Owl's Mini-Guide to Throne Rushes

Work in Progress… *

Some games end with one player in a clearly dominant position: they are strong enough to fight all comers, will eventually conquer the map, and the Thrones of Ascension mechanic just ends the game without making them really conquer the world.

Some games end, though, when a player makes a play for the required number of thrones when they are not in an overwhelmingly strong position. Maybe they are the strongest nation, but they aren't in a position to fight a coalition of everyone else left. This is a throne rush: a true play for victory by thrones.

This is a guide to these situations – to operations and tactics that plays that can help or hinder a thronerush. It was inspired by 2022 Tourney Game 5, which was characterized by a brutal slugfest and a lot of very sweaty throne rush attempts by three different nations; it's an attempt to describe some of the tactics used there.

Generally, all thrones will be held by player nations with forts on them. We'll assume the attacker needs just one more throne in describing these tactics, but it is entirely possible to thronerush more than one throne at once.

Nations involved will play one of three roles:

• Attacker: The nation trying to win by capturing thrones.
• Defender: The nation(s) holding the thrones Attacker needs to capture.
• Bystander: Other nations whose thrones are not under direct attack but who want to thwart Attacker's thronerush.

Many of the tactics here refer to precise timings. I'll refer to the turn they execute orders to move onto the critical fort as Turn T+0.

The sequence of events leading to a victory is:

• Turn T+0: Attacker orders its army to move onto the critical throne, generally with enough siege power to crack its walls in one turn.
• Turn T+1: The critical throne is cracked by Attacker's army. Bystanders generally will stop their petty wars and devote all resources to stopping Attacker's victory. Attacker orders its forces to storm that throne; Defender chooses to either hold the storm or break the siege. Attacker must move a 3 priest or pretender to the throne to claim it. This is the last turn for Bystanders to counterattack Attacker's other thrones; to be in time, they must one-turn crack one of them.
• Turn T+2: Attacker has just stormed the critical throne and orders something to claim it. Attacker inevitably wins unless another nation (probably a Bystander) has cracked one of Attacker's other thrones; if they have, Attacker must stop Bystander from storming their throne for one more turn in order to win.

Obviously, Attacker needs to pull out all the stops in attacking Defender's throne; this is a play for a win, so they should bring an immensely powerful and flexible army. That force needs:

• Enough siege power to crack the fort in one turn
• Enough combat power to fight whatever is in the fort and all reinforcements Defender and possible Bystanders can bring:
  • They must be prepared to fight potentially multiple out-of-fort battles and a storm battle in one turn with the same script
  • They won't have time to ping the inside of the fort, so they must be prepared for anything Defender could have on the inside or that Bystanders could drop on the outside (including huge pretender gods)
  • Defender and Bystanders will see any unstealthed elements of the besieging force, so they can customize SC's and scripts to counter it
• Enough resilience to endure remote attacks from Defender and Bystanders – remote assassinations, army-killers, and the like
• Ability to endure assassinations from inside the fort (against nations that have this)
• Enough gems on mages for many battles (potentially: magicphase gem-burn from Bystanders, movephase gem-burn from potentially multiple Bystanders and from Defender, and then the storm battle against Defender
  • Lategame armies drink gems for battlemagic
  • They can bring a limited gem load on Turn T+0 and reload from gem mules on T+1

Then you have to win those fights. Your army will have to fight Caelum's magicphase attackers (who will probably just gemburn you, but possibly use things like astral travel to put up a harder fight), then Caelum's movephase attackers and Berytos' break-siege force + reinforcements, then whatever is inside the fort + Berytos' magicphase reinforcements. That's a lot of combat. But – you're the rightful God – you can take it, right?

You will also need a large warchest of gems to fund all your rituals to set up the operation.

You should plan to crack Defender's fort in one turn. You're not going to get away with delay here – even one turn delay is critical time for the defenders to sort themselves out and come crashing down on you like a ton of bricks. You are going to need a pile of siege strength. If Defender has any warning, expect them to cast Iron Walls on their throne. If they script this on Turn T-1, you'll see it after it resolves on Turn T+0. (Select the province and hit F to see the fort stats; you can see its siege strength including augments.) However, if they script it on Turn T-1 – in response to your army showing up in an adjacent province, perhaps – you're going to be walking into a thousand more siege strength than you thought. Best to be prepared.

The best sources of siege strength are:

• Organic components of your army that both fight and siege (maybe you're Agartha or birds)
• Great Eagles, which are extraordinarily mobile and great at sieging
• Cave Grubs, which are cheap for the siege power they provide
• The spell Crumble, if you have gems to burn. (This is very efficient compared to Gate Cleavers, but see below)

Gate Cleavers, while frequently used, are not a terribly efficient source of siege strength, although they can contribute and can be deployed anywhere pretty easily. But they are great at chopping up SC's you may encounter in the ensuing battles. They are one of the few weapons that hits hard enough to annihilate physmoss SC's. Ironically, their biggest contribution to thronerush encounters is the ability to avoid getting your army turntimered by something it can't cut through. It is thus worth bringing a few if you have them and making them if you can afford them.

If you reveal your forces on Turn T-1 as they step next to the critical throne, then your attacking force will be battered by remote attacks and Defender will get in reinforcements. You may not even get all your siege power on top of the fort to crack it. Your chances of success as the Attacker will be much greater if nobody knows a thronerush is imminent. But this is difficult – you must somehow get potentially 2000 siege strength and overwhelming combat power on top of a critical fort with no warning and no indication of an attack before that. How do you achieve this surprise? You have two challenges here: getting troops to the fight and getting mage support there.

