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[diavolomaestro]

I've lurked on these forums while Dark Ages info was being released because the expansion just looks so awesome, combining trashing and engines. This is my first post.

I saw from the rule book (http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_421_gameRules.pdf) that the following starting setups are recommended. I'm curious: 1) what holds these sets together? and 2) what's the best strategy?

Grim Parade: Armory, Band of Misfits, Catacombs, Cultist, Forager, Fortress, Knights, Market Square, Procession, Hunting
Grounds
Playing Chess With Death: Bandit Camp, Graverobber, Junk Dealer, Mystic, Pillage, Rats, Sage, Scavenger, Storeroom, Vagrant

Grim Parade: Just one card--forager--gives true deck-thinning, and it's pretty slow at that. Procession is the other trasher,  but it's more like an upgrade machine. Cultist, Fortress, and Market Square all benefit from these trashes, but there's nothing that leaps out at me. All the same, if you go BM with this deck, you're inviting your opponent to chain Cultists and slow you down. An engine could cycle the deck faster and trash ruins (especially with Procession; a Procession'ed Ruined Mine gives $2 and gets out of your deck). And you could even toss in some Cultists without them slowing you down. Also I have Engine Addiction: play ALL the cards!

So my strategy is probably Forager-Armory. A weakish opening, but it can top-deck the Processions and Fortresses that I'll need to build my engine. If my Armory comes up first, without the Forager, I'll topdeck a procession in order to double-trash; if they come together, I'll topdeck another armory. My goal is to quickly get at least 2 of Foragers, Armories, Processions, and Fortresses; the latter are key because I'm going to Procession Fortresses into Cultists, Band of Misfits, or Market Square, then get the Fortresses back. The Cultists will help me slow down my opponent; I can procession them for +2 Ruins, +3 cards, and a Hunting Grounds. The Band of Misfits can be either part of the Procession/Fortress combo, and each time I procession one I gain a Hunting Grounds. Market squares will help me gain extra buys to get the extra engine pieces, or they can pick up gold from all the trashing I do; I won't need too much, but I expect to be drawing all of my deck by the time I get to 2 hunting grounds, so having enough money to buy 1-2 provinces per turn will be key.

Playing Chess With Death: I'd love to use Rats here, but Graverobbering Rats is basically an expensive Remodel. Junk Dealer could work but it'd be very slow, and it wastes the Rat power (turning $0-->$4 very quickly). Bandit Camp/Necropolis--Pillage--Graverobber jumps out as a cool combo, but that's a collision of two $5s and a $5/$2, which is tricky in a game without fast trashing. Mystic-Vagrant also works to usually turn Mystic into a cantrip silver, but I don't know if you build a deck around that. I think I'd probably open Scavenger-Sage, buy a Junk Dealer as soon as possible, and use Scavenger and Sage's deckcycling to play it as often as possible. Then try the Pillage/Graverobber combo if my deck is thinning quickly enough, go Big Money if not (if big money, pick up Vagrant/Mystic as the awkward $5 buys along the way.

Overall: Not sure what the theme is here... none of the awesome-sounding combos (Death Cart-Rats, etc.) are on either board. I may be overestimating the ease of trashing here, so it's possible that I'm complicating things by insisting on engine play. I'd love to hear what I've missed.

[platykurtic]

I played a 4 player game of Grim Parade tonight. It was indeed pretty grim. A lot of that was just people messing around with new cards, but I wouldn't recommend this as a first game. Some thoughts:

* Forager got up to 3$ really quickly with knights
* Dame Anna probably won the game for me, with her trashing. I chose her over cultist for my first 5. I doubt I'd have chosen any other knight.
* The on-trash cards made for a really fun defense against knights. Most of my provinces came from megaturns caused by people trashing my cultists and fortresses.
* Ultimately between knights and ruins everyone's deck turned to crap. I never really got an engine going, but self-destructive trashing (procession a cultist for huge card draw, a better chance to chain, and a hunting grounds; then later procession the hunting grounds for even more cards and a duchy) got me enough of a lead to win in the end. I think if we'd been playing optimally we'd have ended on piles much earlier making this sort of strategy even more advantageous..