Hmmm, I will think on that one, are you saying that you think that the hits go to BOTH at the same time? Example: if I get one hit, I can use that on a fighter AND an Infantry at the same time? Not sure about that.
Yes. If you roll a 6,7 or 8 on the Anti-Fighter Barrage, it produces hits on fighters, and any excess hits may be assigned to sustain damage. If you roll a 9 or 0, each such roll kills an infantry as well - as a bonus, in other words.
Flock Migration is a good counter to Diplomacy. As long as an opponent plays diplo on a system with no ships, you can easily move in and take it next turn. If you have Warfare, it's yours.
@@colby7865 not if it’s the other side of the galaxy. You can also force your opponents to move to/build ships at home because you have a command token there (which you are using mostly as a stall).
@@pillinjer after i had posted my comment, i definitely realized what i said was totally incorrect and what your real point was. and then i was like HOLY MOLI THAT GUY IS SMART! and started coming up with a ton of scenarios in my head that would be super useful for! you actually just helped me tremendously so thank you!
It is, but its uses appear relatively limited and situational... These guys are not a strong hero race as far as I can tell. The destroyer / mech combo is really good, especially if you have upgraded infantry as well - i.e., fleet of 4 destroyers carrying 4 mechs and 4 infantry is a pretty decent ground invasion force against a system with limited ships in it. If you think you need to soak up more damage for the space combat, replace some or all of the infantry with fighters. Total resource cost for a fleet like that is only 14.
Yeah that ignore capacity thing is actually potentially very strong. It's a risky play if you stacak up mechs on the one ship, but could be huge when invading a well defended Mecatol or home system.
Played them over the weekend and they seemed strong. Having a carrier, 2 destroyers and 5 infantry means they can split to go to 3 different systems turn 1 without building anything else, and probably 4 or 5 systems after Warfare is played (assuming you get more counters). With exploration giving even more bonuses for getting to a planet first, this often puts them ahead with relic fragments, counters, or trade goods, and they have no trouble getting to Mecatol Rex in 2 turns, even in a 4-ring galaxy. The upgraded Destroyer is nasty, as even just 1 of them with the Commander could potentially kill 4 fighters AND 4 infantry before combat. Mechs seem required in order to invade them efficiently.
I played the Argent all wrong and it still took the OP Nekro (15 techs) with the Aid of the Mahact to stop me from winning. When played right they can be an absolute force although I wouldn’t give them much credit for being an end game faction without some really exceptional game play and some pretty rare things falling into place. They can jump out early in scoring which puts a big target on their back especially in big 6-8 player games. In my defense, playing with them was my very first game ever, it was an 8 player game and it took forever!!! I learned a lot though and would love to play as them again. Very fun and very quick start. Pro tip: build a lot of destroyers, fighters and mechs, get the faction specific destroyer tech and then you can kinda control what happens in and around your slice especially against more defensive factions (with the flagship) or even slightly expand your slice.
I played them in a 5 player over the weekend(Mahact, Argent Flight, Muat, Yssaril, Sol). Sol won with Argent flight and Mahact tied for second at 13 VP. 4 destroyer upgrades w/ 3 flyers and 1 inf hit 4 dreadnoughts for Sol without fighters and took them down...no capacity cost for the mechs is sweet
Hero idea when you have the warfare card: 1.build a huge fleet at home 2.position destroyers next to home systems/ mecatol rex/ legendary planets 3.helix protocol to move the massive fleet at home to one of the destroyers 4.use warfare to pick up that token and 5.take a home system/legendary planet
problem with this - you spend token to send some destroyers to position then other player plays and he goes and kills them. For necrovirus its walking free tech - others will not likely allow other persons ship loitering near sensitive systems and most will be defended well enough for destroyers not being able to approach anyway. Strongest use of this would be i think during invastion - with warfare as you mentioned but only after player activated some sector then you invade with bit bigger army than opponent, hope to survive with at least couple of ships then use the hero. Other players still may interfere with this (seeing opportunity in seizeing system with weakened force on it) so too many things must go well. I think the hero is not that great. Played them few days ago, upgraded destroyers are awesome, mechs are superb too, commander is great (recommending upgrading PDS as well). Played againts Mahacts who used their ability to force me to cast a lot of votes their way - annoying af. Their racial yellow tech does not seem that good (would not use it whole game imho, maybe +1 build on some occasions but thats too weak)
Won my 2nd PoK game with argent... Love these guys! Their mechs have perfect synergy with their destroyers for control objectives Edit: you absolutely want to go plasma sarween here; you want red tech line for upgraded destroyer into assault cannon into warsuns
You missed a couple of powerful things: You can use anti-fighter barrage even if there are no fighters. So you can get free hits on sustain damage units (it’s easy to miss as normally if there are no fighters anti-fighter barrage does nothing). It only damages them, but weakening the opponent before the fight is always useful (and you can assign it so you can prioritise the most important units to kill). The upgraded destroyers’ ability to kill infantry occurs whenever they roll a 9 or 10 as well as assigning any hits (and again you can use it when they have no fighters). It only hits infantry so the best counter play is to bring mechs along as well.
