In my prior article about how to build a conqueror deck, the sample deck I included for Thrass had a card that could be ditched to fortify, namely Frenzied Changeling. Another card with fortify that I included in the Zhik deck was Field Delegates. With Maelstrom comes the addition of many more cards that can be ditched to fortify, and if I was able to convince some of the newer players to build with the intent of conquering, perhaps I can add some reasons for them to experiment with fortify.

There is a dynamic you should become familiar with before trying to exploit this fortify. Particularly, you should realize that fortify plants a flag at a random minor planet that does not have a flag planted at it but also has a conqueror local to it. If you happen to have taken an artifact planet on turn one with your initial fleet (including the hero) and are playing a mark on this hero, if you also ditch a card to trigger fortify, that will definitely be the planet getting a flag planted. However, if you control a few planets that do not have flags planted and they also have conquerors at them, all you can do is assume that one of those planets gets a flag planted.

Keep in mind, however, you should not be including cards just because they fortify, but rather, that they create an effect that at times is useful, other times the flag they can create with fortify would be more useful.

Propagandist or Coalition Senator or for those willing to invest in rare cards, Archon Overseer are all obvious cards that once in play or at the right location, can make very good use of just having a flag placed, either from conquering a planet or using fortify.

Other cards that make use of fortify, such as Field Delegates, Captured Munitions, and Frenzied Changeling provide more of an effect on their own, or could be fortified to add to their effect as additional flags do not hurt in the least and could help if you placed the flag through a planning process of elimination.

Interesting cards added through Maelstrom that make use of fortify include Insurgent Coordinator, Pushing the Envelope, Widespread Sanctions, Binary Fort, Network Programmers, Reap What You Sow, and Swarm of Blood. For the most part, these have lower tech costs than cards from Descent that had fortify effects, such as Navigational Relays, Secret Police, Nationhood, Industrial Nexus, and Mandate. Every race and tech has some fortify cards, but they vary in how useful a card they are when not used to fortify. Being picky about how effective you want the card to be before putting them into your deck is crucial to your evolution as a Star Chamber Player.

As Perimeter Observation Post and Hyperspace Listening Post have been making cyber races much more map control oriented, Pushing the Envelope and Insurgent Coordinator now are providing for some ways for these cyber races to move around the board more quickly. While I would not recommend putting both of these cards into the same deck, as the situations where they would be useful might be overlapping, realizing that Insurgent Coordinator removes the flag, it might not be such a bad idea to have another card that fortifies in the same deck. You could chose one fortify card that is put to use in this board/situation sort of circumstance, and the other fortify card to either replace or replenish the flags. So let's look at some sample decks with the format from the previous article that encounter situations where they put fortify to good use.

Sample Android

Part 1:
4x Mark of Cyber
4x Medal of Triumph
4x Scrapyard Scavengers
Part 2:
4x Android Daemon
4x Probe
4x Perimeter Observation Post
Part 3:
4x Iconoclasts
4x External Targeting Sensors
4x Power Surge
Part 4:
4x Insurgent Coordinator
4x Captured Munitions
4x War Dogs

One might be asking why add Iconoclasts at 3 Entropy when the rest of the deck is at 1 Entropy. The answer here is that I am just a huge fan of Iconoclasts and it is the most game affecting conqueror I could have chosen to put in. Depending on what comes to hand, you will want to play up to 3 cyber 1 entropy quickly, and then work towards 5 cyber or 3 entropy as you can. The marks of entropy should still make it very possible to play both War Dogs and Iconoclasts on the same turn. A few players I have tested this deck out can attest to the fact that I put both of these cards in play on the same turn before turn 8.

Sample Kej

Part 1:
2x Mark of Cyber
2x Mark of Order
4x Merchant Mariners
4x Scrapyard Scavengers
Part 2:
4x Kej Seeker
4x Probe
4x Perimeter Observation Post
Part 3:
4x Astral Supervisor
4x Network Programmers
4x Binary Fort

I leave it to you to decide if you want to put in cards like Insurgent Coordinator or Pushing the Envelope or Corrupt Attache or Skilled Shipwright or War Factories or any other number of ways to put Crusiers and Scouts into play. Logical Claim and Catacomb Warden could also be very useful here, however you want to play the Kej.