The Book of Shades of Bleakewoode

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Although the C3V's Crypt Guardian can double their chances of success with Soul Devour, the Shades are simply too anti-hero and too expensive to be anything higher than a C.

~TAF, who thinks Shades are cool, just not competitive

When used in groups, I tend to disagree, but as a single squad, I agree, they're not worth the points.

[dok]

Here's a simple way to look at it: take 5x Shades and compare it to some reasonable group of competitive 500 point armies. One cool option would be to roll a d20 and grab something from 1Mmrig's classification of the Gencon 2011 armies (bottom spoiler in the first post of the thread).

There are a couple armies there where the Shades player has a decent chance to win if the other player is too reckless, but even with most of those I would give the other army an edge if it's two strong players. In the case of most of those matchups it's pretty much over from the word go.

[wriggz]

3xShades, Fen Hydra and Raelin would be very interesting. you have a good shot against Dragon, Solberg hero and a couple of other big hero armies.

Still a bit of a gambit. If I knew everyone had to bring 2/5th unique heroes and the other players were better than me this is likeily the way I would go.

[Joseph Sweeney]

Originally Posted by Owlman

Yeah, I've been using them alot the past few months, and the more the merrier when it comes to them. You need to roll that D20 as often as possible to get the magic number(s). As a single squad, they aren't worth the points, IMO, but in 2-4 groups, watch out!

How do they seem to handle 10th or 4th, out of curiosity? Or even Stingers or Minions? They just seem a little pricy for taking on other common squad units like that.

~JS, just wondering

[Sir Yeshua]

Originally Posted by Joseph Sweeney

How do they seem to handle 10th or 4th, out of curiosity? Or even Stingers or Minions? They just seem a little pricy for taking on other common squad units like that.

~JS, just wondering

Basically that. I don't have a ton of tourney experience, but only throwing a max of 9 dice melee isn't gonna be able to do crap with the squad heavy meta where you've got armies throwing 15-16 dice at range, which makes it more consistent...

Still lots of fun in dungeon crawls and casual games, with some potential as a counter draft, but they'll usually get fried before they can do anything.

[TheAverageFan]

Originally Posted by Sir Yeshua

Still lots of fun in dungeon crawls and casual games, with some potential as a counter draft, but they'll usually get fried before they can do anything.

I think that sums their competitive value. Heroscape was never meant to always be played in one single way (500 points, 24-hexes), so some units will always be better in some scenarios than others, and the Shades are one of those units. Whenever I do any Heroscape dungeon crawls, the Shades are one of the most dreaded enemies to come across. The same can be said of similar units like the Deathstalkers.

~TAF

[Snuffelupecus]

Ok question.. So if you have 2 shades of bleakewoode squads, you can activate one army card and soul devour with all 6. It says on a 19 or 20 DESTROY THE SHADES OF BLEAKEWOODE and take control of the hero. So if I roll a d20 for one of my shades that is adj to a hero and i make the roll.. so do I destroy ALL 6 of them and take control of the hero? thats my interpretation of it when i read the power.

[Marro_Warlord]

Originally Posted by Snuffelupecus

Ok question.. So if you have 2 shades of bleakewoode squads, you can activate one army card and soul devour with all 6. It says on a 19 or 20 DESTROY THE SHADES OF BLEAKEWOODE and take control of the hero. So if I roll a d20 for one of my shades that is adj to a hero and i make the roll.. so do I destroy ALL 6 of them and take control of the hero? thats my interpretation of it when i read the power.

First, no. You only destroy the Shade that was adjacent to the hero when you take control of it.

Second, welcome to the site! If you have any more questions, make sure to put them here, at the Question Dump.

[SuperSamyon]

Question, if I attempt to soul devour, after I complete that, am I allowed to then move and attack with them? What's tripping me up is it says before I move I may soul devour.

[Yodaking]

Yeah, as long as they were not destroyed by a successful d20 roll.

[SuperSamyon]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Yeah, as long as they were not destroyed by a successful d20 roll.

Thanks! They seem somewhat more useful now.

[Snuffelupecus]

I like using 2 of the bleake squads with Crypt Guardian. He adds 2 to the Soul Devour Roll. And theres also Bodgan, who bonds with them.