Argent Flight really fun to play,,,everything has a cool theme and it makes for a fun game...once players are used to the ability though they know to bring fighters which immediately negates the destroyers ability to a degree. Fun game where Bacterial weapon was used on Mecatol Rex(by me) and Muat nuked a system. Sol stormed to victory on last turn as Mahact could not get to Sol's home system to deny Sol scoring.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Yes and we used one of the suggested boards and thought they worked well...Mirage popped up out of nowhere which helped the Argent Flight. I also got the Crown relic which went nice with Argent Flight hero so had a very dangerous destroyer battlegroup.
I got expansion yetserday as birthday gift and this is 1st race i will play. The goal is to go warsuns early. -At start take yellow and red tech -technology 1-get red tech taht exhausts to either ignore 1 prerequisite of unit or reduce cost while producing for every unit upgread you have. -technology 2- up destroyers (previous red techreduces by 1) -technology 3- get warsun by exhausting that red tech (u have 2 red and 1 yellow) -tech 4 - get pds upgread. now with serween tools and that red tech you can produce warsun paying 8 resources (12-1 serween - 3 from unit upgreads) Yeah less action cards will hurt possibly but upgreaded destroyers should keep opponents away from you long enought to get comfortable and first turns you want to make lots of them and free of capacity mechs. I usually play with races that go into green/blue tech so I wanted to try them and it looks like perfect fit with destroyers needing 2 red at start. Usually 2nd blue is essential to help with movement and necessary to up dreadnoughts and carriers, but both warsuns and destroyers do have 2 move so this weakness is nullified and in mid/lategame you go to blue tech anyway to get the best techs in game. This is point of game when enemies starts making pds networks so your flagship becomes important right at time you get 2nd blue. Also their race countering 4th blue is something out of this world, making pds network with them is essential (remember, they roll another dice with them) So to summarise early destroyers and mechs, midgame warsuns and pds and lategame blue tech and flagship. This way we get all abilities that benefit from commander. What you think lads? Its just theorycrafting so far but... jesus if it doesnt sound op I dont know what does.
So, there are 3 factions in the expansion (argent flight, nomad, and empyrean) that I want to play. Better get my playgroup to have more than one games in the upcomming time period
The aerie hololattice... since it says the *planet* gains production 1, not the structure, isn't that just an effective +1 to the production of space docks as well, since production adds up in a system?
Yes, that's right. It's good to point out that it applies to the planet because it disallows you from placing 2 PDS on the same planet and having 2 production. In this case, you'd still only have 1 production. But let's say you have a 3 planet system with a space dock on one planet and a PDS on the other 2 (I'll use the home system as an example) - you'd have 4 production from the space dock (2 resources plus 2 from space dock) and then 3 production from the planets for a total of 7. Pretty neat
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Even better with Fleet Logistics. Activate an empty tile near your target, for example a home system and do just nothing, as your second action use your hero. In the next turn use Warfare and as the second action attack your target. Your opponent has only 1 turn to react, just crazy.
@@TheUlrikHansen Yup, I tried it and my friends were like "... what's going on here. what do your guys do? (pointing to my agent side of the sheet). And they moved in a ship :p
Pulled the action card that allows you to assign AFB as hits in a big combat. 3 SWA IIs took out 2 dreadnoughts, a cruiser and damaged a flagship. The guy I was up against had a bit of a shock and failed his invasion attempt because of the units lost from capacity. They don’t live long but they sure do die hard, and then you can counter-punch with a heavier fleet.
