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Let's chat: Garrek's Reavers


Killax

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Garrek's Reavers

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Like all fantastic Let's Chat topics I believe that Warhammer Underworlds will be great with it's own set of Let's Chat topics aswell. 
The idea here is really to chat about the Warband, use of characters and offcourse deck construction that will eventually contain all kinds of different cards.

The advantage of keeping all these topics in one place allows for players to really browse through a list of ideas and tactics applied by several players. Offcourse painting and modeling discussions will also be part of these kinds of topics.

In order to inform the starting player and veteran I decided to put the character cards here and will eventuall break down the cards in the starting deck for Garrek's Reavers aswell. Currently I can't find the complete deck scans of all cards just yet, so please be patient! :) 

Warband:

 


spire-KH4.jpg Inspired: [3] Damage on Attack and Movement 5 spire-KH3.jpg Inspired: Cleave on Attack and Movement 5
spire-KH2.jpg Inspired: [3] Damage on Chained Axe,  Attack on each adjacent model [1][2][2] and Movement 5
spire-KH5.jpg Inspired: Additional [hit] dice, Critical hit deals 2 extra damage and Movement 5
spire-KH6.jpg Inspired: Additional [hit] dice, [2] Damage on attack and Movement 5


Standard deck:

 

Objectives
Shadespire-WarbandsKhorne-Cards1jdc-500x
Coward!
Let the Blood Flow

Upgrades and Ploys
Shadespire-WarbandsKhorne-Cards2jdcd-500
Shadespire-WarbandsKhorne-Cards3-431x500

Unstoppable Charge

Usefull Links:
https://warhammerunderworlds.com/bloodreavers/


Feel free to join the excitement for Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire!

Cheers,

 

Edited by Killax
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So from the small tactical snippets we've recieved on the Warhammer Underworlds website I think it is save to at least make up some basic strategies revolving around this Warband in particular.

Quote

The key to a successful Bloodreaver strategy is recognising which of your warriors to sacrifice, and when. Ideally, you will want to score plenty of fast-scoring, aggressive objectives early on, accepting the deaths of your weaker fighters while stashing up as many glory points as possible. You can then use these to purchase upgrades for your heavy-hitters, such as Garrek Gorebeard and Blooded Saek. Once these champions are fully equipped and Inspired, there are few enemy fighters that can stand against them. Rushing the enemy in numbers is a great way of increasing your odds of striking a telling blow, as you surround the enemy with supporting fighters. That said, many enemy warbands will have warriors capable of killing your fighters outright with a single blow, so ploys and upgrades that increase your defensive capabilities are a strong choice.

Objectives that reward you for an aggressive, mobile playstyle are well suited to the Bloodreavers, particularly those that can be scored out quickly – don’t overlook the Hold Objective cards, as these can be a great way to score points early on. Those based around performing charge attacks or surrounding the enemy are also good choices, as this is exactly what you should be doing!

Based on the above and the partial information we have I think it's relatively save to assume that this is the Order of important to least important model:
1. Garrek, key figure model and the only model we have with 4 wounds (meaning it doesn't automatically die against Stormcast hits)
2. Saek, the only model we have who un-inspired can deal 3 wounds.
3. Karsus, the only model we have (and seen so far) with a "reach" of 2. Which is a great indication to "swarm" opponents with, despite it being a lower damage output if we choose to.
4. Arnulf, not the worst due to his Critical effect but most certainly expandable.
5. Targor, un-inspired certainly our worst warrior and the first to go? 

Based on that and the tactical tip I'd say we are still in the game if we've lost Arnulf and Targor but as a result are capable to flip into Inspired with the whole Warband. With cards seen like Conquest (Objective), Unstoppable Charge (Upgrade; Saek) and Whirlwind of Death (Upgrade; Karsus) we will be able to strike at unexpected places to finish off the game.
Mockup.jpg

All in all I'm looking very forward to this type of 'aggressive assassin' kind of play the Warband seems to be set up for.

