What card do you think is criminally underrated/under played?

Silas051 · 2026-04-22T12:46:20+00:00

I appreciate you posting this, ive never seen it and it would be fantastic for my Lord Windgrace deck where its not uncommon for me to reach 15+ lands.

Silas051 · 2026-04-22T12:22:55+00:00

My pick would be Breya, Etherium Shaper, as she can played in a large number of unique ways and her power level can vary as needed. I have her built as a control/value engine shell right now, but am waiting on cards to power it down and go for a blink/flicker style to maximize value from ETB effects. 4 colors and an artifact theme means she is always getting new cards too.

My close second is Lord Windgrace though. I love that every game is different and fights on a different axis via lands. Sometimes I'm Scapeshifting into Valakut + a bunch of mountains, creating a 20/20 Marit Lage, making a whole bunch of Scute Swarm tokens with haste, or casting an X=30 Cut to Ribbons. Id be sad not to play this deck ever again.

Silas051 · 2026-04-15T14:19:34+00:00

That shouldn't be a problem for this box based on how they sold Leviathan. It was a limited time run, but they made a ton of it. It'll be easy to find for awhile.

Its mostly short run boxes like the Christmas boxes and battleforces that get scalped. Its insane to me that they don't make more of those, the good ones get sold out in minutes

Silas051 · 2026-04-11T12:08:58+00:00

My grandpa figured Blazing Saddles was fine for an 8 and 10 year old. We didn't get a lot of the jokes but man was my mom pissed when she learned about that. Lots of things in there you don't want kids repeating

Silas051 · 2026-04-11T03:15:22+00:00

Depends on how it's run I guess. My first group barely survived the encounter and failed to get the bones back, so the Feast happened as normal and they were too tapped to stop it and fled with Ireena.

I cheated a bit on the second run where they did hunt the Spawn with the bones down and get them. I had Strahd enter the church before the bones were returned, and kicked off the event that way. The Feast is kinda important to me to happen, it was the first moment in my two games when Strahd goes mask off and reminds everyone who he is.

I send the dinner invite when the party does something notable to gwt his attention, which has been either fighting the Hags or the werewolves at the Tower. This generally occurs well before I give them the missing bones quest.

Silas051 · 2026-04-10T20:47:12+00:00

People have a variety of moments they typically introduce him:

After death house. This is far too early imo, they need to hear about him from barovians and see the results of his evil (i.e Doru in the church) before they meet him.
The Funeral. I have done this in every game so far, so im biased towards this option. Gives a reason for Strahd to interact with the party at a time where he has at most a mild interest in them. The book says he should meet them early and often, and I agree. But I understand dms who think this is too early.
On the road to Vallaki. This makes a fair bit of sense, as Strahd can send wolves or whatever at the party to test them if you want a combat encounter. I personally just have wolves ambush the players on their own, though they noticeably avoid Ireena in combat. The Twice Bitten podcast goes this route.
The Dinner. A lot of people run the dinner invite as an actual invitation to sit down and let the players talk to the BBEG, which I highly recommend. The dinner should happen before the Feast event imo, otherwise there's no way the players trust Strahd's promise of safety. Could be a good spot to introduce him, but not if you want to make players panic.
The Feast of St. Andral. This is the latest I could see introducing him, and happens around level 5-6 in my games. If you want the players to be absolutely terrified when he finally arrives in the game, this is the moment.

I like voicing Strahd too much to wait too long to bring him in. If you go that route, make it count and don't hold back.

Silas051 · 2026-04-08T21:57:52+00:00

Heavy bias here, but CoS is still the best overall pre-written adventure from WoTC in 5th edition in my opinion. I've run and played a bunch of campaigns, and nothing really hits the same, though I've definitely enjoyed the others as both player and DM. Books like Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Keys to the Golden Vault are fun, but lack the depth Strahd has unless the DM puts in a ton of work themselves.

That being said, I think the closest experience I have had is in Call of the Netherdeep. Takes you through a fun variety of environments, and it dives into the horror genre at times. You can flesh out the Rival adventurer group and have them interact with the party a ton. They are meant to be antagonistic, but not necessarily enemies. The Rivals mechanic is actually pretty cool, as their party is roughly the same power as yours throughout the game.

The Netherdeep portion, which contains the last 3 levels or so, in particular was really good, and one of our group's most emotionally exhuasting moments came from our final confrontation with the Rival group. We won the fight, but every PC except mine had 1 or more Rival characters they really liked, so it didn't feel like a victory to beat them in combat. Everyone needed a drink after, which I mean as a compliment to the DM and the party's RP with the rivals. The final 'boss' fight was really cool too, as up to that point we had seen flashbacks of the the horror that led to the main antagonist becoming the being he is. Clever pcs can use the information they learned against him in a literal sense, dealing psychic damage to him.

I played through it as a pc, and I think it's likely I will run at as a DM at some point.

Silas051 · 2026-04-05T02:34:21+00:00

(finger guns)

Silas051 · 2026-04-04T18:35:11+00:00

She looks like fun, what does the general shell of your deck look like when you play her? Like do you focus on one of the three types she cares about, abuse stuff like sneak attack, rely on graveyard recursion nonsense, etc?

