Bandit Camp
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Bandit Camp has two separate effects. | Bandit Camp has two separate effects. | ||
− | The first is the same as a [[vanilla]] [[Village]] - +1 card, +2 actions. Simple, but far overpriced at {{ | + | The first is the same as a [[vanilla]] [[Village]] - +1 card, +2 actions. Simple, but far overpriced at {{Cost|5}}. Now, a Village is a good thing to have, but you need to match it up with some terminals, and you're gaining Spoils which will get in the way of that; you'd think that in an engine, you don't want every Village you play to gain you a [[treasure]]! Sometimes, you just want a village, any village, and you'll even be willing to pay {{Cost|5}} for it. But that's rare. |
The second effect is gaining a [[Spoils]] - gives you a one-shot Gold to use later. Gaining Spoils is pretty nice, and that brings us to the first Bandit Camp strategy - Bandit Camp in [[Big Money]]. | The second effect is gaining a [[Spoils]] - gives you a one-shot Gold to use later. Gaining Spoils is pretty nice, and that brings us to the first Bandit Camp strategy - Bandit Camp in [[Big Money]]. | ||
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* It antisynergizes with [[discard attack]]s - With a hand of ([[Estate]], Bandit Camp, Silver, Gold, Spoils} you would probably discard the Bandit Camp and buy a Province, but then you don't get the Spoils for the next shuffle. | * It antisynergizes with [[discard attack]]s - With a hand of ([[Estate]], Bandit Camp, Silver, Gold, Spoils} you would probably discard the Bandit Camp and buy a Province, but then you don't get the Spoils for the next shuffle. | ||
− | Of course, in a Money-heavy game without terminal draw, such as with [[Merchant Ship]] or [[Monument]], or filled with cantrips, feel free to get Bandit Camps at {{ | + | Of course, in a Money-heavy game without terminal draw, such as with [[Merchant Ship]] or [[Monument]], or filled with cantrips, feel free to get Bandit Camps at {{Cost|5}} to your heart's content, at least until the game is almost over. |
=== What about an [[Engine]]? === | === What about an [[Engine]]? === | ||
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To see when the effects don't anti-synergize, imagine a simple thought experiment - you have a 5-card hand with a Bandit Camp and some cheap [[cantrip]], perhaps a [[Pearl Diver]]. You play a Bandit Camp, get +1 card to bring you back up to 5 cards in hand, gain a Spoils. Then you play the Pearl Diver and lets say you draw that Spoils. You're still at 5 cards in hand, one of which is a Spoils, and you have 2 Actions. | To see when the effects don't anti-synergize, imagine a simple thought experiment - you have a 5-card hand with a Bandit Camp and some cheap [[cantrip]], perhaps a [[Pearl Diver]]. You play a Bandit Camp, get +1 card to bring you back up to 5 cards in hand, gain a Spoils. Then you play the Pearl Diver and lets say you draw that Spoils. You're still at 5 cards in hand, one of which is a Spoils, and you have 2 Actions. | ||
− | So if you draw the Spoils on the same turn you gain it, it's almost as if the Bandit Camp read "+0 Cards, +2 Actions, gain a Spoils in hand!" And hey, that not-really-Bandit-Camp card would be pretty good. It immediately suggests a comparison to [[Festival]], which gives +0 Cards, +2 Actions, +{{ | + | So if you draw the Spoils on the same turn you gain it, it's almost as if the Bandit Camp read "+0 Cards, +2 Actions, gain a Spoils in hand!" And hey, that not-really-Bandit-Camp card would be pretty good. It immediately suggests a comparison to [[Festival]], which gives +0 Cards, +2 Actions, +{{Cost|2}} and +1 buy; a Spoils in hand is +{{Cost|3}} (but doesn't combo with [[Watchtower]]/[[Library]]/[[Menagerie]]), so you're up {{Cost|1}} and down a buy compared to a Festival. |
But the real Bandit Camp is even better than the thought-experiment one. You get +1 card NOW, and the Spoils gets left in your discard, to be picked up later in the turn. So if you're running a sleek engine, Bandit Camp makes your deck turn out perfectly - Villages and Smithies on the top of the deck, with the Spoils on the bottom, to be picked up by your last Smithies. | But the real Bandit Camp is even better than the thought-experiment one. You get +1 card NOW, and the Spoils gets left in your discard, to be picked up later in the turn. So if you're running a sleek engine, Bandit Camp makes your deck turn out perfectly - Villages and Smithies on the top of the deck, with the Spoils on the bottom, to be picked up by your last Smithies. | ||
− | ===Bandit camp in a deck-drawing engine=== | + | === Bandit camp in a deck-drawing engine === |
