Direchasm - TOP 10 Gambits

 Hello, fellow champions! Today I would like to present you with the second part of the TOP series for Direchasm. This time I will be talking about the Top 10 gambits of Direchasm. If you’re interested to see my take on the best objective feel free to check my article here.

As in the previous article - I’ll be focusing on universal cards only. Also, the order in which cards are presented is semi-random and does not reflect their relative power level within the pool as it is not my intention to show THE best gambit, but rather highlight the pool of most interesting/powerful cards in the set. At the end of the article, I’m going to share my general thoughts about Direchasm’s gambits as a bonus to the list. Let’s get to the list!

Beast Trail - a modern version of the Hidden Paths. This has been an insane mobility card back in the Shadespire/NV era. And it remains very strong in the current environment. While it might not be used offensively anymore due to a large number of movement-boosting ploys, this is still a very good ploy to teleport around the board. Control decks can successfully use it to take their key fighter into safety. It is also a very nice tool to get your fighter onto an objective in enemy territory. Its offensive playmaking potential remains very high as well - this could help deliver your big hitters to the enemy easily - a feat that is especially useful if longboarded.

Eternal Chase - this card has a lot going on and it’s amazing how many different uses you can find for it. The obvious usage is to boost your warbands’ movement to 4. It can be a godsent gift to slower teams. Especially those with movement 2, but there’s also a lot of movement 3 warbands who would be very happy to get that extra point of movement.

Another smart way of using this card is to reduce enemy fighters’ movement. This could stop them from reaching your fighters and prevent them from scoring speed-based objectives by fixing the movement speed to 4 for the entire round. That could be very painful to your opponent and have a significant impact on the entire game.

The last effect to consider is an option to turn every fighter into a hunter and a quarry. It can be very helpful if you’re playing objectives that require and interaction with either of the keywords. This card can provide you the missing pieces and help score those objectives. Quite a swiss knife type of a card and because of that has found itself on this list.

Outrun Death - we remain in the space of mobility cards. This is a variant of the good old Spectral Wings. There are however two key differences: you have to choose a fighter when you play this card and this card’s effect persists until the end of the round or until that fighter is killed. This is significant because you can work around any disruptions played to make the next activation a poor moment to charge (for example Duardin Resilience is played) and simply delay your move without losing the benefit of this ploy. It’s also great if you can move twice in during a single round. Lastly, this card can quickly provide you a quarry keyword if necessary. This makes this card the best +movement ploy in the game now.

Punching Up - this card is a killer. It can turn a small horde member into a monster. With one +damage upgrade and this card, you can easily hit for 3-4 damage on 3-4 dice. It’s that good. It has only one limitation - you have to put this on a fighter with the lowest wounds characteristic on the board. Which typically is not hard as a horde player. Those dudes are usually at 2 wounds and are almost guaranteed to be eligible targets for this ploy. It is so good that I’m really surprised it is not restricted yet. But I’m almost certain it will hit the FAR list during the next revision. I believe such a card is a mistake - it combines accuracy with damage in one card, which is too much for a single ploy. It is also very harmful to 4 wound elite warbands. Horde can easily turn into 4 wound model killers who are also expendable. So even if you will lose your torpedo goblin/skeleton/ghoul/Skaven that’s fine - it’s a great trade for you.

Strength of the Swarm - if Punching Up was not enough for you, then meet this card. This is the second ploy that incorporates damage and accuracy in one card. Luckily this one has more meaningful requirements and takes more effort to get the full benefit. Having said that there are warbands who can trigger this easily - Kainan and Gitz are the two who can get this benefit with a little effort. Having those two cards in the card pool empowers aggressive playstyle and no 4 wound fighter can feel safe around those little guys. 

Hungry Advance - this is a Direchasm’s take on the Sidestep. Requires your fighter to move closer to the enemy and gives him a hunger counter. Friendly pushes are always good. And this one is even more interesting because of that hunger counter. It can help any hunger build stack those counters while doing something very useful. Before the FAR came and took Ferocious Resistance away, this card was the main option to enable additional healing chances from FR.

