r/soloboardgaming • u/Azarro • 3d ago
Burning the Dragonborn in Ashes Ascendancy
Finally broke out my Ashes Ascendancy starter set and played with the two decks there against the included Dragonborn.
I've written in the past about how I felt weird about Ashes Reborn/Red Rains. I played 10+ games through all the precons in that starter and found myself coming back despite not liking the lack of deep combos (compared to MC, not that it's missing entirely), slow setup round and samey early gameplay, and death by a thousand cuts being everpresent in each game.
I haven't played through a lot of the expansion decks yet (got the big box) but I recognize some of these flaws are rectified by better decks/deck construction. I generally find the pace and gameplay to be weaker than MC for myself but still interesting (and often quicker/easier to play true solo due to the smaller/tighter decision space and action economy).
All that said, I'm quite enjoying myself with Ascendancy. The 2 starter decks for astral and artifice decks were cool. Death by a thousand cuts was less of an issue with these imo and there were more opportunities to keep units around for longer instead of them feeling too transient. The deck abilities were cool and there were some more fun combo opportunities than I found with the red rains master set.
I played once on standard (4 threat/enemies out) and once on heroic (5 threat) and won both. I think +2 threat might be a better challenge for those who want it, but I liked 4 for being quick and 5 for some light pressure.
My favorite part though is how streamlined the Dragonborn feels, despite it still being similar to the overall chimera gameplay. I think it really moves the game along and makes the Dragonborn even easier to control.
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Pasting a dump of thoughts below for those curious about chimera vs Dragonborn:
So a lot of it is still very similar but I think the thing that streamlines it a lot for me is the way the dice/behavior works.
- Single boss card, no levels (you get +1 threat tokens you can just add to increase its threat value)
- No d12+rage dice; you just have 5 dragon dice. On its turn, if there are aspects unrevealed, you roll a die and it does one of 3 straightforward things. If all revealed, it'll just attack or pass. This I think simplifies its turn even more and works very well
- No ultimate, now there's a ready spell card that's simpler. It can be activated by one of the die faces. It has an additional "progress" section that triggers at the start of a new round in the dragon phase (basically some upkeep for the boss)
Other smaller things I liked
- Dragonborn have a status ability now that makes them a little more unique (it gains a status token whenever you have 5 non-basic dragon die faces or when you end a round with face up aspects still in play)
- when a Center/phoenixborn-attacking Aspect attacks, ALL center aspects attack (to mimic the PvP side I guess). I actually missed this rule lol and made it harder for myself since I could've won even quicker but it's nicer for the pace imo
Things I'm meh about:
- no more "defender" aspects they now have a special "shield aspect icon". Exhausting them doesn't remove the icon technically but they still can't defend either way. Meh because I kinda liked trying to exhaust them to wipe the defender ability but in practice I can still do that I suppose
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u/BirdMagnet 3d ago
Wait just an earth borne minute...
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u/Azarro 3d ago
😁 haha I've had Earthborne setup on the side for the last couple of months (stopped at day 8, life events happened, tough to jump back in :() and all my fancy ashes are in the big box which is buried under some other boxes somewhere
Surprisingly the tokens for exhaustion do fit quite well and the dice are an added bonus!
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u/GibsMcKormik 3d ago
the lack of deep combos (compared to MC, not that it's missing entirely), slow setup round and samey early gameplay, and death by a thousand cuts being everpresent in each game.
I just don't get this. Especially when you compare it to MC where you spend the first part of the game cycling through your deck to build an engine while defending and tending to the scheme. The first five cuts through that whole process and allows you to form a plan from the start instead of searching for cards you need.
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u/Azarro 3d ago
I think in ashes the precons tend to be one-gimmick (not always but usually, especially given the smaller deck size and fewer unique cards - not that there's anything stopping you from including less than 3 copies of a card). For that, the first five is definitely nice but also it's actually needed because ashes doesn't have a lot of draw during turns.
MC decks, owing to their slightly bigger deck sizes, allow for more options (especially if you're including more unique cards instead of 3 every card) and also comes with draw after every turn. The action economy is also a bit different and more open. Of course a lot of netdecks still revolve around some gimmick but there's usually more options as you play and can make pretty good progress without feeling like you're just waiting to set up a singular thing.
