I guess if the overall plan is to move all the units to the Quest zone then Scouts aren't as effective so maybe I'm over evaluating things. Still, the Scouts seemed like a decent enough idea.

I also built Empire with Will + Verena as the backbone of the deck so it's odd to see a list without that, but I'm sure that the deck is perfectly well enough without it. Obviously built the deck with an open mind and I do like that. The idea is solid and worth a shot for sure. If I knew the deck could beat a dedicated Orc/Skaven aggro deck then I'd REALLY consider it but alas, I'm pretty positive that it can't.

Recently, I've been tuning the Drawf deck to my liking. I've been testing with Runesmith Apprentice and have REALLY liked the results. With the Apprentice and the Demo Crew you can effectively "cheat" the resource system which has to be worth something. Also, I'm just in love with Master Rune of Spite so whatever it takes to get it into my hand I'll do.

Nice work Clamatius, now post a Dwarf deck.

- SF

I'm going to be picking up the next BP today - then I'll start working on my next Dwarf deck. I'll probably post the untested listing and update it as I refine it.

I didn't include scouts because of the attack the kingdom plan meaning that the opponent's quest zone is probably going to be healthy. However, against rush you probably want to hit their quest, not kingdom, since they can function reasonably well on 3 hammers. So maybe the scouts should be in there. In any case, I think the big problem with this deck is that you are likely to have good game against midrange decks like Dwarves and DE, but weak matchups against rush and thrower. Beating rush has always been the thing we've had trouble with in Empire anyway.

Trying not to derail the topic, but here goes:

The new BP is very good for Dwarves, IMO. Nothing as powerful as Mining Tunnels, but I've had great results with Runesmith Apprentice and Master Rune of Smite. There are enough good Runes that you'd want to play anyway that truly makes the Apprentice absolutely amazing.

- SF

Clamatius said:

hmmm, what I am missing? Wouldn't this deck be one of the better matches against thrower decks seeing as they rely heavily on resources gathered from support cards, which your deck is designed to tackle? Doesn't this deck have the majority of thrower hate cards available to Order sides in 3X demolition and 3X Burn it Down? (as I take it these kill the thrower support card itself when it is played).

Or are hate cards like Mob Up the only strong way to beat a thrower deck? If that's the case wouldn't all Order decks have a bad matchup against thrower? Even so, I'd think one that tackles resources and blows up the thrower card itself would be strong against thrower decks...

Regarding Empire vs. rush, have you tried using Peasant Militia and/or Flagellants? These are Empire units that seem to be designed to damage soak for little cost. Are these just not good enough stall to get to the higher costing rush deterents?

- dut

I could be wrong but I would be surprised if this deck had much of a chance against Order Thrower. You just can't put enough pressure on the thrower deck and it will just fog every turn and Disdain half of your support destruction.

I don't like Flagellants at all - they just don't do enough. Peasant Militia are slightly better since 0 cost is pretty good, but they will not buy you a whole lot of time. Mostly they are useful to soak up Lobber Crews and hold the various Empire weaponry.

>> If that's the case wouldn't all Order decks have a bad matchup against thrower?

Pretty much, yeah. You can hate it out via having your own Disdains but they don't help you much against the rest of the field.

Clamatius said:

Gotcha, thank you for bearing with me having not gone through the process of testing the thrower and against a variety of different decktypes. I am right in concluding then that the best way to beat Thrower is to toss plenty of damage every turn, forcing the use of fog effects regularly and sometimes cancelling them.

By the same token I am gathering from your (and other esteemed player's) posts that the sucessful way to counter rush is with snipe/(unit hate) as opposed to defending in and of itself.

Seeing as how Orc is particularly good at destroying developments I am wary to utilize an empire deck that relies heavily on Kingdom Zone developments for an economy (and an attack... Shrine to Taal fueled). As such I am curious as to the benefits of using the new support card Bottomless Mine in conjunction with cheap units, that only the Empire (and maybe Chaos) provide. Any thoughts on this?

