Hey Dreamers,
Night Fusion has been out for a few weeks now and I'm sure some of you have been busy trying to modify your old warbands or come up with brand new ones. I think there are a lot of new options now for currently existing warband archetypes, but I wanted to try and take a crack at a brand new warband archetype. I think that Valor got the most playable pieces out of the new set, and so I set out looking that way first. What I came up with was a mono-valor warband that utilizes the powerful Zungar Wind Dancer.
Now, I have a confession to make. This is a new sort of article for me because I haven't gotten to sit down and actually pound out games with this warband. There are a variety of reasons for this, which I won't go into here, but the point is that I wanted to share what I've been working on with you, anyway. I know the warband is solid, which I'll explain below, so believe me, you aren't wasting your time by reading on. I just wanted to let you know what the deal is, as I have never written about a warband or matchup that wasn't thoroughly tested before now. If you find some hole in my proposed strategy or want to discuss particular piece selection, I would love to continue the discussion of the warband on the forums.
This warband came about from my thorough assessment of Valor in Night Fusion. Since this is the case, before I show you the warband I ended up with, I want to talk about some of the great valor pieces that didn't make it in, simply because they weren't suited to the very specific strategy of what this warband is going for:
Stained-Glass Angel: She is one of my favorite pieces in the set. How many games do you play where you roll a whole bunch of blades on some random attack and say something like “Wow! Glad I rolled all those useless blades!” It happens to me all the time. Now you can ALWAYS put those random blades to use, as long as you devote one slot to this chick. Free creatures are quite good.
Ancient Valkyrie: Wow. I'm getting a spawn discount AND my guy gains reinforcement? AND I can much more easily rely on playing that Angel of Sunrise without having to dip into Passion? That seems very solid. However, I would like to mention that I think this piece has been overhyped by some players. I think there is a specific warband that can make good use of this piece, but the problem is that her stats are so bad that some of that “spawn advantage” is going towards repaying the debt you shouldered when you got such awful stats for six spawn. She's still on my list of good valor pieces, for sure. Just saying she might be a teency bit overrated.
Angel Star Shrine: I suspect some players are trying to figure out if this one squeaks across the “good enough” line or not. My official opinion is, in the right warband, probably yes. In a traditional combat-based warband that isn't already devoting too many slots to the admittedly overall better Pearlthorn Castle and Heartsblood Temple, I really think this location will shine. Its sort of like a reinforce piece: You play it on the turn when squeaking out an extra damage or two would really be beneficial. The nice thing is it's like a reinforce piece that doesn't get killed.
Knight of the Bronze Horn: This one might be less obvious to some of you, but I really like this guy. I'm not quite positive that he can squeak into this current metagame but I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone talking about him. Just like other spawn-phase moving powerhouses (Aviax Firebrand, Chaos Puppeteer, Pearlthorn Castle) the Knight lets you set up so that you can safely stay hidden should you lose the initiative, but charge forward punishingly if you win it. A solid body that can move itself and a friend for two spawn? This guy really makes me want to break out my Knight of Strife and Joy's again.
Note that I'm not talking about multi-aspect pieces here, just the mono-valor ones. In case you're wondering, I also want to throw out that I'm not really the biggest fan of Sir Wolven. I don't really want to discuss the piece in detail here, but I will say that I think many players underestimate how bad it is to lose a turn when the Dreamlords get destroyed (which, incidentally, means that the Madness Dreamlord may be quite good due to her large life).
Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know I'm not neglecting the other strong valor pieces in the set. Without further rambling, here it is:
The basic strategy of this warband should be pretty obvious: Get Zungar Winddancer (hopefully two) onto the board, and charge into things. “But wait a second,” you might be saying, “there really aren't that many three-power guys to trigger the Winddancer's ability!” However, this is from the Night Fusion FAQ:
The spawned creature's power must be exactly 3 in order for Etherdance to trigger. If a creature comes into play with exactly 3 power due to an ability (such as a 2-power creature coming into play under the effect of an Enrage ability), Etherdance will trigger.
So, an active Virtuous Maiden means local or adjacently spawned two-power guys “count” as three-power guys when they hit the table. And this warband has a LOT of two power guys. You have a total of eight pieces that can trigger the Wind Dancers' ability, assuming Virtuous Maiden is around. Throw in the Castles and the Puppets and you're capable of setting up absolute charging mayhem during the spawn phase. We'll top it off with easily one of the very best shield-strike creatures in the set, Totem Lord, as well as a Noble Dragon so that we have something to sink high-spawns into as well as a backup plan in case our winddancers don't quite go the distance.
So, how good of a warband is it? Well, it certainly isn't Kitsune, I can tell you that right now. But it is good. Though I've spent a bunch of time working on the list and theorizing, the confirmation that the warband works in reality comes mostly from Mike Pozsgay, who had been testing a list very similar to the one that I came up with. To give you an Idea, he said it had about an 80% win percentage against Chaos Well-Bred.
I also need to mention: This warband is HARD to play. I knew it would be before I even had an initial list, and when I recently asked Mike if he had any new thoughts on the warband he stressed: “Make sure you mention the steep learning curve.” That being said, like any warband, if you're willing to put the time into it, and you agressively pursue correct play during your testing, you should be alright. If the warband seems like it's underperforming at first, give it a chance.