Wanted to give a quick report on a half game I played with Argent (my table's first game of PoK). First and most importantly, these guys are the "counter everything" faction. The flagship plus raid formation makes you Titans's worst nightmare - their cruisers are OPAF because they have sustain damage plus 2 capacity and then they will invariably have a strong PDS network. Using the flagship to block PDS and AFB + Raid Formation to proc sustain damage makes everything the Titans do pretty useless. Obviously, the destroyers are great against fighter screens and their Raid Formation ability makes them counter just about any capital ship race (I'm pretty sure it even bypasses Barony's NES tech, but don't quote me on that). I like to compare Raid Formation to Mentak's flagship - basically, enemies no longer have sustain damage. Something I haven't seen anyone mention really is that their upgraded destroyers are BEASTS on defense (especially after unlocking the commander). Even if someone blasts through your outer defenses and moves into your home system, keeping just a few upgraded destroyers can render the attack useless since there's a strong chance you can kill all of the infantry they bring with your upgraded AFB (as someone else noted though, watch out for mechs). Their weakness is definitely ground combat. As others have stated, your mechs flying along for free really helps with this, but only goes so far. During my game, my Sol neighbor decided to grab a planet in my slice. While I utterly decimated him overall, I was never able to re-take that planet. Obviously, that's Sol's forte, but something to keep in mind. Another weakness is their home system. Being three planets, it can be tough to defend all of them (but remember what I said about their upgraded destroyers). Beyond that, their home system from a resources, influence, and production standpoint is pretty bad. As others have mentioned, I focused pretty hard on influence to get my CC economy churning in order to increase my fleet pool since I knew I'd be gunning for destroyer dogfights (which turned out to be really successful). I also ended up putting a second space dock in my home system early on but I think I'd do things differently if given another chance. I'm thinking it would have been better to just get their faction tech and make sure I have PDS on the other two planets in the home system which would have resulted in the same amount of production. Anyway, I didn't take too kindly to that choice by Sol and proceeded to totally dominate him in space the next round. First, I destroyed a small fleet above his forward dock with just a few destroyers - the entire table was pretty surprised just how easily I did so. I then took the planet for free (he messed up thinking his commander ability procs even if there's no infantry on the planet [ground combat doesn't occur if there aren't ground forces for both sides] - unlucky for him, but I had my mechs and likely would have taken the planet anyway). I then took 5 destroyers and 5 fighters to his home system and quickly dispatched of the carrier + fighters and 2 dreadnoughts he had defending the system. With that, both of his space docks were destroyed or blockaded, his fleets turned to rubble, and his game was effectively over. Overall, I played Argent on a whim because I didn't think I would like them much and I knew we wouldn't finish this game. That said, there's a good chance I will play these bird folks many times going forward as I had a great time with them. It seems like their Strike Wing 2 tech is a must get, I don't think there's a better unit upgrade out there besides maybe Saturn Engine 2. Their yellow tech seems good, but I can't speak to it too directly. If you do get it, it seems like the idea is to have all of your ships forward and getting into skirmishes while you set up a PDS network in your slice and use your agent to make your planets difficult to take. Then, any attacker needs to go through multiple layers of PDS and ground combat before even getting the chance to have all their infantry destroyed in the space area of your home system lol. Speaking of, it also seems like PDS 2 is a must get. Everything else seems flexible. I ended up getting self assembly routines (started with Sarween and Plasma, so this basically gave me 3 free resources every production assuming I was planning on producing a mech). I felt it worked pretty well with the lack of resources and production that Argent deals with, but wouldn't say it was necessary. It was nice being able to get my mechs out using my agent's ability though. Next time, I think I'm going to try what I mentioned with their yellow faction tech and possibly cruiser 2. I feel like there might be some good synergy there. Overall, really fun faction.
I kinda suspected I would dislike them myself and was more than surprised by how fun they are. They're probably one of my favourite factions now. Destroyer on defense is a good shout.
Of the new the races so far, that i have seen, these guys are by far the most innovative. I can already see it now how they can become this discount powerhouse and completly unpredictable, in just how far their reach actually is on the board.Great stuff!
Exactly my thinking on them. I was sort of low on them when the announcement happened and they were one of the first races shown, but they've grown massively in my opinion of them since.
I think going for Sarween tool and Neural Motivator at the start is beter. If you research AI Development Algorithm after that which can be two red pre reqs anyway and makes production cheaper.
Just about to play Argent and glad I saw this comment. Looked at the tech tree and I think you are absolutely right. Could potentially get you Assault cannon in three turns this way with turn two gaining both self-assembly routines and Strike Wing Alpha II.
Trrakan is way better than promissory note. You get attacked your space cannon fires 3 times ( plasma + commander), your destroyer fires anti fighter 4 times, Infantry go to land Space cannon again 3 times.