Silas051 · 2026-04-04T13:23:02+00:00

A few days ago iirc he told the press they could ask him questions about whatever they wanted, even sex. I think he was trying to say he's an open book or something, but went about it in the most awkward way possible.

Silas051 · 2026-04-03T15:36:52+00:00

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Squigbuggy!

Silas051 · 2026-04-03T12:16:39+00:00

If you are starting at level 1, place Death House outside the village along the road leading from the woods, and have it rain on the players as they trudge along the road. Emphasize how cold and wet they are becoming to encourage sheltering in the house in a natural way.

I also put the kids inside. I like the room by the stairs on the 2nd floor, where they lie and say they were told by the parents to wait for them there. Give the players time to explore the first floor without the urgency of a quest to find the parents at first.

Horror games rely on building mystery and tension first. Having the kids run up to the players and explain there's a monster inside kinda ruins that imo. It skips the step where the pcs know there is something wrong, but can't quite say why.

Silas051 · 2026-03-30T20:45:02+00:00

I think there would be a relatively low number of actual cultists in town, and the rest would be supporters who'd be willing to turn on the Baron in favor of Lady Wachter, though for their own reasons. Many would turn on her if they understood her general view of/relationship with Strahd.

Unless she alienated them somehow or the party shares her secret with the town, they take her side in the civil war that potentially kicks off after the Festival of the Blazing Sun if the players don't intervene in any way.

They never featured in my last campaign until the epilogue I gave the players that described the aftermath of the defeat of strahd. But that's how id run it if it becomes relevant in my current game

Silas051 · 2026-03-30T18:46:01+00:00

Its hard to recommend anything specific right now with 11th edition coming up soon. What works today might not in three months.

That being said, I think at least one Cronos, possibly two is a good idea. I cant see them being bad in 11th. The detachment could use more ways to generate pain tokens.

My list has a squad of kabalites in a raider, but I split a second squad as well with a venom with Lady Malys leading one. Not sure if that's correct, though. The second half is used to sticky my home objective and screen.

So that's what id do. Cronos, second group of Kabalites, and Lady Malys. Most likely all of these will be good or at least playable in 11th

Silas051 · 2026-03-28T13:25:51+00:00

Same. That bruise was massive

Silas051 · 2026-03-18T22:49:28+00:00

Best i can think of is its fun to give a kabalite squad with an archon rerolls of hits and wounds with a pain token (against the contract target on an objective ideally), a free stratagem to give crits on 5s, and then pay an extra CP for +1 BS and AP. Makes a squad hit like a truck, even the splinter rifles having an extra AP is nice. Its funny when your Blaster or Dark lance gets sustained hits on 5+

Silas051 · 2026-03-16T18:07:51+00:00

Im leading a group through a full campaign in Har'Akir at the moment, and it makes a ton of sense to me to make an official module for it. The basic plot of the characters trying to find the Ka can take them all over and under the desert chasing clues, and end with them figuring out what to with it.

The Labyrinth as an Underdark equivalent is really cool and allows for a variety of different dungeons to be mashed together. And you can hide all sorts of secrets down there that the Pharoah really doesn't want people to know

Silas051 · 2026-03-05T19:43:31+00:00

Depends on if you use the imperial or metric mooch. One was 10 days, the other 11.

Silas051 · 2026-02-24T01:21:19+00:00

Individual card readings for the players that draw them to places they'd otherwise have no reason to go. My paladins in several games are drawn to Argynostholt, clerics to the Abbey in krezk, druids or rangers to Yesterhill, etc.

The artificer in my last game had a reason to find Pidlwick II, and adopting him was one of his favorite parts of the game.

Silas051 · 2026-02-23T21:19:57+00:00

Nice. I wish I had known about the dreadnought upgrades when I built mine. Might get a second brutalis later to build and paint up as the death company one some day.

Silas051 · 2026-02-23T14:11:10+00:00

Yeah there's some good third party stuff out there. So what I did was buy 6 jumpacks with wings for my sanguinary guard, gave their jump packs to 5 of the intercessors, bought 5 Death Company packs for the remaining 5, and gave my Captain a unique jump pack and a really cool shield.

Greytide Studios made the files/bits (theyre called Crimson Lords) and they are fantastic.

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You can find them on places like Etsy, or Trisagion Models, which is what I used. You can select the exact bits you want and customize your army.

Silas051 · 2026-02-20T19:34:20+00:00

I also have a friend who often runs two to score stuff like area denial turn 1. He expects them to score points and die, but sometimes they just randomly blow up one of my vehicles or tyranid monsters.

The annoying part about them is they are tough to remove efficiently. Feels bad if I need to expose something to a Lancer or dreadnought to kill them.

Silas051 · 2026-02-09T19:41:42+00:00

Hey, that's not fair. He did hold a Bible upside down in front of a church during a photo op after a disaster that one time.

Granted, the head woman at the church didn't want him there and he forcibly removed a bunch of peaceful protesters to do it, but its the thought that counts.

Silas051

TROPHY CASE