Cheers,

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Well I played my first game with Gareks Reavers this week at  my local GW store. 

The game played well, the primary hurdles that needs to be overcame by the Reavers is making sure you can get an early glory point. Upgrades to improve damage is very important! The stormcasts are able to one shot most of the Reavers , it takes time for us to do the same. And landing them with a lot of hits is a good way to make them inspired. 

So you need to pick a guy to be the target of the buffs use the other reavers to screen him, and work hard on getting as many objectives in round one!  At the start of the game skip ones that require you to kill anyone, securing objectives in the first round is good. 

Once you have the glory then you can focus on takeing out one of the golden boys, focus the whole warband one at a time. 

well they are my intial thoughts.  

 

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I played both as and against the Reavers today in a few first time practice games. 

I was honestly surprised at how fast a Reaver could kill one of my Stormcast Eternals. Upgrades are definitely a big deal for these guys, as even a weaker fighter like Arnulf can put out some pretty strong damage with the right cards (though he's still made of paper, so it's risky to give him gear).

I have a question about the Blood Rain card though. It says something along the lines of "Treat the first attack in your next activation as having the (Twin Swords) attribute, even if it would normally have the (Hammer) attribute."

How is this useful? There are more hammer results than twin swords. At first I thought it meant you treat the attack as having both attributes, but the way it's worded wouldn't support that line of thinking.

The only solution I can think of is, maybe in the future there will be cards that synergies with Twin Swords, but the starter decks didn't have any. Can somebody explain this card?

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7 hours ago, Elodin said:

I played both as and against the Reavers today in a few first time practice games. 

I was honestly surprised at how fast a Reaver could kill one of my Stormcast Eternals. Upgrades are definitely a big deal for these guys, as even a weaker fighter like Arnulf can put out some pretty strong damage with the right cards (though he's still made of paper, so it's risky to give him gear).

I have a question about the Blood Rain card though. It says something along the lines of "Treat the first attack in your next activation as having the (Twin Swords) attribute, even if it would normally have the (Hammer) attribute."

How is this useful? There are more hammer results than twin swords. At first I thought it meant you treat the attack as having both attributes, but the way it's worded wouldn't support that line of thinking.

The only solution I can think of is, maybe in the future there will be cards that synergies with Twin Swords, but the starter decks didn't have any. Can somebody explain this card?

Great! Yeah the game goes really fast, the fun thing is also that it's so much not like Age of Sigmar that it's easy to assume Stormcasts can wither the same ammount of attacks they can in Warhammer Underworlds. The difference is huge, the difference shows great indication of well thought through design. Bloodreavers die as quickly but are faster as their AoS counterpart and that is a big difference for the emotional attachment some will have for this models from an AoS perspective ;) 

In regards to Blood Rain, yeah that's difficult to comment upon without actually seeing the card. It's possible that @childoffang is right here, in where it decreases the opponent attack chance of hitting. Alternatively I am not suprised by some cards in the deck not being amazing because there is a deckbuilding aspect to it offcourse and this could be one of those cards that's the first to go, so to say.

In addition we also have had out WC article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/11/the-warbands-of-shadespire-garreks-reaversgw-homepage-post-2/

So far I am inclined to agree with many that most of our power comes from upgrades and I also think flipping typically isn't too difficult for us.
What I do think will be a very general difficult match up is the one against the Sepulchral Guard. Reavers don't really have many tools to stick around, in my opinion it's going to matter a lot against them.

Edited by Killax
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19 hours ago, Elodin said:

I played both as and against the Reavers today in a few first time practice games. 

I was honestly surprised at how fast a Reaver could kill one of my Stormcast Eternals. Upgrades are definitely a big deal for these guys, as even a weaker fighter like Arnulf can put out some pretty strong damage with the right cards (though he's still made of paper, so it's risky to give him gear).

I have a question about the Blood Rain card though. It says something along the lines of "Treat the first attack in your next activation as having the (Twin Swords) attribute, even if it would normally have the (Hammer) attribute."

