I put together what I thought was a pretty good Orc beatdown deck which, after its initial victories, started getting repulsed pretty easily by the same Empire/Lizardmen deck I was just wiping the floor with. While trying to analyze my losses, I realized that I still don't have a solid grip on what each faction is supposed to do.

For example, I really dig pretty much any Orc card that rewards me for controlling damaged units, like Squig Herders, Boar Boyz and Urguck. But it seems to me that they don't have much staying power, which is reflected in their overall low HP and lack of damage cancellation. Does that sound about right?

If it's not too much trouble, can someone/some people post a really brief synopsis of how each faction goes about winning? Also what would be nice is a card or two that demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of that faction. Not just what would make a cool combo, but as an example of why that card is good or bad within the general way a given faction wins the game. Does that make sense?

I also want a pony.

This is what I've seen work best:

The greenskin faction's strength is the rush. Spider Riders + Cleaver is 4 damage for 2 cost you can't get that bargain anywhere else. You can augment a rush deck with self damage orcs and weza bigga. Waaaaaaaaagh + MobUp for the win.

In contrast to their hated enemy, Dwarves start out on the defensive to build their economy by using superior support cards and cheap units with toughness. The stunties love their mining tunnels which allows them to draw when they develop. The Master Rune of Spite is used to slow down the rush decks. Once their economy is built and developments litter the table, the slayers who get bonuses for developments go on the attack.

Currently the weakest faction by most reports, I can't get a chaos deck to win consistently. Corruption seems to be the most likely best option with good value cards like Seduced by Darkness and Effulugent Boils. The Forge + Diseases for free followed by a Beast of Rot has some play. Another chaos option is a rush deck beefed up by things like Culling the Weak and Berzerk Fury. Finally, you could build for greater demons; blood summoning Great Unclean Ones has good synergy.

Panzy High Elves fight with Indirect damage. Once established, Warships and Sea Gaurd Captains beefed by Tiranoc Outposts leave the enemy perplexed on where to put that next skull. Throw in the Carnosaur damaged by the Loremaster of Hoeth to savage kill for crowd control. Take that combo to the next level with Lelansi who allows the Loremaster to kill himself and return to your hand; lather rinse repeat.

Dark Elves win with control. Shades and Caught the Scent take cards away, Seeking New Slaves and Soul Stealer allows the purple pointed ears to take the adversary's units. Walking Sacrifice + Whip the Slaves cycles cards and eventually the Slave Pen + Wight Lord combo arrives.

Empire right now stands alone atop all these factions as Judgement of Verena is an environment changer. Rig the Verena scales with Will of the Electors and Long Winter. Move your enemie's units around with Wilhelm and Forced March; move their support cards around with the quest Visit the Haunted City (warpstone to the battlefield is just nasty). Finally, Empire has the best support "destruction" of all the factions. Rodric's Raiders turn supports into developments for the bargain cost of 3. Yeah you can Demolition (Dwarves) or Pillage (Orcs) for 1 less but you don't get a unit on the board!

Hi!

grandmartoni's answer is great...I just try to put in my 2 cents.

EMPIRE

Right now it can control almost everything that hits the table. Basically, it's a TACTICAL faction that can rely on "movement" (Pistoliers, Forced March), allowing the empire player to have a flexible strategy that can change from time to time (draw cards, then increase the attack power, than get back some money and so on). You can destroy the oppo's strategy to, moving stuff around (Wilhelm of The Osternacht, Visit The Haunted City)...

The empire also has some great utility units, not powerful in combat, but useful for different reasons (Rodrik riders, Pistoliers, Peasant Militia, the mage who turns developements into units and so on) givin' the empire lots of tactical choices and a viable "aggro" strategy (lots of cheap units, movement and buffing).

Then, you can find some powerful tactics: Judgement of Verena, Called Back, but they're situational and you have to put some efforts to make them work.

WEAKNESSES? Right now it's difficult to find 'em...But as a general rule, remember that Empire needs stuff in the ground more then any other faction. They live around "key cards": try to focus on hittin' them and removing 'em as soon as they hit the table and it can lose, often by deckin' itself.

DWARVES

They're big and resilient and that's both their strength and weakness.

