@reddawn
Did anyone play zone attacks against your birds  or a few bigger flyers to eat'em? Anyone try to Fireball your tree?  I usually put in at least 1 zone attack or if I'm playing Necro, Poison Gas Cloud.  If you can time them correctly, their efficiency is pretty ridiculous.

Just the one Ring of Fire and the one Chain Lightning.  I think just one is not enough without a second or some other kind of damage to finish off the injured.

Only one flyer was played vs. the Beastmaster, a Gargoyle Sentry.  It didn't last long because there was already a critical mass of birds that took it out in 1-2 rounds.

No one tossed a Fireball at a tree, but that does seem odds on to be a great answer.  You're down a mana, but if a bunch of creatures drop dead it's absolutely worth it.

@sIKE:

I like the plan of focus killing the birds, though I think the trick is making sure the mana/attacks line up so that the anti-bird mage isn't wasting too many mana/actions.

I think Mage Staff is good for one bird, but will probably get Dissolved before you kill a 2nd.  (A big win for the book with the Mage Staff, since you traded mana but turned your ineffective attack into a dead bird.)  Hurl Rock (on Wizard's Tower) and Hail of Stones seem a little frustrating since they will often leave birds a hair away from dead.  I guess in the variance they should kill some, but the majority should survive.  Though, I guess if enough are stunned off a single Hail of Stones maybe something on the ground could mop one up?

I like Flameblast better for killing a bird than Hurl Rock since the Burn will often finish the bird off (and sooner than healing next turn could be applied).  I guess either is fine off a mage with Hawkeye since they go up to 5 damage.  On the edges of the arena Jet Stream is the best since you get 4 dice plus a good chance of 3 dice as the bird hits the wall, which I think makes it the best Wizard's Tower spell.

I wonder, though, how much mana this Wizard will spend killing 26 mana worth of birds (3 normal + 1 pet), and how much damage they will take from the birds in the meantime?

Alas, I made a huge mental error against Nick in round 2. Of course easy to say in hindsight. Otherwise you might have had your nightmare scenario. In fact, that is exactly the same way I should have played against Nick. Bad misjudgement on my part.

Interesting.  I think Nick's book is close to the best possible against this "pure aggression" mage.  Having Battle Forge, multiple copies of Dragonscale Hauberk, Veteran's Belt and plenty of armor and healing seems like the right combination of tools and actions to blunt a concerted assault?

The reason I think The Aviary is so weak to this line of play is that it's investing mana in aggression instead of defense, and only has token copies of armor and healing.

@Bilbofilter:

Thanks for the congratulations, I'm glad you enjoyed the report and these posts. 

Akiro's Favor is a card I'm pretty excited about.  One of the things I immediately thought to do, and almost made it into The Aviary was a Sosruko, Ferret Companion + Akiro's Favor package.  My thought was that the mana was worth spending against most solo mages because the ferret could put them at a huge action deficit.  Andrew talked me down from this plan, pointing out that enchanting Sosruko now made a 10 mana target that could easily be killed by a single Flameblast or Perfect Strike.  I'm pretty leery of setting myself up for trading down mana, so I backed off the idea.

In retrospect, I think I would have very much liked a Sosruko against Nick Tinko's Fire Wizard, possibly against Andrew's Forcemaster, and likely vs. Harry's Warlock.  Being able to waste a solo mage's main action, and possibly stop them from moving is very, very powerful.  What I don't think I realized was that Etherian Lifetree is just as helpful to the ferret as to the falcons.  I wouldn't always play lifetree just to support Sosruko, but if I had a lifetree, it becomes reasonable to enchant the ferret due to his increased survivability.

As far as bats go, I like them, particularly against high armor opponents.  Andrew and I seriously considered including a few as "falcons 7 and 8".  Getting to rot through armor can cause a lot of trouble, and tax people's condition removal resources.  However, I don't very much like the idea of enchanting them, as a 3 point enchantment is a big investment on a 5 point bat.  For just two points I could get another bat, which will double my rots, instead of increasing them by only 50% and putting a lot of eggs in a tiny basket.  Enchanting a Tegu makes a bit more sense to me, a third of the cost of the animal for 50% more rot sounds good if what you want is more rotting.

