I'm Compensating For Something: May Deck Doctor
/As the title suggests, I’m absolutely compensating for something this month. That something is the lack of a Deck Doctor article last month. Sometimes life comes at you fast, and it came at me fast last month, so the tournament came and went without any kind of deck building walkthrough to get ready for what was Battlefields. Even this one is coming in at the buzzer and on the heels of the good news that Warlord is coming back with preview events at GenCon this year! So who else is better to lead the charge this month than the good General Lund?
the original I’m compensating for something Guy from tOL
I’ve always thought General Lund was a cool warlord but I missed his time in the limelight in the Saga block. I was just a wee lad those days trying to figure out why people thought Summoned Skull was better than Blue Eyes White Dragon. I hadn’t picked up my first d20 until Southern Kingdoms and the open format where General Lund lived was daunting to me. An impossible beast to understand and work myself into. Campaign Edition was the safe end of the pool where I could learn to swim. Now it’s time to rectify that by taking a crack at Lund in Ancients. Let’s work through our starters!
he may be a coward, but he can cast flame waves and start in play
I thought a lot about my start for Lund this month, mostly because the deck changes quite a bit depending on who joins the General at the start of the battle. Originally, I was focused on Cal Blackborne. Being in play ready to start slinging 3rd level spells just seems good! Maybe it gets better someday, but I found that Flame Waves was probably my best choice for a 3rd level spell for him to cast, potentially alongside Shadow Bolts and Lund could ready if I drew into extras. There is a deck there, but I don’t think it’s going to hang against starters like Gunda, Danres, Llyr Militia, etc. etc. Unfortunately for Mr. Cal (or fortunately since he is a damn coward) we’re going to have to go with Ol’ Reliable.
I may have copied my homework this month taking a peak at the excellently put together General Lund that Rayne Blythewood has played in the past. That keeps two wizards in our starting formation (this will be important later) with Amoudasi’s Blaze. I think if I’d stuck with Cal, I’d have been looking at starters like Brine Fiend, Regret’s Shadow, and potentially Miserean Trader just to keep some stability in my front rank. With the Blaze and the need to get them up front to swing, Trogid is going to be our top pick so we can dare our opponent to kill one and bring an Inferno out on our next action by swinging away. Also helps to have Trogid in the start since we can’t use 3 copies of Suicidal Charge anymore.
Starting Formation
General Lund
Amoudasi’s Blaze x2
Trogid x3
The Mercenary faction has plenty of bangers in the card pool to choose from. Jackals of Mourn and Toren Yscar are in so many different decks and you can make arguments for plenty of others to be easy includes like Rica O’Shea, Shadowreaver, Cutting North Wind, etc. etc. I wish Ancients was a slower format because the choices for their character pool really harkens back to that old school Warlord feel where you’re trying to get a character from rank four up to rank one to wreck face as soon as possible. Here’s just a quick look at the cards I considered for the deck.
Jackals of Mourn: These guys are going to be in the deck. They’re nearly in every deck that I build because they can get to work quickly and create a potential headache for an opponent since they’re planar.
Toren Yscar: This guy and Jackals lead the pack in the blurb above for a reason. Drawing cards is good and he’s an auto include at x1.
Shadowreaver: 3HP. Planar. Attaches some spells if you want to splash in wizard actions to blitz harder. Auto crit fails. Just an absurd card and it easily made it’s way into my deck.
Venomhiss: My original pass at this went heavier on wizard actions. The idea was to start Cal Blackborne to use Flame Waves early on to put pressure on an opponent’s ranks and Venomhiss was a supporting character there being able to rush up to rank 2 and act as another back up caster.
Baraz: Every deck has a Toren so, in theory, every Baraz should have a target to shoot at.
Rica O’Shea: I love this card. My only gripe with her is that she isn’t level three, but I think she’s a solid choice and can shore up a second rank to keep Lund safe while shooting her shots.
Death Fog: Mercenaries are full of monsters for characters. Another use of Jackals, Shadowreaver, etc. after an opponent misses them a few times because of planar and finally get them discarded just for Death Fog to hit and bring them back to my hand is a great feeling. Maybe for just one person at the table though.
Amoudasi’s Wrath: I’m a Southern Kingdoms guy. It was the set that taught me how to play. I’ll always think of Wrath as an excellent addition to any deck, especially if we’re splashing some wizard spells.
The Cutting North Wind: Another planar monster that hits hard and can move itself or another character at the cost of wounding.
Amoudasi’s Inferno: Obviously finding room for this beauty. If we’re running the Blazes in our start, we’d be doing ourselves a disservice to not have Blaze’s big brother in the deck.
Blitzer: He lost the Reindeer trait but he’s still the PAINDEER.
those antlers are for a lot more than just attracting mates.
And that leads us to the cut and my picks for my character pool:
Characters: 19
Jackals of Mourn x3
Death Fog x3
Shadowreaver x3
Rica O’Shea x3
Amoudasi’s Inferno x3
The Cutting North Wind x2
Blitzer
Toren Yscar
Actions
Look, every fighter is doing it.
After a few months of doing these, I think a trend is starting to show itself. I really like cards that just let me hit people. When I started working through this it was much heavier on the wizard spells and characters, but I ultimately figured the strikes were too low to be worth it and I’d be better off having more beatsticks like Shadowreaver or Cutting North Wind. That doesn’t mean I gave up entirely on the wizard actions though as we’ll see when I go through the run down on the actions I considered for this deck.
