Review of Forged in Flame

[kiwipaul]

So, the expansion has been in America for a while now and as of this week in The Netherlands.  Was wondering what peoples idea of the expansion has been.   Must have been some games and impressions in combos and evolution of spellbooks and mages.   

Generally do you think it is positive, missing some parts,  hinting of things to come or delivering just what you wanted?

[Cnoedel]

Hey

First of all, more Mage Wars is always a good thing, but i see this more as a first aid kit for the warlord because he wasn't as powerful before. Garrison change, General's signet ring, Armory as well as Harshforge Monolith/Plate seem to do fine.  The Talos Combo, while difficult to achieve, and the Conquer Incatation add a lot of fun for casual play! The Dwarf looks awesome and his abilities are cool, not to powerful and leave room for many strategies.

The Warlock spells are mostly useful for her own strategie (maybe the Priest may benefit a bit) and are not as versatile as the above. She seems to be powerful and her burn really annoys the hell out of you! Mentionable Cards are: Bloodfire Helmet, Seriyx, Combustion and Devils trident. Lady Adramelech is as diverse as her male version. One strategy, all the way: Burn stuff, but burn it til it's dead.  She can be devastating but I believe there won't be a lot different spellbooks around her.

Other Cards, like defend, disarm and brace yourself are just perfect to add more depth in any spellbook.

Now for the less good news - Sardonyx really dissapointed me in many ways - I dislike the artwork (it is a cute skelly dragon....), the abilities and he just does not feel powerful enough to see the arena. Furthermore I am afraid that Mage Wars will turn into a complexe Rock-Paper-Scissor but this has nothing to do with this expansion in general. It occurs because most Mages have certain advantages against each other (Priest*ess VS Necromancer, Adramelch's Warlock VS Druid etc). Sure, balancing a game like this is neary impossible and the devs/playtesters do a great job so far but the whole "what is the current meta" disucssions really take the fun out of games like this (I hated it in Magic, I will hate it here). All Mages should feel somewhat equally good, some advantages are fine, but i would be surprised if the Druid is able to fight the fire that burns her forest down.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Okey dokey why not here we go. Here is my good and bad for Forged in Fire.

The good:

There are a lot of excellent spells in Forged in Fire, obviously the Warlord makes out like a crazy bandit so I'll start there. He fills in some gaps where he was lacking before and sort of smooths over the War Mage rough spots. His lack of easy access to Arcane Spells like Nullify and Dispel are huge pains but he can make up for them with the Harshforge Plate and Monolith. No they don't prevent or remove things the way the Arcane spells do but they can make it more expensive. Also the dwarf can better protect his gear with his runes so putting a Mage Wand becomes more viable. Warlords pick up some nifty new gear like the General Signet Ring and the Morning Star(which I love.) They get new good Conjurations which totally amp up their playability in my eyes. Alter of Carnage is amazing, the Armory is just plain cool, and the Walls of Dirt are cheap easy deterrents. He picks up some good solid creatures which he sort of needed. Minotaurs, Crossbowmen, and Alchemist are welcome additions and he gets a nice Enchantment in the form of Akiros Favor, which like Brace Yourself honestly any mage can make good use of as well as Hurl Rock which is for the mana an awesome Attack. War of course really shines with new Incantations like oh DEFEND and Flank Attack, both highly useful spells in my view.

Now Dark also picks up a fair bit of swag here even if it is playing second fiddle to War. Warlocks get a host of new demons which they've really been needing. The Wildfire Imp is frankly one of the most annoying buggers in the game and a host of them is murder. Blood Demons work great for the old Warlock as Blood Reapers and do a decent job for the evil lady as well. Infernian Scourgers I feel are overlooked but useful. The new gear coming down for the Warlock is pretty cool. The Imp Familiar is also pretty cool as he's saving you actions and maybe popping some Blocks or Nullifies. The Bloodfire Helmet is obviously cooler than the old Helm of Fear and Adramelechs Torment is cool if you're going with the burn plan early on. Ignite is another good way to start that game early btw and it's probably my second favorite Incantation of the set. Cheap, easy to cast, and perfect for popping a Nullify or burning someone. Arcane Corruption is a straight up murder card against solo builds and is just all around cool. Pick the right target(some Force Masters and Beast Masters) and you're going to do some real damage before they Dispel it. Devils Trident is the other cool addition to the Warlocks bag of tricks and it's honestly a pretty spell, I even put a copy in my Necromancer in the hopes of giving someone a Cripple.

