Playing Vengeance As A Burning Plague

 

 Playing Vengeance As A Burning Plague in GtG's "Spirit Island"

As I've stated elsewhere, my favorite board game of the past several years is Spirit Island, and it's not even close. So I thought I'd start digging into various strategies that can be used with each individual spirit. For anyone who has played Spirit Island before, you know that strategies have to be flexible to accommodate so, so many factors (other Spirits in play, progression of Invader actions, power cards made available to you, choice of adversary and/or scenario, etc.). In spite of that necessity for flexibility, there are still some sort of universals for the majority of Spirits in the game.

Let's start by throwing the Spirit up here:

Setup: 1 of your Presence starts the game already Destroyed. Place 2 of your Presence on your starting board - 1 in a land with Blight, 1 in a Wetland without Dahan. This Spirit wields a lot of offense, but a lot of said offense is conditional. It likes targeting lands with Disease, but starts with limited ways to add it. So depending on what you draw, you might very well be at the mercy of your fellow Spirits or what kind of Events are drawn. Don't mistake me: Vengeance is a flexible Spirit! But because it is often at the mercy of various conditions, it cannot necessarily maximize its potential depending on board state. That said, I think you'll fail in using this Spirit if you're only focused on its offensive potential, as it does feature some decent ability to generate Fear that should be exploited if you have the luxury.

Getting back to its dependence on board state, let's take a look at its innate powers. Epidemics Run Rampant can only target lands that have at least one Disease token there, but it behooves you to double down on those tokens, as Epidemics does more damage for each additional Disease token on that land. This might feel like a real crippling condition because the Disease tokens disappear as soon as Explorers try to build in that land. So it's of the utmost importance that you be aware of Vengeance's Special Rules, the first of which is that when a Disease token would prevent a Build on a board with your Presence, you may let the build happen and keep the Disease token on the board. In the event that you do this, 1 Fear will be generated. It's definitely a matter of maintaining balance, because Fear is always welcome, and you need the Disease tokens to maximize your powers. But obviously, by allowing the Invaders to build, you're inviting disaster unless you've got a plan or are well ahead of the Invader curve. However, it's worth noting the limitation of this special rule, as it is only an option on boards where you've already got presence. To that end, spreading yourself out a little bit early can really be to your benefit. Secondly, you have Lingering Pestilence, which says when your Presence is Destroyed by anything but a Spirit Action, add 1 Disease token where each Destroyed Presence was. It's not terribly often that we're glad to see our Presence destroyed, but this can be a really cheap way to get some Disease up if you need it to be if you time it out properly. You definitely don't want to sacrifice too much Presence just to get Disease on the board! But when you plan for it, it is definitely something you can take advantage of. If you lose Presence as a rude surprise, then this is a consolation prize that you can leverage later.

Your other innate power, Savage Revenge, requires that you target a land in which a) you have Presence, and b) there is a town or city. It's easy, when you're first starting, to think of Revenge as being a way to eliminate what Invaders have built, but remember that this power is slow! So if you're planning on using it to prevent Ravages, you need to anticipate Builds or find a way to make the power fast. If you can garner 3 Wind elements, that'll speed up the power innately! But you don't have that element on your board, and so, again, you need a plan for acquiring so many of that element in order to make it work. I'm not saying Savage Revenge isn't useful, I'm just saying that over-reliance on it may very well bite you. Especially if an unexpected Event screws up your timing and leaves you holding the bag. You may find yourself having to decide between the two Innate Powers instead of being able to really cultivate both of them. If this is the case, then just keep it in mind when you're learning new Powers, as your Innates can be very useful. I am, personally, very fond of Epidemics Run Rampant because of the ability to ramp up the damage as well as generate Fear. Plus, as a fast power, I have to do less planning to make sure the damage goes off when and where I want it to go off.

 I really like Vengeance's starting Powers, but I also think it's easy to fall into a trap of using them in a way that forces you to Reclaim more often than you'd like, which consistently puts you on your back foot. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

You start with 2 fast Powers and 2 slow Powers. There's only one Power that I don't much care for. I wouldn't call it weak, but it is limited in scope. Fiery Vengeance is one of your fast powers and it's free. It can target any Spirit, and allows said Spirit to remove 1 of their Destroyed Presence from the game in order to generate 1 Fear and do 1 Damage in one of their lands. Again, it's limited. For Spirits that cannot regain Destroyed Presence, it's no big deal to sacrifice it in order to generate a little Fear and a little damage. But unless the timing is just right, it can often feel like too little to be worth a card play, even if it doesn't cost you any Energy to play. Your other fast Power, however, is excellent! Strike Low with Sudden Fevers is the card that I think can lead a player to Reclaim more often than they perhaps should. It generates 1 Fear, forces Invaders to skip Ravage Actions, and gives you 4 Elements, 3 of which you likely want to use regularly! What's not to like? Well, the problem I ran into the first several times I played as this Spirit is that I liked the card so much that I kept Reclaiming the damn thing so I could keep kicking the can down the road as a way of maintaining control over my board. But there's a reason why there is no saying, "the best offense is a good defense." This is one of those situations in which you can end up in a crouch, protecting yourself, but never moving forward. At some point, you won't have enough mitigation to go around, you won't have made nearly enough headway toward victory, and you'll be overwhelmed. Sudden Fevers is great! Just don't rely so heavily on it that it ends up being a staple play every single turn. At some point, it's worth taking a round off to make some gains at the expense of some Blight.

