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Rags goes hunting
Submitted by
Serraph1133
, Feb 18 2016 09:35 PM | Last updated Feb 28 2016 04:53 AM
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Space Marines Astra Militarum
Aggro Experimental
3-1 in store championship, took 3rd based on strength of schedule
Warlord
Order by: NameTypeCost
Total Cards: 0
So i felt obligated to post this based on the debate i started over deck size. The basic strategy of the deck is very much a where ever you commit your wl to you will pay for it. Ratling deadeyes and righteous initiates are my primary resource gathers and i tend to drop them on planets by themselves whenever possible to make tempting targets for command snipe. If an opponent plays a resourse grabber across from them i drop a tac squad so that the more they place there to cap the more they are likey to die if i decide to drop rags and start a battle. Blood claws are great on 1st planet or win condition planets to trigger ability. Other than that i drop them on the remove all damage/trigger another battle ability planets to keep the WL away. After that it's pretty much bully bully bully and LW/eager recruits if i miss a commit or have to set up for a planet battle/command snipe. As for the tournament... round 1 vs Morn. I felt a little bad for the girl playing her, as i was the one who helped get her into conquest and had play tested her deck quite a few times against my shadowsun deck. 3rd round assassination. Round 2 Coteaz. Again another deck i had helped play test, that being said it was a very rough game where he held command and was very sure of his victory until i was able to deploy a space wolves predator two rounds in a row locking him off both the planet he needed to win and the last one i needed to win. Round 3 vs Rags my only loss of the night. This mirror match was a nightmare for me. No resource grabbers in opening hand, mulligan gave me nothing but a ratling deadeye. He took command early and held it. And he capitalized on every risky play i made to try and break the stranglehold. Very good player and i didn't feel too bad having to look at the winning planet and shaking his hand before fighting it out. Drew my only two eager recruits of the night in command with no resource facing an unbloddied rags, honored librarians, and a few others with just rags and a righteous initiate. Round 4 Aunshi... I HATE aunshi, i really do. I wont rant here about it, but the game was really good. The guy i played was entirely new to conquest and i did help him for the first 2 or three rounds by explaining plays to him and such. But by the start of the 3rd round he basically said to stop helping him and win. Lol. After that it was a fairly quick blooding of aunshi another SWP that wiped up the last planet i needed for victory.
Sample Hand:
Total Shields: 0
Average Shields Per Event/Attachment: 0
Total Command: 0
Average Command Per Unit: 0
Just as a side note I have found ways to trim it up a bit, and after the tournament I stayed up reworking it down to 50. I'll post the new iteration for feedback after some play tests, if any one is interested.
How often do you have the resources to play the Hostile Environmental Gear, the Storm Bolter and/or the Iron Halo? The two shields can still be good as two shields, obv, but you can't search for them like SM with Tau allies. The Hostile Environmental Gear is presumably good on a Lone Wolf, but that's about it. I can see it working much better on cheap but hard hitting units like Anxious Platoon, Snakebite Thug or Goff Boyz.
Also how often do you get to play No Mercy? I can see it being a powerful on occasion, but it could also be a dead card if you can't or don't want to exhaust Ragnar.
What is the Suppressive Fire protecting you from? I believe its main purpose it to protect from alpha strikes, but your units are strong as it is and you have Indomitable.
I think I would do the following: -2 Hostile Environmental Gear, -1 No Mercy, -2 Suppressive Fire and +1 Promotion. I'm curious what you cut though!
EDIT: Oh and also -2 Storm Bolter, -1 Iron Halo, +3 Primal Howl
EDIT 2: Drop Pod Assault would not hurt either - giving you more double shields and a chance to drop in units mid combat. Even if you only get a two cost unit, it's still a decent play.
I play no mercy regularly, it's one of my best cards early in the game. I drop rags as a command snipe on a late planet, move the lone wolf over or eager recruit tap the outpost and swing for 4 or 5 watch them drop a shield, no mercy and if I have it crushing blow. Even without the outpost the ability to hit for unmitigated damage is worth it in most cases in my opinion.
As for hostile environment gear, I have a few Zara players (lol, none of them played him in the tourney)in my meta so I packed them in for protection on the librarians and they are pretty great on LW in most other cases. Especially against Aunshi, who did show up at the tournament.
