Who has received their expansion? Thoughts?

[sIKE]

I got a half-game in yesterday with the Forcemaster v Warlord using the default spell books. It was slow going as it was a game of discovery and so it took a while during the Planning Phase. We only had an  hour and I lost (Warlord) with him have sustained 6 points of damage on the Forcemaster 1 point of damage. The first thing I would like to point out was I was mana starved and had a hard time getting alot of creatures out even with three outposts. I did manage to kill the Invisible Stalker, but I am chalking that up to player in-experice. I did get the warlord buffed up to +6 AC and +3 melee and had the War Sledge out. He can dish out allot of damage!!! He is a bit slow to ramp up.

Now the Forcemaster, he comes out and is hitting real hard real quick. Psylock + Force Hammer is brutal, he has the Force Blade and hit hard but thankfully is much more mana starved than I was. All of that said the tough part was the stinking Force Field. With that he as basicly auto miss on 3 attacks and a native 50/50 Defense of 7.

I think that once I had saved up and I do mean saved up enough mana to dispell his force field he would of been in trouble as I had a steady steam of creatures coming out and with my War Sledge it would of been hammer time!

I think one of the first things I would do is swap in a couple of Mana Flowers/Crystals from the default spell book build.....

[NerdGuy]

Finally picked mine copy up from my local game store tonight.  Didn't get to play it yet, but did take the time to go through everything and I'm quite pleased with the new spells.  Can't wait for break next week so I can play this with no time restraints.

[Locusshifter]

We played our first game last night, and I was playing the FM.

Here's what I did:

- Thought Spores allowed me to WRECK the Warlord. I put Force Wave on one and Invisible Fist on the other. With Wave my opponent made the mistake of putting out that Wall...and I proceeded to push his soldiers through it

- Opening equipment: Dancing Scimitar and Force Ring. You've got few discounts in the starter book, so the ring helps. The Scimitar is AWESOME. At the very worst you make the Warlord waste time and mana dissolving it. It's an extra 4 dice OR a free melee defense.

- Charm. Most of the Warlords creatures are lvl 1-2, so it's cheap to slap on his goblins. The upkeep isn't all that bad either. It's also 2 range, which is nice.

- Damage Shield: It's just one more thing to stack on and stack it on you must. So that means with the Spore, 4 dice + 4 at worst with Galvitar + 4 from the Scimitar + 6 more from a Force Hammer. The answer is yes, I really did all that in one round, and I did a double strike with Galvitar, so it was 18 dice against the Warlord  

I opened Spore + Ring, putting fist on that spore. Next round I Spore + Scimitar, putting push on that spore. Personally I think that's a great opening.

After playing the Forcemaster I'm curious to see the other side of things, but I REALLY like the FM. The only issue is that if you do something like the detonate on the suicide gob, it's not hard to take out the spores. I also feel like the FM is a slam or two away from getting swarmed and in a bad position as well; but the latter is what the personal shield and scimitar help you try to avoid.

[Locusshifter]

Also:  In the three games we played last night (first ones ever with the expansion), using the preset starter books, the Forcemaster won pretty easily for everyone who played it.  While this is likely just a local play group statistic, does anyone else have simular findings?  At least with the starter books?

I'd be curious to hear more opinions on this as well. My opponent made the mistake of getting to close to me, and I think that's a REALLY bad idea against a FM. You really want to play keep away.

[sIKE]

Played a couple of games today. The Second was the FM (default deck) vs Warlock (Custom beatdown deck). I played the FM and won bearly. I moved accoss the board and setup two Wall of Pikes Faceing me. At the end of my non-initative phase I would Force Push him through the Wall (unless he teleported) then when I have initative pull him back to me and Dbl Striked smack him with my Blade. He played a real heavy Idol of Pestelence/Deathlock (DOT) + Mordok's Obelisk/Suppression Orb (Mana Denial). Which I made him pay dearly for as he was never able to get any other equpiment out other than his LOH. After I got him into the corner he wanted nothing more than to get out of it. He got in a couple of shots with the LOH but in reality it was the DOT that really began to hurt. I had the IS iun the corner with me along with the Dancing Scmitar. I put up the Force Field and tried to keep him from hitting me with spells. I then started beating on him and we got down to the last round with me having initative and 4 HP's left anf him having 3HP. I smacked him with a Force Hammer with my quick cast and ended the game.

