By Zach Shephard

Units can be a powerful force if properly controlled. You just can’t let these guys run rampant – they’ll be vandalizing buildings, kicking puppies, and drinking Sprite when Mountain Dew is readily available. None of these acts can be tolerated.

And who better to whip a group of units into shape than a Human Lieutenant? More specifically, a Human Lieutenant driving an Artemis ZB4.

Artemis’s ability is fantastic for anyone that wants to charge into battle with a mass of units. So long as a good percentage of your deck is composed of units, this vehicle ensures that you’ll have a constant stream of warriors coming into your hand to replace the casualties on the battlefield. As such, over half of the cards in the deck I’m presenting to you today are units. The ones that aren’t units are there to help your minions get the job done.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the non-unit support cards in this deck. One of the major flaws of raiding with units is that your opponent only needs to drop one of his own units between your army and his vehicle to stop any damage from coming his way for a turn. The support cards I’ve selected for this deck are mainly geared towards bypassing that defensive route your opponent may take.

One of the best ways to get enemy units out of the way before you raid is to assault a mission. If your opponent has been playing multiple units, your army has (ideally) been powerful enough to mow them down every turn. Eventually, your nemesis on the other side of the table will only be drawing into enough units to play a single one each turn, which your vehicle can eliminate on an assault – hence opening the path for your units to unload on the opposing vehicle.

With that in mind, this deck is stocked with ten maneuvers, to ensure that you can assault and eliminate units with your vehicle whenever necessary. Furthermore, having all of your maneuvers at twenty speed can hopefully allow you to complete one of the early missions. This will slow down an opposing mission-completion deck, preventing it from taking two easy missions right off the bat.

Six of the maneuvers I selected were with the current goal in mind – clearing a path for your units. Four copies of Bombardment help to wipe out annoying units that would otherwise thwart your plans, while two copies of Second Sweep give your vehicle an extra chance to clean things up. The remaining four maneuvers are Infuriate, which is included for the obvious reasons.

In addition to maneuvers, this deck employs the help of a few tactics as support cards. Often times, your units will over-extend themselves on offense. When this happens, Zig Zag is ready to pick up the slack, should they be attacked. Not only can this help keep your army alive, but if you’re lucky, it can get another point of damage or two on your opponent’s vehicle. Furthermore, Zig Zag provides some extra defense for Artemis, in the event you find yourself under attack.

Line Up the Target is a pretty standard card in most offense-oriented decks. Twenty accuracy and a combat bonus of forty-five is just too good to pass up.

Last of the support cards (and certainly not least), is the gears. Sling Rocket Launcher is another great key for taking out units that are getting in your way, and serves the dual-purpose of picking away at your opponent’s vehicle when there are no units to target. Satellite Keycodes is included to help whenever you assault a mission or use a Second Sweep. If your opponent is playing any substantial amount of units, there’s a decent chance you’ll have more counters on Satellite Keycodes than you know what to do with. Basic Power Plant is one of the best opening-draw cards you can hope for – an extra power will often times mean you get one more unit out each turn.

Now, some of you nay-sayers may point out that so many copies of the same gear is a waste of deck slots. Although that may be a reasonable argument in other decks, this particular one actually makes use of those extra copies. All of the gears in this deck have a combat bonus of forty-five, and that’s something that is easily abused with the number-one unit in this deck… the Dredginator.

Dredginator is a huge key to this deck. This Scav allows you to place a Scav or Gear card from your hand on top of your deck whenever it raids. This, combined with the ability of Artemis, results in a recurring, guaranteed combat bonus of thirty-five, once you draw a Miscreant, Dirt Napper, or Sucka. And, should you find yourself needing a little extra boost, you can pop one of those excess gears on top of your deck for a forty-five combat bonus. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The only difficulty in AATCG with putting heavy reliance on a single card is that the card in question could be lost as a combat draw. Artemis effectively removes that problem, ensuring that those Dredginators always find their way into your hand. It’s also Artemis’s ability that allows this deck to run at sixty cards, rather than fifty – this vehicle gives you the potential to draw several cards beyond the standard amount each turn.

Beyond the Dredginator, units in this deck were selected for a variety of reasons: power cost, damage bonus, accuracy, and combat bonus. Slaughter Guards and Squalors can really pound your opponent’s vehicle, while Ravagers, Miscreants and Dirt Nappers ensure that you win your fights. Scow’s numbers are just too great to pass up – twenty accuracy, one additional damage, three armor, twenty speed, and a beefy combat bonus of twenty-five, all for the cost of only three power.

The missions in this deck aren’t particularly relevant, as you likely won’t be solving too many on your own (if you ever see your sixty-difficulty mission come out, something very strange is happening). Twin Lakes Supply Run can give you a nice power boost if you draw into one of your ten maneuvers early, Suicide Town Throwdown makes your army even more devastating, and Chemical Valley Patrol can limit your opponent’s assaulting options. In the event that you do get to your last mission, Purge Outfall Cisterns will wipe out your opponent’s defenses.

The final thing to look at with this deck is the excellent combat bonuses. Although many of your bonuses will be controlled with Dredginator, there will be times you won’t have that luxury (before you draw a Dredginator, whenever you use ranged attacks, and when your vehicle assaults). For those times, you’ve still got a decent chance of drawing into a good number. The following is a table that details the chances to draw each combat number.

5: 0%.
15: 26.67%.
25: 23.33%.
35: 26.67%.
45: 23.33%.
55: 0%.

It may seem as though numbers are evenly distributed, but look at it this way: 73.33% of the time, you should be drawing a twenty-five or higher. 50% of the time, you should be drawing a thirty-five or higher. Not many decks can boast being able to pull a thirty-five half of the time.

And, on top of that – you will never draw a five (face it, we all hate when that happens).

Without further ado, I give you the Army of Artemis decklist.

• 4 Bombardment
• 4 Infuriate
• 2 Second Sweep
• 4 Line Up the Target
• 4 Zig Zag
• 4 Basic Power Plant
• 3 Satellite Keycodes
• 3 Sling Rocket Launcher
• 4 Dirt Napper
• 4 Dredginator
• 4 Miscreant
• 4 Ravager
• 4 Scow
• 4 Slaughter Guard
• 4 Squalor
• 4 Sucka