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The Dwarfs Respond to The Accursed Dead

A Warhammer: Invasion Spotlight by Guest Writer Torsten Krämer

Don’t you love the excitement of opening a Battle Pack and seeing the new cards for the first time? Cards can excite us in many ways. They may allow you to harness power in new ways, feature artwork so amazing you’ll love the associated cards no matter what they do, or introduce game effects that immediately prompt you to ponder how you can use them to pull off new shenanigans. Maybe you're a fan of Warhammer lore, and it just makes you happy to see your favorite unit or Hero make an appearance in Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game. Maybe the cards give you just the edge you needed for that deck idea you had, or maybe they will make your favorite deck even better. Maybe a new card’s just so incredibly strong you can't wait to play it for the first time.

One of the things that I love to see in a card is an effect that breaks the rules, so to speak. A card that doesn't just offer an alternate way to deal damage, destroy a unit, or force your opponent to discard from his deck or hand, but a card that allows you to do something that was genuinely impossible before this new card came into the game. More than any others, cards that break the rules open up new possibilities and exciting new strategies, breathing new life into the game and making it grow. We've already seen a couple cards like this in The Bloodquest Cycle. Heroic Task (Rising Dawn, 20) lets you start with cards in play at the cost of your right to mulligan, and Snotling Invasion (Fragments of Power, 38) plays into your opponent's zone, under his control. As the current cycle continues, we’ll see more cards that break the rules, and in The Accursed Dead, we’ll get one that does so in a major way.

Nothing is Set in Stone

Ever since the Core Set gave us Keystone Forge (Core Set, 14), it has been possible for the Dwarfs to heal damage on their capital. Even when their repair crews would come too late, they knew how to reap some benefits from a burning zone, with cards like Durgnar the Bold (Core Set, 6). But one thing was always definite: once a zone was burning, it was burning, you were halfway to losing the match, and nothing could change that. These were the rules. Now forget about them. With Rebuild the Hold (The Accursed Dead, 58), the Dwarfs get a real game changer. You can now remove a burn token from your capital. Think about that for a second.

When you Rebuild the Hold, your zone will be as good as new, undamaged, and all the efforts your opponent spent to burn it will have been in vain. Granted, your opponent will sometimes have such a strong board position, Rebuild the Hold will merely delay your defeat. But many decks you'll face will not be able to go the extra mile and burn the zone again (and again and again), not after your Dwarfs have had time to build up their defenses and launch their own attacks.

The sacrifice of eight developments to collect the necessary number of tokens on Rebuild the Hold is a steep price to pay. Fortunately, the Dwarfs are good at getting developments into play quickly, and they know how to earn additional benefits from their sacrifice. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice eight developments. If you use cards like Blessed Enchantress (Rising Dawn, 16), Lore Seeker (Karaz-a-Karak, 63), Elven Scout (Karaz-a-Karak, 73), or the Mage scheduled to join the ranks of the Empire in The Accursed Dead, your opponent might be amazed how fast you can turn burning rubble into an undamaged kingdom, and turn around the match.

Thanks, Torsten!

Look for burned zones and the dead to rise again with the upcoming release of The Accursed Dead. This third Battle Pack in The Bloodquest Cycle is coming soon.

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Source: The Dwarfs Respond to The Accursed Dead (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3332)