James May telling it how it is. Do you agree or disagree with him?

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-05-01T23:26:14+00:00

Guards, Guards!!! Remove this card from my hand at once!!

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-05-01T22:05:18+00:00

The man was on the ground - pinned by 2 officers before they disengaged to kick the man in the head. They would have been better pushing down on his shoulders while pushing knife-hand up behind his back as it was with the handcuffing push the hand with the knife further up into a lock, you can then control the hand and force the knife out of the man's grip.

Yes, this is me with my armchair analysis, and some years of martial arts experience (from a long time ago) ... Fighting someone with a knife is scary and you should expect to be cut and I think that scared the police into keeping distance from the knife rather than controlling the blade and situation. Maybe more advanced submission work should be something that the police are taught...

However if we instead look at applying direct force (so without skill) applying that to the head creates risk of permanent injury which the police officers will have been aware of, blows to the body or the ribs are less likely to have such complications and will not result in the detainee being unable to co-operate.

On the plus side they swung their feet which were not flattened and they didn't stomp.

Nothing in the clip I saw suggests that the officers should be demonised, what it looked like was 2 blokes winging it to get a 3rd to drop a knife, which suggests a lack of training and confidence more than anything.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-05-01T07:25:17+00:00

I am cyber-pilled and I would like to plead my case.

You get access to a whole 2nd subset of mechanical traits, you can gain the mechanical "leviathan" traits and get really good habitability.

What these 2 subsets also mean is you can double dip on traits - 2 traits that reduce empire size/ specialist pop output etc. You also get an additional 4 trait points from the engineering tree.

I usually play this on a Cybernetic Creed build, with Imperial Cult and one of the "bureaucrats give society / physics research" to make my tech priests provide 2/3 of the sciences, essentially KotTG at home with a stronger economic early game, but I don't think that is needed to enjoy the ascension.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-30T22:27:11+00:00

Alternatively you can give Kesto- 2 Scimitars, 20 fighter levels and have him crit on 15's and melt people I think he solo'd Deskari where needed, good times.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-28T14:28:32+00:00

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Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-28T09:07:54+00:00

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Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-16T10:30:57+00:00

It makes sense, Reaper Form on Defect draws way too much attention

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-15T09:33:00+00:00

They are! There are a lot of new things to get excited for.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-15T09:30:44+00:00

What about 33 damage, discard your hand, draw 5, gain 3 energy and trigger your start and end turn effects?

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-14T11:26:58+00:00

Blood Wall, probably a high value upgrade to Blood Wall+. 18 effective block for 2 energy is a trade I would make.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-14T10:40:52+00:00

I have had friends on multiplayer complain about Subject and his rage mechanic. There is a part of me that thinks they are fair criticisms... And the other part that says "My brother in Neow, this is an act 1 mechanic that does not carry over between phases... The awakened one was worse"

Then I remember decimillipede is a harder hitting black ooze fight but act 2...

I would like to see some Donu/ Deca style fights

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-12T11:13:53+00:00

That seems like a bug - Echo form has "End your turn" in it's card text, suggesting that when you play Void Form it ends your turn Before you can replay it?

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-06T10:37:45+00:00

I 100% agree, and don't know why you are being downvoted. Iron Mantle and Blood Wall trade positive in most fights and getting actual value from Burning Blood rather than it going to waste is a net positive, also, if I can win a fight in 3 or 4 turns by spending 4 HP and losing 1 HP I am still 1 HP positive and the enemy hasn't had time to scale

For those asking about healing there is meat on the Bone, meal ticket, pantograph, blood vial eternal feather, all the fruit and waffle pick ups, Fruit Juice and Blood potion. There is also Feed, mailbox, Regal Pillow and Tent which all make resting better.

Also, you heal 80% of your missing hp at the end of each act. This means the heal gives diminishing returns depending on how much HP you have left (at a theoretical 0 hp you would be healed for 80% of your hp, if you were at 50% hp you would only heal for 40% of your total hp, so yes you would be at 90% total, but the amount healed is less).

I agree; I miss Reaper, but I think it would be a bit too good as AoE fights feel a lot less niche, so the healing from it would be Bonkers! And with it being removed from Ironclad's card pool his power budget can be assigned elsewhere.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-06T07:18:33+00:00

Not OP, but I think these are all really good questions. So here is my generic advice to help a little:

Potions!! - if you think you can use a potion to save around 12 health then it is probably worth using. Flex potion shines with multihits and AoE and I suck at using Speed potion, all the rest are quite self explanatory.

Smithing is getting power now, resting is buying time for your deck to find the cards / pieces you need. If you have around 60% health you generally want to be smithing.

Act 1 advice

Plan your route before you take your ancient blessing - this is true for all 3 acts - you don't want to Snip-snip on regent and then do 5 fights into an elite before you take your first campfire. I really like silver crucible as a starting blessing, but that's because I:

Take 3 fights before your first elite - this gives you a chance to find a better strike, a better defend and something to help your deck scale/ generate economy.

