The Gar's 
Guide to Ascension
|
Because KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
|
Hot Tip: Feedback on Purifying Horror Article
From: Ian Schreiber
Beating the Cult of Purification
Destroying the base is NOT just a simple task...
Emminent Domain could work if you put a base in the same city
(although destroying it with damage
is better since it kills all the cultists :)
However, Salvage Team (and asset damage too) aren't quite so
easy to pull off, because of two assets: Purifying Warrior and
Purifying Defender (which can use tokens from the Cult base to
gain FP and to heal, respectively). This gives options for both
active and passive defense, which make a conventional attack
against the Cult base harder than it would first appear.
(not to mention, once its location is advertised via Horror that
means they already have one Horror, and might very well have
another Horror on the way by the time you get there! Even one
Horror is potentially enough to do serious damage to an HQ, while
two or three can be game winning!
Unfortunately, once the Horrors start coming into play there actually
isn't all that much you can do about it if the Cult deck is a good
one. The best options include:
- Command Bolt (much as I hate the things, it seems it's an
answer to everything :)
- Bions of all kinds, and Mech defense in general.
- any anti-asset thing like Shackles, Restraining Order, etc. (of
course, when the next Horror stops by in 3 more turns you'd
better have another one ready, so this is temporary at best)
- Power Sink (well, if it gets changed to drain 2 per turn anyway)...
can't attack if they don't have any Cyber, right? (same deal with
Antibodies... won't tap the Horror since it's not a Cyber asset, but
it might just drain them to the point where attacking isn't possible).
- Set off a Napalm in the city; most Cultists will be physically weak
so a Napalm should do pretty well in shutting down the supply even
if you can't attack the base directly.
- And of course, a few Acid Rains work wonders against the Cult,
not to mention against Distrib HQ and Siege Bunker :)
- Most of all, though, the Cult deck is SLOW. Getting the Cult
and a decent number of followers (plus defense) takes a lot of
time, a lot of cards and a lot of resources. The Purifying Horror
will give a mid-late game win at best; thus, speed and other
early attacks are highly effective against a Cult deck.
Some tips if you're BUILDING a Cult deck:
- forget about Arell/Tobi/B&E/Chuck as cultists... use the two-for-one
assets like Ruka Dogs, Sarkov Combine, UNMF Infantry, etc. Or
better yet, use an infinite-asset generator like Aaron Kofler, UN
Recruitment Center, or Antonio Fuego (so what if you're limited to
8 bikers? That's a Horror every 3 turns :). As a side note, all of
these go well with the Birth Cry/Sentience/Ascension cards too
(we in beta called it the "Transcendence" track :)
- Use some sort of defense for the Cult... if it dies you lose all the
Cultists.
- As subtly suggested with your warning against Deportation, using
a Xing to bounce Horrors back to your hand is a valid strategy...
if the Xing dies you don't lose the Horrors to Tetsujin since they're
in your hand, and when you're ready to pounce you just deploy another
Cult at enemy HQ and drop 5 Horrors :)
- Codeslinger makes a halfway decent cult member too... if a
defender is needed he can untap himself.
If you have Ascension Tips, Combos, or suggestions, please email them to:
gar@askgar.com and you'll see
them here, with your name in glory.