Hi Folks!

I've been looking for a new killer Empire deck these days. I tested this deck lately:

3 Iron Discipline
3 Peasant Militia
3 Warpstone Excavation
3 Contested Village
3 Helblaster Volley Gun
3 Huntsmen
3 Will of the Electors
3 Called Back
2 Chain Lightning
3 Church of Sigmar
3 Derricksburg Forge
3 Priest of Verena
1 Runefang of Solland
3 Shadow Sentinel
3 Rodrik's Raiders
2 Judgement of Verena
3 Pilgrimage
3 Friedrich Hemmler

Any suggestions? Card changes? Your thoughts?

It would make things easier if you'd tell us about your impressions and experiences with this deck. Just posting a deck list looks a bit unmotivated...

How successful is it against rush decks or Chaos aggro decks?

Personally I think that empire runs best with Hidden Grove especially when choosing a Verena theme. It supports the "keep opponents zones development free" theme and can often nullify the opponents turn before. Even if Verena is playable or not (bad card draw or it's unsave for yourself) Hidden Grove saves oneself from damage while letting no development in opponent's battlefield. Mostly you can't use Chain Lightning in every turn and that helps to bypass some turns. Deciding point in some matchups can also be how long your Church of Sigmar or Hidden Grove itself stays in the game. DE and Chaos come to mind that typically run Burn it Down and then cannot use it.

Amaroks decklist looks solid so far. The only things that I have questions are Pilgrimage/Helblaster Volley Gun and Huntsmen + Shadow Sentinel. The development focus seems to be battlefield and quest plus at least 1 additional in kingdom. Is Shadow Sentinel that good in speeding this up? I didn't play him before. I also wouldn't play Huntsmen at the moment mainly because of Chaos/DE. I guess Knights Panther, Pistoliers or Skinks of Sotek seem like better choices to me. But it's always good to put a little text to a decklist because some points are better to understand. Playgroups tend to establish some standard ways of playing but that can differ to each other.

Another idea would be the new Osterknacht Elites/Sigmars Blessed since run a lot of "back to hand" effects already. It would also support the Shadow Sentinel synergy.

I love playing Osterknacht Elites to return Rodericks back to my hand.

Osternackt with rodriks, sigmars blessed and glorius perceptor coupled with call for reserves and you've got yourselves a killer return machine

Thanks for your answers! Here's my latest build:

3 Iron Discipline
3 Long Winter
3 Contested Village
3 Huntsmen
3 Infiltrate
3 Order in Chaos
3 Will of the Electors
3 Church of Sigmar
3 Derricksburg Forge
3 Hidden Grove
3 Knights Panther
3 Temple of Verena
3 Free Company
3 Rodrik's Raiders
3 Judgement of Verena
2 Pilgrimage
3 Wilhelm of the Osterknacht
3 Friedrich Hemmler

#53

This deck haven't been tested yet. I've been thinking about Osterknacht Elites and Priest of Verena but 53 cards are already a full set.

Get rid of the Pilgrimage's and add in the Osterknachtn Elites. They allow you to return Roderiks to your hand while working the same as pilgrimage on your opponant while also keeping a unti in play where pilgrimage would be used and discarded. You also don't have to worry about developing your quest.

I am having a ton of success with a counterstrike & knight focused deck.

I don't have the deck on me at the moment, so I can't get the exact list (I will though), but I do know it included most every knight with counterstrike, as well as the knights that are cheap. Luthor Huss and Wilhelm are the only heroes. Tactics are for redirecting attacks, and increasing my hammers or counterstrike. The support cards I remember are Hammer of Sigmar, Garden of Morr, Higher Ground, and the cheap forge.

It deals with rush decks by getting counterstrike out there quickly. Garden of Morr makes up for the small number of resource generating support cards (a single combat can add 2 tokens to the Garden thanks to counterstrike). And it hits like a tank thanks to the Warriors of Ulfric, Higher Ground, and the Blessing of Myrmidon. And it is of course very defensive. Control is pretty much just left up to Wilhelm.

Would love to see this deck. Sounds interesting.

