Type: Weather Power
Effect Text: Choose the Melee row or the Range row. In the next round, double the strength of that row, for all players.
Flavor Text: "The heavens align to transcribe our fate. Fear not, our path is glory bound!"
Artwork: Eclipse as seen from the Moon by Lucien Rudaux (1947)
Strategy:
Weather cards, like Eclipse, which double the strength of a row next round have the advantage that you choose the row, but the disadvantage that your opponent can also capitalize on this information. For this reason, it’s best to play these cards in a row that your opponent has already heavily played in so far (in the hope that they don’t have many of these units left for the next round). Alternatively, trick your opponent by combining with a card like Gale which can move the weather: (1) declare a row to double next round, then (2) move the weather to a different row late in the next round. Remember, you must declare the weather’s row when the card is played.
About the card:
Eclipses have often been seen as ill omens or linked to the divine (see also Omen or Ruin). In the final battle between the Medes and the Lydians in Ancient Anatolia: "just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night...when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on."
Eclipses were also used to explain the outbreaks of various plagues (see also Plague), crop failures and, in the case of the Aztecs, the Spanish conquest of Mexico. One witness to the 1508 eclipse in central America said: "Piece by piece, the fire of the sun was eaten until it was replaced by a ring of fire. There was no way to see it and not foretell the total destruction of the world."
