Blood Wolves

[sdougla2]

I'll have to try Falcons at some point and see if that helps the Necromancer matchup. I like Falcons a lot, but I've pretty much always used them with the Straywood Beastmaster due to Quick Summoning.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Tried Battle Fury on a Dire Wolf today. My oh my was that ever fun!

Me: Ok I'm gonna do my Quick Cast followed by an action. Battle Fury on the Pet Dire Wolf! Pet Dire Wolf attacks your Priestess.

Opponent: My Knight of Westlock is still Guarding.

Me: Yeah and your Priestess is still hurt, Bloodthirsty says I have to attack her, so I choose whether to attack her or the guarding knight.

Opponent: Well poo.....

Dire Wolf: Nom nom nom nom.....

[sdougla2]

Uh... it doesn't sound like you played that correctly.

First of all, the Bloodthirsty +X and Melee +X bonuses only apply to the first strike, so Battle Fury isn't exactly exciting on a Dire Wolf regardless of Pet status. The extra chance to inflict Bleed is nice, but an extra 3 dice attack isn't spectacular.

Second, Bloodthirsty requires you to attack an enemy Living wounded creature in your zone if able. Nowhere does it say that you can ignore a guard in order to attack them. It sounds like you should have been free to choose your action, which could have been to attack the guarding Knight of Westlock, but could not have been to attack the Priestess (I'm assuming that the Knight is not wounded).

[silverclawgrizzly]

I did not apply the attack bonuses to both attacks, only the first. And you are correct the Priestess was the only damaged living enemy creature in the zone. When you make both Bleed rolls it's actually quite exciting.

[sdougla2]

But Bloodthirsty does not let you bypass a guard.

[sdougla2]

See page 11 of the rules supplement.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Ok I'm wrong, apparently you can't ignore guards due to Bloodthirsty. Ah well.

Note: I still think Battle Fury on Dire Wolves is fun.

[Boocheck]

Blood thirsty and guard is also mentioned in The Official Mage Wars Rules Supplement on page 11 - Mandatory Actions. - COPY PASTE FOLLOWS

Some effects will require a creature to perform a specific action, such as making a melee attack against a
particular enemy creature in its zone. Currently, the only such effects are Bloodthirsty and Taunt. These effects
are referred to as mandatory actions.

A creature must perform a mandatory action if it is possible to do so when it chooses what action to perform. If
the creature is under multiple mandatory action requirements, the creature may choose which one of the
requirements to obey. These effects do not allow a creature to perform an action that would be otherwise
forbidden, such as attacking a creature that would otherwise be an illegal target (for example attacking a
creature when a different one is guarding, or attacking a Flying creature if the attacker is not flying).
Note that declaring the action includes paying any costs, so one would be required to pay any costs required to
perform the action. Determining whether or not the condition is possible is checked only at the moment that the
creature would be choosing its action (or target); the controller of the creature is not required to do anything
beforehand that would make the action possible. For example, the controller does not have to activate the ability
of another card (like using Archer’s Watchtower to give a ranged attack the Indirect trait) in order to make the
action possible.

Example: A creature with Bloodthirsty is in a zone with two other enemy creatures, one of which is Guarding
and undamaged, and the other one of which is damaged. Since the damaged creature is not a legal target for the
attack, the creature is free of any obligation to attack, so it could either attack the Guard or take another action.

Example: A creature with Bloodthirsty is in a zone with three enemy creatures, two of which are damaged, and
it uses a Sweeping attack action. The first attack must target one of the damaged creatures. For the second attack, it cannot target the creature it attacked in the first attack but it can still target the other damaged creature, so it must do so. If there were only one damaged creature and multiple undamaged creatures, then the first attack must target the damaged creature but the second attack could target any of the undamaged creatures.

Example: A creature is in the same zone as an enemy Sosruko which has Taunted him. When the creature
activates, since it is possible to attack Sosruko he must do so; he may not move out of the zone to avoid the
effect. Note that you could use your quickcast action to teleport the creature out of the zone before it activates,
so it wouldn’t be able to attack Sosruko and would not be bound by the Taunt effect.

[Laddinfance]

Battle Fury really shines when used on creatures with effect rolls, especially when those effects have a good chance to go off. When you Battle Fury a Dire Wolf, you're not really hoping for tons of damage, but rather to land those Bleeds. Also, if you can attack and damage an undamaged target, then your second "swing" with Battle Fury will benefit from your bloodthirsty.

In all there are two times where Battle Fury is amazing, high base dice (like 5+) or awesome effect roll. A special case needs to be noted for "weaknesses". If you're attacking with Adramelech and the defender has Flame +1, that will apply to both "swings" with Battle Fury. Granted that's kind of a perfect storm as Adramelech has high base dice and an awesome effect roll, and this helps both of them.

Just some thoughts on Battle Fury, and why Dire Wolves aren't that bad of a choice.

[sIKE]

Talos is all I got to say about that!

[Lord0fWinter]

Talos is all I got to say about that!

I did that the other day to my roommate. Talos + Battle Fury. Poor guy didn't know what hit him.

[sIKE]

Talos is all I got to say about that!

I did that the other day to my roommate. Talos + Battle Fury. Poor guy didn't know what hit him.

I cast both Battle Fury and Charge on him the last time we played, makes for quite a finisher.....

[sdougla2]

You can compare Battle Fury to attack spells to get a sense of how good it is on a particular target. I'd much rather cast Burst of Thorns than use Battle Fury to get a 3 die attack from a Dire Wolf. Admittedly only the Druid is allowed to do that, but still.

If you'll wound the creature, and thus trigger the Bloodthirsty for the second attack, then Battle Fury becomes more attractive, but would you be better off using an attack spell instead? You would still probably trigger the Bloodthirsty bonus on the Dire Wolf that way.

Battle Fury on Lord of Fire is amazing as long as they don't have Flame -X. To the point where I think a Battle Fury is practically mandatory for any build running Lord of Fire.