NoThRoG

Ahh, the NoThRoG. Always reliable for doing the thing they do best.

KRENTHOR GOUGE is a frontline warlord with a means to heal himself and give his associates better attack bonuses as they get wounded. Those two abilities cover two of the bases of worry that a frontline fighter has.

Krenthor is surrounded by blitzy buddies, nobody above level 3 (although with Hovrakk and Hrunting the level 3 representatives, one can hardly say he's losing out on power by ignoring level 4) and - much like those other frontline decks I have - aims to get to the position where he devours the opposing warlord's face as quickly as possible.

What he has over the others, tactically speaking, is the self-healing to save him from an early,embarrassing demise (not to mention that 4th HP) and a high enough attack that he doesn't need to wait to grab a weapon before getting stuck in.

His downside over,say, Brymin or Alera is that I just don't like him as much, despite his cool name. For one thing he's a troll, and for another he's generally popular, which just rankles me for no explicable reason.

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SCYRAX is the latest iteration of the siege master style of play, and while he doesn't quite measure up to Syvonne (it's hard to measure up to a hundred foot fire giantess, to be fair), he does bring the wizard tricks that push him past also-rans like Sceth and Contal. And he has an adorable little grin.

It's a 'shooty' deck, but it relies upon the minions more than the warlord to dealout punishing, multi-HP wounds to the enemy (outside the occasional Lightning Bolt where required). And since war machines are pretty chunky, it doesn't want for 'meat' when it comes to holding ranks.

Scyrax does require a LOT of thinking, though. WHich machine should he move forward? Should it fire now, or wait for a more auspicious moment? Is it worth Goza crumpling up an ally for more ammo,or would it be better off lasting for next turn and another shot of its own?

I'm not sure if I want to have to make decisions like that in a tournament. I can't rely on myself to make the right ones in the spur of the moment.

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SET'ROKH is sexy. The token NoThRoG female for the moment, she follows the Uthanak path to victory - command from behind, allowing big ol'NoThRoG bruisers to win the fight. She uses all those tactical actions that I never manage to make room for in other decks, and that is what makes her different from Kaiten or Sigurdur.

There are steeds in the deck (a few griffons, a verdatha for the big lady), but it's mainly actions that get people into place, with Bokos and One More Time making double use of some of them for greater efficiency than a simple horsie would allow.

I'm undecided as to whether I prefer her to Kaiten. She's hot, but Kaiten has the eye-patch... Oh, yeah, and there are playstyle considerations as well, I'm sure. The Deverenians last that little bit longer with their steed-given stat boosts, but damn if the NoThRoG don't kick out a lot of hurt with their frenzied flailings. If I'm honest, I think that Kaiten's initiative boost may just tip him to being a little better, but don't tell Set'rokh I said that...

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Just one faction left now, those newbies calling 'emselves The Chosen. And just two days until the tournament itself. I probably should have paced these posts a little better...