I played them yesterday and plasma scoring has more use, at least late game. And you need red tech for destroyer upgrade. Would def take green/yellow first though! Their racial tech lets you use pds as small production facilities. So you actually want your pds out. If you have a nice pds network you get +1 die roll on pds shots, not too bad!
That mech is crazy good, you could stack all four of them with a single strike wing, and overrun an enemy system that has infantry but no ships. The mechs can also pair with an infantry to allow one destroyer to take a two planet system early game, which seems really good for expanding. You’ll probably hope to use warfare secondary to get a mech turn 1 to snatch up another planet with your strike wings. I’m wondering if you’re allowed to use their agent on a planet that you don’t control, so you could produce a ground force than grab a planet for free... On another note, the Argent seem to have counters for every combat strategy, their powerful destroyers counter fighter screen, Their racial ability counters dreadnought/war sun, and their flagship counters pds. They seem like they might have a command counter shortage, they’ll want to fill up their fleet pool so they can stack destroyers, but they have no special way to get command counters. (Also, if you target high influence values to get CCs, you will become completely unstoppable in the agenda phase.) Watch out for representative government, it turns Zeal from a powerful tool into a disadvantage! With each new faction, my comments are getting longer and longer. With the 7th one, you’ll probably be getting a doctorate thesis.
Representative Government dosen't turn Zeal into a disadvantage, so much as it does what Rep.-gov. always did. It brings every player to a level playing field. Most races can have their faction abilities negated in one way or another. The Naalu can have their 0 token stolen by an action card for example. Equally the Barony can be robbed of trade goods and/or starved for trade altogether....
@John the way I interpreted it was you don’t get the extra votes, but you still have to vote first, which I always thought was a disadvantage because you’re voting with the least amount of information.
The Argent Flight don't strike me as instantly one of the stronger factions, however I think once you work out the synergy and tricks between their abilities they will begin to be much stronger. I'm pretty novice though and these strike me more as a faction that should be used by an experienced player.
I've already filmed a couple of others ahead of them. I've actually been saving Nomad as something to look forward to for myself :) It'll be along soon though!
Shelby won with the Nomad and I came in second with the Nazz... 5 player game. I learned the hard way not to take a huge lead because basically the entire table turned on me and took turns trying to take my home system. I think it took them about 10 actions but they finally did it. Shelby scored 4 points in the round I was being slaughtered by everyone and he ended up winning.. haha lessons learned for next time!
The destroyer upgrade's ability says "also", so the anti-fighter damage doesn't "roll over" to troops, it's in addition to. Very nice.
Hmmm, I will think on that one, are you saying that you think that the hits go to BOTH at the same time? Example: if I get one hit, I can use that on a fighter AND an Infantry at the same time? Not sure about that.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames I read it as in addition to also - don't forget it hits on 7/8 but the unit ability only hits on 9 and 10
I also read it as an addition too
Yes. If you roll a 6,7 or 8 on the Anti-Fighter Barrage, it produces hits on fighters, and any excess hits may be assigned to sustain damage. If you roll a 9 or 0, each such roll kills an infantry as well - as a bonus, in other words.
Great overview! I am playing AF for the first time today and I like your suggestions.
Flock Migration is a good counter to Diplomacy. As long as an opponent plays diplo on a system with no ships, you can easily move in and take it next turn. If you have Warfare, it's yours.
Yes, very true. I love the options available to these guys.
If you have warfare and they have no ships, wouldn't the system be yours...? O.o
@@colby7865 not if it’s the other side of the galaxy. You can also force your opponents to move to/build ships at home because you have a command token there (which you are using mostly as a stall).
@@pillinjer after i had posted my comment, i definitely realized what i said was totally incorrect and what your real point was. and then i was like HOLY MOLI THAT GUY IS SMART! and started coming up with a ton of scenarios in my head that would be super useful for! you actually just helped me tremendously so thank you!
It is, but its uses appear relatively limited and situational... These guys are not a strong hero race as far as I can tell. The destroyer / mech combo is really good, especially if you have upgraded infantry as well - i.e., fleet of 4 destroyers carrying 4 mechs and 4 infantry is a pretty decent ground invasion force against a system with limited ships in it. If you think you need to soak up more damage for the space combat, replace some or all of the infantry with fighters. Total resource cost for a fleet like that is only 14.
Just gonna mention... Anti fighter barrage doesn't need fighters presents to do you just skip it usually when you fint okay ardent.