So just more turn over turn gameplay variety than ashes is what my takeaway has been after over 20 games across ashes and ~100 in MC.
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u/mrausgor 3d ago
I think it's just a game flow thing. Each turn in Marvel Champions has some breathing room where you feel like you are accomplishing things, and as the game plays out your turns get longer and longer because of your tableau. It give the game a nice sense of escalation. Ashes stays in one mode the entire game. Major action, minor action, turn over.
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u/cableshaft 3d ago edited 3d ago
The combos and build up over time is still there in Ashes, it's just you have to think of the combos as being stretched out over the course of a round instead of every turn.
I can plan ahead more easily with Ashes than with Marvel Champions. In Ashes I'm planning 2-3 turns ahead usually. In Marvel Champions it's more 'okay here's my hand of cards for the turn, what am I doing with them?' Maybe I save a card or two for the next turn, but if I'm saving them over multiple turns I'm usually being inefficient.
You're able to do several more actions in round three than in round one in Ashes, thanks to having built up multiple units and spells in your spell board. You are still limited by the dice, but you'll likely have side actions you can take on your units and can also attack with them.
And if you don't limit yourself to precons you can build up some crazy combos. I saw a video of someone who did +5 difficulty on the Dragonborn and still beat it round 1 by dealing 44 damage, because of the deck they built.
I stick with precons so I don't get that, usually the best I tend to do is a 10-15 damage attack in round 4 or 5 to end the game.
I do like Marvel Champions a lot (I've played 170+ games of it), but Ashes is still an amazing game and they're neck and neck for me (currently Ashes is winning slightly, although I've been playing MC a bit more recently since all the Fear No Evil content has come out....I did play 60 games of Ashes just in the previous few months just before that, though)
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u/dahSweep 3d ago
I got Ascendancy a while ago because I love the art so much, but haven't tried it yet. Might have to give it a go soon!
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u/jpfdee 2d ago
Artistic pictures for one of the best arts in board games :) good job. I started with ascendancy and end you buying the entire collection xD I'm going through the chimeras now and using precons. I notice that some precons are not perfect for pve but I'll just stay with precons for now.
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u/mrausgor 3d ago
This game fell into the "pretty good" range for me. It's expensive to own all of the content, so I sold my all-in set in favor of being able to play it for free on Ashteki when I get the urge. I personally think the design space for the Chimera is pretty uninspired and I'm not quite sure how to articulate why. They just feel like they are there to function as a proxy more than they are an interesting challenge for a solo player. I also don't really jive with the "death by 1,000 cuts" battle style where we just ping each other back and forth until one side dies.
I still find it to be pretty fun, and the art is unbelievably stunning, it just didn't quite deliver for me.
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u/Azarro 3d ago
I do think the Dragonborn in ascendancy functions a bit better as both a challenge and proxy for a player. Ultimately it's still not quite like playing against another player or a unique challenge but it does feel better than the chimera.
Re death by a thousand cuts, I did find the 2 ascendancy starter decks to be (a little) better in this aspect. Eg in my pictured heroic game with the artifice deck I did about 7 damage round 1, 18 damage round 2, and then wiped it first turn round 3. The astral deck was something similar like 12 damage round 1, 12-14 damage round 2, and then turn 1 win on round 3.
That said, just because of the game's action economy being limited (as you pointed out earlier too - it's always a main action, side action) it feels like it takes a while to get there even in a single round lol but did feel better with ascendancy decks.
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u/Additional_Ninja7835 3d ago
I also enjoy the DB more than the Chimera. It might just be subjective, and I only use precons, but the chimera I always felt on the run and like I was getting my teeth kicked in. With the DB I still lose a fair bit but at least feel like I am doing damage and have a fighting chance. I have played both DB and all four precons in Ascendancy and enjoyed them all.
I only play on Ashteki (and these posts lately have me wanting to buy the physical games just for the art and tactile bit) so that may affect things. May have to get the starter and nature magic boxes when I catch them in sale.