Dwarvish guardsmen (in 1 vs 1)

[Shatner]

he fails to live up to similar units: the troll, ghoul, ghost, footpad, heavy infantry, and wose.

All of these units have their particular uses, but to say that the Guardsman is inferior is wrong.

The ghost for example, costs 20g! And has very low HP which cancels out his resistance bonuses.
He can not get higher defense than 50%. Although a big annoyance to melee fighters because of drain,
he is very prone to ranged and magical attacks which can kill it very fast.
It is an unreliable unit to take damage with, the ghost is basically a more expensive vampire bat.

Now put the guardsman in the same situation, and he would survive the multiple ranged attacks because of his bulky HP.
You can put the guardsman in any position and you could rely on him based on his HP, instead of hoping your enemy will miss.

The guardsman is basically the heavy infantry of the Knalgans, a specialty unit, afcourse it's more wise to get fighters but in some cases
you should get a guardsman out, for example against Drakes or to hold a very important area. same reason a Loyalist player will send out heavy infantry against Undead or to hold an important fortification.

You are arguing that my unfavorable comparison of the guardsman to the ghost is not a valid comparison. Fair enough, but let's look at your arguments:

The ghost for example, costs 20g! And has very low HP which cancels out his resistance bonuses.
He can not get higher defense than 50%. Although a big annoyance to melee fighters because of drain,
he is very prone to ranged and magical attacks which can kill it very fast.
It is an unreliable unit to take damage with, the ghost is basically a more expensive vampire bat.

1) The guardsman costs 19gp, so comparing it to a 20gp unit is not out of line.

2) The ghost is, on average, plenty survivable and as such is a valid "mobile wall" comparison. It has 50% defense on each of the 15 types of terrain. The guardsman only has that on 3, and old reaches 60% in 2. A guardsman is less "dodgy" than a ghost in the majority of cases, and no more so when defending a village, the quintessential defensive spot for the guardsman. Furthermore, every non-magic, non-marksman attack against the ghost has a 50% chance of missing, and every blade, pierce and impact attack (which encompass the vast majority of attacks in the game) will do 50% less damage. That means the ghost will, on average, survive as much punishment with it's 18hp as a unit with 0% resistance, 0% defense and 64hp; more if it gets to drain melee attackers. A ghost requires, on average, 4 thunderers to kill it, 4 elven archers (3 if they are all dexterous), 4 skeleton archers and so on. Against most assailants (not mages, not dark adepts) a ghost is no trivial opponent to destroy. True, a guardsman can survival all of that and more, but I am not claiming the two units are the same, merely that they are similar and, using that similarity as a basis for comparison, the guardsman does not measure up.

The guardsman is basically the heavy infantry of the Knalgans, a specialty unit, afcourse it's more wise to get fighters but in some cases
you should get a guardsman out, for example against Drakes or to hold a very important area. same reason a Loyalist player will send out heavy infantry against Undead or to hold an important fortification.

I get that the guardsman is a specialist unit and shouldn't be a staple of the faction, like the dwarven fighter, thunderer or footpad. However, you pay just as much for a guardsman as you would a heavy infantry (and 95% as much for a guardsman as for a ghost), but get, in my opinion, much less in exchange. A heavy infantry does copious amounts of damage (22 impact, which is more and a better damage type than the guardman's 15 pierce), has better blade resistance (the most common form of damage) on the attack and while defending, has identical pierce resistance while defending (the second most common damage type), and has better pierce resistance while attacking.

The ghost is another specialty unit. Unlike the guardsman or the heavy infantry, it is highly mobile and can act as a scout and flanker in addition to mobile wall. While it lacks melee oomph (dealing 3 less damage than even the guardsman), it's melee attack is in a very good damage type (arcane) and drains life. It's ranged damage is even better (dealing 9 damage to the guardsman's 5 and in the far better damage type of cold), so attacking a ghost is an even worse idea (numerically speaking) than attacking a guardsman. But the big saving grace of the ghost (which is more susceptible to bad luck while defending than the guardsman) is that it is incredibly efficient at recovering from it's injuries. One turn on a village restores 44% of the ghost's health, while a guardsman gets only 19% back. A guardsman needs to hang out for 4+ turns to go from nearly dead to full fighting ability, while I ghost needs less than half that. AND the ghost can rejoin the fray much, much faster than the guardsman. Remember, for each turn a guardsman is away from the fighting, it is less than worthless since you blew 19gp and 1gp/turn in upkeep on the unit. The same is true of a ghost but the number of turns a ghost spends away from the action is far less than the guardsman.