Their mechs are good because they allow you to capture 2 planet tiles with a destroyer instead of a carrier
Yeah that ignore capacity thing is actually potentially very strong. It's a risky play if you stacak up mechs on the one ship, but could be huge when invading a well defended Mecatol or home system.
Played them over the weekend and they seemed strong. Having a carrier, 2 destroyers and 5 infantry means they can split to go to 3 different systems turn 1 without building anything else, and probably 4 or 5 systems after Warfare is played (assuming you get more counters). With exploration giving even more bonuses for getting to a planet first, this often puts them ahead with relic fragments, counters, or trade goods, and they have no trouble getting to Mecatol Rex in 2 turns, even in a 4-ring galaxy. The upgraded Destroyer is nasty, as even just 1 of them with the Commander could potentially kill 4 fighters AND 4 infantry before combat. Mechs seem required in order to invade them efficiently.
I played the Argent all wrong and it still took the OP Nekro (15 techs) with the Aid of the Mahact to stop me from winning. When played right they can be an absolute force although I wouldn’t give them much credit for being an end game faction without some really exceptional game play and some pretty rare things falling into place. They can jump out early in scoring which puts a big target on their back especially in big 6-8 player games.
In my defense, playing with them was my very first game ever, it was an 8 player game and it took forever!!! I learned a lot though and would love to play as them again. Very fun and very quick start.
Pro tip: build a lot of destroyers, fighters and mechs, get the faction specific destroyer tech and then you can kinda control what happens in and around your slice especially against more defensive factions (with the flagship) or even slightly expand your slice.
I played them in a 5 player over the weekend(Mahact, Argent Flight, Muat, Yssaril, Sol). Sol won with Argent flight and Mahact tied for second at 13 VP. 4 destroyer upgrades w/ 3 flyers and 1 inf hit 4 dreadnoughts for Sol without fighters and took them down...no capacity cost for the mechs is sweet
Watching this video a second time because I'm so excited to play these guys when my friend's expansion ships
I know, right? They're such a fascinating faction. Glad you enjoyed the video!
They are my favorite of the new as well; super strong. Try to get hope's end for an ideal round 1 expansion
@@colby7865 thanks for that suggestion! It sounds very strong early on. Hopefully it'll end up in my slice of the board when I play.
Hero idea when you have the warfare card: 1.build a huge fleet at home 2.position destroyers next to home systems/ mecatol rex/ legendary planets 3.helix protocol to move the massive fleet at home to one of the destroyers 4.use warfare to pick up that token and 5.take a home system/legendary planet
Yeah, this is some serious mass invasion stuff. Seems very possible.
problem with this - you spend token to send some destroyers to position then other player plays and he goes and kills them. For necrovirus its walking free tech - others will not likely allow other persons ship loitering near sensitive systems and most will be defended well enough for destroyers not being able to approach anyway.
Strongest use of this would be i think during invastion - with warfare as you mentioned but only after player activated some sector then you invade with bit bigger army than opponent, hope to survive with at least couple of ships then use the hero. Other players still may interfere with this (seeing opportunity in seizeing system with weakened force on it) so too many things must go well. I think the hero is not that great.
Played them few days ago, upgraded destroyers are awesome, mechs are superb too, commander is great (recommending upgrading PDS as well). Played againts Mahacts who used their ability to force me to cast a lot of votes their way - annoying af. Their racial yellow tech does not seem that good (would not use it whole game imho, maybe +1 build on some occasions but thats too weak)
wow, they are very very flexible. My favorite fraction for now
Are you a slav?
@@jern2216slav?
Won my 2nd PoK game with argent... Love these guys! Their mechs have perfect synergy with their destroyers for control objectives
Edit: you absolutely want to go plasma sarween here; you want red tech line for upgraded destroyer into assault cannon into warsuns
I'm so jealous, wish I could get a game in with them. That's awesome to hear. I'm very excited to play them.
What is the new red tech allowing you to skip a prereq if you have unit upgrade? I even skipped assault for 3rd round warsuns
You missed a couple of powerful things:
You can use anti-fighter barrage even if there are no fighters. So you can get free hits on sustain damage units (it’s easy to miss as normally if there are no fighters anti-fighter barrage does nothing). It only damages them, but weakening the opponent before the fight is always useful (and you can assign it so you can prioritise the most important units to kill).
