Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I'm interested in exploring what's there for some of the multi-brigade themes for defense that have been started/developed in the tins and Thesaurus ex Preteritus packs. I'm interested in what people have to say about these themes in Type 1:
Romans
Philistines
Herodians
Magicians

First of all, why do several evil brigades when you can stick with one? After all, it's harder to play enhancements on them reliably, and it leaves you more vulnerable to some "per brigade" cards like Asher, Micah, Two Bears, Job Overcomes, and worst of all The Garden Tomb. Each of these themes has some method of getting around the enhancement mixmatch (Rome, Ashdod, Herod's Treachery, User of Curious Arts), but they're not perfectly reliable. I've traditionally liked playing with solid color defenses - convince me otherwise.

Second, is it worth even trying to make these multibrigade? For Emperors, I say a strong 'no,' based on personal experience. The gray emperors seemed strong enough for me two sets ago, and that was without Vitellius and The Terrifying Beast. Rome is still nice for First Strike, but gray is cool enough without using Claudius or the fringe emperors like Tiberius, and without non-gray enhancements like Mask of Fear or Wrath of Stan.

Philistines were all over the dang place before the tins. Now they're getting consolidated to Black pretty swiftly. Is the Lahmi/Saph/Ishbibidyboy banding worth keeping? I'm not sure, personally, but I think that Black Philistines can get by without it by now. I don't have much experience though, what do you say?

Herodians and Magicians are all over the place still. In TP, they're being moved to Gold and Pale Green respectively, but very few of the old members of the team are worth playing anyways. The only consistently worthwhile pre-TP Herods are Herod the Great (Black) and maybe Herodian (Crimson, not technically a Herod); Simon the Magician (Black) and maybe Elymas (Gray) are solid magicians. There are four new Herod-related cards in TP, but a little bit of deck discard, capture and banding isn't enough to make me want to give up Egyptians, who do that same stuff way better. Magicians are a bit more unique, in that they work closely with orange demons, but other than that they have no consistent theme. While the pale green/orange combo is nice for using High Places, they don't have anything consistent - a hard-to-protect-against battle winning EC, some revealing and card manipulation, a placeable protection artifact - some nice stuff but it doesn't work toward a common goal like Rome does. Even just using the TP magicians gives you three brigades already for some Garden Tomb etc. liability, so it might not be worthwhile.

What say you?

There are four new Herod-related cards in TP, but a little bit of deck discard, capture and banding isn't enough to make me want to give up Egyptians, who do that same stuff way better.

Egyptians have always been pretty vulnerable to Journey to Egypt. It might be nice to splash Salome in since she continues the Egyptian defensive style but allows for a block when playing Genesis decks. She also adds one more female to the gold defense, which can be huge when playing TGT decks that almost always have Women as Snares.

Tim, I almost always use multiple brigades. Why have only the best enhancements of one brigade when you can use the best of two brigades? It's risky... but just about any color can now be combined with orange and have almost all your guys be able to use both, especially pale green.

High places is another card encouraging multiple brigades. You can now have lots of evil placed cards. I know I have a 2 brigade defense of pale green and orange that places about 6 enhancements and activates blindness. It's VERY effective if you put up lampstand in z-temple.

Basically, the risk is greater but so is the reward. It's up to your preference. I know for sure that I haven't made a solid offensive color do as well as one of my splash.