How is this useful? There are more hammer results than twin swords. At first I thought it meant you treat the attack as having both attributes, but the way it's worded wouldn't support that line of thinking.

The only solution I can think of is, maybe in the future there will be cards that synergies with Twin Swords, but the starter decks didn't have any. Can somebody explain this card?

The card plays both ways, it can nerf an opponent who relies on hammers or buff a Reaver whose attack characteristic is hammer but you roll swords.

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Played three games tonight, the board position is also really important. When I got to lay the Boards as the Reaver player, I laid long edge to long edge, giving my 5 Reavers plenty of opportunity to close in on all sides on the Eternals. In the next game my opponent laid short edge to short edge and the Eternals were able to bottleneck my Reavers much more easily and prevent support, adjacency in the game can be critical.

The Reavers definitely got better when 3 models died and they became Inspired, it doesn't specify Reavers either, so we played it as any 3 models, however stacking cards is what really unleashed the power, making sure the attack goes through.

We reckon 20-30 minutes to a game when players are well versed, which separates it from IA on that basis alone. Our IA players also confirmed it is nothing like IA in terms of game play, which will help disgusting it further.

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2 hours ago, Fredster001 said:

The card plays both ways, it can nerf an opponent who relies on hammers or buff a Reaver whose attack characteristic is hammer but you roll swords.

It wouldn't be a buff for your own guys who use hammers though. It's essentially turning a 4+ hit (two hammers 1 crit) to a 5+ hit (1 sword 1 crit). I definitely see it being useful as a way to mitigate damage from hammer hitters, while not affecting your warband members who need swords though.

 

Edit: And in response to your other post, you played it right, any three models that die count towards inspiration for the Reavers, which makes me think Arnulf and Targor can be put in more dangerous positions, as even if they die they're contributing to the warband. 

Edited by Elodin
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@Elodin: Yes you said it better, I meant to convey that it nerfs your opponents but not you necessarily.

We found 3 against stormcast was achieved quite quickly though the death of Arnulf & Targor and the usually Obryn or Brightshield, the latter as they were the one's picked on for being most isolated.

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18 minutes ago, Fredster001 said:

It's going to be interesting to see how warbands of 7 operate with  a maximum 4 activations and all of the models spread out on the deployment points. I'm guessing their decks might have some tricks to get other friendly models moved along? 

That's correct! You can find a great unboxing and card review here:


Hoped someone would have done that for us aswell by now, this is not the case yet.

One of the things that make it difficult in my opinion to face them is that they outnumber us and have quite a few models who thake out Bloodreavers without breaking a sweat.
 

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8 hours ago, childoffang said:

And so you force them to come to you, spread them out by having non killing objectives in your deck and counter the assumption that your warband wants to kill everything.  Like most of the best games out there a form of balance will be required to take on all comers. 

Easier said as done really, as the Undead player can outplay Bloodbound when we are talking about objectives, moving two models at the same time does that.
In addition, the Bloodreavers have some fantastic melee Upgrades, they are the working horse of the deck. Not going into melee with Bloodreavers actually gets you with a lot of death cards. So the short of it I do not believe spreading  out and playing heavy on objectives is functional as it makes the deck directly not use the best cards it has acces to. From my expectaion I believe it to be rather likely we need the second Khorne Warband do effectively deal with great undead players. Prime reason being more models with 4 Health.

So far most Reaver games Ive seen up and close have been won against Stormcast however again one thing that most new players don't instinctively go for your is bottlenecking the board, to which I believe the essential key lies to 'stop' Bloodreavers.

All in all Garrek's Warband is fast and extremely rewarding against newer players and punshes early game tactical mistakes extremely hard. In essence the aggro is very much there and massively improves when Bloodreavers get to double-down on opponents. The moment that Upgrade steam machine is up and running the Bloodreavers become virtually unstoppable as several cards actually increase the survivability by 'enough'.

