Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: Laddinfance on July 08, 2015, 10:26:40 AM
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Today's preview is one I'm quite excited about. I've been looking forward to these critters since Bryan first showed me Academy, and today you get to see the power of the Steelclaws! You can find the article >>HERE<< (http://www.arcanewonders.com/arcane-wonders/test-your-skills-steelclaws).
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Fear the Goldilocks Beastmaster!
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So in an Arena game, you could put some of these new bears in play, then summon the Steelclaw Grizzly and say "Here comes Papa!!"
(Or conversely, your opponent drops a Steelclaw Grizzly, puts him on guard, then says "Who's your Daddy?!")
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Fear the Bearmaster!
FYP, intangible :P
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So in an Arena game, you could put some of these new bears in play, then summon the Steelclaw Grizzly and say "Here comes Papa!!"
(Or conversely, your opponent drops a Steelclaw Grizzly, puts him on guard, then says "Who's your Daddy?!")
I'm pretty sure that makes Bear Strength Steelclaw Grandpa.
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Interesting. Mama bear can get up to a six dice attack with the cubs alone. So it seems the limit for level 1 creatures is three in academy.
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So, does that mean Steelclaw Grizzly and Steelclaw Matriarch are prerequisites if you want one or more Steelclaw Cubs in your spellbook?
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What's interesting is it's possible to get mummy bear to attack with 9 dice in an arena game, without any additional bonuses. Add on two melee from the staff, two from bear strength, one from the hand and further bonuses from the totems etc.... This momma can be rolling 17 dice with piercing two or three when charging into a beastmasters zone and attacking!!!!!
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What's interesting is it's possible to get mummy bear to attack with 9 dice in an arena game, without any additional bonuses. Add on two melee from the staff, two from bear strength, one from the hand and further bonuses from the totems etc.... This momma can be rolling 17 dice with piercing two or three when charging into a beastmasters zone and attacking!!!!!
While that's hypothetically possible, if you could pull this off you should have already won the game (e.g. just attack with your Cubs + Beastmaster, etc). And what is your opponent doing if he's letting you assemble an army of 7 bears + enchantments + equipment, and not doing anything to prevent the Mama Bear from charging in to attack you in the same zone as all the Pests?
*edit* I guess this could happen in Domination while your opponent focuses on V'tar, allowing you to pump out 2-3 Bears per round.
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So, does that mean Steelclaw Grizzly and Steelclaw Matriarch are prerequisites if you want one or more Steelclaw Cubs in your spellbook?
That and a lair :P
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What's interesting is it's possible to get mummy bear to attack with 9 dice in an arena game, without any additional bonuses. Add on two melee from the staff, two from bear strength, one from the hand and further bonuses from the totems etc.... This momma can be rolling 17 dice with piercing two or three when charging into a beastmasters zone and attacking!!!!!
I think we can go higher
3 Base
6 Cubs
1 Pet
1 if in beastmasters zone
2 Staff
2 Bear Strength
4 Rajan's Fury
2 Power Strike
4 piercing Tooth and Nail
It could be 21 dice and 4 piercing on a basic melee attack!
Can we get this higher?
If you did 2vs2 you could get more cubs and more bonuses to stack on it
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That and a lair :P
Ha ha! Nice one Coshade.
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I think we can go higher
3 Base
6 Cubs
1 Pet
1 if in beastmasters zone
2 Staff
2 Bear Strength
4 Rajan's Fury
2 Power Strike
4 piercing Tooth and Nail
It could be 21 dice and 4 piercing on a basic melee attack!
Can we get this higher?
i will add to the pile:
+2 charge and +1 piercing from Lion Savagery :)
which gives us
23 dice and 5 piercing
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I think we can go higher
3 Base
6 Cubs
1 Pet
1 if in beastmasters zone
2 Staff
2 Bear Strength
4 Rajan's Fury
2 Power Strike
4 piercing Tooth and Nail
It could be 21 dice and 4 piercing on a basic melee attack!
