Resources For Strategic Purposes

One of the reasons that my Red Castle Games buddy likes Conquest so much is because to him, it's one of the few card games to allow for strategy, not just tactics. Magic is too limited for him: your turn is all about what you can do and the ability to make a plan and execute it over the course of a game is not well supported.

When trying to make an aggressive Tyranids deck last weekend, I stumbled on an idea that helps put this into perspective. 

In any given game of Conquest, you are guaranteed to have 18 or 19 resources to spend (depending on your Warlord) and see 12 or 13 cards (ibid) over the course of time. There will likely be more, as games are rarely decided by the third turn but rarely is not always. 

So really, decks need to be built with that baseline of understanding but also, they can be built this way. The guarantee of resources matters because only reliability lets you do this. 

In any given game of Magic, I have no way to predict what my resources will be. This is why concepts like card draw, color fixing and resource buildup (either through permanents in play or mana generated) become so important. Players must spend some amount of time dedicating their deck to building up to what they want to do. 

In Conquest, I have six or seven cards and six or seven resources to start with. I'm also guaranteed two cards per turn, and four resources to spend. 

Of course, Conquest isn't the first game to do something like that: Hearthstone received a certain amount of praise when it came out because of this reasoning. You knew that you were getting a set number of resources and how they would grow each turn. That took certain pressures off deckbuilding. I'm sure there are more, but Hearthstone was just my first exposure to it and understandably so given the game's high profile.

Circling back, the rest of Conquest then plays out as a tension between the acquisition of resources and your ability to maximize playing those resources out. This tension is skewed on multiple axises: the Warlord's starting resource count, the Command portion of the game, where players attempt to draw power from the available planets in cards or resources or both, and finally the Battle phase of the game where the victor of a fight at a planet gets a special ability for winning. 

What that means is that players now have to make a plan. There's your starting point: the Warlord and deck construction, including your plan for victory. Then the middle where you have to decide, based on your opening hand, what it is you need. You know you're getting two more cards and four more resources at the start of the next turn: what can you do now, and what will you need later? Finally there's the advantages you're able to eek out of victory at a planet. Does the advantage of victory at a planet outweigh the resources you're able to get in the midgame? 

Well that entirely depends on what stage of the game you're in! In the early game obviously resources over planets are important, but your hand may dictate which one you need and the planets may not offer anything. But by the midgame ensuring that your opponent doesn't get certain resources, or doesn't get victory points matters a lot more-were you able to build up enough? The fun has begun!

But all of this is possible because you know what you have to work with for a starting deck. It's just about using those tools the best way you can. 

Here's my sample Tyranid's decklist. It is very untested but I'm looking forward to giving it a go!

The Gene Machine

"Subject: Ω-X62113"  (What Lurks Below)
Blazing Zoanthrope  (The Great Devourer)
Army (30)
3  Ripper Swarm  (The Great Devourer)
3  Genestealer Prowler  (Deadly Salvage)
3  Genestealer Harvesters  (The Final Gambit)
3  Scything Hormagaunts  (The Great Devourer)
3  Virulent Spore Sacs  (The Great Devourer)
3  Genestealer Brood  (Wrath of the Crusaders)
4  Invasive Genestealers  (What Lurks Below)
2  Striking Ravener  (Decree of Ruin)
3  Ymgarl Genestealer  (The Great Devourer)
3  Shrieking Harpy  (The Great Devourer)
1 Toxic Venomthrope (TGD)

Attachment (9)
2  Defense Battery  (Legions of Death)
3  Noxious Fleshborer  (The Great Devourer)
3  Ymgarl Factor  (The Final Gambit)
1  Lethal Toxin Sacs  (What Lurks Below)

Event (2)
2  Gene Implantation  (What Lurks Below)
1 Spore Burst (Great Devourer)

Support (7)
3  Nesting Chamber  (The Final Gambit)
1  Sacaellum Infestors  (The Great Devourer)
1  Ruined Passages  (What Lurks Below)
2 Synaptic Link