Played in a friendly game last night with a buddy of mine. Neither one of us had any NtH cards in our decks. Just haven't time or money to go there yet. So this could be a bit stale with Incursion only stuff, but I haven't posted anything for awhile, other than Carthage III, so I thought what the heck.

I played Gongen, starting location underground bunker. He played Earther, and started with Earth.

I had a great starting hand, 4 characters, 2 fighters, a fighter weapon and an emcampment. On the 3rd turn I deployed my horde to the bunker and he was still drawing cards. On the next turn I deployed 3 Zocho fighters and the fighter weapon to Earth, which he had encamped. I was draining him for 4 energy just about every turn after that. He had trouble getting locations out and finally had enough energy to deploy a few units to his encampment on Ganymede. We battled a few time on Ganymede and I won most of them but was running out of units to deploy to replace the ones from attrition. I had to restock my hand when he finally got his deck going. He finally deployed 2 survey cruisers and an ISV to Earth and battled me there and drew a high destiny. But with the raised defense on my fighter with the weapon, the battle was worse for him. I deployed another fighter next turn for a total of 2 Zochos and 2 Tamons and let him have it. He didn't try to come in space again. He did give me a good beat down on the ground when he brought out Howler and a couple of vehicles. However, I got lucky on my next turn when I deployed a Loremaster and using his ability turned over Shikami from my reserve deck and deployed him for only 4. I deployed a few other cheaper guys and knocked out the 2 vehicles he had.

All the while I was still draining for 3 at Earth and usually 1 somewhere on Ganymede. I eventually wiped him out. I didn't count my remaining cards but it was definately in the high teens to low 20's leftover.

What did I learn:

- Use Cloud like a weapon, after the attrition step.
- The TSV's for Gongen are really good especially for moving lots of units and the one that you can pay to drop a unit's defense by 2.
- Zocho fighters are just about as good as it gets for a fighter, especially 2 at the same sector.

Based on all this I am going to modify my Earther deck to include some of my NtH cards that I have now. I bought 3 packs bringing my total to 6 of NtH. Had some really good draws too. Look for my modified Venus Ops deck coming soon.

Cloud is awesome. You can also use it mid to late game when your opponent has left 1 card for destiny, you play cloud before you draw your destiny, so he wont be able to draw 1.

Yeah, Jed, that's a pretty mean trick. :p Doesn't Cloud destroy, and not damage? I figured you'd want to play the stuff that destroyed your opponents stuff prior to the battle destiny step in order to rob them of power and tactics.

Cloud damages, but some times like Jed mentions it is worth it to kill off a destiny draw or two. The Gongen TSVs that lower defense are awesome provided that you have support for them since they have a really low defense themselves.

Zocho and Tamon are unique. You say you had two of each out?

I think he was referring to the fighters maybe.

Yes, there were fighters. Heck I don't even have a Tamon carrier.