Star Belly Geek's Diskwars Pages

The Armies

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Critical command decisions have to be made several times during each Diskwars game. As in chess, such decisions can make or break your chances of winning. The loser is often the person who makes the last mistake.

Some of the most important decisions have to be made when an army is created. Should you have many weak units, a few strong units or a mix of the two? Is a spellcaster worth the points or even indispensible? What about those special abilities?

The first decision is which army to play. After that, review the units available and decide how to make up the army. Some additional information on plans of attack and how they should influence your decisions is available in the Command and Control section of this site.

Acolytes - This is a magic-heavy faction, and most of its units are fairly expensive. The Acolytes have to rely on the strength of complex attack combinations to deal with opponents who will likely have more units.

Dragonkin - The Dragons, good or evil, have a variety of strong units, as well as some units that are inexpensive. This is a fun faction for beginners because of the ease of building an effective force that is fun to play. The only thing missing is an effective ranged attack - and fast, strong units make up for that.

Dwarves - The Dwarves can also go good or evil, and are also good for beginners. Their strength is in their toughness, and there are some good, inexpensive units available here. The army won't be fast, but when melee starts the Dwarves can hold their own. Just don't try to get too tricky - Dwarves don't like tricky people.

Elves - Where the Dwarves are slow and tough, the Elves are fast, with many ways of attacking at a distance. You can build an effective Elven army without archers, but the temptation will always exist to add in a few. Just remember that your fast units will be inhibited by the archers' need to stay still and wait for enemy attacks.

K'Ryth - The wasteland demons are geared for numbers, not for attack strength. It's kind of expensive to put together a complete army, but people are already starting to claim that K'Ryth are the faction to beat, especially in one-on-one games. Any army that can field between 30 and 40 units in a 150-point game is to be feared (but be prepared to buy eight or ten Wastelands boxes and trade a lot to get the disks you need...).

Knights - It's hard not to like the Knights. Their problem is that their strengths lie in their unique and rare disks, and the combinations that create a powerful force. They can be fun to play even without the random flat disks, but they can be really strong with them. Fast, with a good balance of line troops, missile weapons and fast troops, supported by some good special abilities, the Knights can be a very adaptable faction.

Mahkim - Another army that requires some serious expense to be effective, the Mahkim rely heavily on their hard-hitting front-line champions. Most Mahkim players build their armies around Swamp Behemoths, supplementing with a spellcaster and some units to cover the flanks. They aren't the fastest faction, but if you can get ahold of enough Behemoths you can be a frightening force on the tabletop.

Orc - Think "horde." Lots of small troops to back up and help support a few strong units. Sure there's an archer unit, sure there's a nice cavalry unit, even a good spellcaster or two, but the backbone of the Orcs is in its infantry.

Unaligned - The unaligned aren't intended to be played as a separate faction. If you want to do so, you'll have to collect Centaurs heavily. Mostly, the Unaligned troops provide support to the factions. See how they stack up, good, neutral and evil.

Undead - Variety is the very spice of unlife! Choose your poison here and run with it - there are lots of choices to be made, and the faction can be fun in so many icky ways.

Uthuk - Hit them and hit them hard appears to be the Uthuk motto. Most Uthuk units are expensive but hurt when they attack. There are few gimmicks here (although you can put together a good magic-and-special ability army). Uthuk are very popular, and can make opponents hurt when the front lines meet.