The upgraded destroyers’ ability to kill infantry occurs whenever they roll a 9 or 10 as well as assigning any hits (and again you can use it when they have no fighters). It only hits infantry so the best counter play is to bring mechs along as well.
Nice things of note. Thanks, Andrew.
Can I roll the dice for anti fighter barrage veen if there are no fighters and assign hits to their susain damage units then?
Nope. Only to fighters
Yes, anti-fighter barrage happens even if no fighters are present, per the living rulebook.
I think bookmark links for the different sections in the video would be useful. Keep up the videos.
That's not a bad idea. I will do that soon.
Argent Flight really fun to play,,,everything has a cool theme and it makes for a fun game...once players are used to the ability though they know to bring fighters which immediately negates the destroyers ability to a degree. Fun game where Bacterial weapon was used on Mecatol Rex(by me) and Muat nuked a system. Sol stormed to victory on last turn as Mahact could not get to Sol's home system to deny Sol scoring.
Sounds like a lot of fun. Did you use warp lanes?
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Yes and we used one of the suggested boards and thought they worked well...Mirage popped up out of nowhere which helped the Argent Flight. I also got the Crown relic which went nice with Argent Flight hero so had a very dangerous destroyer battlegroup.
Ooh nice. I must play with 5 some time.
I got expansion yetserday as birthday gift and this is 1st race i will play.
The goal is to go warsuns early.
-At start take yellow and red tech
-technology 1-get red tech taht exhausts to either ignore 1 prerequisite of unit or reduce cost while producing for every unit upgread you have.
-technology 2- up destroyers (previous red techreduces by 1)
-technology 3- get warsun by exhausting that red tech (u have 2 red and 1 yellow)
-tech 4 - get pds upgread. now with serween tools and that red tech you can produce warsun paying 8 resources (12-1 serween - 3 from unit upgreads)
Yeah less action cards will hurt possibly but upgreaded destroyers should keep opponents away from you long enought to get comfortable and first turns you want to make lots of them and free of capacity mechs.
I usually play with races that go into green/blue tech so I wanted to try them and it looks like perfect fit with destroyers needing 2 red at start.
Usually 2nd blue is essential to help with movement and necessary to up dreadnoughts and carriers, but both warsuns and destroyers do have 2 move so this weakness is nullified and in mid/lategame you go to blue tech anyway to get the best techs in game. This is point of game when enemies starts making pds networks so your flagship becomes important right at time you get 2nd blue. Also their race countering 4th blue is something out of this world, making pds network with them is essential (remember, they roll another dice with them)
So to summarise early destroyers and mechs, midgame warsuns and pds and lategame blue tech and flagship. This way we get all abilities that benefit from commander. What you think lads? Its just theorycrafting so far but... jesus if it doesnt sound op I dont know what does.
Sounds really good:) I’ll try it tomorrow!
So, there are 3 factions in the expansion (argent flight, nomad, and empyrean) that I want to play. Better get my playgroup to have more than one games in the upcomming time period
Empyrean video coming up very soon
The aerie hololattice... since it says the *planet* gains production 1, not the structure, isn't that just an effective +1 to the production of space docks as well, since production adds up in a system?
Yes, that's right. It's good to point out that it applies to the planet because it disallows you from placing 2 PDS on the same planet and having 2 production. In this case, you'd still only have 1 production. But let's say you have a 3 planet system with a space dock on one planet and a PDS on the other 2 (I'll use the home system as an example) - you'd have 4 production from the space dock (2 resources plus 2 from space dock) and then 3 production from the planets for a total of 7. Pretty neat
Combine their hero with the warfare strategy card.
Ohhhhh wow! That is crazy cool
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Even better with Fleet Logistics. Activate an empty tile near your target, for example a home system and do just nothing, as your second action use your hero. In the next turn use Warfare and as the second action attack your target.
Your opponent has only 1 turn to react, just crazy.
@@jesuszockt3531 Probably best done with a blue tech skip right ...
@@TheUlrikHansen Yup, I tried it and my friends were like "... what's going on here. what do your guys do? (pointing to my agent side of the sheet). And they moved in a ship :p
Pulled the action card that allows you to assign AFB as hits in a big combat. 3 SWA IIs took out 2 dreadnoughts, a cruiser and damaged a flagship. The guy I was up against had a bit of a shock and failed his invasion attempt because of the units lost from capacity. They don’t live long but they sure do die hard, and then you can counter-punch with a heavier fleet.
Sounds fun :)
Wanted to give a quick report on a half game I played with Argent (my table's first game of PoK).