So yeah love them and I do expect good results out of them in general. At the same time though I also noticed on the Facebook page that they are actually the Warband with the least fans currently. All this really means is that playing them will get rewarded more offcourse!

For the Bloodgod! 

22561250_1586328744807694_813231791_o.jp

PS I love the promo cards and effect GW created them with. There is one big BUT, the cards are sealed in such a way most promos I saw have nicks and damages. A non-issue for true miniature collectors but this can be an irk for card collectors. Hopefully GW will learn that sealing cards with this harder plastic is great for packages but less for actual gameplay material. In general I have noticed that GW cards are often damaged, also the 40k and AoS Objectives.

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I think the most important thing when taking on the sepulchral guard is to play defensively. Get some early objective holds ot pay for upgrades then use as many movement ploys as possible, including Saek's charge, to mob the warden as fast as you can. If the reavers can whether the skellies response, they will hopefully be taking out one skellie a turn. From what limited I've seen of the SG, they will probably be lacking in glory. Even if you lose all your fighters before game ends, if you kill enough and the warden, they probably won't catch up.

Also, anyone know if we get glory from killing a resurrected skeleton?

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Ahh but I didn't say it was just going for non-killing objectives, but having objective cards that don't rely on killing allow you to counter the expected style of play and then when they shift their style to try and take advantage you can go on the offensive. It's about having options and with the variety of play styles forces bring that flexibility will be even more useful.

 

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I agree with the idea but with the cards that are provided so far the key to succes for Bloodreavers has been to kill quick and snow-ball with upgrades. There is nothing in particular that stops us from doing thus against any Warband but if we're going to simple piece-trade (the result of buffed Bloodreavers vs the rest) you will lose out on numbers versus Death, be it for melee or objectives. 

At the same time Im fully aware it's too early to worry. It just strikes me aswell that I believe that if two Undead move as a result of the Warden they still obtain the Move tokens? Im not certain of that but the first time I missed that interaction. If that is the case I believe there is less to worry about because that means they can't outspeed us or move two models as the same pace as us.

A few days ago the video also went up in regards to Deckbuilding and I agree with most of what has been said in regards to Bloodreavers.
- They set the pace
- They are the aggressor
- They currently are the fastest Warband in the game (untill December maby?)
- They snowball quickly if you get the first blood with guys around

On another topics, with the promos in I really have to say that picking up this game in a GW store gets rewarded in a great way :D So for any who's still undicided I can certainly recommend picking it up. Still have to get to know the characters in and out, so why not cover them in another small review:

Garrek Gorebeard
Unlike the other Bloodreavers does have 4 Wounds which in my opinion remain his greatest asset and make him quite well designer for Objective play and acting as bait for the later stages of the game. He doesn't hit the hardest though but when he does get inspired he has that wonderful Movement 5 and 3 damage we've come to know and like.
He seems like the 'perfect middle guy' in an agressive Warband.
In  my games he has not been the most important model most of the time though. Losing him early is also quite hard to do so this is something to consider aswell, basically he can be bait that is very hard to ignore.

Blooded Saek
Our heavy hitter from the start and thus the perfect awnser to respond to offensive charges. I think he's the most important piece in the Warband together with Karsus the Chained. He only has 3 Wounds though so this is something to consider but becomes amazing if you used defensive power cards on 'bait models' thinking about Blood Rain, Confusion and the like. We have the numbers to make great use of the Support/Assist icons on the dice and for Saek in particular this means he can become a great source of damage output. His inspired Cleave attack also is very important against Stormcast and Orcs in particular. Keep him around! :D 

Karsus the Chained
My personal favourite model and together with Blooded Saek one of the most important members in the game. Again 3 wounds but with his optional attacks he becomes a fantastic Supported attacker. In addition Brutal Chop has roughly the same chance of hitting as most seen Hammer attacks, which is excellent, the more dice, the higher the chances of Crits after all. In addition his Inspired side retains the same greatness and is the awnser to Undead swarms.
His upgrades are also killer so all in all try to make it to the lategame with this guy. 

