Archives for October 2014

Wave 1 Unboxing videos

That Teri Girl (https://www.youtube.com/user/thatterigirl) has put up a handful of un-boxing videos for Wave 1:

Dwarven Ballista:

Frost Giant:

Green Dragon

Sun Elf Troop

Sun Elf Wizard

See you in the skies!

Landing and Pivoting

Now that the game has finally landed in stores, let’s talk about landing in the game!

“I’m a dragon! The sky is my domain! Why would I ever land?”

That’s a valid point, oh great and wise dragon, but there are a few cases where you might want to land.

You’re out of room to maneuver.

The most obvious use of landing is when, after you’ve moved, you realize you are getting closer to the edge than you like. You can elect to land, which means you’ll be able to pivot on the following turn, and you’ll be able to avoid an embarrassing death.

Pivoting is fairly powerful, especially if the creature pivoting is a higher level, as it lets you choose your facing after lower level creatures have moved.

However, it also prevents you from taking an action that turn and makes you easier to hit, so if your opponent(s) are paying attention, they can position themselves to they’ll be able to take advantage of the bonus attack die they get against you.

For example, if I know your only real choice is to pivot on this turn, I might decide it’s the right time to use my Haste upgrade, because Haste’s -1 attack die will be cancelled out by the +1 I gain because you pivoted, allowing me two attacks at full value.

Alternatively, if I have a Frost Giant out, I could use the Poison Blade or Frost Battle Axe to gain a +1 attack die in addition to the +1 attack die I will get for attacking a creature that just pivoted, for a total roll of 6 attack dice.

So while pivoting might be a great move, as it allows you to choose your facing, it can hurt if your opponent can maneuver two or three creatures into attack range.

You want to force your opponent to make a choice.

Your opponent has positioned Balagos so that both of your dragons are going to be in range of his Fire Breath, letting him roll a five die attack, that penetrates armor, against each of your dragons (six if you’ve wounded Balagos!).

If you land one of your dragons, you will force your opponent to have to choose which of your dragons to hit, as most area affect upgrades are either ground or air, but not both. By landing, you immediately cause Balagos to lose five (or six) attack dice (he can only attack one of you, not both), and you force the opponent to have to decide which of your dragons to attack.

You’ll want to try to make sure the dragon you’re landing will still get an attack. If Balagos is flying and your dragon has landed, you won’t be able to attack Balagos with a melee attack.

You want to dodge an attack.

If your opponents attackers do not have any ready ranged attacks, landing may prevent them from attacking you at all! They may have forgotten to swoop and might not be able to reach you if you land.

Ok, you’ve landed, what now?

Don’t forget to switch to the ground maneuver dial!

 

See you in the skies!

Card View added to Legion Builder

The Legion Builder now supports linking to an individual card’s details.

Each card in the list now has a Link button that will open a new window showing that card’s details.

Swooping

Hello folks!

The game will be out …

soon
While we’re waiting, I thought I’d talk to you about some of the mistakes you’re likely to make the first few times you play. This is part one of a series; if people seem to enjoy the article, I’ll write some more (about landing, pivoting, spending concentrate and target to cast spells, and more).

You’re going to forget to swoop.

This probably won’t matter much with the starter set, but once you play with ground troops, it will be much more important.

Let’s look at the rules for swooping.

When can you swoop? The choice to swoop, stop swooping, land, and take off all happen during the Change Altitude step of the Activation Phase (page 12-13 of the rulebook). Basically, after a flying creature moves, they may decide to land, swoop, or if on the ground, to take off. You place the appropriate token down next to the creature.

Added: If you do not choose to change your altitude at the end of your movement, you remain at the same altitude. If you were grounded, swooping, or flying, you remain grounded. swooping, or flying.

When should you swoop?

If you have a flying creature and you want to make a melee attack against a non-flying creature, be that a bite, tail swipe, touch attack (hello Lord Max!), you need to be swooping or on the ground to do so.

So if Balagos wants to chew on a ballista, he will have to land or be swooping in order to reach him.

Why not always swoop?

Swooping not only puts you in melee range so you can attack ground units, it lets them, if they have a melee attack, attack you! In many cases, there may not be a significant difference in their attacks, but in some cases, they may have Upgrades that will make their melee attacks more effective.

For example, Jarl Horn has a 4 die ranged and melee attack, but if he is also equipping the Frost Axe, his melee attacks will get +1 die, so you may not want to swoop or land.

If all your enemies have a ranged attack or are also flying, it may make sense to declare you are swooping early, as it means you won’t forget to swoop when you need to later.

That’s all for this post.

See you in the skies!

(Edit: added additional information about altitude changes)

Release Date Updated

The countdown clock has been pushed back due to delays announced by WizKids.

The new expected release dates are:

US: October 29th.

Canada/South America/Mexico: November 5th.

 

Updates to Legion Builder

I just pushed some updates to the Legion Builder:

New Features:

  • On a creature: click an upgrade type icon, or an empty upgrade slot, to show upgrades of that type.
  • Hovering the mouse over an equipped upgrade will now show that upgrade’s details.

Visual:

  • The mouse hover areas of the cards in the card list are more obvious.
  • Fixed the tooltip text on the color icons.

Bugs Fixed:

  • No longer trying to load images before a card is selected.
  • Invisibility will now save correctly when saving links.