Can we get this higher?
i will add to the pile:
+2 charge and +1 piercing from Lion Savagery :)
which gives us
23 dice and 5 piercing
Marked for Death
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I think we can go higher
3 Base
6 Cubs
1 Pet
1 if in beastmasters zone
2 Staff
2 Bear Strength
4 Rajan's Fury
2 Power Strike
4 piercing Tooth and Nail
It could be 21 dice and 4 piercing on a basic melee attack!
Can we get this higher?
i will add to the pile:
+2 charge and +1 piercing from Lion Savagery :)
which gives us
23 dice and 5 piercing
1 Call of the Wild
... which also adds +1 attack die to each of your 6 Cubs!
Competes with the other incantation + equipment quickspells, though. Maybe if you could somehow convince a nearby Warlord to cast the Power Strike for you (?)... in which case you might convince him to cast Battle Fury for another 3 dice - albeit part of a separate attack.
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Ah so we're at 24 with Marked for Death :D
If we include other mages oh man Huginn and a Wizard :P
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Ah so we're at 24 with Marked for Death :D
If we include other mages oh man Huginn and a Wizard :P
We're at 25 total attack dice if you use Battle Fury instead of one of the other quickspells (Power Strike or the Staff of Beasts)... but only the first 22 dice would get the big Piercing effect, so the optimal incantation depends on the armor value of the defender.
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Piercing from Tooth & Nail and Lion Savagery would affect the second strike, so it would still have piercing +5. It's just with things like Piercing Strike where piercing only affects the first strike. That's actually one of the selling points for Lion Savagery.
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Ah Battlefury is brilliant!
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Falcon Precision anyone!?!?
Would anyone dare to attack the Forcemaster without this enchantment???
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I feel like the Steelclaw Cub in particular is going to open up more options for the Straywood Beastmaster. It's going to make Animal Kinship and Call of the Wild stronger, as well generally strengthening the Beastmaster's swarm options. I also like the idea of a Straywood Beastmaster with 6 cubs and 4 matriarchs. That way playing a Steelclaw Cub can give you a significant damage boost that your opponent doesn't really want to dedicate resources to attacking. Of course, this type of strategy encourages you to concentrate on a limited number of zones, so I kind of doubt it will be a good idea in Domination in most cases.
What does minor creature mean? Level 1 or 2?
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Better Akiro's Favor that! I mean if we're talking the best you can do, then you'll want that reroll to help ensure a OTK ;)
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I feel like the Steelclaw Cub in particular is going to open up more options for the Straywood Beastmaster. It's going to make Animal Kinship and Call of the Wild stronger, as well generally strengthening the Beastmaster's swarm options. I also like the idea of a Straywood Beastmaster with 6 cubs and 4 matriarchs. That way playing a Steelclaw Cub can give you a significant damage boost that your opponent doesn't really want to dedicate resources to attacking. Of course, this type of strategy encourages you to concentrate on a limited number of zones, so I kind of doubt it will be a good idea in Domination in most cases.
What does minor creature mean? Level 1 or 2?
Minor creature: Level 1 + 2
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Falcon Precision anyone!?!?
Would anyone dare to attack the Forcemaster without this enchantment???
Yes. Totally.
Innately unavoidable attacks
Multiple attack actions (her def can only be used once per round)
Slam, and anything else that can incapacitate her, like the incantation "knockdown"
Direct damage
Restraining her lowers her def rolls by 2.
Perfect strike
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I fear we start to see some considerable power creep here...
Compare the Cob with the Goblin grunt. Same mana, same attack, one more health, and a hefty two armor. The pest doesn't really make up for it in my book...
Super exiting to see new spoilers though!
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I fear we start to see some considerable power creep here...
Compare the Cob with the Goblin grunt. Same mana, same attack, one more health, and a hefty two armor. The pest doesn't really make up for it in my book...
Super exiting to see new spoilers though!
Cub has 2 atack dice. Goblin grunt has 3 attack dice.
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The pest trait is a big deal. He would be the perfect guard without it. Also if you see him you can make a lot of assumptions about your opponents book. That being said - he is a great!
