Eh, Wizard is on top right now for another month or so, but then Plants vs. Zombies comes out and we'll see. Wizard is going to have a hard time playing the control role against Druid, which has a exponential growth curve that starts slow but overwhelms, and Wizard books will have to adapt from a Turtle (never be the aggressor) mono-strategy.
Speaking of "Who's the beatdown?" what roles do people think a Warlord book should have against the other mages, ideally?
I know that roles are an unsettled issue in Mage Wars, but it occurs to me that part of Warlord's problem might be role confusion. He's a 9 Mana caster with +1 melee, but his Dwarf personality (that I keep harping about) wants to play a spawnpoint and Outposts and walls and that line of play is just doomed against Wizard or Turtle Priestess's higher natural channeling.
He could potentially be a really flexible caster because of this in-between design, but again, that means finding his strengths to explore.
I've been thinking that strategically the real currency in Mage Wars is actions more than Mana (at least right now). I should write something longish about that, but for now-if you'll indulge me- I'm going to propose that whoever takes more actions wins. Yes, I know it's not true. I'm saying that it might be true enough. It's like that joke about a physicist asked to simulate a farm, who says, "First, assume a spherical cow."
The consequence of this model is that Mana is only important because it let's you take actions: Available mana limits actions, but actions almost never limit mana: it's rare that you'll have huge amounts of mana and just not enough actions to use it all. Usually you'll just use a more expensive spell, or a more expensive mode of a spell you already plan to cast (e.g Teleport for 12 instead of 6).
From this perspective, competitive agro books either have to play a cheep spawnpoint with cheep actions (usually Battle Forge and low cost equipment) or use free actions like the mage's melee attack to save Mana to power a more expensive spawnpoint. Usually they do both.
To get back to where I was with the Warlord, thus means that if the Warlord wants to be a 9 Channeling control book, that might be OK. Mana isn't important is there are other ways to fuel actions.
Vet tokens are part of that solution because they have no mana cost and no action cost. Placing one really is free; They're a reward for doing something you want to be doing anyway: putting the pointy end into the other guy.
What if there were other low or no mana ways for the Warlord to get more actions (or action equivalents) : a berserker with a free activation whenever something dies in its zone. A renewed commitment to counterstrike in the Warlord. A Warlord Only Familiar Enchantment or Equipment which casts equipment like Sectarus casts enchantments. A siege engine conjuration that gets load tokens whenever it gets attacked (OK, that one might be Holy) . You get the idea.
