What is Fear? Fear is not only an emotion, it is a primal urge. Fear is that sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach. Fear is the cold sweat on our foreheads as we wake up after a nightmare. Fear does not want the future to come. Fear is a sense of dread. Although not often acknowledged, fear can also be a respect for power. Fear can be an understanding that there is someone, or something, greater than ourselves and that we should “give it what it deserves.”

One classic myth deals with the sacrifice of the young innocent girl to appease a powerful being. The being in question might be the “volcano god” that she is thrown into, or perhaps the colossal red dragon that lives just beyond the town’s border. Regardless of the exact nature of the appeasement myth, the notion of a sacrifice— to satiate a powerful being that has control over you and your fear— is fundamental to the mythology of human beings. This brings me to the miniatures being previewed today:

Each of the aspects in Dreamblade has a set of abilities associated with it such as Scare or Expel in Fear, but less obviously, each aspect also has a set of disadvantage-style abilities in it. Valor has miniatures with Defender. Madness has lots of minis that Fumble. Passion has Bloodthirsty creatures as well as pieces with the Loner ability. Fear also has a disadvantage that is unique (at least as of the first set) to it. Fear has the Appease ability. Appease uniquely fits the flavor of Fear because it involves death, and desire to avoid a powerful creature such as the Knight of Autumn’s Gate or the Eater of Hope. The Knight of Autumn’s Gate’s appease ability deals with “cheating” death by giving up another life in a sacrificial ritual to prolong the unnatural life of the knight. The Eater of Hope most likely eats the miniature that gets sacrificed to it for breakfast- ironic considering how you often sacrifice a Cannibal Pariah.

Appease at a Glance

Before I get into the strategy of using Appease, it is a good idea for us to go over the important rules regarding Appease. Firstly, Appease is a “Comes into Play” ability. This means that it is (usually) a one time effect rather than abilities like Defender which must be constantly dealt with or Fumble which is a blade ability. Secondly, Appease requires a creature (not a location) to be sacrificed. Sacrifice is a very specific term in Dreamblade. When something is sacrificed it is put into the graveyard from play, but unlike when a creature is destroyed you get no bonus spawn points and your opponent does not get a conquest point for the creature’s demise. Appease does not combo with Regenerating miniatures, contrary to popular kitchen table wisdom. Regenerate only returns a miniature to your reserves if the creature is destroyed. A miniature which is sacrificed (through Appease or any ability) is not destroyed, thus the miniature with Regenerate would not return to your reserves. So, no using Spellbound Scissors with this guy (at least not with any added benefit)!

Appease might seem like the worst of all the negative abilities at first glance. Not only does it increase the amount of spawn it takes to bring the creature into play, but it also reduces the number of pieces in your reserves and on the Dreamscape. Even in a best case scenario, all creatures with Appease essentially cost two more spawn points to bring into play. In many cases, they will actually cost three or four spawn more to bring out in terms of “total spawn points used”. There is a silver lining to this dark cloud; unlike miniatures like the Noble Dragon that require a large spawn point total on the same turn that several miniatures die, miniatures with Appease basically let you “bank” two spawn points for later.

The other problem with Appease is that it hurts your miniatures’ positioning on the Dreamscape. Shifting is a resource that directly trades off with the amount of damage and blades that you get. Each action phase is a chance to shift or strike. This is why spawning miniatures on a portal instead of the correct column on the spawn row is such a disadvantage. In the same way, spawning miniatures and then sacrificing them to miniatures with appease is a fairly substantial disadvantage.

Appease certainly is a negative ability most of the time, but Appease is interesting because unlike Defender, Fumble, Loner, or Bloodthirsty it can occasionally be a positive ability. Sometimes having a small piece like a Cannibal Pariah on the dreamscape can be a major disadvantage. Perhaps your opponent won initiative and he or she is going to have a good chance of rolling some devastating blade abilities. What if your opponent and you have the center of the dreamscape locked up and the score is 5-5? Getting an additional conquest point can be the difference between your opponent winning that critical sixth turn and stealing your glorious victory on the Dreamscape. In cases like these, the Cannibal Pariah is a liability. Often, you would just have to suck it up and deal with the situation, however, miniatures like the Knight of Autumn’s Gate or the Eater of Hope allow you to painlessly remove that Pariah from the Dreamscape and put it into your graveyard.

