Warhammer 40,000 Conquest Card review type thing, Part 5

Well really part 6.  but I have no idea about Dark Eldar so will come back them after more games  so it's Eldar time
And I haven't played conquest for 2 weeks so take this with a grain of salt.

Eldorath Starbane
Quintessential Eldar unit, being as he is annoying as hell.  He exhausts a unit when goes to a planet. One of those nifty abilities that means you don't have to stick around for any benefit either, so his risk of being bloodied are quite low.

Starbane's Council
3/3/1 for 1 is nifty, and if they attack an exhausted unit they get +2 ATK.  Every time I've played, these guys get punched in the face so much, and with good reason.  5ATK is a lot.  5/5

Alaitoc Shrine
Ready a unit after it moves to a planet.  Obviously the drawback of arriving exhausted from HQ is a major drag.  But readying your most dangerous unit = bad times for your opponent.  It's very good, but i;m not majorly disappointed if I never see it in a game.  3/5

Foresight
The uses for this are so very numerous.  Enemy warlord has 1hp and is trying to run away?  Hunt him down!!  Teleported your warlord to the wrong planet and facing certain death?  Run away!  Just want to be really annoying?  Exhaust two of their units!!  5/5

Mobility
Mobility is a nifty ability.  And sure giving a survivalist mobility will give you opponent headaches.  It has 3 shields though, and I think they are a much better use of the card. 2/5

Overall, Eldoraths signature squad is pretty middling.  He is amazing though, so it really doesn't matter.

Loyal Units.

Biel-Tan Guardians
1/1/2  Amazing value for 1 resource.  3 off in every Eldar Deck tbh 5/5

Wailing Wraithfighter
 6 cost is a hefty tax.  But it flies, and makes your opponent discard a card.   Once the Eldar get more discard elements to form the basis of a deck this will be much more important.  As it is, you get an ok unit with nifty effect. 3/5

Iyanden Wraithguard
4 atk with Armorbane.  That's gonna ruin anyones day.  Kinda amsuing that in 40k, wraithguard are a pain in the neck to kill, and in the card game they fall over in a stiff breeze.  But hey, they WILL take something out before they go.  5/5

Swordwind Farseer
Tutor up a card from the top 6 of your deck.  Not so important for Edlar since they are so good at dominating command struggles for draw anyway.  Sometimes you end up putting all your best cards on the bottom of the deck, and sometimes you get just the thing you needed. 2/5

Spiritseer Erathal
The Eldar unit has the standard 3/3/2 body for 3.  After he attacks he heals someone.  Not as amazing as you may think, but healing is always good.  3/5

Gift of Isha.
After they kill your wraithguard, put them right back into combat.  And laugh manically.  it doesn't have to be wraithguard, but honestly they are the best target for it.  Sadly only gets you the top most unit in your discard.   But they may well be wraithguard most of the time, since they get picked on a lot.  Or Starbanes council, also a good choice.  5/5

Craftworld Gate
Another of those really annoying eldar tricks.  Exhaust this to return an army unit to your hand.  Shenanigans ahoy. If you really need your doom can bounce your farseer to get a second shot at his enters play reaction as well.  4/5

And the rest

Altansar Rangers
Very good unit, 2/2/2 and ranged.  Often seen in tau armies :D 4/5

Eldar Survivalist.
has no attack, but if you win a command struggle at their planet, get a bonus card and a resource.  Huge huge unit.  Put them at planet 5 to keep them safe, although expect a warlod to commit to that planet just to stop you getting the bonus and kill them, they are that good.  5/5

Wildrider Squadron
Have a sort of improved mobility.  Excellent hit and run ability.  5/5

Soaring Falcon
Sort of like an expensive Tau Trailblazer.  But with a crap ton of HP.  (5)  Solid unit.  4/5

Shrouded Harlequin
When they die, they exhaust something,  I'm not a fan of  on death abilities,  not to mention an opponent can just play around it, by killing this unit last.  1/5

Silvered Blade Avengers
1 atk doesn't matter a damn when whatever they attack becomes exhausted anyway.  have fun keeping leman russes, Dreadnaughts, helldrakes or whatever from EVER hitting you.  5/5

Biel-Tan Warp Spiders
After they attack, you can look at the the top two cards of a deck and discard one of them.  99% of the time, you will look at your opponents deck just for the chance to discard something important.  3/5