This isn't just a game of seeing which unit will live the longest while surrounded on a village, it's about damaging the enemy disproportionately more than they are damaging you and the guardsman costs so much, does so little damage, and takes so long to recover from HP-loss that it fails in comparison to the "mobile walls" of the other factions. It is an inefficient unit because it's one claim to fame (can survive the longest while being ganged up on) isn't enough to account for it's many failings.

[Raket]

Shatner,
You make some good points, however all I'm saying is that the guardsman is more reliable.
Put a guardsman somewhere and you know he will do well, whether your enemy has mages or even lv2 units.
It is an assurance unit that does its job well.

You can't say such a thing for a ghost, which would die fast if your enemy uses ranged units or god-forbid 1 mage,
and because of his low HP and %50 is also more susceptible to luck or unluck.

How long it takes to heal a unit to full HP is irrelevant, because the ghost can be killed as fast as it can heal up.
sure he can tank well if your enemy doesn't have units that can counter the ghost, but the fact remains it is less reliable as a guardsman.

I also think the ghost is more of a semi-scout/annoyer/village-grabber than a real tank.
the ghoul comes much more close to the title of a tank. the ghoul has poison to make enemies think twice before attacking it, but less HP and no ranged retaliation. as you know all the tanking units of every faction have an advantage and disatvantage over the others.

I think it's worth the 19g, the guardsman is one of, if not the toughest level 1 unit placed on a village.

[Shatner]

Shatner,
You make some good points, however all I'm saying is that the guardsman is more reliable.
Put a guardsman somewhere and you know he will do well, whether your enemy has mages or even lv2 units.
It is an assurance unit that does its job well.

You can't say such a thing for a ghost, which would die fast if your enemy uses ranged units or god-forbid 1 mage,
and because of his low HP and %50 is also more susceptible to luck or unluck.

How long it takes to heal a unit to full HP is irrelevant, because the ghost can be killed as fast as it can heal up.
sure he can tank well if your enemy doesn't have units that can counter the ghost, but the fact remains it is less reliable as a guardsman.

I also think the ghost is more of a semi-scout/annoyer/village-grabber than a real tank.
the ghoul comes much more close to the title of a tank. the ghoul has poison to make enemies think twice before attacking it, but less HP and no ranged retaliation. as you know all the tanking units of every faction have an advantage and disatvantage over the others.

I think it's worth the 19g, the guardsman is one of, if not the toughest level 1 unit placed on a village.

I think we must largely be talking passed one another because I don't contend your points but I don't really feel like you are contending mine. Yes, a ghost goes down to a mage like it ain't no thang. A guardsman will fair better than a heavy infantry (or a troll, ghoul, etc.) against drake burners or dark adepts. You can prove, mathematically, that a guardsman will survive more abuse than any other lvl1 unit when placed on favorable terrain and attacked by many of the units in the game. It is, as you say, reliable. I argue, however, that this reliability is not enough to justify the current cost of the unit.

When I'm defending a village (or a hill or what-have-you) against a mage or a dark adept or a drake burner, I'd rather have a dwarven thunderer than a guardsman. Yes, the thunderer is less likely to survive, that is beyond contention, but the thunderer is more likely to leave the enemy unable to hold it's newly-gained ground. And, as if that weren't enough, the thunderer is massively more useful on the offensive and cheaper than the guardsman. The guardsman is an inefficient unit: it does little damage (ranged or melee), is overshadowed in all situations by it's peers on the offensive, and is more expensive than (almost) all of those peers... by a lot. The same can be said of the troll but the troll has the decency to cost 13gp AND has regeneration. True, comparing the guardsman to the troll, the ghost, the ghoul or any other unit in any other faction is a somewhat fraught process, but it is possible and the guardsman does not measure up.

And finally, recovery time is a big deal in Wesnoth. The game is designed to allow most units to survive 2-3 attacks from most other units of the same level (assuming average luck). In order to minimize the number of attacks any one unit can sustain, you're encouraged to fight in tight line formations or otherwise use your zones of control to prevent units from getting overwhelmed. Losing a unit is strongly penalized by giving a big XP boost to the unit that killed it. So, under normal circumstances a unit loses between 33%-66% of it's health in a single turn of fighting and on your turn you need to decide if it's worth pulling them back to recover or mount a counter-attack. How long that recovery time takes (travel time to a village/healer, time spent away from the combat while it heals, how much work is required to screen the unit from attack while it escapes, as well as time spent returning to the front) is a big deal. And the best way to recover quickly from being dropped to 1/3 health is to be fast and/or highly mobile, have low HP and high defense/resistance to compensate. The ghost, footpad, troll, and wose all recover more efficiently than the guardsman (the former two because of their speed and hp, the latter two because their travel-time to a village is always zero). Along with being superior in other ways as well.

Reliable is nice, but it's not enough.

[Raket]

I see where you're getting at, but each unit has their role, and for 19g you get a defensive wall.
It's a situational unit and I don't see why it would need a buff when it does its job well.