How do they stack up?

The two miniatures that are being previewed today are the only miniatures in the base set with the Appease ability. Both are very interesting and powerful for their spawn costs. The Knight of Autumn Gate has high power as well as defense and life compared to its spawn cost. At five power it has a decent shot of disrupting anything in its price range while at the same time it is almost impossible for a miniature of six spawn or less to disrupt, let alone destroy, the Knight. Only the Jack in the Box, Doomball, and Skeever Hatchling have powers equal to or greater than the Knight of Autumn Gate for the same spawn cost or less and all of these miniatures have a severe disadvantage. The Jack in the Box and Doomball are essentially one-use miniatures while the Skeever Hatchling can’t use its large power very well because it can’t attack with other miniatures that have useful blade abilities. The Knight also has significantly higher defense and life than any of these miniatures. Basically, the Knight of Autumn Gate is the strongest piece in terms of power, defense, and life for his cost.

The Eater of Hope is also very efficient for its cost. Only the Forgeblind Punisher and Lone Wolf have larger powers than the Eater of Hope. The Punisher is very fragile and the Lone Wolf is a loner which decreases the effectiveness of his large power. The Eater of Hope has the 4th highest defense in the game and the highest life in the game. Basically, this guy is the strongest piece available in terms of power, defense, and life in the game. This is even more impressive because this piece doesn’t cost 12 spawn like many pieces with comparable statistics. Rather, the Eater of Hope costs a paltry 10 spawn points.

The nice thing about disadvantages on pieces is that it allows the developers of Dreamblade to “push the envelope” with how big they can make the piece for its cost. I would guess that the designers decided that Appease was the “most extreme” of the disadvantages and gave these pieces the best stats in relation to their spawn costs. We must remember Appease isn’t always bad. In addition to taking pieces off the Dreamscape, it puts these same pieces into the graveyard. This is a no-brainer, but it is important because in the first set there are several pieces that interact with the graveyard, giving you a chance to make the most of your sacrificed pieces.

Besides allowing you to reduce the aspect costs of miniatures, the graveyard can be an important resource to some armies. Pieces with Raise or Reincarnate can pull pieces back from the graveyard to the player’s reserves. There are other, more insidious, ways to use the dead miniatures. The Carrion Spiker is the first piece to have Thantomancy. Thantomancy gives the creature power equal to the number of creatures in your graveyard. Thus, similar to the Lhurgoyf or the Hellbent mechanic in Magic the Gathering, you will often want to get your creatures into the graveyard (or cards out of your hand as the case may be in Magic). The problem with the Carrion Spiker is that if you wantonly throw creatures into harm’s way you will deplete your resources too quickly and even if you do have an incredibly powerful Carrion Spiker, your opponent will be dominating the board. Appease allows you to “get something” for the death of your miniature. The Knight of Autumn Gate and the Eater of Hope are more powerful than average miniatures of their cost so you get a stronger miniature for the piece you sacrifice. This allows your Carrion Spiker to be more powerful and in turn allows you to win many games.

I decided to build an army to test the ideas discussed above. In addition to the Knights of Autumn Gate, Eaters of Hope, and Carrion Spikers, it was important to include “cheap” creatures. The cheapest that are spoiled right now are the Cannibal Pariah and the Hive Pincer, but if another miniature, say a 2 spawn cost miniature other than the Cannibal Pariah in fear were to be discovered to be in set 1 I would suggest replacing the Hive Pincers with that miniature. So without further ado…

The point of the band is to play as many Appease creatures as possible: sacrificing the Cannibal Pariahs and Hive Pincers to reduce the spawn points lost through the Appease. The subsequent army of pumpkin heads and huge grey-green snake beasts allows you to use lots of blade abilities like those from the Hellshrieker, Jack of Blades, and Dreadmorph Ogre while also killing legions of your opponent’s minions.

