[KC] Most over-valued cards?

[Jeremy Lennert]

I actually managed to convert an enemy rook with Surrounded once,
immediately after my opponent played Figure Dance to move his rook into my
back rank.

I usually play common deck games, which means that players discard almost
every turn that they don't play a card (though we don't allow discards on
the opponent's turn), and so a lot of those cards either get discarded, or
they get played only because it's no more expensive than a discard.

I agree that you're overly dismissive of Split Knight, though.  There are a
lot of cards that modify the moves of knights, but even without that,
knights can attack in 8 directions vs. the bishop's 4, and only a few
transformed pieces and enemy knights can attack back when they're threatened
by a knight, which makes knights quite good at forks.  It's not an
especially strong card except under very good circumstances, but it's not
usually my first discard, either.

Lynching is also almost never played in my games, though it's much easier to
use than Surrounded, and I have used it to great effect on occasion.  I'd
also be tempted to add Special Promotion, Rooked, and Divine Right to your
list; they have low values, but the practical usefulness of all three seems
to be very close to zero except under EXTREMELY specific conditions (Divine
Right does awesome on rare occasion, but it requires extensive deck
knowledge and more than a little luck).  The "swap the positions of two
pieces with specific types and owners instead of moving" cards also tend to
hit the discard a lot in my games.


How about the most under-valued cards?

False Orders (6) lets you use 2 moves to capture a powerful enemy piece of
your choice under a wide variety of circumstances (just move it into
danger); an easy capture of an enemy queen can be quite valuable, especially
because it's immune to lots of other cards.  There's a 7-point card whose
name escapes me at the moment that moves an enemy piece to the corner of the
board and leaves it immobile for one turn, which accomplishes pretty much
the same thing (and also works on queens).

Paladin (7) blows Royal Knight (8) out of the water; it's probably better
than any other transformation card except Warlord (10), which costs a move
to play and is still utterly broken.

Meddling (3?) turns an enemy queen into a knight or bishop (promotion seems
to occur vastly more often in Knightmare games than in regular chess, what
with all the ways to slip out of checkmate, and as queens are immune to a
lot of crap...).

One player I know manages to get an enemy queen virtually every time he
plays Vendetta (3), which makes it possibly the lowest-rated queen-killer.
It requires a fair bit of skill to pull that off, though.

I believe Legion of Honor (6) lets you turn two pawns into two rooks, which
is rather scary in the mid-to-late-game.


~ Jeremy


> -----Original Message-----
> From: knightmare-list-bounces at sjgames.com [mailto:knightmare-list-
> bounces at sjgames.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Johnson
> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 2:40 PM
> To: deanhoward at mindspring.com; knightmare-list at sjgames.com
> Subject: Re: [KC] Most over-valued cards?
> 
> 
> The only 2 I don't agree with are split knight and bombard.
> 
> Thank about using split knight with a paladin... yea, my partner screwed
> me up with that one, taking around 5 pieces.
> 
> Bombard is useful for long distance attacking, and should not be
> imediantly discarded.
> 
> The other cards just rely on being in the right situation at the right
> time, so my general rule is to hold onto them for a few turns, and if the
> situation doesn't reveal itself, I start going through the pack and
> discarding.
> 
> Also remember that most of these cards would be great 'combo' cards,
> combining them with something like 'plots within plots' to get the most
> out of them.
> 
> Chris
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "deanhoward at mindspring.com" <deanhoward at mindspring.com>
> To: knightmare-list at sjgames.com
> Sent: Tuesday, 28 August, 2007 6:33:50 AM
> Subject: [KC] Most over-valued cards?
> 
> 
> I've been thinking about which cards are least useful, or not worth their
> cost
> in points. Here's what I came up with:
> 
> 1) Surrounded.
> You'll probably never occupy every square around anything stronger than a
> pawn. If you could, you probably could have captured it already. If it was
> worth capturing, it probably would have escaped or captured one of the
> pieces trying to surround it.
> 
> 2) Martyr.
> To use this, you must have just moved the bishop where it was attacking
> two pieces, neither of which moved away (or attacking three pieces, one of
> which moved). That's not going to happen, except to gain a pawn or rarely
> a knight.
> 
> 3) Blind Fate.
> Pawns count as "pieces" in KC, so that's all you're likely to gain. Being
> a replace-move card makes it even less useful.
> 
> 4) Split Knight.
> Better than Martyr, but "family forks" are still too rare to spend 7
> points on this.
> 
> 5) Abduction.
> Any reasonably good chess player will have no trouble remembering where
> his pieces are, especially the queen and rooks.
> 
> 6) Sanctuary.
> Castling is way too specific to be worth the cost, and the space in your
> hand, while you wait for a chance to use it. Your pieces have to be lined
> up, you move your rook to one specific square, jump you key to the only
> space that satisfies the card, and you can't capture.
> 
> Honorable(?) mention: Bombard
> Insubstantiality does almost the same thing for 2 points less, and can be
> used by Bishops and Queens. The "almost" kept it off my list: Bombard also
> allows you to jump "obstructions" (Fortification) and  I don't know how to
> value that.
> 
> 
> Fire away with your own opinions.
> 
> -- Dean
> 
> (Are there any players near Albany, NY?)
> 
> 
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