Arnulf 
Great guy for some crit luck. Together with Targor they are expendable though. Offcourse this doesn't mean you have to throw him away instantly but against Stormcast it's quite likely you'll lose him somewhere and honestly it isn't a big deal if this means the rest gets Inspired. His own upgrades and inspired options are decent, stacking on the Attack dice does increase Crit hit chances offcourse.

Targor 
On card bases alone the worst guy but one saving grace is his Upgrade. At the same time though it's great that we have some expandable guys and Targor is the perfect bait or objective claimer, depending on how your opponent unfolds his plans. Luckily his damage goes up to two when flipped so in the lategame he can still assist in combat quite well, without upgrades even better as Arnulf can. 

General tactics
Based on the handful game played with Garrek's Reavers I've happen to like Karsus and Saek the most. What is really cool is that Garrek himself often gets the attention, he is the champion afterall and you can really use this to your advantage. Typically speaking Ive also found (new) players starting against them to be a massive benifit to us. In quite some cases this has lead to 3 to 4 charges in the first turn and this really puts down the pressure, in later turns it means you can assist the melee pressure or use Garrek or Targor for objectives. Especially Garrek is able to hang around in enemy territory.

Playing the Warband aggressively from the start has lead to the most succesful routes to victory for me, keep in mind though that numbers are to be used in our advantage and it's easy to fall for traps where Saek or Karsus get in places where they cannot be assisted in later stages of the game. It's still possible to do this but I wouldn't attempt it without a good grip of defensive cards. 

Pt 1. Stormcast (Steelheart's)
As always it's early to fully comment on this without having the full grip of cards and game. The one thing I do believe is essential to thake note of is target priority.
One advantage we drastically have over the Stormcast next to having 2 models extra is the spread of Wounds. When we count up the totals we're working with 2 more as the Stormcast and to me personally this is a good indication where your heading in the game. The moment we lose out that race in particular needs to be a lategame scenario where we're ahead of Objectives. So far killing Stormcast has worked out better for me as hanging back on Objectives.

Within the Steelheart Warband we have 3 candidates who's skulls must be claimed for Khorne's throne.
- Angharad in principle isn't terribly difficult to deal with and is actually only capable to one-hit-KO Arnulf and Targor. As a result it's quite likely that these models will be used as bait initially. What I personally like to use against her are Garrek, Karsus and Arnulf as they have the attacks that pressure through her inital defence and without assistance Angharad has trouble doing something back. To me she is the least important Stormcast, meaning that engagement only feels required the moment it is done in a territory you can use well also. Inspired and with upgrades she can become more troublesome.
- Obryn the Bold on the other hand is what I'd call a target priority. He has the option to deal with everything but Garrek in a single blow the Knockback also means that he's great at keeping himself or others from being swarmed. For this purpose Karsus and Saek are very important pieces, especially once Saek sticks around to obtain Cleave. Luckily for us Obryn Inspired doesn't get that much better. He obtains Cleave which does nothing to us and offcourse gets two defence dice but is ideal to thake out early because of his own offense.
- Severin himself is the first piece to worry about and when your opponent plays him well it becomes very difficult to not have him be inspired at some point. With upgrades the Inspired Mighty Swing becomes very troublesome and as a result I believe that the true test for us as Bloodreaver players remains to have him come to us. As the rest of the Stormcast "suffers" from open places it actually isn't easy to get the most out of him early. Having him get into a semi tarpit with Garrek also usually will work out well for a turn at least.

In general the real danger from the Stormcast come from an early inspired Severin, if your opponet has a grip full of cards, starts out baiting with Severin in the early turns, don't eagerly fall for it. In many cases it means that the upcomming Power phase will buff him to the extreme leading to two guys falling to his blade quickly. Once bodies have fallen and Severin hits with 4 or 3 AoE damage your in for big trouble. Using your numbers to the advantage is the best route. A good Stormcast player will set up a bottleneck in some form, in principle this isn't a huge issue unless Obryn is there to clog it up even more.

