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Assault on Ulthuan is the most important expansion to the Warhammer Invasion Core Set. By introducing High Elves and Dark Elves as completely playable races, it makes the possibilities for mixed decks far more interesting as well as giving you two completely new and different races to play if you play a "pure game" (not mixing sides).

In addition the game does include some new cards for the original 4 races. These vary in strength, but it is a nice addition to balance out the 5 High Elf and Dark Elf cards you have from your core set. This means that should you buy only the core set and this expansion, all 4 of your races will be (more or less) balanced in terms of number of cards.

You also get some more neutral cards, which while not as strong as the ones from the core set, (with some exceptions) do enhance the game. We've found that since including the neutrals from Assault on Ulthuan we've been able to play two games of Warhammer Invasion simultaneously, transforming the game into a playable option when there are 4 of us (note we don't play 2 on 2, we just play two games of 1 v 1).


High Elves
The High Elves have undergone a strange arc in our playing group. When they were first unboxed, we were open mouthed at some of their cards. They seemed far stronger than their Dark Elf cousins, and many of us thought that these would be the strongest of all the main races.

The High Elf game seems to centre around a similar tactic to the Dwarves - denial. Whereas the Dwarves have toughness to prevent their Units being injured and a Keystone Forge to heal Capital damage, the High Elves focus on healing their units to undo damage dealt. This may not sound as impressive as the Dwarves initially, but when some Units allow healing from every Unit you control, it soon adds up.

High Elves have a few very powerful cards, though they don't have a "super-hero" in the vein of a Bloodthirster, Grimgor Ironhide, King Kazador or Kurt...can't remember your name Empire (I want to say Helborg?).

Some of the notable High Elf cards are:
Swordmasters of Hoeth(Unit): At first glance this Unit seems unstoppable. At the end of a turn they cancel all combat damage. Meaning anything done to them, whether in attack or defence, is simply wiped away. They CANNOT be killed through normal methods. This ability only works in the Battlefield, but it means that they almost always attack and almost always defend should the Battlefield be attacked. Your opponent is forced to use very different tactics to kill them (Flames of Tzeentch, Counterstrike, indirect damage), so they are not invincible by any means. The longer they've been around, the more methods people seem to have discovered to kill them. Regardless, a unit which can ignore combat damage is one I always include in my deck.

Initiates of Saphery(Unit): the cornerstone of any High Elf healing game. As long as they are in the Kingdom, at the start of your turn all units heal one point of damage. This means that spreading damage against High Elves is not a good idea, since those points will soon be wiped up.

The Glittering Tower(Support): the offensive tool for High Elf healing. If you heal a unit at the start of your turn (typically through an Initiate of Saphery) you can deal one point of damage to a target unit. Excellent for sniping at those Questing Units who will never defend, those Counterstriking Knights, or high hammer but low hit point Units (Savage Marauders for example).

Dragon Mage Awakening(Support, Attachment): this is a very important card for some of the more fragile High Elf units. It grants the Unit it is placed on 3 extra hit points. Combined with the High Elf healing, these 3 hit points can go a very long way. Best of all - its practically free! (0 cost, 1 loyalty).


Problems with High Elves
For all the excellent cards in a High Elf deck, they have been struggling in our group lately. Now this could be because I have a friend who is buying the Battle Pack Cycles. While these have done huge favours for other sides, it seems the High Elves have received the fewest cards and those they have received have not helped their game. This has meant that they are certainly not considered very strong in our group.
For all their healing and nigh-invincible units (I'm looking at you Swordmasters) the High Elves do not do well at dishing out damage. I can't quite put my finger on why this is, but they never seem to ever scare an opponent from the damage they can dish out. Compare this to their closest race in terms of play style: Dwarves. The Dwarves can take whatever you throw at them, but with Units like Trollslayers they can rampage through a zone in no time. High Elves lack this urgency.



The Dark Elves
I had heard a lot of good things about the Dark Elves, but upon looking at their deck as a whole I was as underwhelmed by it as I was overwhelmed by the High Elf deck. The Dark Elves seemed to lack Units, their tactics were very specific and their support not terribly good. However just as the High Elves went from being the golden boys to the whipping boys in our gaming group, the Dark Elves have gone from being the kid last picked for sports to the jock who pounds on the aforementioned unlucky child.

How did this happen?

My view is that the Battle Packs massively benefit the Dark Elves. I do not think that, as they are in the Assault on Ulthuan expansion, the Dark Elves are terribly impressive. I think that the designers recognised this and remedied it slightly. Combined with all the Skaven cards available to a destruction player thanks to the Battle Packs, Dark Elves are a terrifying side to play against.