Except in this case, it actually is! Probably...

Fetid Breath Spreads Infection is useful, but pricey. That said, if you ever have the Energy and the card play to use it, you should. Fear is always welcome, you've got some reach with the Power, and the effects of Disease tokens are cumulative when you use Epidemics Run Rampant. Now, there will be times when that Disease token doesn't land exactly where you need it to land. No worries; you can use Plaguebearers to move it along with some Explorers, Towns, or Dahan. The synergy between your two slow powers is easy to understate. Particularly because they require some planning and don't really do anything flashy. But they set up your other powers, so don't lose track of them just because they don't generate fireworks all on their own.

Our propaganda game is real strong, dontcha think?

Let's talk about your Growth options. 

1. Your Reclaim option nets you a new Power Card and +1 energy. Nothing special, but it's not so awful that you'll do your best to avoid it. This is part of that trap I was talking about earlier; this Growth option as a part of a prevent defense that continually allows you to stall Ravage actions, but also doesn't let you really make any headway.
2. Your second option allows you to add a Presence to a land up to 2 spaces away that has a Town, a City, or a Blight. You can then do that a second time. Great, great growth option, as you can put two Presence on the board, you've got reach (which gives you options), and you're putting your Presence where it is most needed. There is risk in doing so, of course; as with a lot of things in this game, your timing is everything. You need to plan ahead to ensure your Presence is useful instead of simply sacrificial. Admittedly, sometimes, you just need to get Presence off your board. If this is the case, maybe try and put it somewhere it can get Destroyed sooner rather than later so it can fuel your various Powers and abilities.
3. Your final option lets you add a Presence or a Disease token up to one space away, gain 1 Energy, and gain a Power Card. This is a great option, but can often present a dilemma when forced to choose between adding a Presence or a Disease token. This is often where I hesitate; it's my experience that 9 times out of 10, if I take this option "because you have to," then I missed a window earlier to either drop the Presence or the Disease I so desperately needed. Usually, it's the latter. I find myself choosing this option strictly because I need a Disease token and I need it NOW. None of that is to say that if you're choosing this option, you're made mistakes or you're in trouble. Again, I love this Growth option! I'm just saying that if you find yourself choosing it out of necessity more often than the other Growth options near the beginning or early middle of the game, then it's likely because you've made mistakes and you're treading water because you didn't plan far enough in advance.

I can understand choosing to dedicate yourself to either the Energy track or the Card Play track based on your needs or aims. Obviously, the choice of track helps dictate which Innate Power you're going to be using more often, so that's definitely a consideration. It helps that your bonus Elements come early in each track rather than later, so you can also just choose to split the difference between the two tracks. That's definitely a possibility. I am fairly non-committal until I either know we have an opponent or scenario that will dictate whether my preference is to facilitate one Innate Power over another, or once I've drawn a couple of Power Cards and have some idea of what my budget needs to be from round to round.

I find Vengeance As A Burning Plague is quite a lot of fun to play, but also requires a lot of planning, regardless of what tactics you choose to employ. It is not a particularly responsive Spirit because it does require set-up for a lot of what it does well. I'm, more often than not, thinking of getting Disease tokens on the board. You can function without them, but then you're better off picking some other Spirit. There are limitations to what Vengeance can accomplish unless you are willing to work within the parameters of its strengths. It is likely that your Presence will regularly be endangered (owing to the fact that you're often looking to place Presence or operate in lands that are already occupied by Invaders), and your plans will often be rendered either weakened or impossible depending on where the Disease tokens are on the board.

When I first got the Jagged Earth expansion (the expansion which introduced us to this Spirit), Vengeance As A Burning Plague is one of the handful about which I was extremely excited! I loved the notion of it, and I choose my Spirits in this game based as much on theme and design as I do on effectiveness. After I played it the first time, I felt a little let down. It wasn't doing *what I thought it would do* based on what I had read. I re-visited it after a time, but played it in a solo game. It took probably 5-6 plays before I finally won with it in a solo game, but by the end of those games, I felt I had a pretty good handle on it. Now that I do, I find I really do enjoy it! It just wasn't quite doing what I thought it *should*, and so I found it limited and frustrating. At this point, I can't wait to get it back to the table with other players! I can't claim it has moved into any of my top Spirit spots (currently occupied by Heart of the Wildfire, A Spread of Rampant Green, and Ocean's Hungry Grasp), but there's a good chance that after playing it a couple more times, it may supplant one of those latter two Spirits in my list!