Edit:  I feel where Akiro's Blessing is really going to shine is the near-solo mage who is relying on a lot of Burn/Corrode/Stun or can't afford to have below average damage dice.  Probably a Warlock, Forcemaster, or aggressive flavor of Wizard?

and the roll of the dice...

Mage Wars is actually great as far as dice variance goes.  I love that they made cards like Akiro's Favor, which are essentially insurance on dice outcomes.  Additionally, as a player you get to choose whether you play a high variance strategy or a low variance strategy.  Some kinds of books are *much* more dependent on a few die rolls than others, whether because the latter book uses fewer die-based mechanics, or rolls *so many* dice that any specific die roll isn't a big deal.

@sIKE:
One other question: What kind of Zone Attacks did you see?

Ring of Fire and Chain Lightning were the only ones cast.  After my match one of the Warlocks complimented the fact that I kept positioning my birds in a way that he couldn't get enough value out of a Firestorm to cast it.  In a similar vein, I saw both Circle of Fire, and Circle of Lightning, which I feel are both more effective than most of the area spells that do less than 5 damage in a burst.

I am curious about your questions... what's the hypothesis you're working on?

@Schwenkgott:
I wish we would have something like this in Germany.
Yes.  I hope lots of Mage Wars players sign up to be Ambassadors, partner with gaming stores, and keep growing the community.  It would be great if this game got big enough to have anything like the global organized play some TCG, LCG, and miniatures games have.

What would you have done against a defensive priestress with knight guards, lot of healing to stay alive?
Aganist the Priestess I'm pretty sure there are no quick mage assassinations, so I think I would play a game of total attrition.  I'd want to use my pet and my Beastmaster to blow Guard tokens so that my falcons would be free to attack whatever target I'd decided to focus down.  I might also need to play Etherian Lifetree so that a regular falcon could take a 5 dice hit, depending on the circumstances.  Either way, I'm guessing I'd make extensive use of Renewing Spring to top off characters that had gotten injured in action.  I'd try to pick off the Priestess' summons one by one as they came into play, until I built up a critical mass of birds to push for the mage herself.

Or a necromancer with zombie guards and Idol of Pestilence to bring bloodthirsty to full effect?
I'm pretty sure this is the circumstance where my Force Pushes and Teleports would really shine.  If there weren't a lot of guards, I'd take a hit on the Beastmaster or pet and then focus the guard down.  If there were a lot of guards I would use my movement spells to pull the Necromancer away from the entourage so the Falcons could get at him.  Depending on the type of Zombie, I'd also consider using Etherian Lifretre to make it so a regular falcon could soak a guard hit, and combine it with Renewing Spring to make the process repeatable. 

Using the falcons to destroy the Idol of Pestilence would also be in the consideration, but might not be feasible if there were a lot of Zombies guarding it.  In general, I'd probably be wanting to keep my Beastmaster away from any large number of Zombies because they hit so hard, or I'd have wanted to armor up before wading in.

@sIKE:
So you never had any focus on your Falcons?
Yes and no.  Several opponents seemed to have plans to shoot them down (Lash of Hellfire, Ivarium Longbow, Ring of Fire, Chain Lightning, Mage's Tower + Jet Stream, Gargoyle Sentry), but I was mostly able to break it up with Dissolve, Etherian Lifetree, falcon damage, or in one case extreme good luck.  That said, I felt like no one dedicated to focus fire fast and hard enough.  I was very surprised none of the Wizards used their Arcane Zap to shoot down birds, and none of the Warlocks seemed to have Flameblasts to trade with falcons.  I feel like a good plan vs. swarm is to kill the creatures as quickly as they come out, but I think a lot of books lacked the tools, and possibly some pilots lacked experience playing against swarm.  (One of the advantages of playing a book widely regarded as "not viable".)