So in an any engine where you expect to draw your whole deck, Bandit Camp is a better source of money than Gold is. While your engine is running, the Bandit Camp is a Village and keeps things running smoothly; and then when you've picked up all of your engine components, you'll find that you now have a discard pile made up of only treasures, a number of Spoils equal to however many Bandit Camps you had in your deck, lined up perfectly for your Smithies to draw. Why would you get Golds which you might draw early and which would gum up your Village/Smithy chain before you've drawn everything you want to draw? | So in an any engine where you expect to draw your whole deck, Bandit Camp is a better source of money than Gold is. While your engine is running, the Bandit Camp is a Village and keeps things running smoothly; and then when you've picked up all of your engine components, you'll find that you now have a discard pile made up of only treasures, a number of Spoils equal to however many Bandit Camps you had in your deck, lined up perfectly for your Smithies to draw. Why would you get Golds which you might draw early and which would gum up your Village/Smithy chain before you've drawn everything you want to draw? | ||
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OK, but you can't always expect a card to fit into its niche, sometimes the rest of the board just isn't there. So how do you use Bandit Camp then? | OK, but you can't always expect a card to fit into its niche, sometimes the rest of the board just isn't there. So how do you use Bandit Camp then? | ||
− | In the less-than-perfect case, if you don't draw your deck all the time, you can still use Bandit Camp to good effect, it's still quite powerful. If you aren't drawing your whole deck, but as long as you are using up the Spoils at the same rate you're gaining them, then you have still saved yourself several Gold purchases, allowing you to snag the additional engine component. Even if the Spoils show up at the wrong time - it that any more likely to have happened than if you bought a Gold, or any more damaging? It isn't as awesome as the best case, but it is a good way to have both Villages and {{ | + | In the less-than-perfect case, if you don't draw your deck all the time, you can still use Bandit Camp to good effect, it's still quite powerful. If you aren't drawing your whole deck, but as long as you are using up the Spoils at the same rate you're gaining them, then you have still saved yourself several Gold purchases, allowing you to snag the additional engine component. Even if the Spoils show up at the wrong time - it that any more likely to have happened than if you bought a Gold, or any more damaging? It isn't as awesome as the best case, but it is a good way to have both Villages and {{Cost|}} to spend. |
Bandit Camp is also excellent as an opener with Chapel, if you happen to draw 5/2. In that case, you don't mind having the Spoils come a little late, to find your Chapel and trash faster. | Bandit Camp is also excellent as an opener with Chapel, if you happen to draw 5/2. In that case, you don't mind having the Spoils come a little late, to find your Chapel and trash faster. | ||
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=== Comparisons to similar cards: === | === Comparisons to similar cards: === | ||
− | Bandit Camp should be compared to [[Bazaar]] and [[Festival]], the other {{ | + | Bandit Camp should be compared to [[Bazaar]] and [[Festival]], the other {{Cost|5}}-cost [[villages]] that give coin. They often play somewhat similarly - they both face the same problems that other expensive Villages have, namely that it takes a long time to accumulate both the expensive villages and the expensive terminals that you want to play with them. They both have similar benefits, allowing you to skip buying some Treasures because your Villages are also providing you with money. |
− | Bandit Camp provides more coin than Festival (a Spoils is {{ | + | Bandit Camp provides more coin than Festival (a Spoils is {{Cost|3}} instead of {{Cost|2}}). It gives a separation between the "+1 Card" up front and the "-1 Card, +{{Cost|3}}" later in the deck. This can be a very strong advantage if you have good control over when you draw the Spoils, but a disadvantage if you don't. Bandit Camp also does not provide a +Buy, which it desperately needs - if you're using it as your primary Village, you'll easily accumulate 3+ Spoils per turn, more than you need for a Province even without the treasures you may still have. (It also does not combo with draw-up-to-X engines or Menagerie, obviously). |
