FAB 101: Offense
To win a game of Flesh and Blood, you usually need to kill your opponent’s hero. To kill the opponent’s hero, you need to inflict damage. To inflict damage, you usually need to attack. How, then, to go about it?
One obvious way to inflict damage is to use your weapon. Most classes will be able to throw out weapon attacks on most turns of the game if they want to, with some exceptions — Wizard usually runs a “weapon” that buffs other attacks rather than attacking on its own, while Ranger’s bows serve to set up other cards in arsenal. Here are some weapons that you might encounter on the battlefield:
The Ninja’s faithful and annoying Kodachi picks away at enemy while allowing options w/ Go Again — and you can have two!
Dawnblade does much more damage for the energy and can “charge up” , but needs assistance from other cards to do so.
Anothos is even more powerful, but needs a hefty three energy to swing — pitch your cards right and you can swing for six!
(Flesh and Blood and its card art is © Legend Story Studios.)I
In some cases, heroes have one weapon (or pair of weapons) that is an “obvious choice” — for instance, Kassai really wants to play two copies of Cintari Saber, and equipping the Dawnblade will really hurt your deck. However, others are more flexible — for instance, Brute can play either a longer-term “grindy” game with Romping Club, or a more explosive/aggressive game with two Mandible Claws, while Runeblade can equip either the basic but effective Reaping Blade or the temperamental Nebula Blade, which hits harder under the right circumstances but requires more setup to function well. Since your weapon starts the game in play, it can be one of the most relevant cards in your deck, and most decks will throw out quite a few weapon swings across the course of a game.
However, weapons aren’t the only way to do damage. Players can also expect to commonly see (and use) attack action cards. Many classes have specialist attack action cards that are built for their unique playstyle, and on top of that the game features several strong “generic” attack actions that can be played by a hero of any class. Here are some attack actions that you might encounter on the battlefield:
This red copy of Snatch is a cheap attack with an on-hit effect that will draw you a card if any damage gets through.
A Blue Head Jab is weak, but pitches for three energy, costs nothing, and has Go Again to allow follow-up.
(Flesh and Blood and its card art is © Legend Story Studios.)
Attack action cards often offer better damage and stronger effects for their cost than weapons, but use up a card to play — a weapon swing will generally cost energy, but since that energy is usually paid for by pitching the weapon swing is “card neutral”, while after playing an attack action card it will generally be discarded (with some exceptions).
(Note that one class, Wizard, does not have attack action cards, but rather actions and instants that deal arcane damage. These are technically not attack action cards but function similarly to attack action cards despite the difference in type.)
So, you have your weapon and some attack action cards — what then? Well, one of the most important aspects of Flesh and Blood deckbuilding is the choice between wide and tall attack patterns.
Wide decks focus on playing multiple different attacks in a turn (whether from weapons or attack action cards) in order to overwhelm an opponent and make it harder to tell what might be coming next. Typically, wide decks use the go again mechanic to make several attacks in a turn, though in some cases you can use action point boosting cards like Timesnap Potion or Scabskin Leathers to get the opportunity to play multiple cards without go again. “Dual wielding” characters with one-handed weapons like Cintari Sabers or Harmonized Kodachi are often well-suited to wide strategies, as having two weapons can make getting two or more attacks in a turn that much easier!
On the other hand, tall decks focus on making one huge attack in a turn in the hopes that the opponent will be unable to block fully or will lose huge amounts of tempo in doing so. This is sometimes based on simply throwing down a big attack card like Spinal Crush or Ninth Blade of the Blood Oath, but can also be based on playing a lot of buffs on a smaller attack — for instance, “tall Warrior” decks can use multiple cards to buff up their Dawnblade swing until it is coming in for nine (or more!) damage instead of just three! Tall decks also like using effects that make it harder for an opponent to defend, like dominate or intimidate. The most extreme tall builds I’ve encountered have been Runeblade setup decks, which can potentially do 20+ damage in a single turn if they’ve had enough time to build up Runechants and get the perfect hand configured!
Some classes are highly specialized in one of these directions, while others are more flexible — for example, Ninja and Mechanologist more or less always play wide, Guardian more or less always plays tall, while Warrior and Runeblade can build in either direction. However, even within a single style and class there is a fair bit of difference and room for deckbuilding — an exciting sign given how young the game is!
One thing I’d like to add to this section is that in my opinion (and I am by no means the best player in the world), wide is generally better than tall. Wide attack patterns are significantly less predictable than tall ones and harder to defend against. This does not mean that tall decks are bad or that you should always choose to play wide if your class has the option to do either — for instance, Cintari Sabers Dorinthea is “wider” than Dawnblade Dorinthea but IMO significantly worse — but if you’re unsure which attack style to choose, I tend to think wide is the way to go.
Lastly, one other component that can really help your offense is attack reactions. These cards can be played after an opponent has blocked (or decided not to block) and serve various useful functions — most commonly increasing your damage to help get over a block. Two of these are perhaps deserving of additional scrutiny — Razor Reflex and Pummel. These Welcome to Rathe attack reactions can boost both weapon attacks and attack action cards, allowing for significant flexibility in how you use them.
Razor Reflex boosts sword/dagger attacks and can give cheap attack actions go again, benefiting a wide strategy.
Pummel, on the other hand, boosts club/hammer attacks and can give big attacks discard, benefiting a tall strategy.
(Flesh and Blood and its card art is © Legend Story Studios.)
Attack reactions can be a great way to make your attack pattern less predictable, and grow additionally dangerous once an opponent is on low health. In some cases, an opponent may be forced to “overblock” if they don’t want to risk getting hit by an attack reaction and potentially suffering from powerful on-hit effects as well — a pattern which can play into the hands of the attacker. Note that Warriors have far more attack reactions than any other class, which is part of why they can be hard to defend against — if playing against a Warrior, you should be extra careful about potential reactions coming in to boost an attack beyond its initial strength.
All in all, Flesh and Blood offers many ways to attack the enemy. Weapon attacks, attack action cards, and attack reactions can all be important components of a deck’s game plan. Stay tuned for the next article, which will discuss the basics of defense — including blocking from hand, equipment, defense reactions, and more!