Suppressive Fire is remarkably helpful against any number of hard hitting ranged units or AE as I am sorely lacking any kind of really decent ranged. Mainly it was there as added insurance against Aunshi and his 7 ranged armorbane cadre with ion rifle. But it also saw uses in a couple of games to kneel a heavy hitter while kneeling my IGR so I could deal with them after i got to swing on warlords. I really really want to bloody the enemy early so the rest of the game he is forced to stay away from planets I want or risk the loss of the game by spike damage/ no mercy. That being said hostile and suppressive are both on the chopping block.
Oh and as for the storm bolter/iron halo... storm bolter is for swarms and bodyguards 2 shields otherwise. Iron halo... I love having it when i can play it. Sadly, that's harder to do than I would like as the deck seems a bit behind the 8 ball command wise and I find myself debating between units or protecting Rags. Honestly, I may drop it in favor of a full on aggression approach.
DPA how I have such a love hate relationship with this card... I love it for it's effect and 2 shields. I hate the fact it places everything else on the bottom of my deck never to be seen again. It's brilliant with my play style of warlord punishment, but again, the 2 resources that I have to hold back for it or win command is difficult in the decks current shape. Unless I get choked. Which was the case in most of the games. Which was how I was able to actually pay for SWP twice. So might be worth it.
I hate the fact it places everything else on the bottom of my deck never to be seen again.
LOL - sure but it pushes the great cards below the six you saw up to the top so you can get to draw them! Psychologically it can be upsetting to see a card that you really wanted drop to the bottom, but logically, if your deck is randomly shuffled (it is, right? ) it is just as likely that you will now draw a really good card rather than the dud that was previously on top.
From what you are saying, I would have thought the Storm Bolter could easily be replaced with a Primal Howl - both have two shields, but the likelihood of Ragnar committing to the same planet as the enemy warlord is higher than the likelihood of you facing a swarm and having the resources to pay for it.
Perhaps when playing casually you could mentally treat one card as any one of the possible cards you want it to be, and keep track of which cards you are using or hoping for every game, and which cards are only rarely useful or affordable.
Primal howl is a great card, it really hurt to remove it from the deck, but I knew that there would be at least 3 swarm players(kith, coteaz, worr) with possibly another 1(kith), and at least 2 players with bodyguards(eldorath, naz). That was purely a meta choice. And I honestly didn't think I would be struggling for resources as much as I did... the 54 card count may have been responsible a bit, but more and more I think it had to do with the decks inherently weak command game. Something I am working on correcting.
As for drop pod... yes and no. The sad thing is the more tool box you go I.e. running 1x and 2x seeing them drop to the bottom is basically saying good bye to them. Obviously less so with 2x but if you have burned your first one as a shield/discard/already played you burned that bridge. That may just be me and my horrible luck Not saying I wouldn't consider putting them in... in fact this conversation has already given me tons to think about so thank you for that!
And yes the deck was shuffled or I might have taken that mirror match lol
Honestly, the more I think about it the more I am coming to realize that I am ultimately trying to create an "anti meta" deck. I don't want to ignore command, I want to punish you for having it. Which may not be the best approach, lol. But a low cost deck that basically says "go ahead take command, I have my tricks for that." Would still need card draw. Primal howl seems more and more like an auto include. And the few resource gathers I have are all about the 1/1 and 2 card draw planets. Might be a moot point with the game focusing more on higher cost curve in the upcoming expansions, but kind of seems like a fun to play in the mean time.
If you can accurately predict your meta it makes total sense to pick some cards that work best against that meta but might not be the top picks otherwise. You need to beat the decks that you will be playing, not ones that you could face in theory. You evidently did well in your tournament!
I play a lot of assassination Ragnar, and No Mercy 2x really is the sweet spot at 50 - 51 cards. The Hostile Environment Gear is neat, but your shield slots seem maybe crowded? You said you trimmed it and I haven't check that out yet.
I absolutely would cut to 1 Halo, 0 Bolter, and do +3 Howl. A big part of Ragnar is getting the commit right and/or having Hunt. Howl can be a critical draw for a bloody (or even in your case, triggering Blood Claw Pack).
I haven't played with Suppressive Fire, but seems like it could be good. I don't have promotion or Suppressive Fire, but if I had to pick 2 of either it would be Promotion.
