Avoid Your Problems: A Small Guide to Being Human

Blight
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Inspired by SpySat’s Orc Guide, found here, I wanted to do something similar but much more limited in scope. I want to look at what I call the three MC Hammer Heroes of the Human Race.

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That’s right, my boys Dragonhelm Knight, Wizard, and Hound Master. Why are they the MC Hammer Heroes? Because with these cards in play the undead CAN’T TOUCH THIS.

Most races will have only one of these types of units, if any. For the elves, it would be the Tree Whisperer. For the trolls, the Bridge Witch, but not for the Humans. No, humanity gets three.

And not just three, but the three BEST ones. With these three cards at your disposal you literally have the ability to pull, stop, or push undead. You’ve got them coming, staying and going. You can direct the undead like traffic. FIGHT undead? Please, just walk around them!

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Let’s start with the dragonhelm knight. It costs him TWO mana to pull an immortal horde and as soon as the effect ends, he’s ready to cast again. His speed of 3 means he can outrun pretty much any undead army. These are COMMON units and are often required parts of your deck! They give them to you FOR FREE! Insane!
You might say “oh but the Bridge Witch can pull all the zombies in 2 leagues for 24 hours” and sure, that’s pretty good. But it costs 10 mana and her speed is 6. She can’t kite all hordes and so she’s best used to lure zombies into a swamp for a Marsh Warden trap.
But with a Dragonhelm Knight, any pesky horde coming your way can just be kited around, then dragged wherever you want indefinitely.

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Next is the Wizard.
Wizard is everything good about the Elves in one unit! Noble race my foot, this one old bearded dude is both a tree whisperer and an archer, and with a faster refresh!
With enough mana, he can freeze an army permanently. Oh no are you about to be attacked? Make a wizard, fool. Then have a Dragonhelm Knight walk around them and drag them away!

But MOST importantly, my all time FAVORITE human unit…

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HOUND MASTER.
4 mana cost, effects a unit for 12 hours, restores every 12 hours… if you have a Hound Master you can go where you please. You can literally part the Red Sea, stroll right into zombieland with a small army, and one by one just burn the Blight away.

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The humans are SWIMMING in horde management units, two of which have such a cheap mana cost that you literally have no excuse to ever be attacked. Honestly how are there even human zombies to begin with? Who were the idiots who fell asleep behind the wheel and forgot to just ask politely for the encroaching horde to leave?

In short:

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4 Likes
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Yeay humans, love them nearly as much as the elves, there are an important inaccuracies and things I do differently

(all numbers looked up in the in game ‘your collection’ tab so as to be as up to date as possible)

incorrect information :-

mana cost is not the same as the tree whisperer (12 vs 6), this is an important difference as with human I have issues with mana generation - normally I try to have elves in my deck and would pick tree wisperers in preference due to the mana cost.

key points missed (imho) -
gnostic mages - they help immensely in sorting out crises where you need some extra dragonhelm knight power, and can later game be switched to help offensive units
wizards - for the previously mentioned reason I try to take tree wizards when I can
any movement compusion unit - it is useful to use them to merge incoming stacks, the ‘none shall pass’ debuff stacks on zombies running into zombies with it for instance
dragonhelm knights - you can easily use them to merge multiple stacks into more controllable stacks
dragonhelm knights - you can use them like a hound master - they pull the zombie stack on a graveyard, then dart in with some quick cheap unit to burn the bodies
dragonhelm knights - while the debuff lasts 12 hours the zombies will continue in the same direction until they hit a junction - often you can get another few hours of forced movement out of them (best case with zombie dwarfs in mountains you can get 28 hours of forced movement, then leave them in a location you can predict where they will go), It is easy when you know how to manage more stacks than you have dragonhelm knights of zombies

I have been debating doing a more in depth write up of the movement compulsion units, I’m unsure if people deem that worth the time

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Additionally, the elves have the Forest Dryad (formerly the Enchantress) which is also supposed to be CC; What are your thoughts on her?

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Where is the gnostic mage? where is the reflesher? bwahaha.

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What I wanted to highlight most here was that the humans are not, as some might consider them, an average but versatile race. The usual master of none situation for humans in fantasy settings. Their compulsion units are first class and they have all three types of compulsion, making them INCREDIBLY powerful. While I do like the elves (their archers are practically the only way to get a high score in the game) I find with them that I can only, at best, delay the horde. With the humans, however, I can move them to wherever I want them to be.

Whoops! Don’t know how on earth I made that Wizard mistake. The thing about the Wizard that I find so incredibly valuable is their 6 hour refresh. One Wizard unit can potentially keep 2 different stacks on lock indefinitely. It’s expense in mana, but late in the game where I’d begin using them most I generally find I have plenty mana for them, both from the bazaar and simply focusing on aggressively securing mana pools.

And in regards to the Forest Whisperer, here are my thoughts: for 12 hours, once a day, a Forest Whisperer can keep a blighted army in place for 6 mana. Compare this to the Hound Master, who can make a blighted army flee for 12 hours. Once it has fled, it will take another 12 hours, at a minimum (like you pointed out, they will often walk further than that) to return. The Hound Master has essentially incapacitated a blighted army for 1 entire day, for 4 mana cost, and he will be able to cast it again on another army in another 12 hours.

And of course you’re right, Dragonhelm Knights can be used for sneaking into gravesites just like with Hound Masters. And their 2 mana cost makes it almost free to cast. Dragonhelm Knights are EXCELLENT units, and with thoughtful strategic positioning you can play pied piper to the undead and run circles around them. I often find myself, in the opening, that I do not have the time to pull a zombie army away, I need to push them back first. Which is why I take Hound Masters with me as a priority.

The requirement that it be in a forest kills me. Very situational and almost exclusively defensive. Whereas all the human units can be used aggressively.
Except if you are fighting goblins or elven undead, in which case you can use her almost like an explosive. Chuck her in a blighted forest and set her off, then watch all the undead scatter and reap your rewards. That’s huge, but I still probably prefer the human versatility.

Gnostic mages are super valuable to the humans, I agree. And they sync with all these compulsion units really nicely. You’re right, it might have been prudent to think of including them as an addendum to the great MC Hammers of the Human Race.

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I would also agree that they are pretty wimpy… Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one who thought this was the case.

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I am more tempered on the excitement of the hounds. I have seen the “push them away” units end up pushing them into another town (if not immediately, then shortly after) that was even less ready to be defended than the town pushed away from. I can’t say this is common, but common enough that it tempers my excitement. I still like the crowd control units, but I put the Hound Master at the bottom of that list.