Videos from Teri Litorco

Here are a few new DND:AW videos, posted to YouTube by Teri Litorco:

 

First, a Starter Set unboxing:

And a playthrough!

Interested in customizing your dragons? Check out:

 

Check out more of Teri’s videos on her YouTube channel.

Starter Set First Play Suggestions

The Starter set will be flying in in the near future, so we thought we would offer a suggestion on how to jump right in without getting overwhelmed by options!

If you’re playing with 3 players, it’s fairly easy to divide up the dragons.

Balagos, the red, is the biggest, with an attack of 5, health of 6, and 2 armor.

Here are three suggested builds that each add up to 50 Legion Points, giving you a fair 3 player match-up.

Balagos himself is 42 Points, only giving us 8 points to play with. Later you can build bigger legions, but 8 points will be plenty for an introductory game.

You’ll be wanting to give your dragons access to their breath weapons. Since Balagos is a Fire Creature, he’ll want Fire Breath. He could equip a different breath weapon, but he would pay extra to do so. The basic elemental breath upgrades have a point cost equal to the Creature’s Primary Weapon Value. Balagos is a big beefy 5, making Fire Breath Cost 5 Legion Points.

With only 3 Legion Points remaining, there are still a surprisingly large amount of options, but for this first game, I suggest Searing Flames, which is a nice follow up to Balagos’ Fire Breath, as it allows you to do an additional damage to 1 Creature you just damaged with Fire Breath. Searing Flames is 3 Legion Points, so that brings us to an even 50.

Balagos 50 LP build:

balagos-startEshaedra, the blue, is a bit smaller. She has an attack of 4, a health of 5, and 2 armor. She costs 39 Legion Points, giving us bit more room that Balagos had. Again, we’ll want a breath weapon. In Eshaedra’s case, we’ll be equipping Lightning Breath. Her Primary Weapon Value of 4 makes Lightning Breath cost 4 Legion Points.

We still have 7 Legion Points left, and again, that leaves a lot of options, but for this introductory game, let’s play with the obvious follow up to Lightning Breath, System Shock. System Shock costs 3 Legion Points and let’s you prevent a Creature you’ve just damaged with Lightning Breath from taking any Actions on the following turn. This means no Charges, Concentrates, or any of the sneakier Actions Creatures can play.

That leaves us with 3 more Legion Points, so let’s take a look at the card that only Eshaedra herself can equip: Devotrix of Tiamat*. This Upgrade allows you to roll an extra attack die against Creatures in your forward arc and let’s you reroll blank results once!

* Tiamat? Hmm, that sounds important, but it’s probably just some flavor text…

Eshaedra 50 LP build:

eshaedra-startFinally we have the only Good dragon in the Starter Set, Galadaeros. The Copper Dragon is the smallest of the starting dragons with an attack of only 3, a health of 5, and only 1 armor. Let’s face it. The Evil dragons will probably team up to kill Galadaeros, so he’ll have to play a little smarter. Fortunately, he is the highest Level Creature in the Starter Set, so he will get to move last and attack first!

In your first game, you may want to ask the player with the most experience with tactical games to play Galadaeros, as he doesn’t get to roll as many attack dice as the other two dragons and needs to depend on more than brute strength.

Galadaeros’ lower stats means he only costs 37 Legion Points. He will still want his breath weapon, as it can penetrate the two Armor that both Eshaedra and Balagos have. His breath is an Acid Breath and it costs 3 Legion Points.

Galadaeros won’t want to let the other two dragons get too close, so slowing them down with Slow Breath, which also takes away a defense die, is a good choice and costs another 3 Legion Points.

Trickster lets Galadaeros play with his enemies, disabling their Upgrades. A very nice ability for 4 Legion Points.

Galadaeros still has 3 more Legion Points to spend. If you want to just help him live a little longer, you can equip False Life, a spell that can absorb some of the damage you take.

If Galadaeros is feeling a bit more frisky, he can take two other spells instead, Ray of Enfeeblement, which can lower the amount of attack dice your enemies get to roll and Blur, which makes his defense dice more effective. These spells cost 1 and 2 Legion Points, respectively.

Keep in mind that Spells, like many other Upgrades, need to be activated to work. Simply equipping them is not enough.

Galadaeros False Life 50 LP build:

gally-start-false-life

Galadaeros Ray of Enfeeblement and Blur 50 LP build:

gally-start-ray-and-blurEach Unique Creature also has a special ability. I won’t go into them in this post, but you should keep each of them in mind when choosing how to build your Legion and how to play each Creature!

See you in the skies!

FAQ: Do area attacks hit both ground and air, or only one level?

Area attacks say “make a separate attack against each Creature (ground or air)”. Do they hit both ground and air, or only one level?

Check out page 18 of the rulebook: Most area attacks specify “ground or air.” When initiating such an area attack, the attacking creature must specify which play level will be affected.

Wave 1 Campaign Adventure Order

Each expansion comes with an adventure. They can be played in order to form a Campaign. The optimal order to play the Wave 1 adventures is:

  1. Green Dragon
  2. Wraith
  3. Sun Elf Wizard
  4. Frost Giant
  5. Dwarven Ballista
  6. Hobgoblin Troop
  7. Sun Elf Troop