− | Compared to Bazaar, Bandit Camp offers a major advantage - | + | Compared to Bazaar, Bandit Camp offers a major advantage - {{Cost|3}} for spoils instead of +{{Cost|1}} - but also a major disadvantage, since to get the +{{Cost|3}} you have +0 cards total, whereas Bazaar gives +{{Cost|1}} AND +1 card. This makes Bazaar better when your card draw or trashing is weak, but worse if you're not worried about draw power and want more buying power. |
=== Unusual cases playing with Bandit Camp: === | === Unusual cases playing with Bandit Camp: === | ||
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* Deck-drawing engines | * Deck-drawing engines | ||
* Sources of +Buy - since the Spoils go away on use, you want to make the most of each one, and that means having +Buy. | * Sources of +Buy - since the Spoils go away on use, you want to make the most of each one, and that means having +Buy. | ||
− | * [[Throne Room]], [[King's Court]], and [[Procession]] will find their targets easier if you use Spoils for your source of {{ | + | * [[Throne Room]], [[King's Court]], and [[Procession]] will find their targets easier if you use Spoils for your source of {{Cost|}}. |
− | * Spoils works with [[Counterfeit]]. Adding a Counterfeit to an overdrawn Spoils deck adds | + | * Spoils works with [[Counterfeit]]. Adding a Counterfeit to an overdrawn Spoils deck adds {{Cost|4}} and a buy, a very good deal. |
* [[Poor House]] can fit well into a Bandit Camp deck, since you will draw it before your Spoils. | * [[Poor House]] can fit well into a Bandit Camp deck, since you will draw it before your Spoils. | ||
− | * [[Big Money]] without terminal draw, such as [[Monument]] - if you happen to draw {{ | + | * [[Big Money]] without terminal draw, such as [[Monument]] - if you happen to draw {{Cost|5}} at the right time. |
=== Antisynergies === | === Antisynergies === |
Revision as of 13:49, 7 December 2012
Bandit Camp | |
---|---|
Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Dark Ages |
Illustrator(s) | RC Torres |
Card text | |
+1 Card +2 Actions Gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile. |
Bandit Camp is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is one of the villages since it gives +1 Card and +2 Actions like Village; it also gains you a Spoils to use later.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- Draw a card before gaining a Spoils.
- The Spoils comes from the Spoils pile, which is not part of the Supply, and is put into your discard pile.
- If there are no Spoils cards left, you do not get one.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
Bandit camp was discussed on the forum; this article is the result.
So what does Bandit Camp do?
Bandit Camp has two separate effects.
The first is the same as a vanilla Village - +1 card, +2 actions. Simple, but far overpriced at . Now, a Village is a good thing to have, but you need to match it up with some terminals, and you're gaining Spoils which will get in the way of that; you'd think that in an engine, you don't want every Village you play to gain you a treasure! Sometimes, you just want a village, any village, and you'll even be willing to pay for it. But that's rare.
The second effect is gaining a Spoils - gives you a one-shot Gold to use later. Gaining Spoils is pretty nice, and that brings us to the first Bandit Camp strategy - Bandit Camp in Big Money.
Bandit Camp in Big Money
In a BM-like Game, Bandit Camp should be thought of as a delayed Gold; it might as well have said "+1 card, +1 action, Gain a Spoils" or even "+1 card, +1 action, trash this and gain a Gold" and had usually the same effect. On the first shuffle after you buy the Bandit Camp, it does nothing for you, but replaces itself; on the second shuffle after you buy it, you have a Spoils (one-shot Gold) and a Bandit Camp that replaces itself in your hand and refreshes your Spoils. Basically like having a Gold - except with a little more flexibility, since there are ways to be clever with Spoils and save them up at the right times. (That may be outside the scope of this article, and is better served discussed on the Spoils page; always playing Spoils when they get you to a higher price tier is reasonable but probably not optimal.)
Used this way, Bandit Camp will typically be better than a Silver. If you open Bandit Camp/Nothing, that's like guaranteeing Gold on the first shuffle - pretty good. However, you have to be wary of a few things:
- In the late game, the extra shuffle to wait to get the benefit from the Spoils might be too long. If you only use one Spoils from the Bandit Camp before the game ends, having a Silver twice might have been better! Use your judgement.
- If you're playing Terminal Draw Big Money specifically, such as with Smithy, Envoy, Embassy, or others, then the analogy of Bandit Camp to a delayed Gold no longer holds, since it can be drawn dead. (Bandit Camp with Wharf plays far more like an engine, it's still great.)
