Clans of the West deck building (Patreon)

We remind you that you can find the cards for the February release here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1LV70y1pl8FJipbevZmPzEOhTgMNxlIc5

Highlanders of the Clan of the West is a small squads strongly interacting with their faction buildings. Therefore, we would like to start this article with faction buildings to show you the whole picture of what's going on.

Clan House — building — all highlanders are natural-born warriors, and their Clan House confirms that. It’s necessary for the early-game characters to not die too fast and have time to accumulate Strength for stronger attacks. Also, this building can buff your minions if the Clan Warrior cards didn’t get to your Hand.

Royal Castle — building — this is one of Uthor’s castles, which helps the Hero to make his ability a little bit cheaper. At the same time, it helps you to boost an economy to attempt to eliminate the opponent’s hero at the very beginning.

Dolmen of the Ancient Gods — building — it has an almost identical ability to Clan Warrior. It increases Strength of your remaining characters even more, which allows them to declare melee combat with Strength 4-5 at the end of the game. Take note that when one of your characters dies while you have this building constructed in your city zone, Clan Warrior gains +2 Strength - one from its own ability, and another one from Dolmen of the Ancient Gods. The important thing is to distribute armour provided by Clan House in such a way that you make sure all of your creatures can survive at least one attack of your opponent.

After we figured out how the buildings do work, let’s finally take a look at the creatures and characters.

Uthor the High King — hero — the true hero we know from legends and stories; the knight who doesn’t know fear or stubbornness. His playing style a little bit reminds of Roland the Proud from the Grypharim Empire, but while Roland just directs attacks of his soldiers and rely on their basic speed, Uthor gives an opportunity to “land” new characters right in the middle of the battle. However, we have to mention that Uthor has much better support cards which help him to break into the opponent’s ranks and on its own defeat weaker heroes.

Clan Warrior х3 — character — tavern, any — unlike other squads, Clan Warrior is an irreplaceable unit for the Clans of the West. Yes, they can die at any moment, but the rest Clan Warriors will gain additional Strength and can get revenge. Ideally, after the death of two Clan Warriors,while you have Clan House constructed in your city zone, the last Clan Warrior standing will have +4 Strength and some number of armour tokens, which is more than enough to finish the game with just one accurate blow.

Fergus mac Morn, Clan Crossbowman — character - tavern, shooting range -

if we take a look at its shooting skills, we won’t notice something uncommon - just another one regular shooter which would greatly fit the shooting ranks of the Elves where such shooters are the regular case. But its ability makes a real difference. As well as other highlanders, Fergus can accumulate Strength and after a few unsuccessful shots, it can put away its weapon and go for melee combat with 4 or even 5 Strength points.

Gawain mac Morn, Clan Rider — character — barracks, arena — it’s not just another Scottish fighter, it’s a knight who fights even better when he has pages and squires by his side. Gawain on its own looks like a regular character: it has only 2 Strength and has to move in order to gain Master of Attack. But with the help of its allies, and especially when it’s used for the final blow using Charge — Gawain is capable of attacking with 4-5 dice, which can be lethal not only for a strong character but even a hero.

Total of 5 characters. This is the basic number of characters for the core of the deck. All of the presented characters show good results in this build, but they will become a much stronger power if you add other characters of the Clans of the West, such as Brigit, Beira and Morag.

Now let’s have a look at the support cards. Those are cards that are going to support your army during the fight: spells that can blow up your enemies and strengthen your creatures, cunning tactics, or mighty artifacts. You can read the detailed information about it by the following link (ссылка на правила).

But remember that unlike the character cards, you can have up to two copies of the support cards. Therefore, in this case you can play them at least twice per game if you drew them to your Hand.

Heavy Armour — relic, armour — smithy, any, any — a standard knight’s armour, which you can't ignore when preparing your Hero for the battle. This relic helps Uthor to feel confident in the midst of the battle, patiently receiving a Backstab for activating its Charge, or just take multiple blows from the enemy. The relic also provides the Hero with Master of Defense, which is really important when standing against massive attacks of the opponent.

Two-handed Morgenstern — relic, melee weapon — smithy, arena — Uthor the High King’s personal relic, which is sometimes considered a weapon for guaranteed victory. Combination of Charge and Morgenstern provides the King with 6 Strength dice! It’s more than enough to finish off retreating enemies or reverse the tide of the battle.

Warlord Helmet — relic, helmet/mask — tavern, smithy, 2_Prosperity — another one relic of the King. Although it strengthens the Hero by giving armour only, it also improves its army. Take note that this relic ability also applies to minions, so it’s not only good for playing during the late-game stages, but also at the very beginning so that Clan Warriors could keep on the pressure on the opponent.

Unbridled Fury — spell — school of magic, any — a cheap spell that can be played at any stage of the game. It helps you to avoid the moment when Uthor or Gawain can roll 6 dice for attack and get 4 “bullseye” results.

Acceleration — spell — library — another plain and simple spell. It’s needed when you want to suddenly regroup your forces or to make sure Gawain hits the target with its Rush.

Spear of Light — spell — library, any, any — one of a few battle spells in the game. It fits well this squad because sometimes, for example, Clan Warriors are unable to finish off a strong creature, so the Spear might be a great option at this point to eliminate it.

Chief's Helmet — relic, helmet/mask — none — one of the three free relics for summoning minions. They are pretty useful in this deck because they are capable of “defusing” returned attacks of the enemy creatures before fragile Clan Warriors can start attacking them. As you remember, the ability of Warlord Helmet also applies to minions, which means with this relic on the Hero, they will be attacking a little bit better. And keep in mind that both Chief's Helmet and Warlord Helmet use the same relic slot, so the king Uthor obviously cannot carry them both at the same time.

Goblin Potion — relic, jewel — none — one of the three free relics for summoning minions. They are pretty useful in this deck because they are capable of “defusing” returned attacks of the enemy creatures before fragile Clan Warriors can start attacking them.
And remember, that the ability of Warlord Helmet also applies to minions, which means with this relic on the Hero, they will be attacking a little bit better.

Sword in the Stone — relic, melee weapon — none — one of the three free relics for summoning minions. They are pretty useful in this deck because they are capable of “defusing” returned attacks of the enemy creatures before fragile Clan Warriors can start attacking them.
And remember, that the ability of Warlord Helmet also applies to minions, which means with this relic on the Hero, they will be attacking a little bit better. The same as for Chief's Helmet, you should keep in mind that Sword in the Stone and Two-handed Morgenstern use the same relic slot, so if the king Uthor is armed with his Morgenstern, he cannot summon minions using the relic.