First spellbook: enchantment-heavy beastmaster

[webcatcher]

Equipment
1 bearskin
1 mage wand
1 regrowth belt
1 ring of beasts
1 staff of beasts

Conjurations
2 mana flower
1 Rajan’s fury
2 tanglevine
2 wall of thorns

Creatures
3 bitterwood fox
1 Cervere, the forest shadow
1 Fellela, pixie familiar
2 feral bobcat
1 highland unicorn
1 Redclaw, alpha male
1 Sosruko, ferret companion
1 steelclaw grizzly
3 timber wolf

Incantations
1 call of the wild
2 dispel
2 dissolve
2 minor heal
1 piercing strike
1 purify
1 rouse the beast
2 seeking dispel
2 shift enchantment
1 teleport

Enchantments
3 bear strength
2 block
2 bull endurance
2 cheetah speed
2 cobra reflexes
3 decoy
2 eagle wings
1 harmonize
1 maim wings
2 mongoose agility
2 nullify
2 regrowth
2 rhino hide

Attacks
2 geyser
1 jet stream

Turn 1 –  19
Mana flower – 14
Mana flower – 9

Turn 2 – 20
Ring of beasts – 18
Timberwolf pet – 6

Turn 3 – 17
Redclaw – 1
Probably nothing since I’m down to 1 mana - 1

Obviously around this point I'll start trying to either summon more creatures or drag Fellela out, harmonize her, and make her start enchanting things.

It's my first book, so I'm anxious for thoughts.

[Shad0w]

This is an odd build let us know how it tests and against what

[sdougla2]

I assume you just have the base set from your card choices. If you have more, there are some other cards I would suggest.

It looks like you're forgetting to take the discount from Ring of Beasts. I get:

Turn 1 (19) Mana Flower -> Mana Flower (9)
Turn 2 (20): Ring of Beasts -> Timber Wolf Pet (7)
Turn 3 (18): Redclaw -> Enchanter's Ring (1)

I like opening with 2 Mana Flowers for the Beastmaster, and this is a reasonable opening.

I think Rajan's Fury works best with Thunderdrift Falcons and Cervere. With your creature base I would probably go with Tooth and Nail instead.

Staff of Beasts is only efficient if you plan to hit things with your mage and use the quick spell sometimes with your quick action. This build doesn't really seem like it would want to do that much. If you just want to hit things with your mage, it's probably better to use Mage Staff. It costs a little less, and it allows you to deal with Incorporeal targets and flying creatures. Incorporeal objects can be a bit of a problem for the BM without Mage Staff and/or Galador.

I would run more Tanglevines. They're fantastic for dealing with guards.

Generally speaking, I find Fellella to be too fragile for her cost. If you can get it to work, more power to you, but she'll often die to a single Fireblast, which will put you behind. If you want to run Fellella, I would look at running curses in addition to buffs for your creatures. Regardless, you should run Enchanter's Ring. It makes buffing your creatures more efficient, and gives you a way to do it efficiently if it doesn't make sense to play Fellella or if she dies.

Agony and Marked for Death would help.

I generally find Dispel more useful than Seeking Dispel. I usually only run Seeking Dispel in Wizard builds. If you want to run Seeking Dispel, I would probably go with 3 Dispels and 1 Seeking Dispel instead of 2 and 2.

[webcatcher]

Yes, should have mentioned, I only have the core set. And yes, I forgot to take into account the ring of beasts when I added up those mana costs.

I brought the beast staff for the +2 melee incantation and the healing, so it's basically a redundancy for the mage wand. If there's a better way to accomplish this I'm happy to hear it.

I'm aware the pixie's fragile. I'm hoping that if I have enough other threats out and she stays behind my creature wall she can avoid the worst of it (and maybe I'll nullify her or something). I'll have to playtest it and see how it works.

Which enchantments should I take out to fit the curses in? I'll have to swap them out 2-for-1 because the buffs are nature school and the curses are going to be dark school.

[sdougla2]

I would probably take out a Cobra Reflexes and either a Block or an Eagle Wings to make room for the curses. I'm also not a big fan of Bull Endurance, as it can leave you in a situation where a Dispel can kill one of your creatures. Depending on your creature base, you could also take out Maim Wings. Tarok is fantastic against flying creatures.

In Druid vs Necromancer there is a card called Wand of Healing, which I prefer over Staff of Beasts for healing. It can't give the melee +2, but I would rather cast a Bear Strength than use the quick spell for melee +2 anyway. The main reason that I like Wand of Healing is that it's cheap, and it allows you to remove conditions. This is particularly nice as an answer to Sleep spam, which can be annoying for some BMs otherwise, but it also helps with Weak, Cripple, and Stuck. Of course, I like it better in Battleforge builds.

If you're going to primarily use Staff of Beasts for buffing your animals, I would switch it out for another totem. Rajan's Fury or Tooth and Nail will give you a better return than Staff of Beasts for buffing attacks if you play as many animals as I envision this build doing. Same upfront cost, but they'll keep buffing your animals without additional action/mana investment on your part.

My big issue with the Staff of Beasts is that I would want it as an option for something cheap to do with my action so that I could build up mana, but the upfront cost to play it is enough to dissuade me from using it for that.

[Aylin]

You could use a Force Push in there. Force Pushing a mage through a Wall of Thorns (if they're not wearing armour) is 10 dice of damage...ouch.