How do I start not sucking? I keep getting stomped.
It can be very difficult to have much success with the starter decks, as you rarely will have anywhere near enough infantry. I started winning games more often after I reinforced my decks with a bunch of spare infantry commons donated to me by one of the serious collectors. It also took quite a few games to figure out the nuances of the game system. I'm still learning new things, like in the last game where I discovered that ss panzergrenadiers can deal damage twice in the same battle.
There's a useful guide here:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?549676-The-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Hearts-of-Iron-TCG He recommends building a deck with 1/3 factories, 1/3 defence, 1/3 offence. For me, the most important rule is to have at least 20 infantry in a 60 card deck, I would then add in 10 or so support cards for a fairly robust defence - but most of these cards will also be usable on the attack.
Here's an example of a couple of 60 card decks I've built. I haven't listed the specific cards, but the proportions I've used should give you an idea of what you should be aiming for. The axis has a serious advantage in terms of dual-usage cards eg. tank/infantry and tank/support cards, which make fulfilling their objectives that much easier. If you're making a Comintern combined arms deck, you will just have to take out some infantry for more tanks, since they are lacking in dual-usage units.
"
Blitz 2", an axis blitzkrieg/combined arms deck
3 doctrines
2 ammunition factories
15 regular factories
4 air units
21 regular infantry
12 support units
3 tanks
Defensively, 33 units:
21 infantry
12 support
On the offence, 40 units:
4 air units
3 tanks
21 infantry
12 support
note: 11 units usable as tanks in total
I start out with combined arms in play, as it is difficult to get the blitzkrieg going with only 4 planes. I discovered that most of the time, I would end up simply discarding the planes and never using the blitzkrieg in the deck.
I then made the following deck, which ditches the blitzkrieg doctrine in favour of more infantry:
"
Berlin", a combined arms axis deck
3 doctrines
2 ammunition factories
14 regular factories
23 regular infantry
1 defence only infantry
13 regular support units
3 defence only support units
1 tank
Defensively, 40 units:
24 infantry
16 support
On the offence, 37 units:
1 tank
23 infantry
13 support
note: 9 units usable as tanks in total
For simplicity's sake I haven't taken into account several important features, mainly the damage potential of the units and the unit cost. Playing blitzkrieg essentially means having to sacrifice infantry slots for more planes and tanks, but your compensation is your ability to hammer your opponent with multiple lethal damage dealers.
A side note, my Berlin deck has cards of the following rarity:
48 one star commons
10 two star uncommons
2 three star rares
The deck I beat the other day must have had 20 or more three star rares: ss panzergrenadiers, wespe, nashorn (actually a four-star rare!), nebelwerfer, counterbattery fire, propaganda machine, strosstruppen. So there's still hope for the casual player in this system. If you have a balanced deck and play well, you can give anybody a game.
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Topic: Hearts of Iron the Card Game (Read 4720 times)