Unit of The Week: Sothkin Chemist

It's time again for everyone to drop what they're doing and listen to my insane rantings about army construction. To the left you can see the walking piece of awesome that is the Sothkin Chemist. I predict that when the open play testing starts in a week or two, this unit is going to be in many many dominant armies until people start adapting their strategies to avoid him self-destructing their army away. The unit was one I made when first experimenting with the goblins, trying to capture the flavor of a bumbling goblin that sometimes healed with his potions but quite often just blew himself up. It took Gavin only a short time to realize that this unit could be the key piece of an extremely dominant army that wins by trading 2 or 3 for one of your units for theirs. Tonight, I'm going to show you two armies, one of which is the army Gavin has designed and has done extremely well in internal testing, the other of which is the army that I have designed to make maximum use of the piece.

Army One: Gavin's "The Boom Deck"

Explorers: 3
1x Lord Raleigh the Cruel- Provides Long-Range support with the unlimited range Addled Stupor and range 4 Cull the Weak
1x Archmage Tarode- Simply amazing, pumps up basically every unit in the deck, especially giving that crucial extra point of defense to the Sothkin Chemist
1x Hyduk, Shaman Leader- Whipping Rod can take out weakened enemy units or spur a last minute flag capture. Fiery Miasma is a great 1 hex spell that only affects enemies.

Assistants: 15
3x Sothkin Chemist- Often taking out 2 or 3 enemy units, the Chemist is simply an all-star. Don't use it's healing ability much, as it only makes it an easier target for enemy magic-users
3x Winged Exploder- The next unit giving "The Boom Deck" its name can deal 2 damage to each local enemy unit when it attaches. this generally causes 2 units to each lose 2 life, which, combined with spell-casters, spells doom for most enemy assistants
3x Kaalik Acidspitter- The Kaalik Acidspitter, while somewhat of an odd choice for this army, is simply devastating on both offense and defense. Its acid ability combines well with Cull the Weak, and the 2 DMG ranged attack can destroy enemy assistants easily.
2x Arm of the Kel- The only real strong melee unit, the 5 life, 2 DMG Arm of the Kel packs a punch that can be used to tie down and eliminate enemy explorers with the help of Acidspitters and your spellcasters.
2x Hurir Battlemage- While a mediocre unit on melee attack and defense, the Dark Blaze spell shines when you need to rush a heavily fortified enemy.
2x Kel'Quiroth Cult Wizard- We have already covered the interaction between the Cult Wizard and Arm of the Kel here, but it also provides a finisher with tooth of the Kel powering a +1 DMG offensive to a unit already hit with a -3 DEF penalty.

Artifacts: 3
1x Crown of the Sea King- the Swimmer ability is highly useful when escaping
1x Demonic Amulet- gives +1 life for picking it up, with a useful ability
1x Seven League Boots- speed bonus makes for quicker retrieval

Terrain: 3
1x Western Outpost- Easily defensible, with great positions for casters to set up in
1x Wooded Mesa- Advantageous terrain for most of map
1x The Terrace- Choke points are ideal for blowing up chemists in

I am going to leave this space for a piece on how to play this army to be written later (perhaps by the army's creator, Gavin)

Army Two: John's "Two Birds, One Stone"

Explorers: 3
1x Archmage Tarode- Simply amazing, pumps up basically every unit in the deck, especially giving that crucial extra point of defense to the Sothkin Chemist
1x Tesl the Beckoner- Spawning Chemists in 1 turn range of enemy units makes me laugh. A LOT.
1x Tyralith, Magiloth Ancient- Tyralith is simply the best explorer to retrieve the artifact late in the game. Too early in the game for that? That's easy, just morph him into one of your other two explorers and save him for later.

Assistants: 15
3x Sothkin Chemist- Often taking out 2 or 3 enemy units, the Chemist is simply an all-star. Don't use it's healing ability much, as it only makes it an easier target for enemy magic-users
3x Winged Exploder- This can deal 2 damage to each local enemy unit when it attaches. this generally causes 2 units to each lose 2 life, which, combined with spell-casters, spells doom for most enemy assistants
3x Apprentice Cryomancer- Nova's Light can protect your units while helping Cull the Weak, and Frost Nova is a great AOE spell.
2x Exterminator- Cull the Weak provides long-range backup for your units, while deathblow helps finish of stragglers of attacks by Exploders and Chemists.
2x Kaalik Acidspitter- The Kaalik Acidspitter, while somewhat of an odd choice for this army, is simply devastating on both offense and defense. Its acid ability combines well with Cull the Weak, and the 2 DMG ranged attack can destroy enemy assistants easily.
2x Belentae Knight- with 4 movement and 2 DMG, the drawback doesn't matter when you can move in and kill enemies quickly.

