HOLDER'S HEROES

We’ve had several months now to explore Faith of Our Fathers (FoOF) and the impact it will have on Redemption. Players have found all kinds of fun ways to use and abuse the cards from this new set. With the big, season end tournaments right around the corner, I’d like to take time to go over the Faith of Our Fathers tins to share some of my favorite uses for FoOF cards. I’ll inevitably miss many great uses, so please feel free to comment and add your own favorites.

Follow up:

Tin IV

Hormah – Here’s another candidate for “best new Site lockout tool” in FoOF. The only trigger to place this Site and the contents under a deck is the discard of one of your human Evil Characters. There are a number of ways to make that happen. You could block with a small guy and let him lose. You can use a “suicide” character like King Zimri, Uzzah or Emperor Otho. You can wait for your opponent to play any number of cards, such as Angel of the Lord or Authority of Christ (AoCp). You could simply discard a human Evil Character from your hand at the end of your turn. One of my favorites is to discard a character with Arioch so you can place an additional Lost Soul on the bottom of your deck.

We’ve established that it’s fairly easy to put Hormah under your deck. What are some of the best contents to toss in Hormah? Any Lost Soul whose ability you’d like to reuse is a good candidate. The “revealer”, “discarder” and “site discarder” are all good choices. There’s always a half rescued Lost Souls card. The “site doubler” Lost Soul gets you twice the bang for your buck. And don’t forget your own Characters that your opponent forced you to capture with Dungeon of Malchiah or Potiphar’s Wife.

Dan – Be sure to get your hand size below that of your opponent’s before making a rescue attempt or battle challenge with Dan. If you reduce your hand size by putting your characters, Artifacts, Sites and Fortresses into play before battle, Dan will get you two cards closer to your game winning cards and combos.

It’s a testament to the power of any Hero when an opponent is annoyed enough to use Christian Martyr on them in your territory. I’ve had more than one person do that to Dan. When combined with other “discard from hand” cards (and blue has a few) he can put a real hurt on an opponent’s game in just a few short turns.

Jacob – This Patriarch is no stranger to Redemption. I won’t bore you by rehashing all the amazing banding chains (most ending with Captain of the Host) he’s been part of over the years. This reprint adds a second ability and opens the door to several new strategies. Like Ethiopian Treasurer and Hidden Treasures, Jacob allows you to play an enhancement when he enters battle, if that enhancement is from Genesis.

One of the most popular combos with Jacob, right out of FoOF, is Rueben’s Torn Clothes. If your opponent is only playing with one evil brigade there are very few cards that can stop your rescue attempt. Another popular Enhancement to play first is Obedience of Noah. Simply choose a small character in a brigade that your opponent isn’t using and you’ve got another easy rescue.

I mentioned that Jacob is a common part of many banding chains. You can band one or more characters to Jacob any number of different ways, then use his new ability to play Abraham’s Servant to Ur giving you large numbers and negating all abilities except banding.

Banding Maharai (from Warriors) to Jacob allows for a few neat combos. You can use Joseph before Pharaoh to create a Lost Soul to rescue when your opponent doesn’t have one. You can also use Love at First Sight to draw a new hand or mess with your opponent’s hand and draw 8 new cards with Gifts of the Magi active!

There are a number of other fun Enhancements to use with Jacob. Some involve banding other colors so they can be played. Don’t be afraid to give these a try; Answer to Prayer, Jacob's Dream (with name on name bonus!), Numerous as the Stars, A New Beginning, and Three Angels.

Benjamin – “Big Ben” is hardly an appropriate nickname for the youngest son of Jacob. His numbers are as small as they come and that will almost always guarantee you have initiative each battle. If your deck is built to take advantage of his ability, your Genesis enhancements can’t be negated. There are several powerful Genesis enhancements to use, most of which were mentioned previously in the section about Jacob. Buying Grain, Sign of the Rainbow and Covenant of Noah are a few others to consider.

Answer to Prayer – In a deck chocked full of Genesis cards this is essentially a battle winner. You can grab Rueben’s Torn Clothes, Obedience of Noah or Abraham’s Servant to Ur, all of which will win you the battle under the right circumstances. It’s also a great tool against “fight by the numbers” characters like King of Tyrus since it can’t be negated. If its numbers you need you can simply add your largest Genesis Hero to the battle.

Numerous as the Stars – Here’s another Genesis card with those magical words “cannot be negated” so it has obvious uses against “fight by the numbers”. In a pure Genesis deck you could grab a Hero like Zebulun to ignore the blocker, or Dan to force a discard or Jacob to play another Genesis Enhancement.

Unlike some of the other Genesis cards in FoOF, this one also works well in a deck with some non-Genesis Heroes. You can exchange for any Hero so you could grab the missing piece of a banding chain to bring several Heroes into battle. You could even search for a “fight by the numbers” Hero like Moses.

Complainers – Here we find two equally useful special abilities, that when combined, can devastate a rescue attempt. Complainers will shut down your opponent’s banding chain, their Heroes' Site access, their protection and any number of other abilities they would rely on to help them win the battle or the game.

Complainers will also pick the Hero they fight. You may pick a small Hero to join the battle if you don’t think your opponent has enhancements to beat you with. Be careful though because that will give them initiative. You can also choose a large Hero, which would give you initiative. Once you get initiative you can play any number of the powerful enhancements that brown has to offer. Both options assume your opponent has other Heroes to choose.

Uzzah – This little character is probably my favorite “stand alone” evil Character in FoOF. You only need an Artifact (or have a Covenant/Curse in your Artifact pile) to make a rescue attempt fail. You can heal him with Torment and do it again. You don’t need to have any brown Enhancements but if you do Uzzah will usually give you initiative to play your Dungeon of Malchiah, Taking Naboth’s Vineyard or the infamous Haman’s Plot.

Taking Naboth’s Vineyard – Here’s another great tool for Site lockout fans everywhere. The obvious use is to take your opponent’s access Site. The uses don’t stop there. You can also steal their single color Sites. If they have a purple Site you can take it to use with your “color guard” Lost Soul for AoCp protection. You can take their Babylonian Banquet Hall to pile your Lost Souls in it thanks to the Babylon Sites they probably have in play. You can also steal any of their single color Sites for your Heroes to gain access.

Stiff-Necked – Brown is known for “cannot be negated” Enhancements. FoOF gives it a boost with two new ones. This one will negate and discard the last good Enhancement. It also has great defensive numbers to keep those Heroes from getting through for a Lost Soul.

That concludes the assessment for Tin IV. I hope you’ve found a few nuggets of wisdom that inspire you to try something new. What a great bunch of cards Faith of Our Fathers has added to Redemption!