- It antisynergizes with discard attacks - With a hand of (Estate, Bandit Camp, Silver, Gold, Spoils} you would probably discard the Bandit Camp and buy a Province, but then you don't get the Spoils for the next shuffle.
Of course, in a Money-heavy game without terminal draw, such as with Merchant Ship or Monument, or filled with cantrips, feel free to get Bandit Camps at to your heart's content, at least until the game is almost over.
What about an Engine?
But in an engine, don't the Spoils and Village effects anti-synergize?
To see when the effects don't anti-synergize, imagine a simple thought experiment - you have a 5-card hand with a Bandit Camp and some cheap cantrip, perhaps a Pearl Diver. You play a Bandit Camp, get +1 card to bring you back up to 5 cards in hand, gain a Spoils. Then you play the Pearl Diver and lets say you draw that Spoils. You're still at 5 cards in hand, one of which is a Spoils, and you have 2 Actions.
So if you draw the Spoils on the same turn you gain it, it's almost as if the Bandit Camp read "+0 Cards, +2 Actions, gain a Spoils in hand!" And hey, that not-really-Bandit-Camp card would be pretty good. It immediately suggests a comparison to Festival, which gives +0 Cards, +2 Actions, + and +1 buy; a Spoils in hand is + (but doesn't combo with Watchtower/Library/Menagerie), so you're up and down a buy compared to a Festival.
But the real Bandit Camp is even better than the thought-experiment one. You get +1 card NOW, and the Spoils gets left in your discard, to be picked up later in the turn. So if you're running a sleek engine, Bandit Camp makes your deck turn out perfectly - Villages and Smithies on the top of the deck, with the Spoils on the bottom, to be picked up by your last Smithies.
Bandit camp in a deck-drawing engine
So in an any engine where you expect to draw your whole deck, Bandit Camp is a better source of money than Gold is. While your engine is running, the Bandit Camp is a Village and keeps things running smoothly; and then when you've picked up all of your engine components, you'll find that you now have a discard pile made up of only treasures, a number of Spoils equal to however many Bandit Camps you had in your deck, lined up perfectly for your Smithies to draw. Why would you get Golds which you might draw early and which would gum up your Village/Smithy chain before you've drawn everything you want to draw?
Good times can end
However, Bandit Camp only seems so perfect when you maintain the ability to draw the Spoils on the same turn you gain it. If your engine collapses, it becomes harder to get it running again. If you've played a bunch of Bandit Camps, but have let your engine choke on green, and you don't get a chance to draw those Spoils you've gained... then you're in trouble. You don’t have enough to spend this turn because you didn’t draw your Spoils, and next turn, you're going to have an even harder time getting your engine running and you’ll have to make do with a mixed hand of green, Spoils, and probably an engine component or two that don’t go together. Oops!
How to use Bandit Camp - ideal case
So, that leads to an obvious strategy for using Bandit Camp.
- Build an engine, and make sure you can draw your deck.
- Build up your buying power by adding more Bandit Camps, not Treasures - your engine will stay reliable because you'll always draw your Bandit Camps first and your Spoils last.
- Make sure you keep drawing your whole deck while greening, because once you stop, it'll be hard to start back up again.
Less perfect use cases
OK, but you can't always expect a card to fit into its niche, sometimes the rest of the board just isn't there. So how do you use Bandit Camp then?
In the less-than-perfect case, if you don't draw your deck all the time, you can still use Bandit Camp to good effect, it's still quite powerful. If you aren't drawing your whole deck, but as long as you are using up the Spoils at the same rate you're gaining them, then you have still saved yourself several Gold purchases, allowing you to snag the additional engine component. Even if the Spoils show up at the wrong time - it that any more likely to have happened than if you bought a Gold, or any more damaging? It isn't as awesome as the best case, but it is a good way to have both Villages and to spend.
Bandit Camp is also excellent as an opener with Chapel, if you happen to draw 5/2. In that case, you don't mind having the Spoils come a little late, to find your Chapel and trash faster.
Comparisons to similar cards:
Bandit Camp should be compared to Bazaar and Festival, the other -cost villages that give coin. They often play somewhat similarly - they both face the same problems that other expensive Villages have, namely that it takes a long time to accumulate both the expensive villages and the expensive terminals that you want to play with them. They both have similar benefits, allowing you to skip buying some Treasures because your Villages are also providing you with money.