Powerful units, lots of support/developements control/removal, buffing, "leave play/do this" effects that give the deck a lot of consistancy. You can remove attacking stuff, destroy supports, get back stuff from the discard, kill and get back to deal massive damage (Demolition, Grudge Thrower Assault, Slayers of Karak Kadrin) ...

Dwarves are resilient: if they take control of their own board, it's pretty difficult to beat them down: lots of HP around, lots of "reactions" to the death of their units, lots of "late-game" combos (Dwarf Ranger, Reclaim The Fallen).

But all of this "power" is not cheap...It takes some time for you to set the board and in the meanwhile you can lose...And you can feel like "you haven't done anything" while the oppo was destroyin' you.

You needs lots of cards and resources and you almost need any zone, because of some zone specific effects.

HIGH ELVES

One of the "damned" factions...They're coming out from the tunnel, though.

They have: healin' effects (Initiate of Saphery), indirect damage (Descendant of Indraugnir, From beneath the Waves), some cancellation (High Elf Disdain)...They're basically a control faction with an "aggro" soul...They have lots of powerful units that deal high amount of damage, even outside combat. You can base your deck on defense (controllin' stuff, bouncing back units) or do massive indirect damages with cheap units helpin' you in the first rounds, gettin' some nice boost from a couple of key support cards).

They're good for combos: lots of combo-ish cards (Lelansi, Outpost of Tiranoc, Flames of The Pheonix) that allow you to find nice-weird interactions.

WEAKNESSES? They've a "hard" cost curve around "2/3": this means that in the early game you play 1 card per round per zone...You're a bit "fragile" against heavy control decks or rush...You suffer the "extremes", not the average Aggro-Control deck (the main archetype in warhammer).

Nice to try, especially in the "aggro" version of Indirect damage dealin'.

ORCS

They're a great faction 'cause, even if every faction as at least two viable ways, their ways are pretty clear and different: Control and Aggro.

The Aggro part is devastating: cheap units (Spider Riders, Crooked Teef Goblins, Fungsbrew Goblin), cheap buffers (Waaaagh!, Choppa!) and nice "surprise" effects (Goblins that reveal cards from the deck and "do something" if the cost is odd, Rip dere 'eads off!). Lots of stuff to do each turn, especially if you base your aggro deck on the "damage" engine, incredibily efficient (even if risky): save some resources dealin' damage to the units you play (Boar Boyz, Squig Herders), speed'up the quest zone and play 2-3 units per turn. That's funny even for players like me, that usually hates rush.

Pay attention, because "self-damage dealin'" is powerful even in the late game (Beardbruma)...

On the other hand, you have lots of removal (Troll Vomit, Pillage, Easy Pickins) and mid-late game powerful units (Grimgor Ironhide, River Troll, Mountain Troll) to rely on: if you do, you'll get powerful control decks that are the best in removing stuff from the table and hit with high-output attacks: build your capital, destroy everything and then stall the game in a couple of turn, winning with no more than 2-3 attacks.

They're main weakness is that the two faces aren't that efficient together (even if I built a strong Aggro-control deck last year)...I mean...Some cards seem to fit just one portion of the faction, causin' orcs to appear as a "two-races" race.

CAOS

Had some problems in the first year, but now they're coming back (as well as high elves...they're cousins. ).

They have direct damaging effects (units and capitals) and powerful units (Lord of Change), along with corruption effects (Seduced By Darkness). They've lot of potential, but a lack of consistancy...The new card that "shoots" after you put developements is powerful...almost devastating. And that's the core of a Chaos deck right now, along with damaging tactics (Plague Bomb, Flames of Tzeentch) and utilities...They control, a lot.

And they have a LOT of powers on units, 'causin attacks to be extremely painful in the mid game, even with 2-3 units.

But the cost to pay is...LOYALTY. They have a lot of it in almost any card, even in cards that usually are not that "expensive". That causes the deck to be slow at the beginning (similar to dwarves). In a game where decisions and moves in the first two turns can be transmuted in victory 4-5 turns later, high loyalty cards are a big weakness, especially if you don't have a great support base to start with.

Relying on cheap units only for the set up, makes you fragile against controll-ish decks like Orcs or Empire.

But they're coming back...

DARK ELVES

Powerful factions with lots of options milling, hp control (Vile Sorceress, Call the Blood), hand control (Caught The Scent) and lots of nice sacrifice/do something effects (similar to dwarves, but in a different manner: with dwarves you do something in "response" to death...Here, you do something BY killing).

