Dwarvish Guardsman
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Dwarvish Guardsman
Lately I'm playing a lot with Knagla, and I tend to create Dwarvish Guardsman walls, and this tactic works pretty well, only Drakes gives me a bit of trouble, with Burners (cause Guardsman have little resistance to fire) and saur skirmishers give me a bit of trouble, but luckly Burners are weak to pierce and saurs do little damage and are crushed with my impact and blade attacks.
Knagla can use a lot of play styles, they have chaep scouts with high Def. (Outlaws) and quick expensive ones with powerful attacks (Griffins), all good for hit and run attacks.
They can play aggressively with Hodor, Thunderers and Griffins, but shine at defense.
So noticing how much trouble my enemies have (or me, if someone adopts this tactic), especially Orcks, Elves, Loyals and Undeads, should Guardsman Defense in Villages be lowered to 40% (maybe also to 20% on flat and forest to 40% in caves and so on, like everything 10% lesser)or diminish his life points ?
I mean Look at all other factions high HP units (Trolls,Woses,HI,Drake Clashers), they all get only 40% defense on village hexes and they cost the same or more (beside troll whelp), It would also make sense, since he is more encumbered by his armour, for this he also gets already less def. on hills and mountains.
So I would increase his recruiting price, lower his HP or decrease all his defenses by 10% on the various hexes.
I think it would also increase further the game balance taking away that small extra edge that has the Knagla over all the other factions.
Knagla can use a lot of play styles, they have chaep scouts with high Def. (Outlaws) and quick expensive ones with powerful attacks (Griffins), all good for hit and run attacks.
They can play aggressively with Hodor, Thunderers and Griffins, but shine at defense.
So noticing how much trouble my enemies have (or me, if someone adopts this tactic), especially Orcks, Elves, Loyals and Undeads, should Guardsman Defense in Villages be lowered to 40% (maybe also to 20% on flat and forest to 40% in caves and so on, like everything 10% lesser)or diminish his life points ?
I mean Look at all other factions high HP units (Trolls,Woses,HI,Drake Clashers), they all get only 40% defense on village hexes and they cost the same or more (beside troll whelp), It would also make sense, since he is more encumbered by his armour, for this he also gets already less def. on hills and mountains.
So I would increase his recruiting price, lower his HP or decrease all his defenses by 10% on the various hexes.
I think it would also increase further the game balance taking away that small extra edge that has the Knagla over all the other factions.
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Max G on WIF
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Re: Dwarvish Guardsman
You have a good point, but compared to all the other units you mentioned (trolls,woses,drake clashers) the dwarvish guardsmen has a pretty low attack, the troll whelp is a little weak in my opinion but once he advances to a troll he is a formidable opponent. The guardsman on lvl 1 needs the defense because of his lowered attack and by the time you get up to lvl 3 the sentinel only hits 9-3, 11-2 compared to an elvish champion 9-5, 9-3 - a blademaster 16-3, 8-3 - a masterbowman 8-3, 11-4 - and a orcish sovereign 15-3, 8-2
Overall i think the Dwarvish Guardsman and his upgrades are good because their a different type of unit which is balanced by its low attack. (some red mages backed up by horsemen can put a end to a wall of guardsmen!) Also the fact the knalga have no healer gives them a formidable disadvantage. When healers are used correctly they can win battles.
I think though that you are right in that the knalga are a powerful alliance. The rebels, and drakes and khalifate take much more strategy to gain an advantage.
Overall i think the Dwarvish Guardsman and his upgrades are good because their a different type of unit which is balanced by its low attack. (some red mages backed up by horsemen can put a end to a wall of guardsmen!) Also the fact the knalga have no healer gives them a formidable disadvantage. When healers are used correctly they can win battles.
I think though that you are right in that the knalga are a powerful alliance. The rebels, and drakes and khalifate take much more strategy to gain an advantage.
Creator of: The Reign of The Lords Era,The Gnats Franken Dungeon.
Re: Dwarvish Guardsman
I think actually, the Knalgan are probably one of the weakest factions. Far from being overpowered, nerfing guards would cripple them against Loyalists and Drakes, where they basically have a huge disadvantage when both sides are played by the most experienced players, on the "typical" maps that are currently played in ladder games.
The basic problem for Knalgan is that they can never properly attack against either of these factions. They could attempt Hodor rushes but outlaws are very weak for instance against mass spearman, due to the high hp and damage of spearmen, they simply over power the outlaws. Once there are a sufficient number of units to make an effective zoc wall, thieves are effectively useless except for killing enemy scouts which sneak past to your villages.
If Knalgan wants to use a mix of dwarves and outlaws, it's ultimately very difficult to attack. Just killing a spearman on a village with dwarves on 30% is extremely risky. If he can be surrounded by thunders you might kill him, but you might also get unlucky and lose units for nothing. Ultimately you need to use ulfs at night to finish off spearmen efficiently, and there's a large component of risk.