Bandit Camp provides more coin than Festival (a Spoils is instead of ). It gives a separation between the "+1 Card" up front and the "-1 Card, +" later in the deck. This can be a very strong advantage if you have good control over when you draw the Spoils, but a disadvantage if you don't. Bandit Camp also does not provide a +Buy, which it desperately needs - if you're using it as your primary Village, you'll easily accumulate 3+ Spoils per turn, more than you need for a Province even without the treasures you may still have. (It also does not combo with draw-up-to-X engines or Menagerie, obviously).
Compared to Bazaar, Bandit Camp offers a major advantage - for spoils instead of + - but also a major disadvantage, since to get the + you have +0 cards total, whereas Bazaar gives + AND +1 card. This makes Bazaar better when your card draw or trashing is weak, but worse if you're not worried about draw power and want more buying power.
Unusual cases playing with Bandit Camp:
As with many Dominion cards, there are non-obvious niche cases that crop up with Bandit Camp; I'll end by mentioning a few of them.
Running out of Spoils
What happens if you're running a Bandit Camp deck and you run out of Spoils? You're dead in the water, that's what.
This won't happen often in a standard 2-player game; 15 spoils for 2 people means you'd have to have about 7 spoils in each player's deck before the pile runs dry - that's a lot of Golds that are sitting there unused, almost three Provinces worth per player.
But as you add more players, it becomes easier to run out the 15-card spoils pile. In 3-player, that's 5 spoils per player, still a lot. In 4-player, that's fewer than 4 spoils per player - if the players save up Spoils between turns even a little, you'll soon find that you can barely buy a single Province with the Spoils you can get. It only takes a few King's Courted Bandit Camps to leave the pile dangerously low. And if other players start deliberately trashing the Spoils, then watch out - your economy will be dead in the water in no time. Forager and Spice Merchant seem like they'd be the most likely culprits for such gimmicks, since they give you +Coin and +Buy for trashing the Spoils.
Other Spoils-gainers can also interfere. If there are four players and a few of them are Pillage-happy, then it only takes one King's Courted Pillage from two of them to leave you without any economy.
Black Market can provide cute tricks to save you from Spoils depletion, letting you play the Spoils mid-turn, then gain them back.
Bandit Camp as a cantrip gainer.
Hey, sometimes you just need fodder for your Altar, Forager, Spice Merchant, Junk Dealer... or even your Expand or Remodel. Bandit Camp is a cantrip which gains you a card, and that's actually very rare.
Synergies/Combos
Works with:
- heavy trashing, such as Chapel, since it's best when you draw your whole deck,
- Deck-drawing engines
- Sources of +Buy - since the Spoils go away on use, you want to make the most of each one, and that means having +Buy.
- Throne Room, King's Court, and Procession will find their targets easier if you use Spoils for your source of .
- Spoils works with Counterfeit. Adding a Counterfeit to an overdrawn Spoils deck adds and a buy, a very good deal.
- Poor House can fit well into a Bandit Camp deck, since you will draw it before your Spoils.
- Big Money without terminal draw, such as Monument - if you happen to draw at the right time.
Antisynergies
Conflicts with:
- Middling engines which are short on +Card. You know the type - where you 're not quite aiming to draw everything and are content with maybe connecting a Village with two terminals. Where you've had a reason to buy a bunch of terminals, and then some Villages to smooth them out, but you always have a bunch of stuff in your discard, so those Spoils will always seem to get drawn at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe then you'd rather have a Gold up-front than a delayed one, and a Walled Village instead of a Bandit Camp.
- Sifters, a little. Warehouse and Cellar are great, but they often work by discarding your Green cards mid-turn, where they'll get mixed in with the Spoils you're gaining. That's not to say Warehouse won't help your engine, but be mindful that green you discard might come back to bite you.
- Engines that want virtual coin specifically would rather have Festival or Bazaar. These include Minion engines, draw-up-to-X engines, Golem engines, and double Tactician.
- Discard attacks can make Spoils less effective - the aforemented hand with both Spoils and Bandit Camp which gets hit by a Militia.
- Spoils depletion, such as due to other Spoils-gainers, multiple opponents, or good reasons to trash Spoils.
- Rush strategies of course have no particularly good time to pick up a Bandit Camp.
- Terminal draw Big Money, with the exception of Wharf doesn't like Bandit Camp either (it doesn't like much of anything, really).
Trivia
Secret History