Greetings! Today I wanted to launch a small series of summary posts about Direchasm. First on the roadmap is the post about objectives. Here I plan to present you my Top 10 of Direchasm objectives and share some reasoning why I feel they’re so good. I would also like to share my general view on the objectives in this season.
An important thing to note - I’m going to cover only universal objectives in my Top list. I don’t want to focus on faction-specific cards in this series, but those will certainly find themselves mentioned in those articles. Also, the order in which I’ve put the cards is not related to which is better and which is worse. I don’t want to say it’s random order, but the ordering is not related to their power level. So, having said that, let us jump into the list.
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Bold Deeds - an end-phase scoring card providing much-needed two glory for aggro. This is something aggro warbands lacked in the previous season. And this is a very welcomed addition to the card pool. It’s not only a very decent source of glory, but it is also a pretty well-designed card. It’s not a card that can be auto-scored. You have to put a noticeable level of effort into scoring it. And it also offers a degree of counterplay. If you have two dead fighters, you can do nothing about it unless you’re playing a warband that can bring fighters back to life. But the second condition is something that could be played around. You could either prevent one enemy fighter from entering your territory, or you could benefit from them moving in and maybe go claim some uncontested objectives in your opponent’s territory. It’s also a bit hilarious how difficult this card becomes to score if two aggressive warbands meet and both would like to be in their enemy territory.
Clean Kills - this is a very similar objective to Bold Deeds and it fills the same space in the deck. However, I like this one because I’m finding its design pretty clever. It’s a great objective for a warband that lacks the mobility, or has too many fighters, to move everyone into enemy territory. In addition, it also works well in situations where it’s you who had to take a defensive deployment. Most often to score this objective you’ll have to make two kills. There’s however a twist that I love - if you’re facing some though guys, it’s very likely you’ll score it from a single kill. This scaling is great! Having to kill two Krusha’s or two guys from Mollog’s mob can e difficult. Killing a single Krusha with a +wounds upgrade equipped, or taking down an Ogre is much easier, even though still a challenge. Because of that, we’re presented with an objective that works fairly well against any size of the opposing warband. And again - there’s counterplay to it. No enemy fighters can have wound counters. This means that not only you do have to be clever about attacking and damaging your opponents, but they also can stop you from scoring this one with a simple lethal hex.
Unafraid - this is a very cool one. It is an objective that could be scored by both aggressive and more defensive warbands. It does reward good positioning and packing in some pushes can go a long way when you try to score this. There’s an interesting interaction for aggro warbands, where you might want to not kill too many fighters at once or you’ll find yourself unable to score this. Overall this is yet another 2 glory end phase objective that can provide you a pretty reliable scoring. And yet again - this is a card that can be countered. Your opponent can position himself in such a way that he will leave one of your fighters too far away from his fighters. Or he will Distraction/Sidestep fighters to deny you the glory from this one. If played correctly, you can score this without too much investment in power cards. But to do so you’ll need to either face a horde or simply play a good positioning game. And rewarding good positioning and strategic thinking is the proper way of designing objectives in my book.
Dominant Position - this time we’re looking at what I call the “modern hold objective” style of card. It’s not a heavy lifting 3 glory end phase card, but 2 glory is very decent as well. How to get it? Simply hold more objectives than your opponent. I like how flexible this card is. You don’t have to sit on three objectives like in the past. You don’t have to deny your opponent from holding any, like in the case of Uncontested. Instead, just hold more than your opponent and you can add two glory to your pool during the end phase. I think this is a cool design - still takes some effort, can be counter played, but at the same time offers good glory (and not too much of it) for a reasonable amount of effort. Because of that, this card has a place in virtually any deck that would like to score from holding objectives.
Lie in Wait - another hold-based objective. The first option is not particularly good - it’s a worse version of the Supremacy. Things get more interesting with a second option to score this - it’s enough to have two quarries holding an objective to get this tasty 2 glory. This is very cool, as goes well together with things like Absolute Stillness, Dominant Position, Hidden Purpose, etc. Quarry takes some investment, but overall it’s not hard to obtain. And in general, this fits well into the “Hold 2” strategy. The amount of synergy you can get from hold cards is awesome.
Underdog - a very flexible objective, that mainly favors more numerous warbands where giving up Primacy token is almost guaranteed. It is also very good for a warband that might take a bit longer time to score objectives, or are happy to go second during the round and try to score this one from its secondary condition. This card is a great response for a strong aggro meta - your opponent will be happy to keep the Primacy token, while you can easily gain two glory from it.
