Tonight was about finally dipping my toe into the Warhammer pool. I decided to give the guy getting the most hype right now a test run.

Meet Venerable Dreadnaught. This single die gives every single other die you have the Range ability. For those that are not aware, Range triggers when a character with Range attacks. When this happens, EVERY character with Range deals their Range value in damage to an opposing character die. At first, this may seem like an “ok” ability. A way to remove smaller stats off the Board. However, you put this on a Team that is built around a big Board presence and all of a sudden you have some serious Range damage available to you.

This brings me to the obvious partner in crime for the Dreadnaught… Team Up. Flood the Field with things with various affiliations (Dreadnaught has 2 right off the bat) and all of a sudden you have board clear and giant stats heading across the board.

So, this was the core combination I wanted to go with. See how Range works and punch people in the face with giant characters. Nothing fancy tonight.

What Did You Play?

The Team: Range Team Up

I was more interested in affiliations than I was with characters to be honest. That is why Poxwalker and Primaris Intercessor made the Team. That was another 3 unique affiliations to power Team Up. Poxwalker was dirt cheap and would be an easy early game purchase. Primaris Intercessor was there also to test out the Frag keyword.

Wong was added because… well he is still one of the best cheap characters in the game and the Mystic affiliation gave me another bullet in the chamber. Since I already had Team Up, I decided on Instant War as my second BAC. It would allow me to get Sidekicks out fast, which would make the Team Up threat much worse.

Since my win condition really centered around BAC’s, which my opponent would have access to, I needed some protection. Hello Switch! Two more affiliations and a thorn in the side of actions.

With 3 slots left, I decided I needed some Ramp. Atlas and his Fez Global would fit that need perfectly. He also gave me another affiliation and the possibility for Overcrush in the right situation. I included The Bifrost mostly for the energy fixing capability to give me the extra energy needed on the right turn, but also I wanted to play around with the action ability. Anything to make the Field bigger was a good thing.

Given the spammy nature of this Team, and the possibility that my opponent could do this to me, Meteorite was the final addition. If things went to crap and I was getting spammed by Team Up, she would slow the bleeding somewhat.

9 unique affiliations available for the Team Up cannon. Let’s see how it ran.

Game 1:

Dreadnaught vs Dreadnaught. This was basically a giant game of chicken. Both of our Fields were full of characters. The first one to attack was going to set off a massive explosion. I waited until Team Up came up with 7 affiliations on the board. I lost one Sidekick to his Range while I cleared out his side before my attack hit.

1-0

Game 2:

This was a weenie Team with Orbital Strike. He would not be attacking me at all. He would be waiting until he had lots of stats on board and then roll Orbital Strike to kill me. First turn Switch in this game. If he was going to kill me with a BAC, he was going to work for it. I got the Dreadnaught on the Field early again and used Wong to trigger Range and keep his Field small. I used Instant War to build up my forces and then hit the double Team Up. Again, the Range damage cleared the board before my attackers hit.

2-0

Game 3:

This was built with a mix of Warhammer, and lots of natural Range. He also had Foetid Bloat-Drone that would destroy my Field in one swoop. Again, I used Wong as my selective removal tool while I built my Field. I got lucky when he missed his Bloat-Drone roll. I had Team Up hit shortly after and got the win with the Range clear and huge attackers.

3-0

Game 4:

We were done early tonight and some other players wanted to play some “for fun” games. Our resident youngster wanted to play and I agreed. No Dreadnaught in this one. I decided to shoot for Atlas and play around with Bifrost. It was more about trying to play with mechanics than actually doing something in this game. She attacked with all her characters at every opportunity, and eventually I didn’t have the defenders needed to survive her onslaught. She was excited to get a win and I was cool with letting her have it.

3-1

Post-Mortem:

I didn’t really see the hype of Dreadnaught until I played with it today. Wow is all I can say. Range is a big deal with this card in play. Combining it with Team Up was just gross in all honesty. I don’t see myself playing this combination again as it was almost too effective. Sure, there are lots of things that could have wrecked it. Bloat-Drone would have been horrible if it had hit. GDM is always a threat and hurts Team Up in a big way.

The rest of the Team was your classic Team Up Team. Throw on affiliations and hit when the time is right. The characters are really secondary to the whole thing.

While I didn’t need to purchase her, I think Meteorite was a good addition. She would have kept spammy Teams in check. Fez is one of my new favourite Ramp options. I have always liked Rez, and Fez works just as well without taking up the valuable BAC slot on the Team.

As much as I hate her, Switch was an essential addition to the Team. She is so effective at stopping actions. She saved me from a potentially lethal Orbital Strike, and could have kept my opponent’s use of Team Up at bay.

Frag didn’t prove to be a big thing tonight. I only bought the character once, and the ability only triggered once by my opponent (on a mistake where he should not have blocked him). It is interested removal as well, but not nearly as effective as Range was tonight.

If you have not had a chance to give Dreadnaught a spin yet, and want to frustrate your opponent’s… pair it with Team Up. If you have given it a spin, I’d like to hear what you have done with it.

Range is going to be a thing in the future. It proved to be such an effective means of removing characters from the Field. I am curious to hear how you would use it. Let us know in the comments below.

Tune in next week for a very special Christmas Edition of Dice Masters.

Thanks for reading!

– jourdo

EDIT: Fixed the Team Builder link.

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