Beastmaster and Wizard

[Sarimrune]

So I've got a handful of games under my belt.  Not many I realize but I'm pretty good and breaking down a game.

I've noticed two things and I would like some advice on how to deal with it.

The Beastmaster, by a novice point of view, is over powered.  His ability to summon the weak beasts really helps him create a rush that I can't figure out how to beat.  The weak beasts are weak, but a golden rule of gaming is that "he/she who has the most actions has the serious advantage."  

A beastmaster who is played aggressively, while a bit risky, can really overwhelm an opponent.  

The wizard, as presented with the base spell list, seems weak.  Or rather, he does not seem weak, but attack spells seem overall weak.  On average, they will somewhat damage your opponent's creatures.  But you're putting a lot of mana to get very little reward.  

Now I'm sure this is my my perception of things.  So the advice I seek is:
1) How do you deal with the beastmaster (presuming he's in the hands of a skilled player)
2) For a character focused on damage spells, is there a trick to making that work better.

Oh, and one final thing.  I'm honestly trying to seek help, rather than say that "the beastmaster is like totally OP!".  I would ask that this thread be positive.

[Kytan]

As a frequent beastmaster I can give you some tips on what has offen killed me, swarming with a bunch of little creatures is very vulnerable to AOE, damage barriers, and good armor.  The key is efficiently dealing with all the easy to kill creatures and well placed zone attacks can takeout multiple guys at once and damage barriers are just murder. One thing not to do is try to solo a swarm because you will be at a severe action disadvantage, like you have figured out, a few mid sized creatures to support your Mage goes along way.  The new expansion has a few great cards for dealing with this especially whirling strike and the other sweeping creatures and weapons.  Just be prepared for the long game because the more time drags on the more the beastmasters early rushing advantage wears off.  But don't expect the beastmaster to run out of creatures, this has never happened to me yet in all the games I've played.  Things like mordoks obelisk, suppression orb, and idol of pestalince can easily spell death to a swarm especially if combined with the hydra.

Beastmasters can also rush aided by a big creature, much like a warlock + Adramelech, so be ready for that too.  This advice is seeded everywhere throughout the forums and other people explain it much better than I do.  Everything has a counter in this game and it is all fairly balanced, this game is very well designed in that way.

[reddawn]

The beastmaster is certainly good.  All the mages are good.  After some games, I haven't found any mage to be underpowered or overpowered, honestly.

If a Beastmaster is rushing you with a bunch of small guys, your best bet is a damage barrier of some kind, like Circle of Lightning or a zone attack spell like Electrify or Ring of Fire.  The Wizard in particular has the Supression Cloak, which seems practically tailored for countering the exact problem you're facing.  Use a Hydra too maybe, they're extremely good at guarding and will decimate smaller critters, and they also regenerate if you need to make a zone attack.  Maybe use Mordok's Obelisk or Idol of Pestilence to tax your opponent's heavy creature use.

So basically, I recommend one or more of the following: Damage Barrier, Armor or the Cloak, and Zone attack spells.  Maybe one of the mentioned conjurations if you're sure he's going all in on a swarm.

[raoul]

I just played a Wizard against a Beastmaster and lost. Granted, it was only my second game of Mage Wars but I took the lead before succumbing. It was a learning game and my playing partner told me after the game how he played the Beastmaster against a Wizard 2 nights prior and got hammered. Some of it was dice-rolling he said but what really killed him was the Wizard played alot of Mana drain type cards. He was constantly running out of mana so he couldn't summon as many creatures. I know that it is a basic response but maybe it will help.

[DarthDadaD20]

Welcome to the forums Sarimrune and raoul! :cheer:  I posted this on another thread, but feel like it could be said here. with suppression cloak, I just played friday and was swarmed at the end, in one zone with 16 of his creatures!(worst yet, most were canine and he threw a redclaw in there!) he had 10 mana (After all the creatures he cast, even with lair) so only five would of got to attack. That and a damage barrier, can go a long way, suppression orb is a great way to start if you are up against a beast master.

[Sarimrune]

Thanks all for the responses.

I'm glad to hear that the BM isn't the end all be all.  I'll still have to give it a whirl to try to beat him.

Oh and my BM and Wizard issues are separate.  I'm not using the Wizard much, but instead, trying to use the Priestess and failing.  At least so far.

[reddawn]

I really recommend using a Knight to guard your Temple early.  A defense against both ranged and melee attacks backed up with a 5 dice counterstrike is pretty killer.  Also, use the Sacred Ground enchantment to give your units aegis +1 in the zone.  It's a small price to pay to weather zone attacks.

