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Hello, Splinter fans!
This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Broken Arrows rulesets which means that the monsters with Ranged attacks cannot be used in battle.
So now we know our opponent’s team will be built out of Melee and Magic monsters, or they could use just either one but I like to be prepared for everything, so I’ve strengthened my defence with that in mind.
My example battle happens to be a Brawl match with a 55 mana cap and an additional ruleset called What Doesn’t Kill You which will surely add even more flavour to it.
Let’s have a look at my choices!
I chose the HELIOS MATRIARCH as my summoner because she’ll allow me to bring two very special cards to the table. Thanks to her summoner buff, one of them is a Gladiator unit while the other one represents her Splinter — the Dragon.
Matriarch will also boost the speed of all of my monsters by one.
The legendary GRUM FLAMABLADE has a base health of 10 hit points and an armour of 5 points but what makes him a great tank unit for a battle in which the probability of magic attacks has increased is his Void Armor ability
The enemy magic monsters will now have to go through his armour just like everybody else. This, and the dreaded Bloodlust ability will make Grum a great choice the stand in front in a Broken Arrows battle.
One other thing, in Broken Arrows matches it’s more likely that the opponent will go with monsters who have the Demoralize ability so having a melee attack strength of 4 would still leave Grum pretty dangerous offensively.
Speaking of melee attack strength, CHIMNEY WALLSTOP is even more lethal in that sector and will be helping Grum in bringing down the opponent tank unit. To do this, he will use his Reach ability to attack from the second spot.
Chimney Wallstop is also well built with a base health of 9 and 3 armour points.
My idea behind using these two strong frontline monsters is the possibility of activating either ones Bloodlust. This is very likely as they will be both targeting the same monster.
Let’s move on to my defensive plans.
While Grum Flameblade was chosen to take the edge of the possible magic monsters, DISINTEGRATOR is here to do the same to their melee units.
Because of its Demoralize ability, it will reduce all enemy melee attacks by one point. This will hopefully frustrate my opponent as my first three monsters are pretty well armoured and carry a nice amount of health too.
One of the most recent additions to my collection is TORCH VIZIEROpportunity monster who will be targeting the weakest link in the enemy ranks.
Torch Vizier has the least amount of health on my team but has a base speed of 4 and thanks to my summoners buff, it will be boosted to 5 which should come in handy against possible Opportunity monsters.
TENYII STRIKER is pretty similar to Torch when it comes to stats but instead of Opportunity, he has the ability which will make him attack the very last unit on the enemy team.
Lastly, I have a little ace in my sleeve, a little nasty surprise in case my opponent should try to sneak in from behind.
As the probability of melee has increased thanks to Broken Arrows, I would bet there’s at least one Sneak unit on their team. If so, they’re in for quite a surprise as they will suffer damage after every successful strike against DJINN CHWALA
This is of course because of the Thorns ability. With a health of 9 and an armour of 5, this Djinn is more than ready to defend against more than one sneaky attack.
Entering The Arena
My opponent decided to choose Thaddius Brood as a summoner, probably thinking I would count on magic. It didn’t happen.
Here you can see how I dulled their most dangerous melee units while my monsters remained strong as there seems to be no Disintegrator in their ranks.
However, this doesn’t mean my victory would already be in the bag, far from it.
There are some pretty lethal units in their squad I need to watch out for:
- Night Ghoul — a strong melee unit with the Taunt ability
- Arachne Thug — a pala shade of Chimney.
- Silent Sha-Vi — I told you there was gonna be a Sneak monster! ??
- Magi Necrosi — we cannot target this one directly because of its Camouflage
- Witch Of Warwick — Isn’t that a place in England? Could be dangerous if she gets the Bloodlust triggered.
- Venari Bonesmith — Hopefully we bring this one down quickly before it gets to gather more health.
The Battle
As always, you can watch the whole battle unfold or/and continue reading my battle report down below!
No surprises at the beginning of the battle: because of Night Ghoul’s Taunt ability, our team was like a swarm of bees all over this creature. The Night Ghoul was barely alive after the first round while my tank still had 7 points left of his health.
The second round was really eventful. Night Ghoul was now gone Silent Sha-Vi was almost gone as it kept attacking Djinn Chwala and suffering damage from the Thorns. Quickly after that, we managed to remove Arachne Thug’s armour and Chimney Wallstop got to kill the creature for good and activate his Bloodlust.
Silent Sha-Vi was now in front and it had become the fastest unit on the battlefield. The first thing it did was to take down the well-served Grum Flameblade. Chimney then got enraged and destroyed Sha-Vi and again, the Bloodlust made him now even stronger.
Magi Necrosi was now in the open and on the first spot. I wouldn’t wanna be him though. Not now as he was facing the enraged Chimney Wallstop.
Magi’s speed couldn’t save him and after he was gone, there was only the Witch Of Warwick left. She managed to extend the battle to the fifth round but then it was Chimney time and the game was all over.
My strategy was a huge success! Taking away the sharpest edge of their attack, from both the magic and melee, I managed to dominate the field with my Bloodlust monsters.
If we take a look at the setup picture again, we can see that with just 3 defensive units I could turn the whole battle in my favour.
1. Grum and his Void Armor bought my team some valuable time and therefore created more opportunities for my other units.
2. Disintegrator made 50% of the enemy team less dangerous with Demoralize while Djinn Chwala almost destroyed Silent Sha-Vi by just standing there!
All in all, since 1/3 of the ways of attacking are not in play, use whatever abilities you have in your toolbox to counter magic and melee. Your opponent will very likely diversify and use both.
Thank you for reading and make sure to follow for more content!
