The Gen Con event catalog was released today, and guess what? No LCG events. Could you guys actually submit these, some of us like to plan our event schedule BEFORE registration opens (which is May 1st). It's pretty much impossible to plan in advance when you have no idea what time other events are being held.

BobtheEnforcer said:

They're up now.

Thursday, 11 AM: W:I Championship Warmup Tournament

Get some practice in with the best Warhammer: Invasion players in the country in this low-pressure warmup tournament. Give yourself one last chance before the big event to get a feel of the metagame and for any weaknesses in your own deck. Small prizes will be awarded for this event.

Friday, 11 AM: W:I King of the Hill Tournament

Come and play this alternate tournament format for the Warhammer: Invasion Living Card Game: King of the Hill! There will be several 'Hot Seats' and each player in one will take on contenders for the time limit until defeated. Lose and the person who defeats you takes the 'Hot Seat'. When the time limit is up, the top Kings will compete against each other until a High King rises and claims first prize and the tournament championship.

Saturday, 11 AM: W:I World Championship

Compete against other Warhammer: Invasion players and claim the World Championship at this exciting event! Multiple Swiss rounds will be played and will then cut to a top tier (the number depending on attendance) with one player claiming the title of World Champion!

Sunday, 10 AM: W:I Classic Tournament

Declare your loyalty in the Warhammer: Invasion Classic event! In this variant, you may only build your deck with cards from your chosen faction with no neutral cards, or out-of-faction cards. Which faction is the strongest and which will prevail and conquer the Old World? Will it be the Orcs, Empire, Chaos, Dwarfs, High Elves, or Dark Elves? You choose the faction and you claim the Old World as your spoils!

I bet on Empire for classic.

PMAvers said:

Fixed it for them.

Papa

PS
Note that I think the Dark Elves are actually quite strong right now, but the loss of the Wight Lords and that holding that fetches them off the bottom of the deck will really hurt Destruction. Orcs may do ok in this format. High Elves, even more than usual, will be a complete joke in this format.

Papa Khann said:

Why do you think HE will be a complete joke against all other faction specific decks, I'm just curious. Imo they might not be the best but I think they would definitely compete with some of the others.

People on the forums like to have everything fit into a neat little box. Empire and Dwarves are good, High Elves and Chaos are bad. Any new Dwarf or Empire cards are too powerful while any new High Elf or Chaos Cards are useless. This has been decided even for a format that is brand new and will have several new battle packs plus the legends expansion added to the card pool.

It does actually appear like High Elves might not be very strong in this format, though I havent tested it and I dont know all the cards that will be available. They normally need to employ support destruction and unit removal from other factions or neutral cards. They are one of the factions that has a useful 1 drop, so they can have decent early turns. Chaos and Dwarves might struggle in that regard, but we shall see!

TL

rzarectz said:

Vitamin T made a good point, in that we don't yet know the entire card pool that will be released by GenCon. However, as it stands now, imho, the HE lack:

Any kind of non-attachment support removal.

Any kind of targeted unit removal.

Strong holdings that feature power symbols and useful abilities, that can be played for a total of 3 or less power (key to both the early stages of a game and also for recovery from things like Verena, Troll Vomit or Grimgor Ironhide).

They do have Citadel of Dusk, which seems pretty strong to me. But it doesn't hold up when compared to the Empire's Derricksburg Forge, Church of Sigmar, and Temple of Verena... or the Dwarf's Mining Tunnels and Ancestral Tomb.

They have a few strong units, but overall they just don't seem to equal what the Empire/Dwarves/Dark Elves/Orcs get for the same cost.

They have a few strong tactics, but a lot of the HE cards just seem to be out-of-whack to me. A couple of examples, just to illustrate the point...

Example 1: The HE get Banish, while the Empire gets Called Back. They do the same thing, only the HE one won't work on a target with an attachment and costs 1 more resource to boot.

Example 2: Each faction got a unique "uber" weapon. All of them have the same cost. The Empire and Dwarf versions start with 2 power symbols and both have very useful "spiffs". The Destruction versions are all potentially useful, but corrupt the unit they are attached to (but the Chaos version starts with 3 power symbols and also gives +2 hit points, making it IDEAL to attach to a unit in your Kingdom to boost your resource engine). The HE get The Warcrown of Saphery. No inherent power symbols. It's "spiff" is that it gains 1 power symbol at the beginning of your turn - I'd NEVER use that.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but a lot of the HE stuff just feels like an afterthought to me. And it's not for lack of trying to make a competitive deck with them. I enjoy a challenge and have tried a few different approaches with them. I can get them to a point where the deck (using neutrals, Mining Tunnels, etc., mind you) can compete against Chaos or Orcs, but put it up against a tuned Empire/Dwarf/Dark Elf deck and it's "thanks for playing".

At Vitamin T:

I realize the tone of my previous post may have been a bit negative. I meant no offense. I also don't think I expressed exactly the notion that you referred to regarding any new card for Empire/Dwarves/Chaos/High Elves.

I just feel a bit frustrated with the designers when I see strong cards for Empire and Dwarves continue to appear in most battlepacks, with some promising cards for Orcs and Chaos to at least potentially narrow the gap a bit, and cards for HE that, again imho, often seem like an afterthought. There have been a few good additions for the HE, just not enough of them to bring them up to par.

I do have hope that they'll eventually even out the factions (more or less... it's always going to be a moving target).

Papa

I'm certain I was overly harsh in my reply. It was kind of a build up from several posts on the forum and not directed at you.

I do think that you are correct about HE with the current card pool, they certainly have most of the issues that you described and would likely be the weakest faction if this event was this month.

I do think that they have one of the better collections of support cards, though they are probably 4th. I dont feel like ancestral tomb will be so good in this format without innovation/treasure vaults, but mining tunnels is still the best support around. They do have the advantage of having a useful 1 cost unit, unlike dwarves/chaos (and to a lesser extent DE).

TL

No worries. Thanks for the elaboration though. ; )

In our games, Ancestral Tomb often goes to the Battlefield to fuel the Serpent Slayers. But it definitely is down a notch for lacking Innovation.

I agree that the 1 cost unit for the Quest zone is an advantage, but it excites me less than the Huntsman does for the Empire. The reason is that the HE can still use Warpstones, whereas the Empire isn't likely to ever choose those over Wilhelm. (For whatever reason, we tend to dump all the Warpstones in the Quest zone in most games.) Of course, all that can change if the HE ever see a card go to the Restricted list. And even so, it's still a useful card for them.

I do like some of the other HE supports, especially Dragon Mage Wakening (I know it's not a building and really isn't what we were discussing, but I consider it one of the stronger HE cards). The combo with Dreamer of Dragons is powerful, and makes their healing cards worthwhile.

I keep wishing they'd give HE some more useful cards to flesh out the "self damage to do X" and healing themes. Normally I'm not a big fan of healing in these types of games, especially for low hit point factions like the HE, but I think the self-damaging theme makes it viable.

Something like this would be ideal...
Empath ( or whatever )
2 R
2 L
1 P
2 Hit points
Action: Once per turn, this unit takes 1 uncancellable damage to heal target unit.

Is that potentially too powerful? Possibly. But if the goal is to make them viable against the stronger factions, they're going to have to get some really good cards.

Sorry for taking what started out as a discussion about a specific format and wandering off into a more general discussion of perceptions of where the HE are at.

Just some random meanderings on my part. ; )

Papa

I like that card concept.

As many have said, HE have several cool themes (Healing/Self Damage, Dragons, Spells, Free units to battle field, indirect damage) unfortunately only indirect damage is even close to filled out at the moment.