First and most importantly, these guys are the "counter everything" faction. The flagship plus raid formation makes you Titans's worst nightmare - their cruisers are OPAF because they have sustain damage plus 2 capacity and then they will invariably have a strong PDS network. Using the flagship to block PDS and AFB + Raid Formation to proc sustain damage makes everything the Titans do pretty useless. Obviously, the destroyers are great against fighter screens and their Raid Formation ability makes them counter just about any capital ship race (I'm pretty sure it even bypasses Barony's NES tech, but don't quote me on that). I like to compare Raid Formation to Mentak's flagship - basically, enemies no longer have sustain damage.
Something I haven't seen anyone mention really is that their upgraded destroyers are BEASTS on defense (especially after unlocking the commander). Even if someone blasts through your outer defenses and moves into your home system, keeping just a few upgraded destroyers can render the attack useless since there's a strong chance you can kill all of the infantry they bring with your upgraded AFB (as someone else noted though, watch out for mechs).
Their weakness is definitely ground combat. As others have stated, your mechs flying along for free really helps with this, but only goes so far. During my game, my Sol neighbor decided to grab a planet in my slice. While I utterly decimated him overall, I was never able to re-take that planet. Obviously, that's Sol's forte, but something to keep in mind.
Another weakness is their home system. Being three planets, it can be tough to defend all of them (but remember what I said about their upgraded destroyers). Beyond that, their home system from a resources, influence, and production standpoint is pretty bad. As others have mentioned, I focused pretty hard on influence to get my CC economy churning in order to increase my fleet pool since I knew I'd be gunning for destroyer dogfights (which turned out to be really successful). I also ended up putting a second space dock in my home system early on but I think I'd do things differently if given another chance. I'm thinking it would have been better to just get their faction tech and make sure I have PDS on the other two planets in the home system which would have resulted in the same amount of production.
Anyway, I didn't take too kindly to that choice by Sol and proceeded to totally dominate him in space the next round. First, I destroyed a small fleet above his forward dock with just a few destroyers - the entire table was pretty surprised just how easily I did so. I then took the planet for free (he messed up thinking his commander ability procs even if there's no infantry on the planet [ground combat doesn't occur if there aren't ground forces for both sides] - unlucky for him, but I had my mechs and likely would have taken the planet anyway). I then took 5 destroyers and 5 fighters to his home system and quickly dispatched of the carrier + fighters and 2 dreadnoughts he had defending the system. With that, both of his space docks were destroyed or blockaded, his fleets turned to rubble, and his game was effectively over.
Overall, I played Argent on a whim because I didn't think I would like them much and I knew we wouldn't finish this game. That said, there's a good chance I will play these bird folks many times going forward as I had a great time with them. It seems like their Strike Wing 2 tech is a must get, I don't think there's a better unit upgrade out there besides maybe Saturn Engine 2. Their yellow tech seems good, but I can't speak to it too directly. If you do get it, it seems like the idea is to have all of your ships forward and getting into skirmishes while you set up a PDS network in your slice and use your agent to make your planets difficult to take. Then, any attacker needs to go through multiple layers of PDS and ground combat before even getting the chance to have all their infantry destroyed in the space area of your home system lol. Speaking of, it also seems like PDS 2 is a must get. Everything else seems flexible. I ended up getting self assembly routines (started with Sarween and Plasma, so this basically gave me 3 free resources every production assuming I was planning on producing a mech). I felt it worked pretty well with the lack of resources and production that Argent deals with, but wouldn't say it was necessary. It was nice being able to get my mechs out using my agent's ability though.
Next time, I think I'm going to try what I mentioned with their yellow faction tech and possibly cruiser 2. I feel like there might be some good synergy there.
Overall, really fun faction.
I kinda suspected I would dislike them myself and was more than surprised by how fun they are. They're probably one of my favourite factions now. Destroyer on defense is a good shout.
Of the new the races so far, that i have seen, these guys are by far the most innovative. I can already see it now how they can become this discount powerhouse and completly unpredictable, in just how far their reach actually is on the board.Great stuff!
Exactly my thinking on them. I was sort of low on them when the announcement happened and they were one of the first races shown, but they've grown massively in my opinion of them since.
I think going for Sarween tool and Neural Motivator at the start is beter. If you research AI Development Algorithm after that which can be two red pre reqs anyway and makes production cheaper.