Artifacts: 3
1x Shield of Klorinor- Spell Resistance is amazing
1x Demonic Amulet- Gives +1 life for picking it up, with a useful ability
1x Seven League Boots- Speed bonus makes for quicker retrieval

Terrain: 3
1x Western Outpost- Easily defensible, with great positions for casters to set up in
1x Barricades- A sort of cross between Outpost and Terrace, Barricades is defensible and has choke points for Chemist destruction.
1x The Terrace- Choke points are ideal for blowing up Chemists in.

Play Strategy:
Playing the "Two Birds, One Stone" army is really quite simple. Use your strong offensive casters in support positions while trading multiples of their units for single ones of yours. When they have a brief advantage, simply retreat back into your well-defended maps and start picking them off by spells (as spells can go through walls). When you have Tesl the Beckoner out, you can use this strategy on their side of the board, putting your a turn or two of movement away from their artifact space. When you have Archmage Tarode out, you can play a little more riskily, as you can hold your own in melee combat. The general way the deck wins is by just killing off all of the enemies or by using Tyralith to steal their artifact when you've put them at enough of a disadvantage.

Differences Between the Two:
The army that Gavin uses is much more offensive, with 3x Acidspitter and 2x Arm of the Kel. My army tries to play defensively, and as such has more casters, such as the Apprentice Cryomancer. His explorers are much more concerned with support roles, whereas I am using my explorers as the warriors that I don't include among my assistants (yes I am aware that Tesl has basically no attack, but he spawns my army forward) Anyway, as it is getting late, I will try to update these again soon, but now guarantees.

This Week In Ruin: December 7

Considering I haven't posted in over a month, let me bring you up to speed. Ruin development has bogged down as we lack fresh inspiration for new units. We have been playing a lot of games recently, so we made a lot of changes to individual units. Currently, we are working on rounding out our unit base and increasing our numbers of terrain and artifact cards. As our goal is begin official playtesting over winter break (Starting December 21st), we will be crunching in overtime over the next couple of weeks to make up for lost time in November.

Some Statistics: (Green for Good, red for bad)
Number of Assistants: 56
Number of Explorers: 15
Possible Combinations of 3 Assistants and 1 Explorer: 2634240
Number of Terrain Cards: 6
Number of Games of Ruin Played to date: 30+
Average Game Time: 35-40 mins (goal time is 25-35)

You can see some differences in these versus our October 19th Statistics here
Though many things remain very similar, the number of games we've played (and therefore our experience of what makes a good unit on the battlefield) has gone up tenfold. Also, we're working on closing the gap with the final couple terrain, artifact, and explorer cards that we need to finish off the set.

Well, until next time, I hope I've Ruined your week.

Rules Schmules: Casting Spells

One of the most important things in Ruin is the spellcasting. Spells can be anything from a mental attack using carefully honed powers to conjuring a giant ball of fire.

They can be cast in many forms, but the way that they work in terms of game play is very specific. During the combat phase a unit with spells may instead of attacking, cast a spell. You must specify the target and the spell being cast at the beginning of the combat phase. The target unit must be in range of the spell at the beginning of the combat phase and must still be in range at the end of the attack step.

Spell templating on a card with be as follows:
-First, bold text will say Spells:
-Then, in italic text, the spells that unit can cast will be grouped by the number of uses they have. Some spells only have a few uses, some can be used an unlimited number of times.
-Then, it will have a dash, list the name of the spell, a Semi colon, the range, then a colon, then the effect of the spell will be printed, so a spell section might look like this:

Spells:
3 Uses -Defensive Attunement; Range 2: Target ally gains "If this unit has a local or adjacent Kaalik ally, it gains +2 Armor" for 5 turns.
2 Uses -Mind Blast; Range 3: Deal 1 DMG to target unit
1 Use -Force of the Swarm; Range 2: Deal X DMG to target unit, where X is ½ the number of Kaalik units in play, rounded up

Spell effects are put on the stack at the end of the combat step, just after combat damage has been put on the stack, but before either player has a chance to play any instant speed abilities.

Many spells have a number of turns that they last. The number of turns a spell has left loses one at the end of your turn. So, for example, if you cast a spell that lasts for five turns, at the end of the turn you cast it on, it will have four turns left.

Terminology in spells:
Range: The maximum number of hexes away the target unit or hex can be. So for example, If a spell has range 1, you can target a unit in the hex of the caster or a unit adjacent to the caster, but not one two hexes away.
Target: this means that the spell will require you to select a target at the beginning of the combat phase
Unit: this means any unit within range of the spell. Alone, without any other specifications, it also means that they can target the caster of the spell if you so desire.
Hex: this means any hex within range of the spell (unless modified by local or adjacent)
Ally: this means a unit other than the caster that is controlled by you
Enemy: a unit in range controlled by your opponent
Hex: a single cell on the board
Local: in the same hex as the unit or hex referred (usually the caster)
Adjacent: in a hex next to the unit or hex referred to (usually the caster)