[Preacher]

Interesting that is your experience, mine has been the opposite I think.

I won't repeat what others have said (Suppression Cloak, Mordochs, Idol of Pestilence etc) but I find the beastmaster to be one of the strongest in the first few games when no one really has a grasp of the tactics and ebb and flow of the battle... and the weakest (in my humble opinion) when your knowledge increases and you find you can often counter his juggernaut with one or two cards.

The Wizard is excellent at disrupting the flow of the enemy mages tactics and spellbook so you can use this to your advantage as well as some pretty devastating single card mana drain tactics - in my experience, things like Mana Siphon really hurt the BM only starting on 9 channeling.

[Sausageman]

Interesting that is your experience, mine has been the opposite I think.

I won't repeat what others have said (Suppression Cloak, Mordochs, Idol of Pestilence etc) but I find the beastmaster to be one of the strongest in the first few games when no one really has a grasp of the tactics and ebb and flow of the battle... and the weakest (in my humble opinion) when your knowledge increases and you find you can often counter his juggernaut with one or two cards.

The Wizard is excellent at disrupting the flow of the enemy mages tactics and spellbook so you can use this to your advantage as well as some pretty devastating single card mana drain tactics - in my experience, things like Mana Siphon really hurt the BM only starting on 9 channeling.

I was gonna come here and say much the same tbh - no coincidence that we're in the sam eplay group  
In my experience, the Beastmaster is a great 'teaching tool', as his strategy is the most straight forward, and swarm tactics do seem strong in the beginning.

However, get a good, custom Wizard book and I reckon he'd trounce a Beastmaster book 9 times out of 10.  His shield alone is SOOOOO good it's painful.  I'd take that over a quick cast level 1 creature any day of the week.

[Koz]

Interesting that is your experience, mine has been the opposite I think.

I won't repeat what others have said (Suppression Cloak, Mordochs, Idol of Pestilence etc) but I find the beastmaster to be one of the strongest in the first few games when no one really has a grasp of the tactics and ebb and flow of the battle... and the weakest (in my humble opinion) when your knowledge increases and you find you can often counter his juggernaut with one or two cards.

The Wizard is excellent at disrupting the flow of the enemy mages tactics and spellbook so you can use this to your advantage as well as some pretty devastating single card mana drain tactics - in my experience, things like Mana Siphon really hurt the BM only starting on 9 channeling.

I was gonna come here and say much the same tbh - no coincidence that we're in the sam eplay group  
In my experience, the Beastmaster is a great 'teaching tool', as his strategy is the most straight forward, and swarm tactics do seem strong in the beginning.

However, get a good, custom Wizard book and I reckon he'd trounce a Beastmaster book 9 times out of 10.  His shield alone is SOOOOO good it's painful.  I'd take that over a quick cast level 1 creature any day of the week.

Obviously it all depends on the build, but you are right on for the most part (although I think 9 out of 10 is overestimating things a bit unless the BM player is bad).  Swarm builds tend to be weak in general, as do "big-super-creatures-of-doom" builds, but a BM build focused on melee attacks that uses creatures as a supplemental to his in-your-face attack can be quite good.  Personally, I rate the current strength of builds like this (from weakest to strongest):

1. Solo mage nuke attack spell build
2. Solo mage beat down
3. Swarm
4. Mage beat down with creature support (big or swarm)
5. Control builds (Daze/Stun lock, Weak/Cripple stacking, etc)  

Of course the more versitle a build is the better it will be (as long as it doesn't sacrifice too much kill power), so builds should try to touch on all of these strategies to some degree.  Piousflea's tournament build that he listed is a good example of how to make a versitle build since he can do mage beat down with creatures support, nuke attack spell, and swarm all in the same build depending on what his opponent is playing.

[Tacullu64]

Thanks all for the responses.

I'm glad to hear that the BM isn't the end all be all.  I'll still have to give it a whirl to try to beat him.

Oh and my BM and Wizard issues are separate.  I'm not using the Wizard much, but instead, trying to use the Priestess and failing.  At least so far.

Are you using the apprentice spellbook, base spellbook, or building your own?

[Sarimrune]

Using the spellbook in the book.  

I don't feel like I know any one Mage well enough to swap out spells.

[Tacullu64]

Using the spellbook in the book.  

I don't feel like I know any one Mage well enough to swap out spells.

The 120 point spellbook?  The online v2.0 rule book has an apprentice book and a full sized book.

I'm guessing you're using the book from the rule book that came with the game?

[Sarimrune]

Originally, yes.  

Now, the one that is online in the PDF.  Dunno if that's the same one as the ver 2 rulebook.