So how do you play this warband?
There are a ton of different playstyles that this warband could follow. Certainly one of the hardest things is knowing what to push out early, in turns one through three. While practicing with the warband I urge you to experiment with this the most and to remain open-minded about wacky openings, even if they waste spawn points.
I think that no matter what, this warband doesn't want the game to go on for forever, because you'll simply run out of things to spawn before your opponent will due to the low spawn curve. Winning turns is of some importance, but this leads me to my biggest warning about this warband.
Don't let them knock out any legs before you've finished building your table. The winddancers are powerful, but you have to be careful because they are fairly fragile, especially if some charges go wrong early. If you charge in and get your winddancers pinned and trapped and killed, you're going to be left with some sad Puppets, and the fact that you'll have to spend time setting up a recovery game means the game is probably going to go long and your warband will peter out.
The trick is balancing the utilization of the aggressive power of early winddancers with setting up for the super powerful mid-game winddancers. Its true you want them to charge into battle early, but more importantly you want them to be around when your castles, puppets, and maiden are all online. You're just going to have practice to find the balance.
That being said, the warband is definitely an agro band at heart, and with the steelborn lions its going to be hard for anybody to mess with you TOO much during the early game, so I wouldn't worry that much!
Setting it up:
The Virtuous Maiden is very key, and unlike the Winddancers, there is no “backup Maiden.” I think the most typical and safe way to start out running the setup when you first pick up the warband, is to run out some cheap guys (i.e. Clawclan Scout) for early board presence, but immediately start churning out winddancers and the maiden after that. Remember you don't want to play very many non-winddancer guys early because then you can't use them to power your wind dancers later! It's just like I mentioned earlier: put the pressure on early but don't leave yourself vulnerable. Remember your blade abilities are key because skirmishing and advancing your wind dancers is very powerful. Also remember that during a shift-strike you'll often want to shift a wind-dancer first. This is because if he disrupts an enemy piece you can chuck that piece in front of some other shifting guys who will then be in position to strike said enemy.
A note on playing the Castles: I'm pretty sure that you generally want to form what some players have come to call the “Pearlthorn Road,” that is, two adjacent castles that can pull a freshly spawned guy right into the center row. The main purpose of this is so that you can spawn a Chaos Puppeteer and activate him in the very same turn. The threat of that is huge. Remember though that the Castles will sometimes end up in odd places just to get an extra charge off at a key point in time, and that's ok.
The flex spots: I think the flex spots are probably the second clawclan scout, the two lions, and the twilight scout. The Totem Lord and third Zungar Winddancer are certainly not set either. The supplementary bloodcut engine seems strong, but it may be that something out there is better. I really think most of the rest of this list is set, however.
Alternative pieces: At the very top of this list is the absurdly powerful Chronosphere. Being able to change the spawn phase is obviously particularly strong in a spawn-phase based warband such as this. The only problem is that there are only so many cheap pieces we can fit into one warband. But this guy might just be good enough that he needs to make the cut. I think he's just directly better than Tower of Unquenched Flame, though I wouldn't scoff at someone who wanted to test that piece in a warband like this.
Second Virtuous Maiden: Pretty self explanatory. A backup in case the first one dies somehow, and it also lets Winddancers come into play with three power potentially. It seems wrong to me but the option is worth mentioning.
Pearlthorn Dragon Knight: His Rally ability is obviously good with the Winddancers. He just needs to be tested.
Zungar Blademaster: I don't think we have room for a little guy who doesn't do something powerful and who doesn't have a blade ability. I'm known for having a particular fondness for this piece in general (and sometimes made fun of by the other top players as a result), and I do think he would be fine in here especially because he helps out tremendously with getting that second valor aspect turned on (which can be kind of a pain in the rear for this warband to do it seems). In another version of this warband (which I will discuss below) though, he could be absolutely crucial.
Angel of Sunrise: Again, I don't think so, mostly because we won't get a chance to spawn it, and because we need our high end to be a back up plan rather then a supplement to the wind dancer plan. However, I could possibly see Angel going into a variant of this list. Alternative Builds:
There is a very good version of this warband that focuses much more on winning as fast as possible. The warband cuts out some of it's high and mid level spawn pieces (no Totem Lord, no Twilight Scout) in favor of Zungar Blademaster and Blind Envoy. This version is more difficult to play and probably more punishing to play errors however, as there really isn't room to screw up. In fact the warband needs a Chronosphere to make sure it can grind out the sixth win fast enough and so it cuts out the third winddancer as well.
Yet another list probably exists that doesn't focus all of its energy on winddancer at all, but rather uses the pieces as supplement to a more standard army.
There are definitely many different ways to utilize the Zungar Winddancers. If nothing else the list in this article may serve as a springboard for you into a whole different take on that piece. I've considered all kinds of crazy ideas. It might not be any good but I know I keep wanting Omen Locust in a Winddancer list!
Conclusion
I hope you found this article to be useful. Remember the warband is fairly difficult to play but it's certainly a legitimate option for player run tournaments, edge night, or fun/competitive home games. This is really one of those situations where I would love to hear what you think about the warband on the forums, as it's a deep archetype with many options to explore.
