Ressource Management

[unknownuser65]

Up to now I ve been playing only 1 Commander Games and therefore might not have had enough tactic tokens for buying cards. But is anyone really buying? Or are you also playing without hand cards? 

I play regularly against Abi and they just have a full hand at the end of the first turn. 

I feel GH is just missing the card draw element completely even though we have abilities which need to dicard cards for activation.

How are you tackling this issue? Same like my early approach just no cards or spending precious tokens for em?

[Thisendup]

When I first started I always bought cards every turn, then felt I did not have enough tactics tokens to run the scenario.

Now I rarely buy cards, since you can use a tactics token to add a flip if you need to which is about as good as drawing one. Only when I am sure I have everything covered (scenario, endless numbers, stratagems) do I consider buying cards.

[spooky_squirrel]

What @Thisendup said is a good approach. It's the same approach I use on the other side of the table as an Aby player. As an Aby player though, I have abilities on effectively almost every unit that require discarding cards (Prototype Assets), so an aggressive card draw engine is the sort of thing we build in. Cards are also the resource that Aby gets an advantage on, where GH gets bodies (all the bodies). You also might consider bringing in the Court of Two Envoy just to have another source of Tactics Tokens.

For the abilities that require discard a card to use, what do those abilities do for the scenario?

• I see discarding a card to keep Thunderstorm in your hand, instead of discarding it.
• Speckled Crawlers may discard a card to gain Piercing on a S2/3 attack.
• Barbed Crawlers may discard a card to gain Piercing on a S1/2 attack.

Non-GH specific card discarding:

• Binh Nguyen (Court Envoy) may discard a Crow to reduce damage to 0.
• Icon of Ancient Power grants the Ability to discard a card to shed tokens.
• Unchecked Magic allows you to discard a card to have an additional different Squad take an action.

You have some in faction card draw if card cycling is something you consider important enough to work into your company:

• Swarm of Bottom Feeders (Asset, Champion only, has Frenzy written all over it) allows card draw on killing a Fireteam, two if it was a Titan.
• Barbed Crawlers in Glory have a trigger to draw cards on their Launch Barbs Ability.

Out of faction, but available:

• Binh Nguyen (Court Envoy) has a trigger to draw cards on killing models. That trigger is built in on being in Glory.
• Uncanny Instincts allows you to draw a card when the Commander activates, in addition to the always Cheating Fate second.

Resource Management in general is figuring out what you need as well as how to get it. If you don't need a full Control Hand (or a Control Hand at all), then there's no reason to worry about buying cards. If you're using Abilities that allow you to flip two cards during duels, having the ability to Cheat Fate doesn't matter as much.
If you think you need to use one of those six things that require discarding a card in order to score on Objectives for the Operation, then yeah.. buy those cards because they will help you run the scenario and potentially win the game. Or construct your Company so that it has some card draw built into it.
Otherwise, the resource management focus might steer you towards using those Tactics Tokens for other things that will help complete the Operation.

Edited February 11, 2019 by spooky_squirrel
Horo's not a champion.. heh

[retnab]

3 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

• Swarm of Bottom Feeders (Asset, Champion only, has Frenzy or Horo written all over it) allows card draw on killing a Fireteam, two if it was a Titan.

Horo's not a Champion so he can't take it sadly.  For out of faction don't forget The Broken let you draw between 0 and 8 cards per activation, it's swingy but handy.  Also, RE: Barbed Crawlers, if you give them a Morphling then you can use their "discard for Piercing" on whatever attack the Morphling borrows as well, handy for borrowing Doomseekers' or the ECB's attacks.

[spooky_squirrel]

Ooh, good catch. Will amend post.

I mainly focused on the in-faction. I definitely see more use for stuff with pulling in some Cult shenanigans.. and yeah, on borrowed attacks  (even in faction, borrow the Karkinoi's) the piercing becomes much more valuable.

[Ozymandias79]

First turn I might buy some cards, but generally you're getting so many plus flips on actions (Frenzy and Skulkers) that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  First turn I like to spawn egg clutches, so having a few cards for that is helpful.  

But in single commander games, you're not going to be buying many strategem cards.

[Pergli]

I bought cards early on  but lately i've been avoiding it unless I have 1-2 extra so I might buy 3-5 cards over the course of the game. Damage reduction on the Siren, bringing units back and the stratagems are too good. If my opponent has infiltrators though, I don't even bother because they'll just make you discard your hand. Better to be able to burn them on an extra flip.

I did have one game where I would buy 1 card a turn and they were usually crap cards which worked out because on turn 4, I bought the stratagem where you can take a free attack and discard to do it with another unit. Allowed a nice surprise start of turn swing because it allowed me to remove multiple key fireteams.