Loyalist horses are extremely effective vs. Knalgan. They are very strong vs dwarf fighters, and Knalgan ultimately doesn't have that much pierce damage. Thunderer damage is underwhelming, even when they do hit, and poachers do less damage except at night. (Compare with elvish archer damage which is consistently 5-4 or 6-4.) More seriously, a strategy relying on thunders to kill horses inevitably leads to thunderers going on the flat. Then they are subject to the horseman charge, which does incredible amounts of damage.
Sure Knalgan are quite strong defensively, but ultimately if you cannot plausibly attack his villages, you are just a sitting duck. The loyalist builds up an overwhelming army of spearmen, horses, mages, and skirmishers, and eventually picks you apart at day, when you cannot realistically fight back.
The reason that the Knalgan cannot plausibly attack is that the dwarves, at 4mp, are just too slow. Proper play of wesnoth requires respecting time of day. You must advance in your proper time of day, and withdraw in your proper time of day, in order to be efficient. On almost all commonly played maps, dwarves are simply too slow -- they can't hope to approach the enemies' villages at the powerphase and also be able to withdraw, so any attack is all in. Time and again I see ladder matches -- if the dwarves come forward to the loyalists villages, he vacates them, leaving them to the knalgan at second watch, and utterly destroying him at day with minimal losses.
With Drakes the situation is similar but perhaps amplified because the drake mobility advantage makes the dwarves shortcomings even more pronounced. On most maps, drakes can win by accumulating a large mass of drakes near their villages, fending off any hodor attack, and increasingly threaten both sides of the map until Knalgan is forced to position dwarves everywhere. Once this has happened, the drakes can win by "defeat in detail" -- they choose one of the fronts and redeploy all or almost all of the drakes there, and the dwarves cannot redeploy as quickly, so they get overwhelmed and destroyed there.
Knalgan seems very strong defensively, because they have units with high defense ratings and resistances. But I would argue that actually, they are often easier to attack in the end than rebels for instance. Because, their units are so slow that they cannot properly control large spaces or reinforce. When attacking rebels, one has to assume that archers, scouts, and a strong leader will be reinforcing immediately, and that woses will be lurking in the trees, which have high damage and sustain. When attacking loyalists for instance, one has to be very careful -- even if you take a village from loyalists at night, a fencer may zoc one or more of your retreating units and force you to abandon them or fight at day and lose everything. If Knalgan can level up a thief it makes their game much easier, but a good opponent usually won't let them do this -- in the end thieves are dead weight if you cannot make a rush work out, so it is risky to make a lot of them.
Knalgan only wins handily against Undead, in that case because footpads are simply much too effective against all of the undead units. (The weaknesses of undead are pretty well-documented.) The Knalgan usually can win against the Rebels in my experience, though it's not as clear cut.
If anything I would argue that dwarves should be rebalanced, with a view towards improving their mobility slightly, while retaining the flavor somehow. I think thieves and poachers need a buff, while footpads should be made less effective vs the undead, possibly by reducing their ranged damage, or by reducing skeleton weakness to impact from -20% to -10% or perhaps 0%.
I haven't experimented with this nearly as much as Horus, who also has had some very interesting ideas about improving the Undead vs. Knalgan matchup.
Also I think another thing to look at would be nerfing the horseman somehow, or possibly even removing it from the default era. It simply has too much damage, and it is seriously imbalancing for a number of matchups. Loyalists already have plenty of breaking power with spearmen and mages, and fencers skirmishing behind -- they don't need horsemen on top of that, IMO.
The basic problem for Knalgan is that they can never properly attack against either of these factions. They could attempt Hodor rushes but outlaws are very weak for instance against mass spearman, due to the high hp and damage of spearmen, they simply over power the outlaws. Once there are a sufficient number of units to make an effective zoc wall, thieves are effectively useless except for killing enemy scouts which sneak past to your villages.
If Knalgan wants to use a mix of dwarves and outlaws, it's ultimately very difficult to attack. Just killing a spearman on a village with dwarves on 30% is extremely risky. If he can be surrounded by thunders you might kill him, but you might also get unlucky and lose units for nothing. Ultimately you need to use ulfs at night to finish off spearmen efficiently, and there's a large component of risk.
Loyalist horses are extremely effective vs. Knalgan. They are very strong vs dwarf fighters, and Knalgan ultimately doesn't have that much pierce damage. Thunderer damage is underwhelming, even when they do hit, and poachers do less damage except at night. (Compare with elvish archer damage which is consistently 5-4 or 6-4.) More seriously, a strategy relying on thunders to kill horses inevitably leads to thunderers going on the flat. Then they are subject to the horseman charge, which does incredible amounts of damage.
Sure Knalgan are quite strong defensively, but ultimately if you cannot plausibly attack his villages, you are just a sitting duck. The loyalist builds up an overwhelming army of spearmen, horses, mages, and skirmishers, and eventually picks you apart at day, when you cannot realistically fight back.
