Anvil Throne Warlord

[Arlemus]

Beastmaster doesn't play tree against another swarm. You don't get any vet tokens because your guys can't get any melee kills, an injured bird won't be the one to attack a guard so your have to get very lucky for a grunt to survive and kill a fresh bird in a counter attack. Playing ring of command isn't worth the action, whichever swarm achieves dominance will win and that will happen before round 4 of the game. Swarm vs swarm is very swingy.

The biggest problem I had is making my mage melee attack valuable. I was defending which got me pushed through a wall of thorns effectually losing 3 actions for his 2 since the guard is now irrelevant and I have to walk back to the action. I think a reach weapon is needed, which sadly means mage staff for the warlord as a meta play against aviary. Either that or Torak the sky hunter (who can get a very token too...)

 

Ring of command is absolutely worth the action.  With all the command based support your mage should be dishing out it definitely pays off. 

Dominance on one side or the other before round 4?? Id like to know what happens in your games to make that happen, it sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

Maybe I shouldve made this point sooner but yoy dont always guard them with grunts.  As soon as you have your economy down butchers become your main melee troop most of the time, or like 50/50 grunts/butcher.  Even so,  birds are statistically unlikely to kill grunts in 1 hit (3 dmg vs 4 health) so barring any other kind of buff to their attack grunts will get the counterstrike.  It doesnt matter if grunts/butchers get vet off injured birds, theyll die to slingers if theyre too afraid to attack anyway.

You dont need to utilize your mages melee just because he has melee buff.  Running many creatures means you need to stay as far away from combat as possible because your mana is sunk into creatures and not your mage.  Good thing Warlord has the horn to perfectly support this.

Done right swarm vs swarm isnt swingy imo.  Sure if you onlt play lvl ones and then dont really support them that could be more true, but imo that isnt "swarm".  Swarm is lvl 1-3 creatures and support from a mostly unbuffed mage. At this point I feel you dont really care for my logic so I dont really have much else to say.  Ive literally been playing creature heavy Warlord since FvW release and ive never felt ring of command as not worth casting (except as AT Warlord) along with other sentiments of yours.

[sIKE]

Beastmaster doesn't play tree against another swarm. You don't get any vet tokens because your guys can't get any melee kills, an injured bird won't be the one to attack a guard so your have to get very lucky for a grunt to survive and kill a fresh bird in a counter attack. Playing ring of command isn't worth the action, whichever swarm achieves dominance will win and that will happen before round 4 of the game. Swarm vs swarm is very swingy.

The biggest problem I had is making my mage melee attack valuable. I was defending which got me pushed through a wall of thorns effectually losing 3 actions for his 2 since the guard is now irrelevant and I have to walk back to the action. I think a reach weapon is needed, which sadly means mage staff for the warlord as a meta play against aviary. Either that or Torak the sky hunter (who can get a very token too...)

If he doesn't play the tree the birds are too fragile......two slingers can take one out a round.

[BoomFrog]

And two birds can kill one slinger. Guess who summons faster? Lair cost 1 less mana then barracks+outpost and Beastmaster can summon as a quick action and birds cost 1 less mana and most importantly the pet gets is amazingly efficient.  On round 3 Beastmaster, a pet falcon and a regular bird are attacking. Warlord can have two slingers or a slinger, a grunt and a ring or enchantment. By the end of round 4 someone has lost more of their creatures and is going to fall behind if they are not lucky (barring play mistakes).

When you are engaged in melee on turn 3 a ring is not worth your QC. Hurl rock to try and kill a bird or magestaff and melee a bird are far more worthwhile. Either way though the Beastmaster is still more efficient.

[sIKE]

And two birds can kill one slinger. Guess who summons faster? Lair cost 1 less mana then barracks+outpost and Beastmaster can summon as a quick action and birds cost 1 less mana and most importantly the pet gets is amazingly efficient.  On round 3 Beastmaster, a pet falcon and a regular bird are attacking. Warlord can have two slingers or a slinger, a grunt and a ring or enchantment. By the end of round 4 someone has lost more of their creatures and is going to fall behind if they are not lucky (barring play mistakes).

When you are engaged in melee on turn 3 a ring is not worth your QC. Hurl rock to try and kill a bird or magestaff and melee a bird are far more worthwhile. Either way though the Beastmaster is still more efficient.

Completely understand what you are getting at, but if you start taking out the birds at even a two to one ratio it is not going to be a good day for the Aviary as it is highly dependent on keeping all of them alive to aggregate there damage rolls into something truly frightening. 3 birds without Innate Life  +2 is something that can be handled, 6 birds Alfred fricken Hitchcock....

[Maverick]

You guys should battle the two swarm decks on OCTGN and post the results. Would be interesting to see play out.

[Arlemus]

And two birds can kill one slinger. Guess who summons faster? Lair cost 1 less mana then barracks+outpost and Beastmaster can summon as a quick action and birds cost 1 less mana and most importantly the pet gets is amazingly efficient.  On round 3 Beastmaster, a pet falcon and a regular bird are attacking. Warlord can have two slingers or a slinger, a grunt and a ring or enchantment. By the end of round 4 someone has lost more of their creatures and is going to fall behind if they are not lucky (barring play mistakes).

When you are engaged in melee on turn 3 a ring is not worth your QC. Hurl rock to try and kill a bird or magestaff and melee a bird are far more worthwhile. Either way though the Beastmaster is still more efficient.

You're going to have to break down what exactly your saying because there's a lot of ambiguity in when and where things are happening on the board.  You make a lot of claims and don't really back them up with strong evidence.  Case in point, you claim you'll never get Vet tokens vs Aviary because "goblins get 1 shot by birds" but statistically you're wrong and the grunts (or butchers) have a better than average chance to swing back.  You seem like you're absolutely sure in your logic but I see no substantive basis for it, so until you better explain I guess I'll just say I disagree.

Hurl rock and/or magestaff definitely don't seem like good ideas (in most cases) and are unneeded.  You're effectively spending just as much as the cost of the bird and an action to -try- and kill it.  You roll any less than 5 and you just degraded your action to crap tier and have to do it again.

It doesn't even seem like a healthy debate at this point, it just feels like I'm offering legitimate advice to someone who's not willing to listen, or even consider. I tend to be that way in MW too; get crushed by a book and then get frustated...I'm definitely part of that club.  In any case, I've offered really all I can at this point.

[Arlemus]

You guys should battle the two swarm decks on OCTGN and post the results. Would be interesting to see play out.

That doesn't sound like a half bad idea, I've just had (and heard of) less than positive experiences with players on OCTGN so I don't really log on anymore and MUCH prefer play IRL.  They just tend to be very click-y and take liberty with the fact that it's online communication (interpret as you wish).  Not that I don't think playing with Boomfrog wouldn't be a great time, it probably would, I might just be slow on the controls (haven't logged on in like 2 months).