David Boeren
United States
Marietta
Georgia
-
For the last deckbuilding example of the series we still have Agency, Shub-Niggurath, and Syndicate unused. I've decided to go with a Dirty Cops motif, plus using Agency + Syndicate will help highlight some points about running an all-human deck.
Mainly, we may be more vulnerable to Terror effects since we probably won't have any Terror icons of our own. Some of the Agency guys will have Willpower, and we'll probably be going out of our way to include some of those to help deal with it.
A quick search on cardgamedb confirms that only one character, the Hired Mystic from Syndicate, has built-in Terror. However, there are 12 Characters with Willpower and we've got ways to add some insanity resistance if needed but I don't think we'll have too much trouble.
As usual, the finished deck is hosted on cardgamedb here:
http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/CoC/cocdecks.html/_/coc-...
Characters: 30
2xAgency Medic - Help keep more important characters alive
1xPaul LeMond - Tricky guy, keep your eyes open for ways to use him
2xAnarchist - Decent icons and Fast as well
1xBlackwood File Clerk - Less combat, but better Skill
1xExtortionist - A useful come-into-play effect, pricy though so we hope to draw him later on
1xHard Case - Basic thug with a good come-into-play effect
1xTriggerman - Willpower and decent icons, but remember he is Loyal
1xUndercover Security - Yet another hybrid combat/investigator w/ Willpower
1xBag Man - A bigger version of Anarchist
2xElite Hit Squad - BIG skill for their price
2xFixer - A VERY good deal if we have Attachments in play, so we're also planning on bringing some of those
1xFreelance Occultist - One of the very few characters we can take with Arcane
1xHired Muscle - Solid fighter for the cost
2xHired Mystic - Zero skill is a downer, but great icons and the only Terror we can get
1xKirby O'Donnell - We've got a fair number of Heroic guys he can buff
1xFreeland Photographer - Being able to re-ready with good icons can be handy
2xNorman Blackwood Jr. - Can turn into a monster in Day, plus he's Heroic for Kirby
1xRichard Upton Pickman - Fantastic ability when facing big nasty monsters
1xThomas F. Malone - Useful against mythos decks
2xTyler Scindere - Very solid guy for the price
2xJames Logan - Powerful guy who brings Attachments with him, which helps with Fixer as well
1xT-Men - Fighters that come with a free wound event when they enter play
Events: 11
1xBlind Fighting - Make more out of our combat advantage
1xGet on Yer Feet! - Bring back a key defender they didn't expect to see, maybe with extra Skill
2xIntimidate - Clear the way for unopposed stories, etc...
1xSmall Price to Pay - A good trade, one of your weenies for one of their good guys
1xTorch the Joint! - Puts your opponent behind in resources, nasty
2xKidnapping 101 - Remove characters from stories, very good surprise move
2xFlanking Maneuver - Good way to get rid of problematic characters, especially ones who won't go to stories
1xShotgun Blast - Staple character removal card
Support: 9
2xBeneath the Burning Sun - Make it Day, get free combat, get rid of Night, pump up Norman Blackwood
3xBound and Gagged - Suppress smaller enemies permanently
1xShotgun - Wound characters at stories before the icon struggles
2xSpringfield M1903 - Extra skill and combat
1xDutch Courage - Make everyone more durable in combat
Did we make our asylum packs goal? There are no cards used from Murmurs of Evil or The Wailer Below so we're good. If you needed to you could probably trim back even further. For example, the Springfield is the only card used from The Cacophony.
You may have noticed that we've got a higher amount of Support cards in this deck compared to the other two. However, some of them function much as events. Bound and Gagged is basically an Event with a permanent effect, and Shotgun is mainly a reuseable Event as well. Also, remember we have the Fixer card which can be played much cheaper if there's an Attachment in play. Well, we have six of them in our deck, all of them costing only 1 resource, and we can dig them out for free when we play James Logan. OK, he's an expensive guy so he'll come out late, but there will still be some left in the deck when he arrives.
All the cops with high combat should make us strong in the combat struggle, and we can beef them up further with Beneath the Burning Sun, Dutch Courage, and some of our weapon attachments. Plus, anything they can't deal with we've got our sneaky Syndicate tricks for - tying them up, exhausting them, or kidnapping them from stories. This should help us set up favorable fights where we can kill some stuff. Most of the events and supports are cheap too, making them easier to play. Blind Fighting sees less use in a pure Syndicate deck, but shines when paired with a high Combat faction like Agency.
We ended up with 9 out of 30 characters immune to Terror, plus a couple that might be such as Paul LeMond and anyone at a story with Kirby O'Donnell. It's only about a third of them, so against enemies with a LOT of Terror we'll need to use our events and things to get rid of some of those guys.
Generally you want to get Beneath the Burning Sun out as soon as you can, it buffs about half our characters for cheap. Be careful who you put the Shotgun and Springfields on, you want it to be on guys that will survive. Use Agency Medics to keep the key guys alive, that's what they're there for. We've got quite a few characters with Investigation so you always want to be on the lookout for ways to win those extra success tokens and take stories quickly. The Syndicate cards should help with this but don't just use an exhaustion event because you CAN. Use it when it's going to give you a good advantage like winning more tokens, getting rid of problem Terror guys, or helping you kill someone in the Combat struggle. Often these might coinicide. There are two guys at a story, Kidnap one so you now out-gun the other and can kill him letting you win the story unopposed for an extra success token. That's a big move! Anyway, most of these cards are cheap so you can keep them in hand and afford them when the time comes.
Shotgun is a strong card, try to put it on a guy with Willpower if you can so that it can't be removed by making him go insane. Anytime you can keep a 2+ domain free at story time your opponent will have to worry about you shooting someone with it, this is a good deterrant for them.
You have two tricky characters in the deck - Paul LeMond and Richard Upton Pickman. Paul copies icons, Richard steals (copies AND removes) textboxes and everything in them. Between the two, you've got tools to deal with all sorts of problem characters, or Paul can replicate one of your own big guys. It does cost extra to use their abilities, but Richard in particular can cause big swings getting rid of special abilities or problem traits like Invulnerability that can stop your cops and their firearms dead.
Resourcing... We have a high number of cost 1 card and abilities in the deck, so I'd probably build up 2-1-1, 2,2,1, 3,2,1 and then see what you've got to decide where to go from there. If you have some strong expensive characters there are enough 2's that you can afford to go 4-2-1. If you've got some good cost 2 cards in hand like Kidnapping that you want to play on their turn, you can go 3-2-2, or you can continue to develop the two main domains equally with 3-3-1. The last domain should never really need more than 2 cards though. Just a small point, but if you can try to make your first 3 domain with two Syndicate cards on it because you've got the Loyal card "Triggerman" that might need to be played and you may not want to have a 2-domain that's all Syndicate because it limits your options if you need to play an Agency card. That pretty much goes for all mixed-faction decks, of course.
That about wraps it up for this our third and final deck of the series. Next up I'm going to let you guys choose one deck for a tune-up article and I'll be posting a poll about that in a moment.
-
Rauli Kettunen
Finland
Oulu
-
I usually run James Logan with Beneath the Burning Sun and double Prize Pistols (fished out for his own ability ideally), giving him 6 combat and able to wound two characters of skill 5 or less per turn.
-
|
|
Posted Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:29 pm
