Cavalry
Alert
Combat
Support
Diplomacy
Type
Power to Flank
Primes Driver as Sponsor
As a sponsor, during approach, you may use this power to prime a “flanking” encounter pod as if you were the leader. After contact, reveal your flanking pod along with your fleet’s driver. Your leader may discharge your flanking pod to either add its might to the fleet or replace their driver with it. Your flanking pod is scrapped along with your fleet’s driver.
If a massacre occurs and your flanking pod was a negotiate pod, you receive compensation as if you were the leader.
Legacy: During approach, sponsors may each prime a driver as if they were the leader. The might of a sponsor’s driver is added to its fleet, and the driver is scrapped during payoff according to the timing rule.
When all hope seems lost, the Cavalry swoop in at the last second to save the day and take all the glory. They lament that glory alone cannot win wars, but they’ll make sure they get the credit when they end up sharing a victory.
Sponsor: Approach
Optional
Wild Flare
As a leader, during approach, you may discharge this flare to allow all sponsors to prime attack pods and reveal them alongside their leaders’ drivers. Add the might of each pod to its corresponding fleet.
Leader: Approach
Super Flare
As a leader, after arrival, you may discharge this flare to gift your power to one of your sponsors as a sub-power until upkeep. That sponsor must use your power this encounter, if possible.
Leader: Arrival
Modifications
- Original power name is the power to “reinforce”, which clashes with the original power of Reserve. Beyond that, it gives the impression that the power has something to do with reinforcement pods.
- The original Super Cavalry allows a sponsor to prime an attack pod or negotiate pod as a driver and adds the effects to the fleet. I added the forced use of it and power gifting effects to try and make it more useful and succinct.
- Cavalry’s legacy allows all sponsors to prime drivers in addition to just the leaders. It allows all aliens to make more use of their encounter pods and advantages those who can participate in more encounters or get more sponsors. Since each individual sponsor becomes more valuable, it becomes more tempting to commission more sponsors. Combat powers that deter allies tend to struggle more from this legacy. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Cavalry’s power provides multiple advantages. It allows Cavalry to prune its cache faster and avoid getting stuck with bad pods, it gets Cavalry more commission work as a sponsor, and it provides a raw combat bonus as a sponsor.
- Cavalry only gets indirect advantages when acting as a leader, so it is better for it to save its best pods for then.
- Note how many pods Cavalry has when considering commissioning them. Their power is optional, so they may not always give you something good.
- Cavalry’s power lets it get rid of P pods before having to suffer the poison damage. The timing of playing them can also be very beneficial to the leader.
Development Notes
- Cavalry is a more teamwork-oriented version of Deuce, priming drivers as a sponsor instead of priming two drivers. It needs to get commissioned in order to burn through its cache, but it can potentially get more encounters than Deuce this way and burn through it faster. On the other hand, Cavalry gets no combat bonus as a leader, making it easier for Deuce to obtain a solo win between the two.
- Cavalry’s theme is fairly similar to Reserve’s, acting as reinforcements of an army. The key difference I see is that Cavalry is meant to be a stronger mobilized unit come in to save the day, while Reserve are small fry that get their power from numbers. Cavalry are mounted units, while Reserve are footsoldiers. Mechanically, they are highly different as Cavalry helps other aliens while Reserve help themselves.
- Cavalry is one of the aliens that makes it highly useful to establish clear rules for how “drivers” work. Similar to Deuce, Cavalry’s pods are primed, revealed after contact, and they add their might to the fleet’s total. The main question is whether Cavalry’s “drivers” should be targetable by effects that target drivers, such as Sorcerer/Calculator’s powers. Cosmic is based around the idea that there are always two drivers in an encounter, one per side, so Cavalry’s pod needs to be treated as a separate entity.
- Cavalry’s super flare has an interesting interaction with Reincarnator. Since Reincarnator’s power is its sub-power, Cavalry’s gifted power replaces it until upkeep. This means that Reincarnator will not lose its main power if their fleet loses during the current encounter. If Reincarnator has a nice power, it may want to sponsor Super Cavalry to try and get some insurance.