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How often do you have the resources to play the Hostile Environmental Gear, the Storm Bolter and/or the Iron Halo? The two shields can still be good as two shields, obv, but you can't search for them like SM with Tau allies. The Hostile Environmental Gear is presumably good on a Lone Wolf, but that's about it. I can see it working much better on cheap but hard hitting units like Anxious Platoon, Snakebite Thug or Goff Boyz.
Also how often do you get to play No Mercy? I can see it being a powerful on occasion, but it could also be a dead card if you can't or don't want to exhaust Ragnar.
What is the Suppressive Fire protecting you from? I believe its main purpose it to protect from alpha strikes, but your units are strong as it is and you have Indomitable.
I think I would do the following: -2 Hostile Environmental Gear, -1 No Mercy, -2 Suppressive Fire and +1 Promotion. I'm curious what you cut though!
EDIT: Oh and also -2 Storm Bolter, -1 Iron Halo, +3 Primal Howl
EDIT 2: Drop Pod Assault would not hurt either - giving you more double shields and a chance to drop in units mid combat. Even if you only get a two cost unit, it's still a decent play.
As for hostile environment gear, I have a few Zara players (lol, none of them played him in the tourney)in my meta so I packed them in for protection on the librarians and they are pretty great on LW in most other cases. Especially against Aunshi, who did show up at the tournament.
Suppressive Fire is remarkably helpful against any number of hard hitting ranged units or AE as I am sorely lacking any kind of really decent ranged. Mainly it was there as added insurance against Aunshi and his 7 ranged armorbane cadre with ion rifle. But it also saw uses in a couple of games to kneel a heavy hitter while kneeling my IGR so I could deal with them after i got to swing on warlords. I really really want to bloody the enemy early so the rest of the game he is forced to stay away from planets I want or risk the loss of the game by spike damage/ no mercy. That being said hostile and suppressive are both on the chopping block.
Oh and as for the storm bolter/iron halo... storm bolter is for swarms and bodyguards 2 shields otherwise. Iron halo... I love having it when i can play it. Sadly, that's harder to do than I would like as the deck seems a bit behind the 8 ball command wise and I find myself debating between units or protecting Rags. Honestly, I may drop it in favor of a full on aggression approach.
DPA how I have such a love hate relationship with this card... I love it for it's effect and 2 shields. I hate the fact it places everything else on the bottom of my deck never to be seen again. It's brilliant with my play style of warlord punishment, but again, the 2 resources that I have to hold back for it or win command is difficult in the decks current shape. Unless I get choked. Which was the case in most of the games. Which was how I was able to actually pay for SWP twice. So might be worth it.
LOL - sure but it pushes the great cards below the six you saw up to the top so you can get to draw them! Psychologically it can be upsetting to see a card that you really wanted drop to the bottom, but logically, if your deck is randomly shuffled (it is, right?
) it is just as likely that you will now draw a really good card rather than the dud that was previously on top.
From what you are saying, I would have thought the Storm Bolter could easily be replaced with a Primal Howl - both have two shields, but the likelihood of Ragnar committing to the same planet as the enemy warlord is higher than the likelihood of you facing a swarm and having the resources to pay for it.
Perhaps when playing casually you could mentally treat one card as any one of the possible cards you want it to be, and keep track of which cards you are using or hoping for every game, and which cards are only rarely useful or affordable.
If you can accurately predict your meta it makes total sense to pick some cards that work best against that meta but might not be the top picks otherwise. You need to beat the decks that you will be playing, not ones that you could face in theory. You evidently did well in your tournament!
I play a lot of assassination Ragnar, and No Mercy 2x really is the sweet spot at 50 - 51 cards. The Hostile Environment Gear is neat, but your shield slots seem maybe crowded? You said you trimmed it and I haven't check that out yet.
I absolutely would cut to 1 Halo, 0 Bolter, and do +3 Howl. A big part of Ragnar is getting the commit right and/or having Hunt. Howl can be a critical draw for a bloody (or even in your case, triggering Blood Claw Pack).
I haven't played with Suppressive Fire, but seems like it could be good. I don't have promotion or Suppressive Fire, but if I had to pick 2 of either it would be Promotion.