Starblaze's Blazing Brotherhood

Tau Astra Militarum

A combo-styled, Ranged take on Cmdr. Starblaze with a decent command performance and a sometimes overwhelming combat game plus unexpected tricks up his battlesuit sleeves.

This is a Ranged-themed combo deck. The deck revolves around having Ranged units with attachment-buffs on multiple planets and strike first and strike hard enough to crush opposition.
Ranged units will usually enable first strike and attachments, primarily, should provide the punch, especially when moved around between units by the use of Even the Odds.
Other ways of striking hard are via the supports, but the most efficient way is likely through combos and tricks.

Tactical notes:
This deck has a lot of combo potential. The most grand and flashy move is probably having a Shrieking Basilisk (potentially along with other Ranged units) strike durring the ranged phase (maybe even twice with a Promotion on it and a Tau'va) then have your opponent strike once and if the Basilisk survives then use Starblaze's Outpost to swap it for a XV88 Broadside and either ambush an Ion Rifle onto it to strike for 7, or move an attached Gun Drones onto it via Even the Odds and deal out Area Effect 4.
Another Outpost-based combo could be to swap an Iron Guard for a Tau Recruit and then ambush in an Ion Rifle or Armour via Ambush Platform to boost the next strike significantly.

A few points on Promotion:
- Promotion is not included to be part of command struggles. It can be used for command presence, of course, but it is really there to be attached to the Shrieking Basilisks making one eligible for Tau'va. I choose Promotion over, say, Dozer Blade primarily for its innocence, i.e. few people find a Promotion on some Rogue Trader or Shrine Guard particularly suspicious (and if Gorzod should somehow acquire the Basilisk I would much rather have that happen without a Dozer Blade attached.. Besides this Dozer Blade can only be attached to the Basilisk whereas Promotion can be attached to any army unit in the deck). Ideally the Promotion is either put on another unit than the Basilisk and then surprise-moved with Even the Odds, or it is deployed via Ambush platform. (Or attached to the Basilisk in the deploy phase after your opponent has passed, of course). Keep in mind though that Promotion is a limited card, so deploying a Recon Drone or the Tau Enclave will stop you from deploying it for the remainder of the round.

Mulligan draw for these cards:
1. Starblaze's Outpost
2. Sae'lum Enclave
3. Ambush Platform /Catachan Outpost

Weaknesses and oddities:
- Only one copy of Promotion. This is so both in order to lower the number of total cards to fifty, but particularly to lower the number of limited cards in the deck to five.
- Suppressive Fire - these serve to deny the opponent Ranged- or otherwise heavy strikes. They might be replaced by one or two copies of Deception, particularly to remove cards like Syren Zythlex or Front line 'Ard Boyz / Fire Warrior Elite and to add a bit of shield-weight.
- The deck is low on shields. Hence, strike first or strike unexpectedly hard when the opposing armies are exhusted, e.g. swap faction units using Starblaze's Outpost or move attachments around. The Fireblade hero can also potentially help to up the shielding slightly.
- This setup relies heavily on card combinations so a consistently unlucky draw will complicate things. There are many combos available in this setup however, so think creatively (Even the Odds, Tau'va, Tense Negotiations etc.)
- Choke. The deck plays a decent command game (though below my preferred "Eldarian" level), so deploy and spend carefully.
- Allies. There are seven ally units in the deck, so Despice or the Siege Force could be a problem (particularly the latter) for several ally units holed up on the same planet. The Siege Force seems to be a card on the rise in its frequency of usage.

I've very reluctantly had to remove cards like Deception, the Fire Warrior Elite, and the Valkyrie gunship and I have also been tempted to go to 52 cards. That would, arguably of course, lower the deck's consistency and thus efficiency. A possible way of approaching the problem of excluding good cards might be to reduce the number of one-for-ones, currently at ten (or thirteen including the Recon Drones) which would probably mean the removal of the Rogue Traders entirely.

This is my first posted deck. I might soon post a different take on Cmdr. Starblaze as well; comments, critique and suggestions are very welcome indeed :)