Yeah you might be right there
Just about to play Argent and glad I saw this comment. Looked at the tech tree and I think you are absolutely right. Could potentially get you Assault cannon in three turns this way with turn two gaining both self-assembly routines and Strike Wing Alpha II.
All of the new factions look interesting and powerful
Totally. These guys might be my unexpected favourite of the bunch.
Trrakan is way better than promissory note. You get attacked your space cannon fires 3 times ( plasma + commander), your destroyer fires anti fighter 4 times, Infantry go to land Space cannon again 3 times.
You're probably right, yeah. These guys are so flexible in their approach to all kinds of parts of the game. Really versatile.
With Trajan, their alliance card is just a more powerful version of their racial note.
Plasma Scoring has one purpose... path to War Sun.
Absolutely. And now there are more early Red techs to play instead.
I played them yesterday and plasma scoring has more use, at least late game. And you need red tech for destroyer upgrade. Would def take green/yellow first though! Their racial tech lets you use pds as small production facilities. So you actually want your pds out. If you have a nice pds network you get +1 die roll on pds shots, not too bad!
That mech is crazy good, you could stack all four of them with a single strike wing, and overrun an enemy system that has infantry but no ships. The mechs can also pair with an infantry to allow one destroyer to take a two planet system early game, which seems really good for expanding. You’ll probably hope to use warfare secondary to get a mech turn 1 to snatch up another planet with your strike wings.
I’m wondering if you’re allowed to use their agent on a planet that you don’t control, so you could produce a ground force than grab a planet for free...
On another note, the Argent seem to have counters for every combat strategy, their powerful destroyers counter fighter screen, Their racial ability counters dreadnought/war sun, and their flagship counters pds.
They seem like they might have a command counter shortage, they’ll want to fill up their fleet pool so they can stack destroyers, but they have no special way to get command counters. (Also, if you target high influence values to get CCs, you will become completely unstoppable in the agenda phase.)
Watch out for representative government, it turns Zeal from a powerful tool into a disadvantage!
With each new faction, my comments are getting longer and longer. With the 7th one, you’ll probably be getting a doctorate thesis.
Whoops, never mind, the agent only works with planets you control. Maybe I should pay more attention before I start rambling in the comment section...
Representative Government dosen't turn Zeal into a disadvantage, so much as it does what Rep.-gov. always did.
It brings every player to a level playing field.
Most races can have their faction abilities negated in one way or another. The Naalu can have their 0 token stolen by an action card for example. Equally the Barony can be robbed of trade goods and/or starved for trade altogether....
Oh wow, the Mechs all stack with a single Destroyer... That's really cool. Risky if it gets shot down though!
@John the way I interpreted it was you don’t get the extra votes, but you still have to vote first, which I always thought was a disadvantage because you’re voting with the least amount of information.
@@isaacm6052 I guess you're right, having to always vote first could suck. Unless you're speaker.
The Argent Flight don't strike me as instantly one of the stronger factions, however I think once you work out the synergy and tricks between their abilities they will begin to be much stronger. I'm pretty novice though and these strike me more as a faction that should be used by an experienced player.
That's fair. THey seem to me to be a good faction for new players to perform well with, though. Give them a try!
You want AIDA as AF, that combined with Plasma, gives you destroyer upgrade
Sentient avian species from Pandora that field super-destroyers and warp the agenda phase- what's not to like? 🤯
Absolute lunatics, aren't they? Game changers in many ways.
The no fly over structures stops light wave
Yeah, it sure does
Great video. Gave lots of ideas
Thanks, Jonathan. Have fun!
Could you do a Nomad video next good sir?
Coming soon, two others in the queue before it though, I filmed a bunch together and saved Nomad for next filming day. Excited about them!
Who is your favorite race at of the original?
From the original races, my favourite is probably Federation of Sol. I enjoy the Hacan a lot too
Please Nomad next please good sir
I've already filmed a couple of others ahead of them. I've actually been saving Nomad as something to look forward to for myself :) It'll be along soon though!
First.
You lucky bitch!
Some First racing going on in the Langdon house?
@@RulebreakerBoardgames that’s my brother. Our first play through of the expansion will be on 12/20/2020.
Did you guys play? Who came out on top?
Shelby won with the Nomad and I came in second with the Nazz... 5 player game. I learned the hard way not to take a huge lead because basically the entire table turned on me and took turns trying to take my home system. I think it took them about 10 actions but they finally did it. Shelby scored 4 points in the round I was being slaughtered by everyone and he ended up winning.. haha lessons learned for next time!