All and all it was a fun hour!

[paradox22]

We played our first game last night, and I was playing the FM.
- The Scimitar is AWESOME. At the very worst you make the Warlord waste time and mana dissolving it. It's an extra 4 dice OR a free melee defense.

Isn't the scimitars attack only 3 dice?

Great tips and report!

[Locusshifter]

We played our first game last night, and I was playing the FM.
- The Scimitar is AWESOME. At the very worst you make the Warlord waste time and mana dissolving it. It's an extra 4 dice OR a free melee defense.

Isn't the scimitars attack only 3 dice?

Great tips and report!

Yep, my memory was faulty. Thanks for the compliment as well

[Mage Warrior]

Glad to hear about the positive responses to the new expansion - I'm going to my local game store today to either pick it up or order it!

[MAXedOUT]

I will have to say that the think I am most upset about is the lack of new Mana generation. This seems like the backbone of the game and there are only 4 different types out there. Harmonize, Moon, Flower and crystal!

And even if they did not want to make a new card with mana generation, why could they not include some more Mana Crystals/Flowers on the box set. I would love more of these cards in my collection but I really don't want to have to purchase the entire base set just to have enough of these guys to go around.

[DarthDadaD20]

Welcome to the forums MAXedOUT! They do have  expansions called the "Core SpellTomb" and the "Core SpellTomb 2" That have just what you are looking for. You can go to the Store section of this website to view them. I got mine a bit cheeper at my FLGS.
Here is a link to the contents of the core spelltomb 2, I couldnt find a list for the first one, That would be the one that has more mana flowers/crystals, harmonize ect.
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/85375/core-spell-tome-2-spell-list

[Sausageman]

I will have to say that the think I am most upset about is the lack of new Mana generation. This seems like the backbone of the game and there are only 4 different types out there. Harmonize, Moon, Flower and crystal!

And even if they did not want to make a new card with mana generation, why could they not include some more Mana Crystals/Flowers on the box set. I would love more of these cards in my collection but I really don't want to have to purchase the entire base set just to have enough of these guys to go around.

It's interesting, because the more I play this game, the more I question the value of these mana generators in every spell book (clearly they have their places in some).

[MAXedOUT]

I have purchased the first Core Spell Tomb and i only got 1 of each Flower, Crystal and Harmonize. I dont remember if i got a Moonglow or not. The issue im having now is that i want to use the crystals over the flower due to fire spells being very good at killing them via AOE. The only exception being my Beastmaster deck and Warlord deck only due to the Spell points involved during SpellBook construction.

Now that I have 4 Spellbooks i want to have 4 decks built at once. I could just swap them around but its a pet peeve of mine.

[DarthDadaD20]

I agree, I dislike having to swap out as well. Im not going to complain much though, I could easily spend as much on a CCG for one year, as I could on 10 MW core sets (Not even buying packs...I learned early to never buy packs, I will say I was a tournament player though.) and would have to swap cards for two decks! (Im just saying, not implying anything)

[Koy]

It's interesting, because the more I play this game, the more I question the value of these mana generators in every spell book (clearly they have their places in some).

I agree Sausageman.  For weeks, the default opening move for everyone up here was mana crystals/mana flowers.  The damn arena looked like a mana crystal farm.  Nowadays, there might be one or two on the board max.

Also, can we all agree that it's "tome" and not "tomb?"  It's a rather significant difference.  

[MAXedOUT]

Haha, Coy, that was funny. My mistake  :lol: . I don't know about only having 1 or 2 crystals. I have 4 in most of my decks. Even when I rush I end up playing 2. its just seems prudent, but I guess it could be my gaming circle. I tend to like the 10 or so turn game. I don't play ultra aggressive though, so I may be missing something.

On a side note, does anyone know what Decks won that event that MW had a few weeks back? Wondering if we were going to get some official info/deck lists ever.