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Goblin Grunt has more ways of gaining armor through other support, doesn't have pest, can gain elusive with the new goblin legend, and has an additional die of attack. That all being said, I haven't been that impressed with them myself in the past mostly because playing level 2-4 creatures has been so much better for the Warlord than playing level 1 creatures. With the new goblin legend I'm tempted to try something with Goblin Grunts though.
I don't know that you can make a lot of assumptions about your opponent's book off of seeing a Cub. They may just use one to knock off guard markers, which seems to be a reasonable use for them. Seeing a Matriarch will reveal a lot more than seeing a Cub. Particularly for a Straywood Beastmaster, you would probably want to play Matriachs first, and then play Cubs later for a bear midrange strategy.
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Battle Fury for the win :)
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The pest trait is a big deal. He would be the perfect guard without it. Also if you see him you can make a lot of assumptions about your opponents book. That being said - he is a great!
Yes it is, especially in Academy when you're all in the same zone and guarding becomes a gigantic tactical maneuver. :)
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Cub has 2 atack dice. Goblin grunt has 3 attack dice.
You are correct. My mistake. Well then it evens out quite good. I'm glad AW didn't do the mistake I just did. :)
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Mildly disappointed that the Matriarch and Cub don't have Frost -2 and Frost -1, respectively... Not that it would do anything, but to be consistent with the characteristics of [mwcard=MW1C34]Steelclaw Papa Bear[/mwcard].
(To be consistent with Goldilocks, perhaps the Matriarch should have Frost -1 and the Cubs should have Frost -X where X is the number of friendly bears in their zone... making them feel "just right.")
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Mildly disappointed that the Matriarch and Cub don't have Frost -2 and Frost -1, respectively... Not that it would do anything, but to be consistent with the characteristics of [mwcard=MW1C34]Steelclaw Papa Bear[/mwcard].
I wouldn't mind if they dropped the armor to 1 (where I think it should be... 1 for a cub, 2 for the mama, and 3 for papa bear, especially considering the mana cost of the cubs). This is a pretty amazing level one creature already with its two armor.
Someone mentioned four matriarchs.... Does it make sense to limit the total benefits per turn to the matriarchs to the number of cubs? For example, if you have two of the mama bears and five cubs... let the two matriarchs split the +5? This might be done by saying something on the Cub card like "Once per turn a friendly Steelclaw Matriarch in the Cubs zone may gain Melee +1 from this Cub. Use a ready marker to track the use of this ability." This way you don't have (potentially) all four mama bears each claiming +6 from all six cubs in their zone....
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If you're able to get FOUR matriarchs and SIX cubs into one zone in one game, you deserve every bonus you get. If you get more than one matriarch and six cubs in a zone for those attacks in one game, I'll be impressed
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I'm guessing you would need a druid and a beastmaster working together to pull this off.
Opening:
R1: Beastmaster casts lair in his corner. (4) Druid casts and treebonds with vine tree in her corner. (10)
R2: Beastmaster deploys a steelclaw cub (11). Quick summons a cub then regular summons a cub. (3) Druid deploys two vine markers (19) then summons Fellela (7) and casts brace yourself on her (5).
R3: Druid deploys 2 vine markers (14) and deploys an extended wall of thorns around corner (3). Fellela casts a trap or a decoy somewhere (2) and Druid casts another brace yourself on her if necessary.
Beastmaster brings out three more steelclaw cubs. (2)
Beastmaster deploys a matriarch and casts another brace yourself on fellela if necessary.(0)
Once youre ready, use thornlashers to knock enemy mage into teleport traps to bring them to corner zone, where your bears will maul them. Alternatively, if you can't summon all the bears, try having the druid summon kralathor and eat the ones that aren't being used much.
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Does it make sense to limit the total benefits per turn to the matriarchs to the number of cubs? For example, if you have two of the mama bears and five cubs... let the two matriarchs split the +5? This might be done by saying something on the Cub card like "Once per turn a friendly Steelclaw Matriarch in the Cubs zone may gain Melee +1 from this Cub. Use a ready marker to track the use of this ability." This way you don't have (potentially) all four mama bears each claiming +6 from all six cubs in their zone....
:D :D :D
who said academy should be a simple version of the game?