Heeded Instinct - as mentioned before - friendly pushes are very good. In the case of this card, this push can be up to two hexes assuming your fighter is a quarry. This is excellent for both defensive fighters, who are happy to sit on an objective while being a quarry, or for aggressive fighters, who can become quarry thanks to cards like Strength of Terror or Augmented Limbs. In a way, this is a better version of Commanding Stride - a card that I’ve been using extensively. You can push only 2 hexes rather than 3, but it works on any fighter and you’re not limited to ending the push on a starting hex. Thanks to this card you can easier get on an objective or deliver your fighter into attack range to maximize the number of attacks from him.

Symbiote’s Call - I love how flexible this card is. You can use it to get your fighter on the objective. Alternatively, you can flip a feature token - either aggressively to remove an objective from the game, or defensively - to re-flip an objective back. This can interrupt your opponent’s plans by stopping Feed the Beastgrave or allowing you to score hold-based objectives that the opponent thought are already disrupted.

Living Land - this card is similar to Symbiote’s Call. It is achieving the same goals but is doing it a bit differently. Instead of pushing a fighter, you can push one objective token in your territory. Alternatively, you can flip one objective token. Limitations are different than in the case of a Symbiote’s Call, which is more restrictive, but I believe the card is very well balanced. Again, this card is very flexible and can support multiple playstyles.

Energy Drain - This is a very interesting tech piece. It’s great for hunger builds, as it can easily generate large amounts of counters. This can be invaluable if you want to go down the hunger path and score glory that way. But that’s not why the card is on my top list. It is here because of its other use - an ability to give a move token to a fighter who is in the same hex as an objective. That is a powerful effect - it allows you to control your opponent. You can deny a strong fighter the chance to charge your guys, disrupt Absolute Stillness or simply lock your target in place. It’s similar to Transfixing Stare, which was a very strong card, but it is in a way better - yes, your target has to be on an objective, but there’s no range limitation to this ploy. And that is significant - especially if you intend on shutting down range 2 fighters like Mollog or Kainan. Stare was not a good tool for that task. With a bit of luck (or pushes) Energy Drain can be more effective.

_______

And that is the list! The good thing about it is the fact that it is quite diverse in play styles that can be supported by those cards. It’s quite apparent that there has been some serious consideration being put into designing this season’s cards. Sure, Direchasm is expressing more focus on aggressive play, but the gambits are very well-rounded. You can find here pushes, accuracy, damage, and some interesting control pieces. What’s also notable is how flexible some of those cards are. I like that design, where your ploy can do more than one thing and you can choose which of the effects are more beneficial for you at this point. This is the area where the skill of the player can show itself - get a swiss knife and see how well you can use it to get your thing done.

Another thing that I wanted to highlight is magic support. Or rather lack of it. Yes, there are 13 gambit spells released, which is a fair number. But the problem is that those effects are either lackluster or too hard to cast. Yes, being able to inspire your fighter is awesome… but not when you need a level 2 wizard and have about a 44% chance to cast it. Magic was strong as long as Nightvault cards were in the rotation. That set had the tools to make casting spells more reliable, had strong spells, and a lot of objectives to score off it. Now it’s mostly a bare-bones magic dice throwing. There’s not enough support to make casting easier and even if there was some… there are not enough reasons to invest in those things. If you’re planning to invest a couple of cards just to get a single effect (and still not having 100% certainty you’ll cast the spell) then know it’s not worth it.

There’s only one spell worth considering, which is also landing as my “honorable mention” choice: Hypnotic Aspect. This is a very good effect, but then again - it’s a weaker Distraction - limited range and with a chance to fail. And it is arguably the best gambit spell in the entire season. This shows the sad state magic is in. And frankly - I would prefer it being abandoned altogether rather than see 12 slots wasted for virtually unplayable spells.

Overall I feel like gambits in Direchasm are interesting and fairly balanced… if not on the weak side as a whole set. I’ve done a small exercise and reviewed my decks to see how often I’m using Direchasm’s gambits. And the results are not amazing - most often we’re talking about one, max two cards. Essential card pack has similar or better participation than the entire DC set. Things might be different if you’re playing more hold objective-based warbands, but overall it feels like gambits were de-powered in this expansion in favor of upgrades and faction-specific cards. Which does make sense, but might also be an intentional move to reduce the power creep a bit. 

What are your thoughts about Direchasm and its gambits? Let me know in the comments!