Firestorm: Season of War - Question about Sceptre of the Flame

[thetony]

Hi

I can get my brain to understand this, so please tell me if I got this right:

On page 36, under Map Regions, the rules state that there are three areas that is designated as Strategic Regions (marked with crossed axes). The three regions are: Eyes of the Prismatikon, The Infinity Gates and The Caverns of Fulminax. The same paragraph states that if a player controls these three Strategic Regions and has reforged The Sceptre of the Flame by spending a Build Point - that player immediately wins the campaign

Right... so far I understand...

On page 42, under Victory/Realm Conqueror Victory, the rules state that "A player wins the campaign immediately if they control all three Strategic Regions and have reforged The Sceptre of the Flame. See the Time of war rules for The Titanworks on page 52"

Uh-huh... and moving to page 52:

On page 52, under The Titanworks, it says that to Reforge the Sceptres of the Flame a player that: "controls this region [The Titanworks] and also controls The Caverns of Fulminax and The Black Iron Peninsula, can spend a Build Point to reforge The Sceptre of the Flame"

Is this the case?:

Can a player create The Sceptre of the Flame by controlling The Caverns of Fulminax, The Black Iron Peninsula and The Titanworks, but not The Infinity Gates and The Eyes of the Prismatikon and then need to gain control over the Strategic Regions in order to actually spend that Build Point to win the campaign?  And can a player conquer only the Strategic Regions, spend a Build Point and win the campaign, without having control over the non-strategic regions mentioned regions above?

I hope I made myself clear.... Have I got this right?

 

[FractalRain]

It took me a couple read-throughs myself to understand, but here is what I believe is the case and how we are doing it in our store campaign.  You can only build the Scepter of Flame if you control The Caverns of Fulminax, The Titanworks, and The Black Iron Peninsula.  Once you have the Scepter of Flame, you can immediately win the campaign if you control The Caverns of Fluminax,  The Infinity Gears, and The Eyes of the Prismatikon.  You don't have to control all 5 regions, but you have to control the first 3 to make the scepter and have to control the three strategic ones to win once you have the scepter (even if you don't have The Titanworks or The Black Iron Peninsula anymore).  Does that help?

The strategic zones are nice because they have a card associated with them, which can help you in the campaign, even if you don't have the Scepter of Flame.

[thetony]

Oh! That actually makes sense. I think I got it now! Gee, the rules aren't always clear, I'm afraid...

 

So many thanks for clearing that up! Great!!

[Ashendant]

Is there any lore on this scepter of flames?

[Charles]

Is it worth buying firestorm if you only have one person to play with? 

[FractalRain]

Sure, it is still a fun map based campaign and you two coyld evwn incorporated skirmish or Path to Glory and escalate in points or use the smaller games to gain an advantage in the next big game etc. 

[Rumblefish]

My main quibble with the campaign is that the strategic locations are too important.

Giving benefits AND more glory AND potentially winning the game means that they're the only areas we fight over in our current campaign.

Next time we play I'll be reassigning other areas to make them more important.

[FractalRain]

9 hours ago, Rumblefish said:

My main quibble with the campaign is that the strategic locations are too important.

Giving benefits AND more glory AND potentially winning the game means that they're the only areas we fight over in our current campaign.

Next time we play I'll be reassigning other areas to make them more important.

Definitely a valid point!  Though, the Titanworks and Black Iron Penninsula are important too for making the Scepter of Flame.   And, while the benefits of holding the Strategic locations are nice, you also dilute your pool of cards and can end up with fewer muster points - case in point, our league played it's 4th round yesterday (we are playing to 6), and I fought at a location with the Realmgate (so drawing 7 cards rather than 6) and while I got a strategic location card, my deck has been diluted enough that I only got 10 muster points = 1000 pts.  And I had to face off against someone with 1800 pts!!!  I did win the game, with the final couple rolls in the game to capture an objective (we are using Open War cards) . In general, we have agreed to a point value for a game, but since I have been undefeated thus far (I now control Black Iron Penninsula and all 3 strategic locations - going for Titanworks next!), my opponent took the full 1800 pts.   It was a very fun and challenging game with some good/bad luck on each side.

So, my point is that while the cards for the strategic locations can be powerful, they do have a drawback.  However, I agree that having them tends to outweigh that drawback.

[AmurayiWestgate]

On 18.12.2017 at 4:43 PM, FractalRain said:

and while I got a strategic location card, my deck has been diluted enough that I only got 10 muster points = 1000 pts. 

 

What do you mean by diluted? The strategic cards are not part of your deck you draw cards from - or did I read this wrong?

[FractalRain]

Hmmm....or maybe I have doing that part wrong!  Maybe someone else can clarify for us whether the strategic cards or always used or have to be mixed in with the other cards.