However this is a review of the Assault on Ulthuan expansion, not on how to fix your Dark Elves. Dark Elves play, to my mind, as a mishmash of several races. They include the toughness of Dwarves, the corruptability of Chaos, the denial of Empire and the....well they aren't much like Orcs to be honest.

Dark Elves thrive on making their opponents game more difficult. It is similar to how Chaos play, except rather than relying solely on the act of Corruption to do this, Dark Elves have several tricks up their sleeves.


Some of the notable Dark Elf cards are:
Cold One Knights(Unit): not to be confused with the Cold One Riders from the core set. These are one of the few Units that impressed me from the Dark Elves. They have Toughness 1, an important denial in the otherwise fragile Dark Elf deck. Most sides would kill for a little Toughness and it shows the variety of the Dark Elf game.

Mind Killer(Support, Attachment): one of the "makes-life-difficult-for-your-opponent" cards. With a cost of 0 (2 loyalty needed), you can cause one enemy Unit to lose a hammer of power. This can make a low power Unit useless or turn that scary two hammer Unit who is chomping through your zones, into a far more manageable 1 hammer power unit. Combine with Cold One Knights to make that new 1 hammer power unit not at all scary by themself

Word of Pain(Support, Attachment): following with theme of "makes-life-difficult-for-your-opponent", this little beauty is one of my favourites. Attach it to an enemy unit (for a cost of 2) and that unit cannot attack. At all. They will still be defending, but someone defending their own Battlefield still leaves you with two other juicy zones to attack. I particularly like doing this to the Swordmaster of Hoeth. I was never planning to attack the Battlefield as long as that monster Unit sat there, and now I won't have to worry about them coming over to me to cause problems. Instead they can just sit their and stew.

Har Ganeth(Support): Very useful tool against weaker units. This allows you, at the start of your turn, to return one target unit with less than 2 hit points (also known as: 1 hit point) to its owner's hand. This can be used in a variety of ways - vanishing powerful, expensive units that are almost dead but still alive enough to defend against your attack (although note, it only returns them to the hand, it won't kill them, so you could very well be healing them); to get rid of troublesome units such as Huntsmen, Warrior Priest, Lobber Crews and other 1 hit point units that will cause you pain later. It could also be used to conceivably put one of your own crippled units back into your hand, then pay the cost again to get a fresh one to come out (though you would lose the bonus in your kingdom or quest zone that turn; probably best to use this odd tactic in the battlefield).


Problems with the Dark Elves
Units, units, units, units. Urg what terrible units. If you do not have the Skaven from the Battle Packs, or you're playing a "pure race" game, Dark Elves suffer. They have the ability to mess with their opponent masterfully, but without other race's units they lack the power to deliver a killing blow.

I was unimpressed by their Heroes, though this may have been because I couldn't see who could back them up (aside from Cold One Knights).

Dark Elves can suffer from trying to play too much like Order - denying their opponent options and units. However I've found that they aren't good enough to beat the Order sides at their own game, and they aren't good enough for it to stop other Destruction sides.

Whereas the Battle Packs greatly weakened High Elves, they strengthened Dark Elves considerably.



Overall Conclusion
This was one of the best expansions I have bought for a game. It expands the core set excellently and introduces two very new flavours to the game. While both new races have problems, it is good to know that the power creep that has been criticised in the Battle Packs did not find its way into this expansion.

I would strongly recommend to anyone who has bought Warhammer Invasion Core Set and enjoyed it - buy this. I would certainly recommend this over the Battle Packs...
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Anthony DuLac
United States

Minnesota
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Good analysis here.

The Dark Elves are now very nasty thanks to the current Battle Packs. You can create a really fun, really vicious denial/control-style deck with them nowadays.

High Elves suffer from the fact that healing just isn't that great, really, all things considered.

Now that the current Battle Packs have added a ton of Indirect Damage effects and the nasty Dragon, they've much more effective and fun.

Dwarves are still probably the most over-powered race right now (as is Order in general for a number of reasons) but other races are slowly catching up with the release of new cards.

My biggest gripe with the game right now is that Destruction is lacking a Tactic-Canceling card despite Order having one. The "experts" can say what they want about the value of asymmetric card design but this is a type of card that simply needs to be available to either side. Without it, imbalances crop up.

It's not THAT huge of a problem, overall, but it has consistently bothered me since High Elf's Disdain showed up a few Battle Packs back.
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David Bernier
Canada

Quebec
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I bought the core set yesterday at 7:14pm
I read your post today at 9:23am
I bought the Assault on Ulthuan today at 12:22pm

Thanks
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