The release of the rebellion set has changed the entire splinterlands ecosystem as we know it. Now we have dual element summoners, selective buffs, new tactics, new abilities and new card designs. As I, just like other players, try to navigate this new system, I have found one ability to be particularly interesting - the Weapons Training ability.
Now, weapons training is not as new of an ability as the other ones that came with the set. Actually, earlier this year, the ability was introduced alongside the first dual element card and only dual element unit till date, Zyriel.
Zyriel is a promo card that I'd describe as a prototype. With the anticipation of dual element cards in the rebellion set, there were some questions on how they would be integrated into the game. Zyriel helped us gain a little insight into the idea. The card served as the beginning of this whole new splinterlands experience. Sadly, many of us did not care so much about Zyriel and I was among this many.
I never used Zyriel before rebellion and so I never got to experience the Weapons Training ability. Now, however, given that there are more cards with this ability, I have used it and I totally love it.
WEAPONS TRAINING
There are many units in the splinterlands game that are important in some setups but do not have any direct attack abilities. The Scavo Hireling, for example, is a unit that I like to use a lot but I often hesitate to add him to some teams because of his inability to attack. Well, the weapons training ability fixes this by granting the Scavo Hireling the attack of any unit with weapons training that is adjacent to him. This is the same for any monster without an attack.
In order words, a unit with weapons training can grant its attack stat to adjacent units that have no attack. To make sure that this ability is not overpowered, the attack stat gained cannot be more than 3+ and I think this is still quite much and powerful. This ability basically makes it possible to employ necessary units that normally do not have any attack and still have the cause some extra direct damage.
With the release of Rebellion, every splinter, with the exception of Dragon, now has one monster with weapons training. We already know about Zyriel so now I will mention the new Rebellion units and talk about my favorite among them.
REBELLION AND WEAPONS TRAINING
CROIRE
The first time I saw this unit I was not very impressed because I did not know how Weapons Training would work with a melee attack unit. This was until I realized that this guy also has the Flank ability and so would be able to grant reach to the unit in the second position given that he (Croire) starts the battle in the first position. That right there is a smart synergy between two of these new abilities. I haven't used this guy before but I can already imagine some scenarios where he can be useful. Maybe in the Noxious fumes ruleset when the mana cap is not so high, we can use this guy and the new Grimbardun Smith who has the Immunity ability. This may just be a good combo depending on the situation but I'm going to have to try it out to be sure.
One drawback with having Weapons Training on a melee unit like this one is that, in most cases, he will grant his attack to just one unit which is the unit in the second position. A special case, like the Melee Mayhem ruleset, can occur when it would be reasonable to put him in a position to give his attack to two units.
Dalthin Ironhood
For the fire splinter, we have this guy. I will be using this guy at level 3 in silver and right now I really wish he could grant his immunity ability to adjacent units as well. Well, that is not part of the Weapons training package so I will just work with what I have.
Just like Zyriel, Dalthin Ironhood grants range attacks to adjacent units. I think this guy is even better than zyriel with the shield, speed, health and immunity. I have used this card and he faired quite well. I will need to use him more to form any strategies. To be honest, I think fire already has a good number of range attack units so I'm not sure if this is a card I will be using very often but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Moxian Rebel
Moxian Rebel is another unit that I wished could grant her other ability because Camouflage would be a really good one. Bummer.
Well, this unit is not really one of my favorites right now. The magic attack that she grants can be quite helpful but with her mana cost, it's more likely that this attack would be granted to one monster at the back in a low mana battle. Many other situations can arise though.
Still, I think she can make quite the difference when you have someone like Chaos agent at the back in a low mana battle. Play this with Obsidian and you have 2 extra magic attack in a low mana battle. This can make a lot of difference depending on the situation.
FAVORITE UNIT WITH WEAPONS TRAINING
DAARG DEADBLAST
For a long time, I didn't like playing with the water element. A lot of people kept saying that water has the best team in Chaos Legion but I didn't really see the appeal early on. It was just earlier this year that I started to really look at the water team and I was impressed. Water became one of my favorite elements and with the release of rebellion that has not changed.
Of all the units with Weapon's Training, Daarg Deadblast of the water element tops the list as the best in my opinion. This guy has a 2+ magic attack that he grants to adjacent units and that is just really impressive. Also, the swiftness ability makes a lot of difference especially considering the fact that the water team is already quite fast.
Daarg Deadblast is a unit that looks kind of unimpressive on his own but I would argue that he fits really well into the water team as a whole. This is the type of creative genius I love to see in this game. This new card was clearly properly thought of and designed to complement the already existing cards and it is doing really well.
I have used this card a good number of times and I've won many more times than I have lost with it in silver. Here are a couple of battle screenshots:
The water team won all three of the battles shown above. Thanks to Daarg Deadblast, I can use units that I may have otherwise overlooked in the lower levels like Noa The Just with his rust and even Merdaali Guardian with the tank heal. Now, I'm just trying to discover new ways to combine Daarg's weapons training for the effective destruction of my opponents.
CONCLUSION
Weapons training is definitely much more popular with the release of rebellion. I absolutely like the ability and I love the fact that the team keep introducing interesting things that just make the game better. Weapons Training is just one ability that I like with this release. There are other ones but I'll talk about them some other time.
Do you like weapons training? What is your favorite monster with weapons training? What ways do you like to combine weapons training? I'd love to learn from you.
That's All For Today, Warrior!
- Unless otherwise stated, all images used in this post are from the Splinterlands game.
- All dividers were made by me with Canva.
One more thing.
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