Loyalty’s Reward: Drawing cards is always good. I have extra fighters to use Loyalty’s Reward while Lund does his thing or Lund can do it himself if it’s more beneficial to draw instead of readying two characters.
Final Power: A quick +5 strike that ignores planar traits. More importantly, if a wizard like Inferno or Blaze hits my 1st rank I get a shot at that pesky Nothrog / Chosen table that never seems to go out of style.
Fiery Bolts: A quick +4 with potential marksmanship to add bonuses to the roll. It’s not like I’ll make the marksmanship check anyway!
Rescue: I can lose some skills to protect my planar guys from being ganked by a spell. Or to not get stunned forever by Davaenus.
Exhaustion: Meta is meta and Exhaustion is the best meta.
Suicidal Charge: A first turn charge with a Blaze to go fetch Inferno is the reason this card got limited in Ancients. It’s still got the potential to decide a game if you pull it off early.
Well Laid Trap: He’s not a ranger, sure, but it’s an order Lund can perform. Potentially disruptive to an opponent and give you some movement for your own army.
Flame Waves: I think there is some potential here, I’m just afraid to try it. First action from Cal would see a 3/2/1 series of strikes right on the first turn. My fear is that those strikes aren’t strong enough to actually hit when the dice get rolled and I’d be stuck wounding a Gunda and not actually finishing her off.
Shadow Bolts: This was the other contender if I started Cal. Some quick +4 strikes ignoring planar might still be good enough to start Cal but probably not good enough to replace the Blazes.
Meet at the Inn!: It has it’s places in some decks and drawing cards doesn’t hurt. I just hate giving my opponent a card so it’s probably not finding space in my deck.
Actions: 14
Loyalty’s Reward x3
Fiery Bolts x3
Final Power x3
Rescue x2
Exhaustion x2
Suicidal Charge
Keeping it simple here and not trying to break the mold. I want my actions to give me cards, give me strikes, or protect me and each of these fill that role. If Ancients slows down some day I’d probably work in Well Laid Trap just as extra movement for my Blazes. Let’s head to the armory and see what Lund is equipping for the battles ahead.
Items
Kirby’s standard looks much better in pink.
My army is really determining what ends up going in my item slots in this deck. I’d love to slap a King’s Lady on Lund and start carving armies up, but he’s not that kind of general. He’s just out there to give Captain America style inspirational speeches but he’s not about to start throwing his shield around and actually fight people. Let’s make sure we get this army the kit it needs to be in fighting shape!
Figurine of Power: The figurines help us break a deck making rule by giving us 28 characters in a 50 card deck. It’s why they had to be made class specific back when Priam was abusing them towards the end of Campaign Edition. We’ll happily take the extra hit points.
Black Moss: This wasn’t in my original write up since I wasn’t starting Trogid. With Trogid in the mix, it doubles as movement for a lot of my army but especially my Blazes.
Bodyguard: I hate having Corn Chucked at me. It’s the worst. So those Corn Chucker decks that are cute and lob cobs of corn from rank 5? No thank you. I hired a guy to catch the cob.
Kerebrus’ Standard: Let our flags fly and get our guys up to the front and ready for war.
Stormwolf: Every good general needs a horse. Ours just happens to be a wolf and is really for everyone else.
Uthanak’s Ring: Turning falling forward into viable movement since 2002. This will pair nicely with our characters like Rica and Shadowreaver that aren’t going to make it the front ready without some extra help.
Nodwick: If you’re using figurines, Nodwick can get you more mileage out of them.
Items: 11
Black Moss x3
Figurine of Power x3
Bodyguard x2
Kerebrus’ Standard
Stormwolf
Uthanak’s Ring
The only glaring omission is my Nodwick. I opted to have 3 Figurine of Power instead of 2 and 1 Nodwick just because there isn’t anything else for that lone Nodwick to do. If I were to cut items from here, I’d probably add more actions. 3rd Exhaustion is a pretty easy addition as well as a 3rd Rescue depending on how much I like when I test this during Ancients this month. Let’s take a look at the list all put together that I totally sent to Graham a full day before the deck list was due!
Starting Formation
General Lund
Amoudasi’s Blaze x2
Trogid x3
Characters: 19
Jackals of Mourn x3
Death Fog x3
Shadowreaver x3
Rica O’Shea x3
Amoudasi’s Inferno x3
The Cutting North Wind x2
Blitzer
Toren Yscar
Actions: 14
Loyalty’s Reward x3
Fiery Bolts x3
Final Power x3
Rescue x2
Exhaustion x2
Suicidal Charge
Items: 11
Black Moss x3
Figurine of Power x3
Bodyguard x2
Kerebrus’ Standard
Stormwolf
Uthanak’s Ring
There you have it. A tournament ready General Lund. I’d be remiss to not mention that Rayne Blythewood has piloted Lund quite a few times with quite a bit of success so definitely poke his brain if you’re looking to put together your own list. I definitely netdecked his start when my idea for Cal wasn’t really panning out.
I also know we have quite a few new players this month joining us for our Ancients tournament so please feel free to use this or any other Deck Doctor deck that is Ancients format legal! We also have a an ongoing Deck Archive that Graham has been maintaining after events that you can find here. If a Warlord has been played in 2023, you’ll be able to find a list for it here that you can play or modify to your own playstyle! That’s it for this month. Next Ancients tournament, I’m going to take a crack at an old Southern Kingdoms favorite