Pt. 2 Bloodreavers (Garrek's)
A mirror match will occur and I'll try to cover more ground here the moment Ive got my two boxes. As can be seen above we know out own guys but I do think it's importance to note how relevenat Karsus is in this match up. I say this because Brutal Chop does it's thing well and Savage Whirl is a true game decider here. As a result I would say he is also a key priority. Saek in this match up in particular doesn't become more dangerous with Cleave so he's one of the lesser issues, aside from having good damage output.

Objective play and good use of defensive cards is essential here. As the pace will be quick and decided by the one who starts I would most certainly always thake the iniative here. Using Garrek and Targor for Objective play from the start. Karsus can make some incredible comebacks so the combat can really boil down to who has him left. 

Cheers,


 

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On 10/16/2017 at 11:01 AM, Keldaur said:

3 for inspiring doesn't seem that useful against the stormcasts, but it definitly looks pretty hot against the skeletons.

So far in my games, I am happy to kill 1 Stormcast before Inspiring. Then it is 3 vs 2 and all my models are inspired.

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I played a bunch of games with the Reavers yesterday, and, happily, won more than I lost. Here's a few quick thoughts.  These all concern the Reavers vs. Liberators matchup, incidentally, but I imagine that's what most people are playing at the moment so hopefully it's helpful!

  • The Reaver Inspired state is very easy to achieve - for better or worse! You need to have a plan for achieving it from the very beginning of the game. The best case scenario is losing Arnulf and Targor in return for any Stormcast character, but your opponent is likely to know this and won't target the 'chumps'. In that case, the likelihood is that you'll lose somebody good and one of those two. I'd MUCH rather lose Karsus than Saek or Garrek, so bear in that in mind.
  • Avoid splitting your attacks between different Stormcast *at all costs*. The more defensive dice they get to roll, the more likely they are to get Inspired. Kill one and ignore the others. I've had a lot of success when I've managed to kill Obryn or Severin early and left Angharad for last.
  • Garrek and Saek have reliable attacks without support. The other three do not. If you want to do damage with Karsus, Arnulf or Targor, you need to set up support. The problem with this is that Arnulf and Targor can be killed in one hit by any Stormcast and Karsus, Saek, Arnulf and Targor can be killed in one hit by both Severin and Obryn. So your plan might be to charge with Targor, then charge with Saek and pull off an attack with support. However, what will probably happen is that Targor charges in, doesn't do any damage, dies, and then Saek has no support - the whole 'horde or dudes attacking one at a time' problem.

    In this scenario, you need to charge with a 4-wound character first. This can either be Garrek or Saek/Karsus with the +1 wound upgrade. Then, as long as the Stormcast aren't sitting on a surprise +1 damage upgrade of their own, your guy will *probably* survive it and set up a combo attack on the following activation. Useful ploys that let you set up supported attacks without going through include Sidestep, Blood Rain, and Insensate, all because they let you either move out of sequence OR mitigate that nasty Stormcast damage with varying degrees of reliability.
  • The other key thing is to try and isolate enemies, as Stormcast are really hard to damage when they're supporting each other. Inspired Saek is pretty good either way, mind.
  • There are quite a few Garrek-specific upgrades in the extra cards set but it's a pretty big risk to include more than one or two of them in your deck, in my opinion. If he dies those cards are useless, and your opponent will be gunning for him - particularly because 'kill the enemy leader' is a pretty common objective archetype.

 

Edited by CJPT
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There is also a card that makes the opponent's next attack to deal only 1 damage, this allows you to try to twoshot a stormcast before you lose somebody. This is best done in your 3rd and 4th activation. Also in my games i had been abusing our high movement and pushes to get the opponent trapped, specially early stormcasts that charged, so i bring them closer to my other models and then go full hooligan on them. 

Obviously the starter decks have to.be changed, we really need one glory point objectives to get the ball rolling, specially if they don't involve rolling dice.  Anyone has a link for a list of the neutral cards coming with the ironjaws and skellies?

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