Surge of Aggression - this is a fantastic surge. It’s pretty much a kill surge. It can however be scored via ploys and other effects that can provide the Primacy token. It also does provide an alternative scoring condition. While it’s not very likely you’re going to make a successful 4+ damage attack and not claim the Primacy off it, it’s a good backup option where you can score this from hitting a wounded fighter. Or a fighter that has a lot of wounds and can survive the attack. It is arguably one of the best surges in the entire expansion. It’s flexible and very easy to score.
Everything to Prove - a younger brother of Surge of Aggression. It’s just as good and as flexible as its older brother. It works very well for both hordes and hard aggro teams. For hordes, this is similar to good old Martyred - losing one of your weak fighters will almost certainly give up the Primacy to your opponent and will allow this objective to be scored. At the same time, aggressive players can easily turn one of their fighters into a quarry and score this as well - there are plenty of very good aggro upgrades that also provide the quarry keyword. So in theory Kainan with Strength of Terror could score both cards in a single blow.
Fleeting Primacy - this mini-version of Temporary Victory might grant only 1 glory, but it is unrestricted and most likely will remain as such. Alone this card is not that amazing - holding 3 objectives for that single glory might not seem like a lot. But the true power of this card comes from the fact that it has amazing synergy with TV and other hold objective cards. I’m not sure if HO playstyle needs this level of synergy, but they have it and this card helps to attain it. It will be the core surge for HO going forward after Beastgrave will rotate out - current staples will be no more.
Winged Death - Direchasm’s contribution to the speed package. It’s arguably the most demanding one, as it requires your fighter to not only have a movement of 6 but also to end his charge 6 hexes away from the starting point. So it is a marriage between Gathered Momentum and Cover Ground. Its alternative scoring condition provides some much-needed support for ranged playstyle, which is great. Overall I like this card - it’s solid, but at the same time requires some positioning for it to work. And it offers a reliable scoring that comes at a cost of having to boost your movement or less reliable scoring that essentially requires you to make a kill, but you don’t have to spend any cards for that if you’re feeling good about your chances to hit.
Closing Thoughts
Overall Direchasm has provided some excellent end phase objectives. Almost any playstyle has been granted their share of decent 1-2 glory cards that can be scored reliably. What’s cool is that most of those offer some sort of counterplay, so your opponent can try stopping you from earning that glory. I think this is very cool and healthy for the game. Sitting there and just going through your deck, because there’s nothing your opponent can do to stop you, isn’t that fun in the long run.
The only playstyle that was left back in the dust is upgrade stacking control - we’ve had Relics, Tomes, and Lost Pages present as an archetype. Direchasm had the opportunity to do something cool with Silent Relics, but this opportunity has been wasted. This fairly noninteractive archetype has been controversial for a very long time and this time game developers opted to not give any support for it. It does make sense even though I did enjoy playing decks like those from time to time. Interestingly enough we’ve got a potential for a hunger-based counter stacking build. A similar principle, but with a twist where instead of stacking upgrades you’ll be stacking hunger counters.
What makes me happy is the fact that aggro-based decks have received strong support in their end-phase glory scoring potential. This has been an area of weakness for a while now and it’s good that this has been addressed.
But not everything is great. While end-phase scoring seems to be decent enough and is an upgrade from the previous season, surge objectives are not looking that great. Out of 35 universal surge cards, 18 are kill surges. Add to it quasi-kill surges like Surge of Aggression and Everything to Prove and we will arrive at 20. That’s a very high number. There are only two hold-based surges, out of which one requires some significant investment in upgrades.
While there are some great surges in this season that can help you get the glory quickly, most of them are simply too random because they require making the kill with some specific condition fulfilled. So if you’re looking for some fast and easy surges to kickstart you into the game at a little cost… Direchasm will have you disappointed.
There’s also a fair share of objective cards that are effectively wasted because they do deal with hunger counters. And that mechanic has proven to be disappointing.
Overall we’re receiving a very solid kit of end-phase objectives, a set of a few surges that will see the play often, however, this comes at a cost of a weaker surge representation. There are some very good surges, but too many of them are simply too unreliable or are based on hunger - a mechanic no one plays outside of the vampires. In general, it feels like this set has been thwarted by the hunger mechanics. It feels like we’ve wasted around 50 cards to print hunger-based tech - something that is there somewhere, but no one will shed a tear after they will leave the format in a year.
My general impression is that there was a conscious effort to reduce the number of easy auto-score cards and replace them with things that require more engagement and combat. This might be a good move - after all, it is a skirmish game. But how will it work? We will see better in S5 when Beastgrave universals will be gone. Up until then, we will keep on sourcing our auto-score surges from there to fuel our warbands. I just hope that this high number of objectives based on killing will not strangle some warbands who don’t have enough kill pressure to start with.
What are your thoughts on the objectives in Direchasm? Which cards are your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
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