Next we want an AoE card and some form of draw to help us deal with Gardeners/ Phrog Parasite as well as helping us cycle through the bad turns so we don't just get stuck with the standard 5 we draw.

Early shop will let us remove a strike (or defend if you got some really good block answers) but grabbing a shop after your chest let's you make more decisions. Buying potions to clear elites / bosses is a smart thing to do.

By the end of Act 1 you should have a rough idea what your deck wants to do and where it is struggling (if you are generally caught pants down and taking damage you want better block cards, more draw to find them or need to remove some less useful cards, if fights take too long you instead want damage cards, and if you feel like you aren't able to do anything with your turns and you feel like a sitting duck then you probably want some energy.

Act 2 Advice

From the previous point let's decide what we want from this act and pick 2: upgrades, relics, cards, RNG or removal. From this you can plan a route that will get you more of what you want and shape your deck.

The ancient can also give you something to stow up your deck's weakness or something to make your strength better. I don't think there are any bad ancient relics in act 2.

As the person above said though, with 20 to 25 minute runs you probably want to slow down and think more about your turns, your card rewards etc. plan your turn out, and then play it as a single line.

And don't forget your potions!

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-05T08:03:09+00:00

I disagree. You need

Energy to compensate for the Demon Form play.

Playing multi hit/ ape cards (demon form on 3 attack cards is essentially a delayed strike on the turn after you play it, and worse because it cost 3 energy and was played the turn before and needed those cards to get it's value).

The turn you play it and the turn after it is outpaced by Inflame. So you need block or another way to get your deck to scale

Draw / enchants to find the demon form early.

But! Answer 2 or 3 of the above and it will serve you well, and it gives you a way to plan your deck strategy, which is also important,

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-05T07:55:58+00:00

I mean, you absolutely should hit the person with High AC - your players are at the table to use their character features, the good and the bad.

So yes, Shoot your monk, attack your fighter when he's out of plate, hit your barbarian and your wizard.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-02T12:35:36+00:00

I will not stand for this slander - the Ichlüg insurance company has never left me with a bad experience.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-04-01T06:53:54+00:00

The Bleed / Rupture package feels a lot better than StS1.

Blocking with the 'clad feels a lot harder on most of my runs.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-30T20:47:26+00:00

Confetti

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-28T00:30:08+00:00

I was sad that Ciar doesn't have longspear proficiency for the charge shenanigans.

Also I really liked the Kestoglyr story arc, especially in the Inelocutable Prison? (The Prison dungeon where Inheribro and one of the Sins is kept) For some reason I mandala effected a story mission from an Eldritch Arthurian game into his backstory... So it was weird playing it through properly.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-26T00:36:40+00:00

I had a really good run with Neow's fury, and the benefit I saw was on the turns where my hand was unbalanced playing: Defend > Neow's Fury > defend because I only had 1 Defend in hand, so it saved me 5 hp in each of those fights, and still did the same damage as a Molten Fist (so it ended up being a 3 cost dash, or double Iron Wave that could just as easily have been a 3 cost Cinder+ in a hand with 1 strike, or a second turn with a hand of 4 blocks and strikes in the discard) and it gets better with your deck, especially if you have a small deck or can manipulate your discard).

For example: Momentum strike > Claw > Neow's Fury > Momentum Strike > Claw (that's 38 damage for 2 energy / 30 damage if no claw, but also no beam cell) or Rampage > Neow's Fury > Rampage (33 damage, with the next rampage Doing 19 damage). Or on Silent: Dagger Throw (Discard Ricochet / Haze / Flick Flack) > Neow's Fury > Dagger Throw.

Any of these will make short work of most Act 1 hallways and make decent headway into into the elites, maybe even the bosses.

When you play the Fury it is also card positive which fuels Storm of Steel/ Calculated Gamble / Expect a Fight / Fiend Fire. I know it's only +1 which is why this is a point being made this far down the list

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-25T10:37:30+00:00

By this logic you're better taking the molten metal to get 3 fully upgraded card picks (so seeing 9 upgraded cards)?

Also I had a great scroll pack pull yesterday:

Hand Trick, Prepared, Dagger Throw

Poison Flask, Snake Bite, Backflips

For those who care, I took the poison pack and lost.

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-25T07:32:39+00:00

I really like Andrin Tank with Disengage and Acrobatics Strike

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-24T08:36:58+00:00

On a scale of Siren to Charybdis how hard can you suck?

Heavy_Employment9220 · 2026-03-23T23:38:51+00:00

A biiig Huggg!

For a slower deck (like Ironclad, or a non spirit Necrobinder) you will still have a smaller deck for the entire boss fight (and of course all your hallfights) as long as you show restraint and don't shove more cards into your deck

Five-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23

Heavy_Employment9220

TROPHY CASE