Attackers will generally combine several of the following:

• High map movement: Very fast forces, particularly those that fly, can concentrate without warning. Flying nations (birds, bats) can do this with their usual units. Storm Demons, Devils, or Fiend of Darkness on a flying commander can do this. Great Eagles have enormous mapmove; they can be led by a flying commander, either a Queen of Elemental Air or something more mundane wearing movespeed boots. Flying units often have both high combat power and siege strength. Mages can wear movespeed items (flying/messenger/quickness boots) and move in from a long way away. Flying Ship is a great asset here if you have it. So is sailing (homemade with Pocket Ship).
• Magicphase movement: If Attacker is moving anything in via magicphase, they must move in enough to beat patrollers and PD – but that's not too hard. Magicphase attacks from mages can usually carry sufficient combat power to kill patrollers. Stygian Paths or Astral Travel can move in armies, and Faery Trod can move large armies from a long distance if the target is an isolated forest. (Stygian will lose things along the way – be warned.)
• Stealth: Stealthy troops, obviously, attack with surprise.
• Glamour and obfuscate: Glamour is obviously great, but don't underestimate the value of items like Cauldron of Elven Halls. The ability to mask slow but critical units like Cave Grub or large stacks of elites can be the only way to get them in range, but Attacker needs to control a province next to the target throne (and if it gets pinged the jig is up). If the attacking force is amphibious or can be made amphibious, attacking from the water can give a little safety. (This is especially deadly for Agarthans, who are both amphibious and have massive siege strength.)

Obviously, once Turn T+1 arrives, the Defender will see that the critical throne fort is cracked and will know a throne rush is underway. The whole map is going to come try to stop them from winning, and Attacker is in for a fight.

However, since the only things that can storm the critical throne fort are ones that have moved on top of it during the prior turn, the Attacker would like to hide their forces for one more turn if necessary. There are three ways to do this, usable in combination:

• Stealth: Elements of the attacking force can stealth on top of the throne fort rather than attacking it. Their siege strength won't count, but Defender and Bystanders won't know they are there. (Shademail Haubergeon is useful for mages.)
• Magic Phase Attack: If Attacker attacks the fort in magic phase and kills the patrollers + PD, Defender won't get a battle report showing details of anything moving during normal phase, unless Defender tries to move things into the fort (in which case they'll bump into the magicphase attackers and trigger another fight). Defender will still see the main attacking force on a scouting report – unless they are obfuscated or glamoured.
  • If Attacker can obfuscate or glamour the entire attacking force, they can potentially kill the patrollers + PD with a magicphase attack and then crack the fort with a force that is potentially entirely hidden from scouting reports – nobody will have any idea whatsoever what is there, only that it has massive siege power.
• Mules: Scouts (and indie Camazotz) can carry in gem reloads and gear. Storing extra gear on stealthy commanders and swapping them in for the Turn T+1 battles can hide your script.

There are all kinds of misdirection tactics that you can use to hide a thronerush or misdirect enemies from its true target. You can display large armies (either real or mirage using Effigy of War-type false army items) next to thrones other than your target, besiege other thrones (with Crumble casts for extra believability), cast other remotes (e.g. Wolven Winter or Breath of the Desert) to prep other thrones for a fight, etc. The sky is really the limit here. Prompting enemies to scramble in the wrong direction can be beneficial, but faking a throne rush against another target on Turn T-1 will alert the world to you as a threat.

You should absolutely scry the province you are attacking on Turn T+0. (Actually, you should scry any fort that you attack, no matter what.) Scrying a fort lets you see what the defenders have inside even once you siege it.

Scrying ahead of time can be useful since it will let you know if the province has a preexisting dome (and, if so, which ones) before you plan your operation. Of course, if it is domed, this will tip off the defending player that something is up.

On Turn T+1, Attacker has thrown most of their cards on the table. Some may be face down, if some of their attacking force is stealthed, glamored, or obfuscated. Attacker needs to reconfigure and rescript their forces on top of the cracked fort, since they've got to endure punishment and fight a bunch of battles in sequence. It is very useful for Attacker to have a reserve of gear and gems on stealthed forces along with their army. (If you show your army on Turn T-1,

Unless the critical throne is domed, expect to eat lots of rituals from Defender and Bystander. This may include:

• Multiple copies of Flames from the Sky, which you can't do anything about other than suit your mages up with FR gear
• Murdering Winter. Note that if multiple nations cast MW on the same province, it's random whose goes through. You can thus Murdering Winter the target province yourself to get a chance to block Defender/Bystander casts. You can also Breath of the Desert the critical throne on the turn you step onto it for protection.

You're likely to be hit by remote assassination spells – Earth Attack, Manifestation, Disease Demon – as well as assasins or seducers inside the critical throne. The best defense against this is bodyguarding critical commanders and bringing decoys. If you know you're thronerushing and expect assassins, bringing trash commanders can help bait these assassins.

Note that these will often gemburn mages that they hit.

Bystanders (and people casting neutral remotes like Send Lesser Horror) can force magic phase fights against your army. Generally, these will just be speedbump attacks (intended to burn gems or cause attrition rather than win). Some of these are nasty, though – Bone Grinding casters, suicidal Magic Duels, etc.

The exception are the very nasty mass astral travel / teleport attacks casting Master Enslave or similar. Big astral powers like MA Pythium may stage these against you.