It was already mentioned in some other topic, but I feel like I need to check if I understand the rules correctly - or maybe there was errata I missed.

We have Werner Ludehof :

Limit one Hero per zone. While this unit is questing, it gains * *. Action: Move this unit onto a quest you control.

and Hidden Operative quest:

Quest. Action: Move the unit questing here to one of your other zones.

Basically, as these actions are not limited to once per turn and don't have cost, I can trigger them as often as I wish to. So Ludenhof can travel between Quest and any other zone (Kingdom and/or Battlefield) without any limit - 10, 100, 1000 times (and more), right? I simply move him onto quest with his action, and then move him back to other zone with quest action, and so on.

So far, when he is alone, nothing happens, but what if I have:

The Greatswords
Forced: After a unit enters this zone, The Greatswords gains * until the end of the turn .

Black Knights of Morr
Action: When a unit enters this zone, target unit cannot defend until the end of the turn.

in these other zones?

Does it mean The Greatswords could have infinite strenght and no opponents units can defend as long as Werner is on the roll?

Yes.

It's "When a unit enters this zone …" for Black Knights of Morr.

Right, copied without reading, I fixed it.

It's relatively easy to assemble combo (infinite power Greatswords on, like, 3rd turn?), and as such I would say it's crying for some nerf…

edit:

Oh, and it's even more deadly, if you add For Ulthuan! ( Play at the beginning of your battlefield phase. Action: Your attacking units may attack two enemy zones this turn. (Declare which units are attacking which zone when you declare attackers.)) Ten milion damage in two zones on 3rd or 4th round. And not all can give their live for the hold…

I'm not a fan of it and all the other endless loop combos showing up either, but yeah, for now at least it works.

I would like them removed from the game.

I am afraid that with more cards coming the more and more such things will appear, and I don't like it.

Try Kurt Helborg + 2 Arcane Power for infinite card draw (and infinite spells → infinite tokens on Gathering the Winds, at least you don't have Eltharion if you have Kurt). Throw in Convocation of Eagles for infinite resources. Or Pigeon Bombs for infinite uncancellable indirect damage, which is really all you need. Thanks to the infinite draw, you don't even need the Bombs in your hand when you start. This baby can go off in turn 2.

And the Orcs' Fists of Mork/Urguck/Lord of Change, and all the High Elf Return to Glory/Elven Scout shenanigans …

The Helborg infinite loop is crazy easy to assemble and really does need some kind of errata.

So true.

Do we know when the next errata/restrict cards update will be available, by the way?

We don't. I guess we'll have to wait until after Gen Con though, or maybe until after Worlds.

Hi guys,

One thing about the Greatswords combo that you've been talking about which makes it 1/1000th less powerful:

Paradoks said:

This would work if you had more than one Greatswords. The way I read this card is that you can "split" your attacking forces into targeting two zones, not attack two zones with the same attacking force, which is more what Bash 'Em does : "Action: There is an additional battlefield phase this turn, following the first battlefield phase this turn."

So, ya, basically you can still kick the crap out of the other guy for 10 million damage, but not with one Greatswords on two zones.

I guess the best we can do is be aware of these loops? Maybe pack a bunch of anti-loop stuff? I'm not going to have enough damage tokens for my Arkayne Vampire if someone is hitting for 10 million…

You are correct about For Ulthuan!.

There are things you can do apart from simply being faster. Obviously, against Werner anything that takes care of units, keeps them from attacking, or cancels infinite combat damage works, though you might need to be able to get past Church of Sigmar and Iron Discipline. Dealing with Arcane Kurt is more difficult, but can be done. For example, Empire has Infiltrate, High Elf Drain Magic and High Elf's Disdain. The upcoming Learned Mage can disrupt the Pigeon-Bombs-cycle too. And of course Destruction decks in particular might be able to contain the opponent in such a way he never gets the five resources (plus loyalty) to play Kurt in the first place, and/or limit his card draw enough he doesn't get all the required cards.

This would work if you had more than one Greatswords. The way I read this card is that you can "split" your attacking forces into targeting two zones, not attack two zones with the same attacking force, which is more what Bash 'Em does : "Action: There is an additional battlefield phase this turn, following the first battlefield phase this turn."

So, ya, basically you can still kick the crap out of the other guy for 10 million damage, but not with one Greatswords on two zones.

I guess the best we can do is be aware of these loops? Maybe pack a bunch of anti-loop stuff? I'm not going to have enough damage tokens for my Arkayne Vampire if someone is hitting for 10 million…

Of course you are right, I've remembered it's wording wrong.

Still The Greatswords can take one zone, and the rest of units - the other one.

And don't the rules say that it's enough for me to deal only 2 damage to Arkayne Vampire, before I can damage capital?

There are things you can do apart from simply being faster. Obviously, against Werner anything that takes care of units, keeps them from attacking, or cancels infinite combat damage works, though you might need to be able to get past Church of Sigmar and Iron Discipline. Dealing with Arcane Kurt is more difficult, but can be done. For example, Empire has Infiltrate, High Elf Drain Magic and High Elf's Disdain. The upcoming Learned Mage can disrupt the Pigeon-Bombs-cycle too. And of course Destruction decks in particular might be able to contain the opponent in such a way he never gets the five resources (plus loyalty) to play Kurt in the first place, and/or limit his card draw enough he doesn't get all the required cards.