They have a hard cost curve (similar to the "Funny Elves") around 2. It means "bad first turn", if you don't compensate with neutral boosts (Innovation, Contested Villages).

They're evil: they have evil effects of removal, hp reduction and milling, takin' the oppo to "tough choices" where it seems like they don't have enough "resources" to react. They're a "psychological-control" faction, so to say.

Weakness? Hard cost curve, constant need of lots of tactics, that makes the deck a bit "unconsistant" and sometimes the great amount of choices can be a drawback when what you need is just "control". Just to explain this important point, think about empire: there you have key card, but a solid/resilient tactical-control engine...Dark Elves have lost of utilities and funny interaction, but not a celar "path". That's the point.

NEUTRALS: this is a game where neutrals are good because MONO-FACTION is a viable choice both from a thematic and a strategic point of view...BUt the power of neutrals sometimes ruins the sense of "weakness" that any race should give...

Anyway, neutrals are needed almost anywhere, even if some factions (Empire, Orcs) don't have to rely a lot on them.

Hope it helps.

Cheers

DB

DB.Cooper said:

I'm sorry, but what the bleep have you been smoking ? HElves have what, 2 units (both Dragons) that pack 4 Hammers, nothing else packs 3 Hammers (that I could think of), that doesn't ring powerful, high dmg units in my book. Not to mention HElves lack the attachments and abilities to add Hammers that many of the other races have ("yay" for War Crown of Saphery). All but DElves can weigh in with plenty more high Hammer units than HElves. If you're taking IDD from units into account, then HElf damage output does go up, but only when they are attacking, defending is still another Achilles' heel for them, you defend, you die, leaving healing useless.

Best results HElves tend to get around here is when they get Illyriel out into BZ on turn 2. That forces opponent to keep 2 resources back each turn or bounce a unit, especially in the early going it can slow them down enough for your Illyriel + Sword Masters slow grind to burn a zone. Then collect ton of resources, bounce every unit back to hand, play yours and attack to burn the second zone.

DB.Cooper said:

For me, the DElves are one race that still lacks a true turn 1 card that you'd really want. One with 2 Hammers (Squig Pen, Savage Marauders, High Elf Spearmen, Bodyguard of Belegar, etc.) or one allows you to play/put into play another card (Derricksburg Forge, Dwarf Cannon Crew). 2x DBF + Contested Village is a nice first turn for the Empire, I've sorta compensated by giving my DElf deck the Warpstone Excavations.

I don't smoke anymore, sorry.

Just play the game...And re-typed badly a part of text... just referred to some units and indirect damage, then i mixed up sentences and destroyed the sense.

And I'm not that sure that it was intended to be there...ahahahaa

...Well, they also have Dreamer of Dragons, which can almost destroy an entire zone by themselves backed up with Dragonmage Ascension.

And then there's Charge of the Silver Helms, probably the most efficient hammer boost of any race.

â—Kefkaâ— said:

It's +3P for one unit. Totem of Gork is pretty much always at least +4P total (and Orcs have Waaagh! which makes CotSH look absolutely pathetic), Grudge Thrower nets way more than +3P and you can fuel that more than once, Empire gets ridiculous boosts with Griffon Standard/Greatswords. Chaos and DElves don't have as good a boosters, but at least the former doesn't really need it, their damage output just from units goes through the roof (Winged Furies are regularly 5+ Hammers each with all the corruption you put out).

Dam said:

Totem of Gork is a 3 resource support that you have to put in your battlefield. Good luck rushing with that.

Waaagh is incredible, but you're missing my point that CothSH is the most efficient booster in the game. It costs 1, has little loyalty requirements, no lasting damage penalty, and is playable to quest or kingdom when you're lacking the resources in that area.

Though Griffon Standard, Greatswords, and Winged Furies CAN give great bonuses, they're dependent on other factors and horrible by themselves, (AKA not great), especially when they cost more that 3 gold to play.

~~

If you're arguing that empire and chaos have more potential for high damage bonuses, I'd agree wholeheartedly with you. But I took from the post that the OP is looking for a competitive breakdown, so I only count cards that I feel would actually make it into competitive decks.