It's meant to be a slow mobile wall, same as the heavy infantryman.
It's meant to have weak damage, in exchange for being more bulky.

How is it exactly inefficient? Every unit is efficient and inefficient in something,
and instead of high MP the guardsman has high HP.

You could argue that the Fighter or Thunderer does the same job except instead of surviving,
they would deal back high damage to the enemy in retaliation, but this could be said for everything:
why have cavalry when you can just get all horsemen for more power in exchange for less survivability,
why have trolls when you can get grunts for more power in exchange for less survivability, etc.

some units are staples and some are situational. for 19g you get 42hp and good resistances,
you either take it or not - I fail to see how it is inefficient for what it is meant to do - tank damage.

[Shatner]

It is meant to be a slow, high resistance, high hp, low damage unit and it is. That's undeniable. However, it would still be a slow, high resistance, high hp, low damage unit if it cost 20gp, or 22gp or 30gp. It would not be worth spending that much gp on that unit, despite having the highest hp and among the best defensive resistances of any level one unit, because you use gold to buy units and you use units to procure victory; that much gold could have been spent instead on other, higher-value units. Now, this isn't a case as obvious or galling as if the guardsman cost 30gp. Instead, the guardsman is slightly too expensive for it's worth. It is slightly too expensive because of a combination of the following problems:
1) it is slow
2) it is weak in melee combat
3) it is very weak in ranged combat
4) it is slow to recover from injuries
5) it is very quick to accumulate injuries on the offensive
6) it is expensive
7) it has a really high xp-level requirement (the highest of any tank unit) and a really underwhelming level two form

Now, the troll has problems 1, 2, 3, and 5 (can't assume he'll be able to attack from good terrain, has low defense everywhere else and only moderate resistances). The ghost has problems 2, 3 (but less-so), and 6. The heavy infantry has 1, 3, 4 and 6 (not 5 because he'll almost certainly enjoy 40%-50% in melee against his opponent). The guardsman does all of those things as bad or worse than the others. What you get in return is 4 extra hp, and an extra 10-20% resistance on the defensive over what you'd get from a dwarven fighter. What you get is the ability to survive one, maybe two additional attacks during a beat-down. Not. Worth. The. Cost.

Yes, the guardsman is what it claims to be (a low offense, high resilience wall), but it isn't good enough at what it needs to be (capable of surviving more, recovering faster, or dealing more damage while defending an important hex) to be worth it's price.

That's my argument laid out as plainly as I can make it. I ask you to refute it, and not just claim that the guardsman is what it claims to be and call it good.

[Raket]

Alright, you got me.
What would you do to make it more cost-worthy then?

I'd go for the "lower the price" approach,
I wouldn't touch the damage because afterall, it's supposed to be a sturdy wall, not a brawny fighter.

I think reducing it to 17g should do fine,
but there can't be made a thorough conclusion without playtesting and analyzing ofcourse.

[Shatner]

Yeah, 16 or 17gp would work. I'd also like it to either have a lower XP cap to level up, or a better level 2 form. However, that's really a discussion about the merits of the Dwarvish Stalwart, and can be saved for another thread and another time.

[AlaskanAvenger]

@Shatner: Of your list of 7 negative attributes, I only see a couple valid ones.
Before I start off, I would like to set a couple premises. First, the tank units for each faction are HI, Wose, Clasher?, Troll, Ghoul, and guardsmen.
I find calling the ghost a tank unit rather ridiculous. Counting its resists vs mundane weapons and bonus terrain defense, it only has 42 life. Put it in a village, and you have dropped it down to 36. and that is vs mundane weapons only. Now if you are vs dwarves, that can be annoying, but even then, 2 hits with thunderer kill it. If you are vs any other faction except orcs with favorable time of day, it can be killed by one unit only with a little bit of luck.
Enter the HI, Wose, and Clasher. They are very resilient to certain attacks, but weak or neutral to other, allowing them to be killed off quite quickly with the right counter. In exchange for this, they can do heavy damage and one has regenerate. The troll is just extremely cheap in comparison with low damage output and fairly poor resists, but receives regenerate in compensation. The Guardsman on the other hand is unique in that it has no weaknesses, very high life, along with access to the healthy trait. Put it in a village, mountain, or hill, and it is almost impossible to dislodge, and in a village, is often able to survive multiple rounds of attack, healing up most of its health on its turn.
Now for your list of weaknesses.
1) it is slow - All true tank units are slow. so what?
2) it is weak in melee combat - Definitely a negative for it, but then again, it has several other bonuses
3) it is very weak in ranged combat - It is the only tank unit that even has a ranged attack... seems more like a bonus then a problem
4) it is slow to recover from injuries - ???? it recovers the same speed as anything else... only it has 40% resists to all physical AND 20 to magical... the only tank with that. it is like a ghost with more then 2x the hitpoints and traits thus making it FASTER to recover from injuries then most units. Also, even when healing, it can hold villages that are away from the main line of battle with extreme ease.
5) it is very quick to accumulate injuries on the offensive - This is true of most units even for tanks, the units closest to it are generally able to deal out good retaliation, the only real exception being the HI. Also, it is meant to be a line holder, and it still has 20% resist on the offense to ALL mundane attacks.
6) it is expensive - As are all tanks. irrelevant
7) it has a really high xp-level requirement (the highest of any tank unit) and a really underwhelming level two form - A unit that is weak to nothing MUST have a hi xp requirement or it is a guaranteed upgrade... probably why the level 2 is so poor. That said, I would definitely be in favor of boosting the level two as it is pathetic compared to the steel clad.