The reason that the Knalgan cannot plausibly attack is that the dwarves, at 4mp, are just too slow. Proper play of wesnoth requires respecting time of day. You must advance in your proper time of day, and withdraw in your proper time of day, in order to be efficient. On almost all commonly played maps, dwarves are simply too slow -- they can't hope to approach the enemies' villages at the powerphase and also be able to withdraw, so any attack is all in. Time and again I see ladder matches -- if the dwarves come forward to the loyalists villages, he vacates them, leaving them to the knalgan at second watch, and utterly destroying him at day with minimal losses.
With Drakes the situation is similar but perhaps amplified because the drake mobility advantage makes the dwarves shortcomings even more pronounced. On most maps, drakes can win by accumulating a large mass of drakes near their villages, fending off any hodor attack, and increasingly threaten both sides of the map until Knalgan is forced to position dwarves everywhere. Once this has happened, the drakes can win by "defeat in detail" -- they choose one of the fronts and redeploy all or almost all of the drakes there, and the dwarves cannot redeploy as quickly, so they get overwhelmed and destroyed there.
Knalgan seems very strong defensively, because they have units with high defense ratings and resistances. But I would argue that actually, they are often easier to attack in the end than rebels for instance. Because, their units are so slow that they cannot properly control large spaces or reinforce. When attacking rebels, one has to assume that archers, scouts, and a strong leader will be reinforcing immediately, and that woses will be lurking in the trees, which have high damage and sustain. When attacking loyalists for instance, one has to be very careful -- even if you take a village from loyalists at night, a fencer may zoc one or more of your retreating units and force you to abandon them or fight at day and lose everything. If Knalgan can level up a thief it makes their game much easier, but a good opponent usually won't let them do this -- in the end thieves are dead weight if you cannot make a rush work out, so it is risky to make a lot of them.
Knalgan only wins handily against Undead, in that case because footpads are simply much too effective against all of the undead units. (The weaknesses of undead are pretty well-documented.) The Knalgan usually can win against the Rebels in my experience, though it's not as clear cut.
If anything I would argue that dwarves should be rebalanced, with a view towards improving their mobility slightly, while retaining the flavor somehow. I think thieves and poachers need a buff, while footpads should be made less effective vs the undead, possibly by reducing their ranged damage, or by reducing skeleton weakness to impact from -20% to -10% or perhaps 0%.
I haven't experimented with this nearly as much as Horus, who also has had some very interesting ideas about improving the Undead vs. Knalgan matchup.
Also I think another thing to look at would be nerfing the horseman somehow, or possibly even removing it from the default era. It simply has too much damage, and it is seriously imbalancing for a number of matchups. Loyalists already have plenty of breaking power with spearmen and mages, and fencers skirmishing behind -- they don't need horsemen on top of that, IMO.
Re: Dwarvish Guardsman
Thanks for your feedback iceiceice! Thinking about it now i agree that the dwarves are lacking somewhat. Overall i believe its not too much of a difference though because the dwarvish fighters are basically equivalent to the loyalist spearmen. They do have the disadvantage of lack of speed yet if you fight in a map with some caves or hills your opponents are slowed down enough to make it more fair. However the knalga also have a annoying ranged attack deficiency. The gryphon rider is powerful though because loyalist horsemen can't afford to charge gryphon riders and at the same time the gryphons have good defense everywhere. There the ultimate units for flanking the enemy and taking their towns (which can have a large effect in some battles). Also no one should ever try to get anyone off a village unless absolutely necessary!
Overall i agree that the dwarves vs. loyalists is a losing battle! Ultimately as the knalgan forces if you make you opponent attack you on favourable defence you can overcome this. However i think that i single unit could remedy the dwarves problem - A dwarvish ranged unit preferably that can heal. Almost like a dwarvish mage, the hammer of thursagan already has a unit similar, (but not enough range focused), the dwarvish witness. The dwarvish scout being added to the knalgan faction could also help. I think either of these more ranged focused units could help solve the dwarvish problem! Also for now only playing knalgan in maps with caves is probably a good idea.
If anyone has any comments i'd love to hear them!
Overall i agree that the dwarves vs. loyalists is a losing battle! Ultimately as the knalgan forces if you make you opponent attack you on favourable defence you can overcome this. However i think that i single unit could remedy the dwarves problem - A dwarvish ranged unit preferably that can heal. Almost like a dwarvish mage, the hammer of thursagan already has a unit similar, (but not enough range focused), the dwarvish witness. The dwarvish scout being added to the knalgan faction could also help. I think either of these more ranged focused units could help solve the dwarvish problem! Also for now only playing knalgan in maps with caves is probably a good idea.
If anyone has any comments i'd love to hear them!
Creator of: The Reign of The Lords Era,The Gnats Franken Dungeon.