Superiority
take someones hammer sway from them.  I get that it's a very Eldar thing to do, but Eldar are already pretty good at command struggles, so they are the faction least in need of this card.  2/5

Nullify
40k Counterspell.  You have to exhaust a unique unit to use it though, so could be trap and get your warlord killed before he gets chance to run away after using it.  But obviously this could totally change a game. 5/5

Doom
Takes some setting up, but killing everything at HQ is immensely satisfying. 4/5

Banshee Power Sword
Amusing that there are no Banshees or Autarchs to give it to yet.  But anyway +1 atk, and can get extra attack against non warlords by discarding cards.  If you could snipe warlords with this, it would be amazing.  As it is, it's of extremely limited usage. 2/5


Corsair Trading Post
blah blah blah 3/5

Eldar are tricky faction.  Their play style is basically building up resources, and only going for the planets that matter.  A good Eldar will not get into unfavourable battles.  And if you don't play smart, your warlord will get killed by their substantial firepower.  They are fragile though, kill their command units, keep their numbers low and you can easily come out on top.  My favourite faction at the moment.  They are firmly in the middle of the ranged party of the alliance wheel.  Both DE and Tau can bring Ranged to ally with.  Tau also have the best Command Struggle units.  DE have more tricks to bring the party though.  Pick your allies depending how miserable you want your opponent to be :D

Imperial Assault

Imperial Assault is FFG's newest doom clone, this time set in Star Wars.  Team Covenant streamed a session of it last night.  And from what i saw it. it really is Descent 2.0...but with Star Wars!!

I have 2 issues with Descent. Mostly from the first edition.  In the original edition, the heroes were extremely powerful.  Unless you had a totally ruthless cunning overlord, the heroes were always going to stomp all over the scenarios.  Nowhere was this more apparent in the Road to Legend campaign system, where if the overlord wanted any hope of winning the campaign he had to do it in the first few rounds, more or less invalidating the months that the campaign should take.  I think they may have fixed this in Descent 2, I don;t know.  I've not played a proper game of descent 2 because of b)

And there came a problem with players.  Most see the overlord as a GM, there to run the game and shepherd the players through the scenario.  When it's really not, it's very much us v them.
My experience with Descent has been locally where the GM issue has more less ruined it.  The player in question just turned into Pathfinder-lite.  Ignored most Overlord mechanics, made death more or less pointless.  If I wanted to played Pathfinder-lite I would probably play Pathfinder, which I don't.

All in all, I just can't be excited about Imperial Assault based on past experience.  I don't know enough about Descent 2.0 and Imperial Assault to know any differences.  I suppose it has skirmish mode, but I'm not keen on forking out cash for 50% of a game

Warhammer 40,000 Conquest Card review type thing, Part 4

Chaos!!  Also worth noting I've added arbitary numbers out of 5 to my Space Marine post.

So the Warlord

Zarathur, High Sorceror
1/6 so not very combaty, but he increases ALL damage to enemies at his planet by 1.  Makes the 1 atk units twice as deadly, makes already deadly units, even deadlier.  Makes Area Effect sick.  Phenomenal effect. 5/5

Zarathurs Flamers
2/2/1 for 2.  Sacrifice them to do 2 damage to an enemy.  With the warlord they can do 3 damage on the attack, then sacrifice themselves for an instant 3 more.  Not many things survive that.  Great inclusion to the signature squad. 4/5

Shrine of Warpflame
After to kill a unit, exhasut this support to return the topmost TZentch Card to your hand.  You know what's better than Zarathurs Flamers?  Doing it all over again. Once again very sad you only get 1 in the deck. 5/5

Infernal Gateway
As a combat action put a unit cost 3 or lower into play from hand.  if it's still there at the end of the phase they get sacrificed.   This was designed for the flamers.  Get them back into play, sac them for more damage.  The synergy in this squad is insane. 4/5

Mark of Chaos
Attached to a unit, when the unit dies it does 1 damage to each anemy at the planet.  This is Area Effect 2 if Zarathur is present.  Good fun on a flamer.  4/5

Loyal Units

Alpha Legion Infiltrator
4atk and a hammer on a 1 hp unit.  Only costs 2 though. I'd play it if was 1 resource...but 1 hp man, 1hp hurts a lot. 2/5

Vicious Bloodletter
4/4/0 for 5..meh so far.  But they have Area Effect 3!!  3 Damage to ALL opposing units at the planet.  4 if with the warlord.  Nuts.  And being a daemon you can get them at a discount with cultists.  5/5