The band is an all Fear band because many of your creatures, like the Knight of Autumn Gate, Eater of Hope, and Dreadmorph Ogre have double Fear aspect costs. Other creatures that haven’t been spoiled yet that should probably be included in this band have triple fear in their spawn cost. The band wouldn’t gain that much from including other aspects. It could include Valor for movement abilities to get the Appease creatures into the battle quicker, but Expel and Scare are almost as good by pushing your opponent’s creatures away. It is worth it to keep the band in one aspect. Additionally, I’m in charge of Fear (that’s right, not writing about Fear: Fear itself) so I wanted to start off my series of strategy articles with a mono-fear band. Maybe after a few sets are out it will make sense to diversify the aspects of the Thantomancy-Appease archetype, but for now I think it makes the most sense to keep it mono-aspect.

It is important when building an Appease-based Thantomancy band that you remember to include pieces that have blade abilities that you want to use. Power is most useful when combined with miniatures that have relevant blade abilities. If you don’t run enough pieces with blade abilities your blades are essentially misses. If you are not getting use out of blade abilities then you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. Ideally, there would be a miniature that has a spawn cost of six and has some good blade abilities in Fear, but since a miniature like this hasn’t been spoiled yet I can’t suggest it for my band.

Strengths and Weaknesses of a “Lhurgoyf” Band

The warband has several strengths and weaknesses. The warband’s strengths have been mostly covered above. To summarize:

• Its creatures have higher power and are harder to destroy than other miniatures in the same spawn cost range, thus the big creatures like Knight of Autumn’s Gate and Eater of Hope have greater staying power than most miniatures.
• It doesn’t have a lot of small creatures running around the board as “free” conquest points.
• Carrion Spikers will often be huge. With a large amount of “weenie” pieces dead from the Appease creatures, the Spikers will often have a power of six or greater. This presents a formidable challenge for your opponent, especially in the late game.
• The blade abilities of this army (Scare and Expel) are some of the best in the game. Expel can set up a combo where you chain expel enemies all the way to creatures that you just spawned. This increases the number of times you can attack as well as reduces the negative impact of Appease because it makes shifting less important.

The band also has several weaknesses. To summarize:

• While its piece quality is quite high, the quantity is often low. The warband wants small pieces like Cannibal Pariah and Hive Pincer in the graveyard so your opponent can often slow down your huge pieces with regenerators like Spellbound Scissors at very little cost to him or her.
• The warband is very slow. Even though you might win early turns because you have a larger number of pieces, in the mid-game you may lose many turns as your Appease creatures work their way to the fight. You also can get into trouble if you run out of cheap creatures to use for Appease if your opponent killed them. This leaves you in an unpleasant situation of deciding whether to “protect” your smaller creatures like the Cannibal Pariah, or to “go for the throat” and engage them in combat. Many of the warband’s best pieces like the Carrion Spiker are only good after a significant amount of destruction has occurred, or small creatures are off the board.
• The warband doesn’t play any game altering locations like the Pearlthorn Castle or Heartsblood Temple.
• Enemy warbands that have very high powers, like Passion warbands, can often ruin your day because they actually have the power to kill your big creatures. If you trade pieces 1-1 with an opponent you will eventually lose because you are sacrificing pieces via Appease and to power up Thantomancy.
• The warband’s spawn curve is a little high. With two Eater of Hope miniatures and one Dreadmorph Ogre the warband is top-heavy. The problem is compounded by the lack of spawn points generated by smaller creatures like Cannibal Pariahs. You don’t get the bonus spawn because the miniatures are sacrificed instead of destroyed

Room to Improve and Innovate!

The Knight of Autumn’s Gate and Eater of Hope are powerful pieces with big disadvantages. The best way to take advantage of these miniatures is to reduce the impact of their disadvantage: Appease. This army, through the use of cheap creatures like Cannibal Pariah or Hive Pincer, reduces the opportunity costs to play pieces with Appease. Cheap creatures in combination with creatures with Thantomancy allow the army to run smoothly. This warband is by no means a finished product. As more pieces come out the warband will rapidly improve and could easily become a tournament viable warband. I highly suggest you look over the spoiler when it comes out and decide for yourself how to use pieces like the Knight of Autumn’s Gate or the Eater of Hope to improve upon this warband type.

Good luck, I hope that you all found this article informative and fun to read. I look forward to answering any questions or objections that you have in the forums.