Other general use spells came in this one too. Lions Savagery is amazing for almost any book. Disarm is way better than a lot of people expected, it's a poor mans Dissolve really with better range and cheaper cost. Rolling Fog can buy you some extra time especially for a Necromancer, Asyran Defenders are a huge help Holy Mages and the Priest in particular.

Now in terms of the mages themselves. The dwarf really stands out for me. I've been playing him and he's one rugged little customer. I really enjoy his runes and can generally make good use of his Battle Orders. Toughness is surprisingly useful especially when you give him a Colossus Belt. The new Warlock is neat, certainly flavorful but I'm not quite as sold on her. She's a real one trick pony, admittedly she does that trick amazingly well though.

The bad:

Not a whole lot here. Couple of creatures: Cerberus and Sardonyx aren't quite as cool as I'd have hoped. Combustion doesn't exactly scream "Play Me" but for the most part you can justify it if you're trained in Fire at least.

Anyway I give it 8.5 out of 10.

[jacksmack]

2 dissapointments:
Cerberus and Sardonyx.

Cerberus is just plain bad. If he were a 11-12 mana creature he might be worth. I just can't see this guy ever being useful for his steep 17 mana cost. He should have had uncontainable or even unstoppable.
Come to think of it, unstoppable on that dog would be awesome.

Sardonyx is different, and not neccesarily bad. But he is really just not my cup of tea.
I have only seen 1 game where he was played (and i was spectating) and while the necromancer won the game with sardonyx, the sun amulet and life drain / drain soul - which is actually a clever combo because necro is immune to poisened blood - i just don't think its that hard to play around and outsmart the necromancer who is pretty much forced into 1 strategy after playing this bad boy.
I guess i just expected something else from a dragon.



The rest is AWE-SOME.

While there is not THAT many new cards in the expansion itself, there is still ALOT of strategies, synergies and comboes to be explored and tested out.

Ill try list some of them.

The new Warlock is not a one trick pony. Far from it.
Funnily enough she synergies so much better with curses than the old warlock due to fireweaving and smoulder curses.
She can make great use of LoF.
She can make great use of Marked for Death - double dipping 2 extra dice with fire attacks.
She can make great use of hellions.
She can make great use of firewalls - and even work through them herself with a dragonscale hauberk and a veterans belt taking little to no damage - and if lucky burning herself so she can transfer it to the enemy.
And of course move stuff with curses through walls of fire for a terrible 6 damage fire attack with 33% of double burn.
She can make firebrand imps hit for 5 dice 50% flame chance with 1 item besides the marked for death you already want to cast anyway.


The new construction yard is just terrific. The design of this card is so good that im rating FiF 10/10 instead of 9/10.
It synergies so well with walls and the completely underplayed card quicksand. In fact all War conjurations.
I have not yet made a Warlord book, which leads me to the next.

The Beastmasters. For some reason FiF has made me play alot of Beastmaster games - yes both of them.
Lion savagery is awesome for Cervere
Akiros favour is really nice for a bow Johktari with hawkeye on.
Surging wave / Jet stream and bow attack with bleed chance. There will be 1 of these rolls you wish to reroll.

For some reason i have not seen the new card 'Defend' be played yet.
But this has to have a place especially in a warlord book with

The warlock finally got himself a familiar. So there is plenty of options here to play around with as well. And there is a new optional blood reaper available for arraxxian crown.


Forged in Fire is making the best game out there even better.
Go get it.

[Lord0fWinter]

If anybody wants to see my full review they can check it out on my blog HERE. But enough self-advertising. I figured I would post some follow-up thoughts now that I've played it for almost a month.

The Mages

Both Mages are fantastic. So much fun to play. Both Warlords are soooooooo much better now. It's night and day comparing how they used to be vs how good they are now. I prefer the Anvil Throne Warlord over his counterpart, but that might just be because I like Dwarves And the Runesmithing is awesome. My favorite ability of any Mage thus far.

