Vibro Mania
Title: Vibro Mania
Author: Justin "Nitsuj" Stratton
Date: Nov 25, 1999
Rating: 4.0
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Cards:
‘Locations (8) Coruscant Cloud City Downtown Plaza Cloud City Port Town District Dagobah Cave Endor Back Door Jabba’s Palace Audience Chamber Tatooine Cantina Tatooine Jabba’s Palace
Characters (27) Advosze x 2 Bane Malar Barada Boba Fett With Blaster Rifle Boelo Chall Bekan Darth Vader, Dark Lord Of The Sith Dengar Dr. Evazan Jabba J’Quille Kithaba Outer Rim Scout Ponda Baba Pote Snitkin Skrilling x 8 U-3PO Wuher Zuckuss
Starships (4) Bossk In Hound’s Tooth Jabba’s Space Cruiser Mist Hunter Punishing One
Interrupts (9) Boring Conversation Anyway Elis Helrot Imperial Barrier Monnok x 2 Torture x 2 Twi’lek Advisor x 2
Effects (7) Come Here You Big Coward Den Of Thieves Failure At The Cave First Strike Scum And Villainy Security Precautions There’ll Be Hell To Pay
Devices (1) Droid Detector
Weapons (5) Vibro-Ax’
Strategy: ‘
Every once in a while, I like to go through my cards, find a what I consider an underrated card, and then try to use it. So one day, I am going through the my weapons and I came across this little beauty Vibro-Ax. At first it looks pretty lousy, afterall, why not just use Disruptor Pistols and be done with it? However, upon closer inspection you can see the potency of this card. It comes two fold 1) High Power Warriors make it easy to exclude Obi-Wan or EPP’s. 2) High Destiny makes it a sure thing to exclude Obi-Wan or EPP’s. If you exclude a character from a battle, slam the other characters there, force your opponent to forfeit some of them, your opponent is left with the Ax victim sitting in a much less secure position next turn. I think this can be potent if used properly. So, I began working on this deck, banging out card combos faster then a player at a pinochle tournie.
Where oh where is that ax of mine? -or- Locations make a deck.
I decided that a Scum and Villainy strategy would be best. One, I had to play with Alien Warriors. Two, the lower deploy thanks to S&V makes the expensive Ax a little less painful. At first I tried to use just Tatooine Sites, but this got very, very dangerous. I didn’t get much activation from them, and while there was drain potential, I decided I would rather have drainage that could still exist regardless of Great Warrior. So, I added the two/two sites, Backdoor and Downtown Plaza. I also noticed how useful that deploy -1 and power + 1 bonus was at the Port Town District, so that was a must. I finally decided that the safe Coruscant and Dagobah Cave were musts to round out my activation.
‘I didn’t know if it was a stratocaster or a telecaster’ -or- Ax wielding maniacs
Now that my locations were coming together, I needed an army. Some of the Aliens were just obvious, Bane Malar and Kithaba just rock with the Ax, they seem to have a natural advantage with it. Ponda Baba could wield an ax as good as the next guy when he was with Dr. Evazan. Dengar is an I exclude you automatically when facing against a swarm. J’Quille has a built in mini ax so to speak. But the ultimate useful soldier was the plain ‘ol Skrilling. They have a power of 5 when wielding an Ax and Pote is hanging out at the chamber. Also they have a destiny of four which helps the Ax. The rest of the Aliens just round it out, by either making deploy cheaper, or in the case of Wuher, protecting against my arch enemy A Gift. Advosze’s are experimental, they aid an Ax somewhat, but what is really good about them is there ability to pilot my ships, which makes them somewhat versatile.
Bare Bones Ax Delivery -or- My small space presence
I have a very humble space presence right now. I didn’t want to cancel Scum and Villainy with imperial ships, so I added a few Bounty Hunter ships for Hidden Base Probing. I don’t know how well it will go, but hopefully I will be able to probe soon enough.
Standard Interrupt Package -or- I think my clear shields are permantly melded onto these cards
I added the standard Monnok x 2, Torture x 2 counter package. I did slip in a few surprises Boring Conversation to deal with Surprise Assualt (which has found a new definition of Abuse in this area). Imperial Barrier to surprise the battle happy opponent. Finally, I rely on Elis Helrot to transport my goons. Insurrection is no worry, because the Elis is in here primarily for transporting.
Counter-Strategies -or- ‘Just as I brought my guitar crashing on their heads…’
First of all, there are a couple things that really hurt my deck. Houjix, because I plan on eliminating a few characters in a battle with my Ax’s, and banging up the lone guy. A Houjix spoils my fun, so I plan on using First Strike to try to deal with it. Light Side players tend not to be so paranoid about losing the ability to Houjix as compared to the Dark Side player, so I plan on taking advantage of that. The other thing I worry about is A Gift. That is why I have the Droid Detector in here also. Hopefully between that and Wuher, I can keep droids out of the audience chamber.
Hidden Base Must admit, I don’t stand much of a chance against it. Hopefully by converting the Light Side Coruscant with my Dark Side one (thereby eliminating a drain of two), Den of Thieving Kessel, and probing as quickly as possible, I will be able to outlive Hidden Base. Hard to say. After ECC comes out, my Space Fleet will be improved substantially, so lets cross our fingers.
Mind What You Have Learned This deck type has been popular around here. I am hoping that Failure at the Cave will help a bit. As will Come Here You Big Coward. Only play testing will tell, however, I do plan on preparing an invasion force and going to Dagobah (if my opponent provides a means to do so). If he doesn’t, then he better occupy two battle ground sites to get around Big Coward, which is going to be hard on him.
Summary Vibro Ax might be a bit expensive, but it is awesome. I have excluded Ben Kenobi 4 times in one game, it makes it difficult for the Lightside player to battle knowing their best character will be dodging my Axes.
Basically, I am all about trying to get a lousy card to work, and the real purpose of my deck postings is just to share my thoughts with you. I know it won’t win any World Championships, but you may be surprised as to how well it can do. Thanks for your time, hope you enjoyed reading all this as much as I did writing it.’