Did you see any creatures? lots of small/few mid/Ranged (like the Crossbowman)
I saw few mid from several players, Ranged from just one, and never lots of small.

Did anyone use Guard to counterstrike your birds?
Frequently, but it doesn't help much.  The pet and the beastmaster both have plenty of health to soak up a counterattack, so I usually just have them trigger the guard first to clear a path for the more fragile birds.  Even if those two characters aren't available, each bird is usually able to soak a single hit since most guards hit for 3-4 dice and the falcons have 5 life.  I had games where each bird took turns soaking 1 hit to set off a Guard.  One of the huge advantages of Flying is being able to completely dictate the sequence of attack interactions.

@RingKichard:
When I used to run swarm Beastmaster, I ran into issues getting my Falcons picked off one by one, usually by Arcane Zap + Ranged Attack (usually Gorgon) + Wizard's Tower. How should I avoid this? Is Lifetree sufficient?
I think whether the ranged attacks or the falcons win has everything to do with tempo.  Like, if I've summoned 2 falcons on turn 2 and 2 falcons on turn 3, they have enough attack between them to destroy a source of ranged attacks possibly in a single turn.  On the other hand, a smaller force of falcons might be destroyed in detail if they are coming a few at a time due to a slower deployment schedule.

When facing a Wizard's Tower (presumably with Jet Stream), it's obviously crucial to stay away from the wall unless absolutely necessary.  I'm also quite willing to burn extra mana on an attack spell to kill it early (usually Acid Ball to get rid of the armor, or Geyser because it's cheap).  A lot of Wizards have just 1 Jet Stream in their book, and it going away when a tower dies is a big perk.

Gorgon is pretty expensive.  Depending on the circumstances I'd consider Acid Ball + Birds to kill it, or even Banishing it if there were enough other threats that my birds needed to keep busy taking apart some other threat.  I could also see it being worthwhile to Teleport/Force Push a Gorgon so birds were able to get to it without taking a hit on the way in due to its range of 2?

Lifetree can be very good or useless, depending on what spells and ranged attacks they are using.  My general rule is that if I can make a falcons life total equal to the sum of some attacks + 1, I want to play it.  For example, vs. a Wizard with Mage Zap, Etherian Lifetree makes a falcon go from 2 zaps on average (3 + 3 > 5) to 3 zaps on average (3 + 3 < 7).  However, if a Wizard had an Ivarium Longbow, I'd want not to use the tree since (4 + 3 = 7) it's going to die in two shots either way (4 + 3 > 5).  The math changes as your birds acquire injuries, of course.

If you knew your brother was bringing a book with Orb + Obelisk + Gargoyle, would you still want to play Aviary?
That's a good question.  After playing Nick I was contemplating what I would do if an opponent cast Orb + Obelisk at the end of a turn, and then on the next turn played Mana Siphon.  I think my Beastmaster plus pet can dish out enough damage to destroy those things in a reasonable span, but maybe with a Guard getting in the way it could get ugly.  (Though I'm uncertain a Guard could survive long enough to get an action token if my swarm is sizeable.)  My instinct is that unless the trap is laid perfectly the Aviary could overcome it, but if each piece is played and supported in the right order, I could see losing several birds to Upkeep effects to pay for movement.

I think an interesting line of counter play might be to keep around 10 mana banked so that the turn the Orb/Obelisk do get dropped the swarm can move and attack as normal?

I'm having a hard time imagining bringing three Suppression Cloaks. Is that common where you play?
Nope!  Thankfully, I've never seen 3 Suppression Cloaks.  However, vs. opponents from an unknown metagame, one must always consider the possibility.  I thought against Nick the odds of 3 were low, given that so much of his book is designed to beat swarm anyway via stacking armor with the Veteran's Belt.

@Jon.Ambriz:
When doing the math on whether I wanted to play the Lair, I was definitely crediting it for getting my falcons 1 square closer to an opponent who was turtleing in the corner.  The fact that a Falcon deployed T2 at B2 can attack a mage at A1 on T3 is great.