Omen: Shattered Aegis
Today were going to be taking a quick look at the expansion for one of my favorite two player games Omen: A Reign of War. I’m not going to talk about how you play the game so if you’re unfamiliar with Omen you may want to see my review of that game before looking at this one. In this quick look I’m just going to be talking about a few of the new units and how Shattered Aegis affects the game overall.
First off there is a brand new status effect in Shattered Aegis. Some of the new units have the ability to Enrage other non-Beast units. When a unit is Enraged it is flipped over and becomes a Beast with a strength of four but it loses all other abilities. At the end of the Offering step an Enraged units owner can turn their unit face up again. This means that you can Enrage not only your own units but your opponents units as well. And they’ll have to wait until the END of their next turn to flip their unit back to normal. This can really come in handy protecting you from some of the nasty business the new Oracles can dish out.
If you’re like me you have graduated from using the random draw pile to either drafting or pre-making specialized decks before you play. As more units are added to the game the pile of cards will only get bigger and the game just works so much better when you have a custom deck with cards that work well together.
The first units we’ll look at are the new Oracles. There are four new Oracles in Shattered Aegis and some of them are vastly different from what came in the base set. One of the most notable is the Gut Augur. Now, you’ll remember most Oracles in the base set gave the owner either cards or coins and a bonus if they could find another Oracle with one draw. It was a good way to rack up extra coins and an efficient Oracle deck could really control the flow of money in the game.
With the Gut Augur’s “Disgust” ability you will make your opponent discard one card every Portent step. That means if you have all three out at the same time you can cripple an opponents hand and possibly accomplish two Feats in one turn. If paired with the Marrow Diviner which makes them lose a coin as well, your deck will constantly pester your opponent and put them way behind you in available moves. Pair those with a Mesmerizing Harpy and Scarred Minotaur from the base set and….on second thought don’t do that unless you like playing solo because the person you use that deck against will never play you again.
Next let’s look at the Beasts. As with the Oracles there are four new units, one of which is probably the most infamous card in the whole set but first I’ll talk about Cloud of Furies. This card is a bit odd to be honest and whenever someone skims through the cards to check out the new units I can always tell when they see the Cloud of Furies because I usually hear an audible “what?”
This card lets you search the deck to find the other two Cloud of Furies and put them in your hand, all for one coin. This Beasts ability can be useful in trying to accomplish Artemis’ Feat but only the first time you draw one because if there are any in your discard pile you may be better off just placing it in a city.
Next is the Fortuitous Dryad. Take a second to read this cards ability. Yeah, I don’t know what else there is to say about this card other than “Dude….” All joking aside this can be a power house in the right deck and even though it may seem too powerful I’ve never found it to be a game breaker. The initial shock of the card wears off a bit when you see that there are always seems to be a way to counter balance almost every card.
Now lets look at some Soldiers. There are more Soldiers than any other unit and they have four cards per unit so they are the bulk of the deck and basically your decks backbone. Here you have your units that can Enrage other units. You have units that can give you ways to extend a turn by drawing cards or coins. And you have units that will annoy the heck out of your opponent by constantly poking at them. One of my new favorites is the Cowl-Clad Prowler. This unit not only lets you draw a card, it makes your opponent discard a card and they also have to give you one coin.
The Masked Surrogate is a card type I think game needed. It’s a copy cat card that lets you steal an opposing unit’s ability. It’s very handy if your opponent happens to play a card you wish you had taken in the draft.
I’ll stop there because I don’t want to spoil any more units. You’ll have fun going through them and building your own decks. But needless to say I really enjoy playing Omen and this expansion makes the game so much deeper. If you’re an Omen fan, pick up Shattered Aegis immediately. If you haven’t tried Omen yet, what are you waiting for?
