Also works with Rotten Plaguebearers, though it still seems like too much investment for little reward.

I think this is a strong card. Use it to finish off the units that retreated from a battle on the first planet, solve your "brutal" problem, stall command phase, or combo it with plaguebearers to undermine economy of your opponent.  

It's a constrained Tzeentch’s Firestorm without the higher costs you typically incur with TF. You just have to be a little more opportunistic and strategic in its use, but could be just as effective as TF for unit wrecking if you plan your damage and time it right.

In any other faction and meta, this card could be discarded without a second thought. On paper, it looks appalling.

However, right now, Chaos is all about forcing passes on the opponent in the deploy phase. A combination of Actions and Deploy Actions with a low cost curve in the typical Chaos deck right now normally puts us at 5-7 deploy turns in the opening deploy phase, and 3-5 deploy turns in layer deploy phases. This is another tool in that arsenal - a cheapish deploy action that has benefit on a 1 card for 1 card level, but without telegraphing the important command plays (like that final Promotion or Chaos Fanatics).

I believe I can find room for 1 copy of this in my deck, though I am not sure yet. Will playtest and feedback.

Currently the best thing about this card is gaining additional information. However I don't feel like making room for this card is needed perse.

As the curve of succesfull Chaos decks allready is really low and the card seems sub-optimal to me in quite some cases as doubling the damage is limited to Army cards and not to many Army cards survive battles they battle during the initial turns. Which in short limit this card to a more lategame strategy. Not saying this is perse wrong but I don't feel I will be including this card more than 1-2x.

3/5 as a result. Optional but not incredible. If it was a Combat Action or Action however, it would be quite incredible.

Yeah. its the lack of usefulness on turn 1 which is damning, and the fairly hard conditions to meet in later turns...

Definitely no more than x1, but I reckon I'm still willing to give it a punt on x1.

Such a shame its Army Unit rather than Unit... if this could be used on Warlords it'd be a clear 5/5.

Yeah. its the lack of usefulness on turn 1 which is damning, and the fairly hard conditions to meet in later turns...

 

Definitely no more than x1, but I reckon I'm still willing to give it a punt on x1.

 

Such a shame its Army Unit rather than Unit... if this could be used on Warlords it'd be a clear 5/5.

For sure. IF it could hit Warlords. Dang I'd think I'd say Chaos would have been on top of the Tier. As a good guess could easily lead to 3-4 damage on the Warlord (if your willing to give some cards up) and "instantly" Bloody him the next turn.

This card makes my day.

I will be playing with 3 of this card whenever I am playing chaos. Flamers, plague bearers, cannons, warp storm. This just makes all of those better.

This card makes my day.

 

I will be playing with 3 of this card whenever I am playing chaos. Flamers, plague bearers, cannons, warp storm. This just makes all of those better.

Go for it Keebler.

Do note, it's Deploy Action and thus often useless during the initial turn/opening hand.

Right, there's a timing issue here. Kannon and Warpstorm (and Plague Beast, which you didn't mention) are Combat Actions, so two phases down the line.

Firestorm, Flamers and Plaguebearers CAN be triggered as deploy actions, but this is suboptimal because:

1) You don't get Zarathur's damage boost that way

2) You could compromise your command phase by losing a ready icon at a planet if the damage doesn't kill the opposing card.

Also, don't forget that if you need Doombolt AND firestorm/flamer to kill a unit, essentially you're trading two cards of yours for one of theirs. This is normally the opposite to Flamer at peak functioning, where it attacks then sacrifices for 3 a time, trading one of yours for two of theirs, so essentially you're looking at a fourfold decrease in card exchange efficiency, or if you look at it in damage terms, four damage off two cards instead of six damage off one (presuming Zarathur's presence).

Right, there's a timing issue here. Kannon and Warpstorm (and Plague Beast, which you didn't mention) are Combat Actions, so two phases down the line.

 

Firestorm, Flamers and Plaguebearers CAN be triggered as deploy actions, but this is suboptimal because:

1) You don't get Zarathur's damage boost that way

2) You could compromise your command phase by losing a ready icon at a planet if the damage doesn't kill the opposing card.

 

Also, don't forget that if you need Doombolt AND firestorm/flamer to kill a unit, essentially you're trading two cards of yours for one of theirs. This is normally the opposite to Flamer at peak functioning, where it attacks then sacrifices for 3 a time, trading one of yours for two of theirs, so essentially you're looking at a fourfold decrease in card exchange efficiency, or if you look at it in damage terms, four damage off two cards instead of six damage off one (presuming Zarathur's presence).

Totally agree.

I guess it's a meta driven thing for me.

Right now the meta in my area is "get a ranged dude powered up and shoot the warlord with armor bane'.

This card offers me a way around that. I guess I shouldn't have put cannons in my list of things that get a boost from doombolt.

Unless the Tau "+1 to shields dude" is out I am almost always trying to do multiple packets of 3 or more damage. That way I am guarenteed getting at least 1 point through. (unless playing against marines that is).

If I am dealing with a "problem unit" (usually units with 4+ health) then Doombolt is what I would like to kill with more often than not. Get three damage on you then use the bolt. unless you spend your only 3 shield card on that then your probably going to lose that unit. And I only have to use 1 resource point to do that.

Most often to sweep up that one unit that stood tall during a warp storm or took a low hit from a berzerker before he was ramped up.

Again my feeling of love for this card is fuled by the meta I play in much more than the overall usefulness of the card.

I think at a local event this card is auto included in a Chaos deck for me.

Nationals (and to a lesser extent regionals) would take a LOT more meta research and state of the game evaluation to sell these slots to doombolt.

Oof! An Aun'shi driven Meta?

I'd switch to Space Marines, take 3 Indomitables, and bring the battle back to Aun'shi!

Oof! An Aun'shi driven Meta?

 

I'd switch to Space Marines, take 3 Indomitables, and bring the battle back to Aun'shi!

yeah but then you would have to play marines! lol

Aun'shi is just half the problem. There is also pump you up chappa orks. lol

Just so I understand this correctly... Say a unit with 5 health has 4 damage on it. If I doom bolt it, my opponent can protect it with one shield because you can't assign more damage to a unit than it has health remaining. Right?

No.  Only indirect damage works that way.  If a unit has 4 damage on it, Doombolt deals 4 damage to it.

Has this card shot up in value with the current elite-heavy meta?

Been thinking about this card a lot, mostly because of my new column. My biggest thought right now is "Smasha Gun Battery decks could work with a copy of this."

There's some other positive interactions too.

I mean, this is still a weak card, but that's what makes it an interesting choice for my Heresy column.

It gets stronger when you think about it from the perspective that you only have to kill half of a unit before Doombolting it. So anything that you can put 50% damage onto can be Doom Bolt'd to death.

Lots of times retreating units run away before dying, so it can also be a finisher?

Unfortunately, it's a Deploy Action.

Smasha is probably pretty strong, as people love to spread out damage and leave things teetering on the edge of death rather than letting anything die, so for 1 more resource, it can finish things off for a stall action. Could be neat. It's probably better than most give it credit for but it has a lot of competition.

Yeah, of the three Doom Bolt decks I've built for the article, Smasha is definitely the best, but its a shame to have to ally into chaos, as AM is way more efficient in HP to cost ratio. The other two are creative in their own way, though.

Has this card shot up in value with the current elite-heavy meta?