Black Legion Helldrake
The big daddy of conquest.  8/8/3 flying for 8.  Also a daemon.  Demands an answer, simply as.  Very pricey, very effective.  4/5

Xavaes Spilit-Tongue
The Chaos Unique  Gives you a cultist at HQ whenever an enemy unit at his planet dies.  Everyone loves cultists.  5/5

Tzeentch's Firestorm
Pay X to do X damage to non warlord.  Why not?  4/5

And the Rest

Possessed
9/4/1 for 5.  9 atk!!  4hp is a bummer, Supremely good for warlord assassinations.  4/5

Splintered Path Acolyte
1/2/1 for 1 is nice.  Can sacrifice them to reduce a daemons units cost by 2.  So worth it if you have any daemons in your deck..  Which you do. 4/5

Khorne Berzerker.
2/4/1 for 3, with Brutal.  Brutal is nice.  They can peak at 5atk.  Nothing to be sniffed at.  4 hp is just enough HP to be a problem. 5/5

Umbral Preacher
2 hammers and Army units cannot retreat.  Just try to run away from my Bloodletters!!  4/5

Ravenous Flesh Hounds
3/6/1 for 5.  Daemon.  Very meaty, and you can sacrifice cultists to heal them.  Very nice.  Will be amazing when a consistent cultist generator develops.  Can feed him the Cultists Token, the acolyte and the preacher at the moment.  4/5

Virulent Plague Squad
Chaos are such a hodge podge of gods at the monet, for shame  But anyway.  1/4/1 for 4 sucks, but they get +atk for each unit in your opponents discard.  As chaos you will be killing a lot of dudes, could be very good. Possessed do the exact same role though, except they come with the massive attack by default for 1 more resource.  Not seeing it.  3/5

Chaos Fanatics
2 hammers for 2 resources basically.  You also get a 1/2 body for your efforts.  Dunno what to think of them.  They are ok, and the Ork/Chaos/DE side of the faction wheel is hurting for good command struggle units.  Obviously pale in comparison to the Tau and Eldar units  but then it's right that some factions have strengths and weaknesses.  3/5, maybe a 4 seeing as there's no real better options for Chaos.

Soul Grinder
4/6/2 for 6.  Very pricey.  But if you win the command struggle at his planet, the opponent has to sacrifice a unit.  And he's good for the ensuing battle.  And is daemon so can come in at a discount.  Good stuff, not grade a, but good.  4/5

Warpstorm
3 resources to do 2 damage to each unit without an attachement at a planet or HQ.  The second of the Chaos Burn spells.  This can turn around games so easily.  Kinda useless against Tau, but what can you do? 5/5

Promise of Glory.
2 cultists at HQ for 0.  Or if you like, play a daemon for 2 less.  Since that's all cultists are good for.  Very nice.  4/5

Rune-Encrusted Armour.
+2atk and +2hp attachment for 2.  Very nice.  Can't give to daemons as most of them can't have wargear (except possessed)  But nice on Khorne Berzerkers.  Or anybody really.  5/5

Dire Mutation
Can play this attachment as combat action. When the attach unit exhausts, it takes 1 damage.  Double if Zarathur is present.  Kinda funny.  Worth noting that when a unit attacks, it exhausts then does it attack.  So can die before it gets to assign damage. 4/5

Fortress of Madness
Discount support card, blah blah blah 3/5

Murder Cogitator
Whenever one of your Cultist's or Daemon's dies can exhausts this to reveal the top of your card, if it's a chaos unit. Put it in your hand.  It's free(ish) draw.  Not amazing,  But free draw is nice.  3/5

And lets give some mention to the Cultist Token  It's a 1/1 who can sacrifice to reduce a daemons cost by 1.  Daemons are hard, getting them at a discount is always good.

Chaos have by far the most combat heavy units.  All the daemons hit supremely hard.  They feature the highest attacks in conquest and the best flyer.  They bring a lot of pain, and have the direct damage to bring more of it.  Vulnerable to Eldar.  Also Chaos have no ranged units so they lose there.  Not a Chaos Fan, just not my playstyle  but can appreciate how immensely good the daemons are.

Warhammer 40,000 Conquest card review type thing, Part 3

Da Orks!

Jumping right in with the Warlord and his Signature Squad

Nazdreg
2/7 and gives your guys Brutal at his planet.  Amazingly strong and enough HP to stick around in battles where he needs to be.  Probably unfair giving warlords ratings as there isn't any options at the mo.  But 5/5 anyway.