3 Blessed Hammer

3 Black Knights of Morr

3 Blessing of Myrmidia

3 Derricksburg Forge

3 Garden of Morr

3 Gryphon Legionnaire

3 Griffon Standard

3 Knights of the Blazing Sun

3 Luthor Huss

3 Higher Ground

3 Inner Circle Knight

2 Protect the Empire

3 Reiksguard Swordsmen

3 Reiksguard Knights

2 Sigmar's Intervention

3 Tactical Misdirection

2 Temple of Shallya

3 Warriors of Ulfric

3 Wilhelm of the Osterknacht

3 Ulric's Fury

Total card count is 57

As you can see, it is a unit heavy deck. The cards are fairly mobile (Warriors of Ulric, Protect the Empire, Temple of Shallya, Tactical Misdirection, Sigmar's Intervention), pack a punch (multiple cheap units, Blessing of Myrmidia, Higher Ground, Griffon Standard, several 2 hammer units), can generate good income (Garden of Morr, cheap units, Warriors of Ulric), it is very defensive (Counterstrike out the wazoo and generally good hitpoint values) and it has a tiny bit of very key control (Wilhelm). Of course there are things it doesn't focus on, but it is fairly safe against most tactics;

- Against rush decks the large amount of counterstrike, and the ability to put defenders where they need to be means this deck can typically toss away whatever they have. And with the Garden of Morr triggering (hopefully) twice a combat because of Counterstrike this deck will quickly be making lots of money.

- Against heavy hitting units (e.g. buffed trolls, buffed dwarves, bloodthirsters), there is Wilhelm. Additionally, with the right buffs a Reiksguard Swordsmen can take down just about anything before it can swing.

- Control decks are harder, but managable. Given the large amount of units this deck has taking them away can be made up for. For fighting control decks that move units, this Empire deck is great because of how mobile the units are.

- Direct damage decks are normally scary. But again, generally good hitpoint values, a large amount of units, and the Garden of Morr, add up to a solid counterpoint to killing of the units.

- Heavy defense decks aren't a problem. With Higher Ground, Blessing of Myrmidia, and Griffon Standard this deck can put up very worrisome damage numbers, and Wilhelm can remove the most annoying of the defenders.

I don't have Fiery Dawn, so Duelist Training has not been added to the deck. Additionally, this is my least competitive deck so I haven't trimmed it down to 50 cards.

This is my take on the Knight deck: deckbox.org/sets/81560

The core of any Knight deck are of course:

3 Blessing of Myrmidia
3 Higher Ground

A lot of Knights

3 Inner Circle Knight
3 Knights Panther
3 Glorious Preceptor
3 The Black Guard
3 Warriors of Ulric
2 Black Knights of Morr

Movement

3 Rally Point
3 Karl Franz

Control

3 Mastering the Spell
3 Infiltrate
3 Rodrik's Raiders

Resource base

3 Innovation
3 Contested Village
3 Derricksburg Forge
3 Church of Sigmar
3 Nuln Tinkerers

53 Cards

This deck is about Knights buffed through Higher Ground and the Blessing. To make the most of Higher Ground you need to stall until you build up your Knight force and you are able to Innovate out Karl Franz.

Tips:
- Rally Point allows you to attack with your Knights while still building up your Kingdom/Quest zone without a penalty. If you have two rally points you can even use Higher Ground to power up your Kingdom/Quest.

- You need a lot of cards to make use of Higher Ground and get Karl Franz out. So play your forges to Quest and defend with your Preceptors.

- You need some turns to get all the cards you need, so you have to slow down your opponent with Infiltrate, Raiders and the Spell.

- Don't forget that Karl Franz can move units to defend him, but the Black Guard and Warriors of Ulric will allow you to keep your developments to buff your offence.

grille said:

Hi everyone and hi especially to you, GRILLE: very glad to see you.

I definitely agree with the "Hidden grove" stuff...And I'd add...I think Verena is not that important right now: the grove itself can do wonderful things.

A friend of mine built a funny deck totally focused around it and the "dwarf" one. 15x developement/support control cards, a few utility units to close the deal (the best one is Knight Panther: it's 3 damage per turn alone). It's a bit slow, but consistant and efficient: you really don't know what to destroy.

Another way to play it is in a solid Verena deck, with the usual card-pool, but a bit more of turning twists...

In any case, the "core" of the deck is the "boomerang" mechanic based on "Calling for Reserves" and the other bouncing guys (with 2x of the one who lets you draw when comes and leaves play). It's destructive and functional, allowing you to lock the oppo and unlock yourself, even in response to a Verena in a mirror match.

Pretty powerful.

I'd pay attention to Chaos Decks: Priest of Verena, i.e., is a strong card and I'd play it, right now...But it's very weak..."1hp" stuff in general will become risky. Think about it.

Sorry...

I'd add that "WARPSTONE" is a lot more efficient and useful than Innovation or Wilhelm in these decks: it's an actual "turn 1" advantage and it stays on the ground (no chance the oppo will waste it's support removal on it once he/she figures out what you're playin').