I've always seen the Empire's biggest issue as being the kill, granted they don't have a lot of powerful units in and of themselves, they rely on heavy zone movement combos and/or the Shrine (developments) to get hammers into the battlefield. Because developments and/or the comboey movement of units takes many turns and many resources to establish it just doesn't fare well against rush, nor does it do well against decks that have late game answers to costly/sparodic power generation... For example, look at this listing by Dormouse:

3x Huntsmen - isn't allowed in battlefield = 0 pow
3x Talabheim Detachment - 1 pow
2x Warrior Priests - 1 pow
3x Free Company - 1 pow
3x Gryphon Legionnaire - 1 pow
3x Wilhelm of the Osterknacht - 2 pow
3x Zealot Hunter - 1 pow

How does a deck with so little oomph (which many Empire decks look like, not just Dormouses') burn zones? It can't, can it?

- dut

The answer is weaponry and Shrine to Taal, generally. That's why I like Volley Gun - a single Gun can get 5+ hammers into the battlefield in the lategame. I couldn't squeeze them into the original list here though. But yeah, Empire has problems with getting hammers into the BF, especially since Wilhelm is going to be up there by default and so you won't be beating down with Thyrus. That's why I had Troll Slayers in my list.

Clamatius said:

Yeah, Volley looks good, it just seems like such a 'lategame' thing to develop your battlefield. Unless, of course, you don't develop your Kingdom (but to use inno/Taal/whatever you usually have to). I guess Will of Electoring yourself a bit helps... It just seems too manufactured to payoff consistently, especially since it is a lategame thing that doesn't also lend to surviving to the lategame, which is the prerequisite of course.

I'd say you are right to add Troll Slayers. If you are running them though, and demolition, it might be worthwhile looking into loyalty supports? Or even just other valuable Dwarf support cards with 1 loyalty cost like Abondoned mine. It would cost 3, but considering you'd always be developing (for shrines and to survive your own verena) it would probably pay for itself and reduce the cost when casting demolition or bringing out the slayers.

There seems to be a huge push for mono-faction decks with ever so 'slight' splashes into others. Empire doesn't appear to be the very best standalone side (unless you are heavily relying on Verena) but with its relatively good resource start I'd be inclined to give it the award for best accompanying faction, after all, barring removal, it is only the first loyalty cost that needs to be overcome when playing a dual faction deck.

- dut

edit - whoops you are already playing the alliance piece!

Actually, when I'm playing Empire, I usually play the Shrine to the battlefield. If you can get 3+ developments in there it starts making all your random dorks into huge threats. Plus Pistoliers can still go on the Round The World Tour for hammer fun everywhere. In this particular deck you will be developing your BF from the get-go for Burn It Down and Troll Slayers so the Shrine is going to go there almost every time.

Played a few games and sadly I don't think this deck plan is going to work. If your opponent gets an accelerated start with 3+ hammers on the board you are not going to be able to keep suppressing their economy enough.

Back to the drawing board. I feel like there may be something there in Empire, just because their turn 1 can be so good between the Forge and Huntsmen, but I can't figure out what it is.

The deck has some surprise factor. Clamatius got me badly in the first game we played because I was on autopilot. Once I started playing around his strategy the rest of the games were not close. The problem is, Empire's card quality is not high enough to punish the opponent for skimping on card draw to over-invest in Kingdom.

What's missing is a card that gives relatively cheap midrange offense by itself, the role that Longbeards plays in the dwarf deck. Once a card like that sees print this strategy might deserve a second look.

I have a feeling that the best idea for Empire may be to just do what I was doing in single set - run 2-3x Iron Discipline, 3x Church of Sigmar, hand out guns to everyone and have at it.

I do not think it will work as well as it did in single set though - Empire doesn't gain much going from single set to standard, whereas other factions get a huge boost (e.g. 3x deathmaster vs. 1x deathmaster).