The new Warlock is great too. I actually like her more than I thought I would. Sure, she's a glass cannon, but she makes up for it in sheer firepower (pun intended). If fire is your thing, the Adramelech Warlock is your Mage. [mwcard=MW1E27]Marked for Death[/mwcard] is my favorite curse with her. The enemy Mage gains Flame +1 when it's on them b/c of her ability, then you get to roll another die b/c of the card itself. All your fire attacks (which is pretty much all she does), instantly get that much more deadly.


Instead of talking about every single card, I thought I'd just point out my favorites and least favorites and explain why they were chosen. We'll start with favorites.

Favorite cards (in descending order)

5) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ03]Altar of Domination[/mwcard]: This had to be on the list just because it's so much fun! Everybody knows about this by now, but that feeling you get when [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC12]Talos[/mwcard] comes onto the board made this an auto include on my list of favorites. If I was making a list of the 5 BEST cards from this set, this probably wouldn't be on there. Only because it's soooo hard to do. But since this is a list of my favorites, it definitely deserves to be on there.

4) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFE06]Lion Savagery[/mwcard]: Such a good enchantment. Pretty self-explanatory why. Charge+2 is awesome on its own and the Piercing +1 is just icing on the cake.

3) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFI05]Ignite[/mwcard]: Cheap way to set things on fire. 'Nuff said. I like it when things burn, so naturally, I like this card

2) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFE02]Akiro's Favor[/mwcard]: OMGGG I loveeeeee this card. I love it, love it, love it. I cannot express how many games I've had terrible dice rolls. This card helps rectify that.

*Drum rolls please*

*In Eric Summerer's voice from the Dice Tower* "And finally, number one!"

1) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFI06]Defend[/mwcard]: Every Mage should have this. Except the Necro, cause it doesn't effect nonliving creatures *cries a little*. Oh well. It's still a great, great, AMAZING card. Did I mention it's great? It's a novice spell, add it to your spellbook! Now!

*Honorable Mentions*
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ04]Armory[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFI02]Conquer[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC06]Goblin Alchemist[/mwcard]


Least Favorite Cards

There are only two I don't like and one of them is just "ehhh" while I don't think I'll EVER use the other. So, again, in descending order;

2) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFI01]Combustion[/mwcard]: Mehhhh. Very situational. I'd much much MUCH rather have the Burns on a creature or Mage than use this card to make them all go away, even if it does make a decently powerful attack. Only way I'd ever use it is if I think they're gonna [mwcard=MW1A08]Geyser[/mwcard] themselves.

1) [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC04]Cerberus[/mwcard]: Unless something changes, I will never use this card. I mean the ability is okay. It's nice to have something guard your conjurations. But the only real one to guard (for the Warlock at least) is [mwcard=MW1J17]Pentagram[/mwcard]. And it's incorporeal so it'll survive a bit on its own. The only worry is Ethereal attacks. But wait, those are usually attack spells! And Cerberus doesn't have Intercept, so he's useless against those. But my biggest issue is the mana cost. 17 mana for a guard dog. No thank you.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Cerberus would be better with the Necromancer. He can be brought back as a zombie. The Necro has more valuable dark conjurations worth guarding than the warlock. I had an idea recently for an "eternal guard dog" build, using Cerberus to guard you and casting a sacrificial altar in your zone whenever you want to give him triple strike, and sacrificing him to get a powerful melee attack, bringing him back with rise again. With graveyard you could summon more sacrificial altar fodder (your eternal servant plus extra)

[blackirishguilt]

Ok, so I'm probably going to catch flak for this but.....

Did anyone notice that you can do this nifty little opening with the Warlock:

[19] T1: Sprint to NC, cast [mwcard=MW1J04]Battle Forge[/mwcard] (11)
[20+1] T2: Full Cast [mwcard=MW1J06]Gate to Hell[/mwcard] FC ( 8 )
[17+2] T3: Deploy: [mwcard=MW1Q16]Leather Gloves[/mwcard], Full Cast [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC04]Cerberus[/mwcard] 


Not competitive, but for casual play that's pretty boss.