That is all true, however I still don't like the very idea of infinite loops. Werner+Greatswords is probably the weaker sort, as it usually don't win the game at once, you need at least two attacks and there is a lot of unit-control everywhere, as well as some cancelling all damage effects (i.e. My life for the hold). Dealing with infinite tactics spam is probably harder.

The good note is that I tried Hidden Werner, The Greatswords Commander deck (50-55 cards) a few times and I did not manage to draw and play this combo even once, so it's much more fearful in theory than in practice.

Paradoks said:

Oh ya, of course! I forgot about that. When I saw Mallumo's posting in that other thread I first thought "Oh no, we're going to have to reopen that entire toughness discussion again", but then I saw something like the ruling doesn't count for damage cancellation, like toughness, but does for constant effects like the Vamp's ability? Either way, that's good, because I don't have enough tokens

If I could win with infinite Pigeon Bombs I would laugh all the way out of my local gaming group, because they would shun me for life. Friggin' pigeon bombs!!!

Mallumo said:

How do you get the legend out on turn 2? I guess you'd need all sorts of free loyalty, like Peasant Militia? Then you'd need 2 power in your KZ… So I'm guessing something like 0-cost quest, Peasant Militia, Church of Sigmar, and Deathjacks or Hunstman? There are probably enough free / low cost units you could do it… Pigeon bombs, freakin' pigeon bombs… I wonder if we will one day see, of all the cards, gd pigeon bombs on the restricted list?

You can get free loyalty from Peasant Militia, Red Arrow Coach, and various Empire quests and attachments which all cost 0. Still, turn 2 is of course the worst case scenario. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the game is most likely over when you fire this combo.

HappyDD said:

Nope, but Arcane Power will most likely get banned.

Making the card plain simple "Limited" like the dwarf tactic "calling the council" would be enough. That's almost like the repeater bolt thrower then. We don't need to put to much cards on the banned list in my opinion.

Gardine said:

Yeah, I totally agree, but it depends whether FFG would allow card text rule change.

Well, they've never added a keyword via errata before, but they did add text to the Bolt Throwers and The Imperial Zoo, for example. So I don't think it's out of the question, and it certainly would be preferable to a restriction or ban.

Virgo, what's the situation in Poland with the infinite loops combos, do you see them a lot, do they perform well? Which ones? In another thread you said HE might be the strongest faction now, was this a general statement or strictly in reference to Return to Glory / Elven Scout loops?

Mallumo said:

1 Restriction wouldn't change anything, lack of Derricksburgs would only slow the inevitable.

2 It's hard for me to tell from my own experience, because my local invasion group died and I play only on big regional tournaments However I follow closely our national forum and I see that although people earlier were playing infinite loops combos (fists of mork, return to glory) the complains started with the 2 Arcane Powers-Kurt Helborg-Pigeon Bombs infinite uncancelable indirect silliness. With Imperial economy this combo is easy to trigger and once it goes there are almost no things you can do to stop it.

3 It was a general statement (at least till Pigeons ). HE decks based around Eltharion and removing tokens from cards for indirect are very strong.

In my small group (also in Poland, btw) we simply home rule or don't use some cards, that we find fun-spoiling and/or overpowered. I play Empire and don't use Judgment of Verena for example, I think we also restrict infinite loops, similarly to the Zoo (-> trigger once per phase).

Another example is Heinrich Hemmler, which I think I will stop use, just out of plain honesty - I find this card cost/power relation absolutely ridiculus, comparing to the other factions arsenal.

Still, if I ever go to tournament, the problem will exist.

Paradoks said:

Friedrich, not Heinrich, I don't know why I always change name of this guy.

Paradoks said:

We take the same sort of shame approach, but it's more like "Ok, you made a deck that keeps crushing everyone else's new ideas, play something else." Sometimes people will request to play against the killer deck, but those killer decks often just fall by the wayside. This is probably hurting our group's long run chances at winning any tournaments but we play each other way more than tournaments, so what're ya gonna do?

One way to make a competitive game environment (i.e., tournament) fun without arbitrary house rules could be to make it a tournament with only one copy of any card allowed. That way your combos are not going to go off with any sort of guaranteed frequency, but they still exist. It also makes them no longer infinite, which as far as I can tell, is what people are currently hating. Anyway, that's just something I've been kicking around.

Something I saw on the Cthulhu forums was the idea of a "soft ban", a player instituted norm that isn't really a rule. For instance, if we all acknowledged that Arcane Power is at the bottom of all these new loops that people don't like, then no "real" player would play with Arcane Power. Of course, this idea was shot down almost instantly since without a hard rule saying "No Arcane Power" the temptation to be the one person with Arcane Power is too high, which results in everyone bringing Arcane Power and the soft ban not working.

GenCon and Worlds are coming up. I know that people in my playgroup would be particularly disenchanted with some loop winning either of those events.

Arcane Power also combines with Watchstone of Athel Tamarha. It's way more broken than Visit The Haunted City and should be banned.

Well, looks like the infinite loop has be addressed. Nice work FFG.