Nazdreg's Flash Gitz
2/4/1 for 3 and have a nifty action, do one damage to them to ready.  Turns on Brutal.  Only once per phase otherwise they would be brokenly good.  4/5

Kraktoof Hall
Move one damage from one unit to another.  Use it to turn on brutal on one of your guys.  Save a near dead unit.  Kill of one of their guys.  Very useful. 5/5

Bigga is Betta
Reduce an ork units cost by 2 but it comes in with a damage.  Amazing for anyone who benefits for being damaged, Bad docs, enraged orks, Killa Kans, or anyone really. 5/5


Cybork Body
Double a units HP.  Also has 3 shields.  Combos so well with Brutal it's pretty sick. 5/5

Loyal Units

Goff Nob.

No hammers, but 6/6 for 5.  Really is the very image of an ork.  Just wants to kill things.  Benefits immensely from the warlord ability.  Almost a built in land Raider effect as anything that can shut a unit down will prob go against this one. 5/5

Weirdboy Maniak
2/4/1 and he does 1 damage to everyone else at his planet when he enters play.  Brutal against anyone who has massed somewhere.  And the downside of him hitting your own guys isn't quite such a downside with orks as a lot of your units benefit from being damaged. 4/5

Rugged Killa Kans
2/5/2 with Brutal for 4.  Winner!! 5/5

Enraged Ork
Pros.  Costs 2, has 5 hp.  Has Brutal. 1 hammer
Cons  0 Attack.
I'm not a fan.  With Bigga is Betta they are a free 1/5/1.  Something to be said for that.  Will probably go from useless to dead before you see a benefit though.  2/5

Crushface,
 Makes units you deploy at his planet cheaper.  Only 3 hp, so fairly fragile for an Ork   His ability is solid gold though.  Makes it so swarming with Orks is easier. 4/5

Battle Cry
All your Orks at a planet get +2Atk until the end of the battle. Why isn't called Waaaagh!!?/5

And the rest

Sniveling Grot.
1/1/0 for zero.  Utter Crap.  1/5

Tankbusta Bommaz
3/4/2 for 4.  Solid stats and does double damage to vehicles.  A lot of vehicles are flat out scary.  So definitely worth bringing along.  4/5

Bad Dok
1/4/1 for 2 is a good deal. But if is damaged he has 4 hammers.  Best target for Bigga is Betta by far.

Rokkitboy.
Fragile but all enemy at his location loses flying.  Another utility Ork.  Worth bringing just because flyers are a pain in the arse. 4/5

Goff Boyz
0/2/0 for 1.  But get +3Atk at the first planet.  So they should probably be there.  Will probably be killed first in any first planet battle.  A 3/2 unit is a massive threat. 3/5

Shoota Mob
2/1/1 for 1.  Cheap and cheerful. 3/5

Burna Boyz
5 attack!! And they do splash damage when they attack.  Highly amusing with the Chaos Warlord. 4/5  As he will it make it so they do 6 damage to their target and 2 damage to another.  Thats a lot of damage.

Snotling Attack
4 snotlings for 2 resources. A good deal  Snotlings are just little 1/1.  4 of them can be a threat.  Watch out for aoe

Squig Bombin'
Blow up a support for 2 resources.   Every faction probably wishes they could get this card.  The Signature squad supports are especially good to get rid off as they are all amazing.  And they only ever have one.  So blow it up and it's gone for good. 5/5

Rokkit Launcha
Gives a unit ranged.  Ranged is amazing.  Goff Nobs with Ranged are flat out broken.  5/5

Ork Kannon
Does 1 damage to each side at a planet.  Weakens their guys, makes your guys better.  Can also bombs planets with rogue traders/void pirates to kill them off.  Or any of the low hp command struggle orientated units.  4/5

Bigtoof Banna
Makes 1 ork unit a turn cheaper.  Limited etc etc.  3/5

Tellyporta Pad.
Exhaust to move an ork to the first planet.  Orks love to be in the fight.  And this puts them there.  I think this card is great.  Use your hammers to win resources and then use them to win fights  5/5

Orks have the HP and the ATK to go far.  Are fairly cheap for what they bring.  All my games with Orks have been won by just throwing units at the first planet every turn.  Very hard to kill them all AND survive their return attacks.  Be very wary of doom though.  A very a strong faction at the moment.