Battle Mage Secrets - Weapons Training + Martyr = WOW!

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Fire & Regret ruleset this time! This means all units receive the Return Fire ability at the start of the battle. Enemy units that attack with ranged attacks receive damage back. It's not always easy to get the specific ruleset, but if you play hard enough, you definitely can find one! Well that's what I thought - but it seems that either I am very unlucky or there are just too many rulesets these days and I can't seem get the selected one.

So I decided to share an interesting battle that I encountered.

Anyway, I thought it would be still be interesting to introduce some useful cards and show how their strengths can be maximised especially with a particular ruleset. In this post, the featured card is a Legendary Soulbound card, Drybone Raider!

Drybone Raider comes with dual attacks and Double Strike ability, which means he could do 4 attacks per turn! Of course, it's quite an expensive card to field, costing 12 mana and is relatively squishy with just 7 HP. As a result, the only time I use it would usually be Opportunity/Sneak battles and if I could use the Martyr boost effectively on him.

As usual, here's the lore for Drybone Raider for your reading interest:

The Drybone Raiders are part of a tribalistic and fractious collective of anarchists led by the llamataur warlord, Eternan Brune. They control the Drybone Badlands in the Wild Northeast of Praetoria and often conduct predatory incursions into neighboring lands, attacking settlements for loot, plunder, and fun.

Drybone Raiders generally armor themselves in primitive furs and leathers, wield all manner of swords and spears, and sometimes ride large, beast-drawn war machines into combat. They are known to create warpaint from dyes and the bones of their enemies. While undisciplined and disorderly, they are feared throughout the Drybone Badlands and its outlying areas for their ferociousness and tenacity.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Tarsa	4

Fire has very strong Melee cards and I wanted to utilise a new card that I have gotten recently, and that's Ferexian Hero, who has Weapons Training and the adjacent cards would be very useful for this ruleset.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Almo Cambio	7

Almo Cambio has upgraded himself to become a very powerful tank when it is an adjacent card to Weapons Training. Coming in at 4 speed and 12 HP, it is tough to hit.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Ferexian Hero	8

Ferexian Hero's Weapons Training definitely is useful for Sneak battles, otherwise it's usually not advisable to spend 8 mana on a card that give Melee damage to adjacent cards because Melee cards can't attack except from the tank.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	Iidri Fyre	6

Iidri Fyre is the second adjacent card to receive Weapons Training. The Taunt ability is very useful to divert most of the attacks and allow the rest of the cards with bigger hits to inflict the damage for a longer period.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Ferox Defender	8

Mana's a luxury in this battle so I could afford to slip in Ferox Defender, whose main usefulness is Protect ability, and it gives 2 more armor to all cards.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
5	Drybone Raider	12

Drybone Raider slots in second last, and the strategy here is for him to gain the Martyr boost and deal enough damage before he goes off. He's 3rd on the chopping block after the Iidri Fyre (Taunt) and the last card.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
6	Firecaller	5

Firecaller is enlisted for the Martyr ability and hopefully it will aid Drybone Raider by boosting his 4 attacks per round. In case you didn't realise, the entire lineup is also made up of Soulbound cards.

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• Pre Battle: Bearing in mind my lineup was purely Level 1, when I saw my opponent's lineup, I knew I was in quite a bit of trouble. It was an almost max Silver lineup dominated by Level 3/4/5 cards! But let's see how many rounds I could withstand.
  

• Round 1: Both sides hit extremely hard. Look at Almo Cambio - 3 Melee damage! The extra armor from Ferox Defender's Protect ability definitely helped but my Taunt card went off quickly. My opponent lost two cards, credit to 8 damage (1+3+1+3) from Drybone Raider.
  

• Round 2: While Almo Cambio continued to lead from the front, my strategy worked as Drybone Raider gained the Martyr boost and turned into a monster. 12 damage (2+4+2+4) this turn and my opponent's high level cards were almost gone.
  

• Round 3: There was no way my opponent could handle my Level 1 lineup because it was dealing more than 20 damage in total per round. And we were almost at the finishing line!
  

• Round 4: Another huge win!
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? Definitely I had to win this by strategy as the level disparity of the cards were so huge. Combining Weapons Training and Martyr using all those Soulbound cards definitely gave my team a great boost. Not sure if my opponent would be shocked though.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? The Legendary Soulbound cards are extremely powerful. Fight hard to get them if you can! ;)

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So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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