Another arguments that keeps surfacing is the idea that you would rather have a fighter or thunderer who can dish out better retaliation, who, even if they die, will have at least hurt the enemy. There are several problem with this. First, a fighter has no range (unlike the guardsman) and thus is a prime target for mages, who can kill him without any retaliation. The small boost in HP that the guardsman receives along with he +10% to magic is usually enough to weather the storm. Second, the thunderer has low enough hp, that with a little luck, he can be killed without too much damage received by heavy melee troops. Yet another problem is that if the position in question is a village or some other easily defended ground, you may be unable to retake it... This would help shield the troops injured in attack thus making the sacrifice in vain.
On a side note, is it not in some ways better to have a Tank that encourages melee attacks? If spears or grunts are attacking a guardsman they are at least receiving some retaliation and thus make them more open to counter attack on your turn. If you have a fighter in strong place, I am almost certainly not going to attack it with a melee troop except under special conditions. If you have a steadfast, I may decide it is worth it, which means it will actually deal more damage in retaliation then a fighter would have.

In short, the guardsman is the best line holder in default, and if used correctly, is often able to hold a given spot no matter how lucky your opponent gets, which while not often required, is easily worth 19 gold in certain occasions.

[alexanderthegre]

1) it is slow - All true tank units are slow. so what?
2) it is weak in melee combat - Definitely a negative for it, but then again, it has several other bonuses
3) it is very weak in ranged combat - It is the only tank unit that even has a ranged attack... seems more like a bonus then a problem
4) it is slow to recover from injuries - ???? it recovers the same speed as anything else... only it has 40% resists to all physical AND 20 to magical... the only tank with that. it is like a ghost with more then 2x the hitpoints and traits thus making it FASTER to recover from injuries then most units. Also, even when healing, it can hold villages that are away from the main line of battle with extreme ease.
5) it is very quick to accumulate injuries on the offensive - This is true of most units even for tanks, the units closest to it are generally able to deal out good retaliation, the only real exception being the HI. Also, it is meant to be a line holder, and it still has 20% resist on the offense to ALL mundane attacks.
6) it is expensive - As are all tanks. irrelevant
7) it has a really high xp-level requirement (the highest of any tank unit) and a really underwhelming level two form - A unit that is weak to nothing MUST have a hi xp requirement or it is a guaranteed upgrade... probably why the level 2 is so poor. That said, I would definitely be in favor of boosting the level two as it is pathetic compared to the steel clad.

QFT.

In addition, in the matchup versus Drakes, Guardsmen are extremely useful -- Any unit with pierce damage against Drakes is powerful, but also being a tank unit?
Seems like one of the best recruits vs Drakes in the game to me.

[Caphriel]

A side note on the stalwart: Most dwarves get 30% defense on flat. The stalwart gets 40%. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it makes the stalward substantially better at holding a critical flat hex... like, say, the flat hex required to maintain your line.

That's the second use for the guardsman, other than holding villages. The guardsman can hold a hex critical to your line. It's one of the hardest units to kill in the game. Depending on traits, it either takes 6/6 mage hits to kill one, 4/4 or it cannot be killed by two mages (discounting leadership). The only other way to kill it from 2 hexes is 4/4 with horsemen. This is not the case for any other level 1 unit, and is quite valuable. If you put a full-health guardsman on a hex, you can safely plan around the fact that it will not die in most circumstance.

As Alaskan Avenger pointed out, the other tank units can die from two hexes under more circumstances.

Additionally, the guardsman, because of the dwarf movetype, is much more maneuverable than heavy infantryman, and more maneuverable than the troll and wose under most circumstances. The ghoul is faster in the open, but add in one forest or hill hex and the guardsman catches up.

[Huumy]

Deleting my old post it was a bit too emotional and deluted the message...

So what I wanted to say is do you (you the creator of this thread) really think you know more about the game than the top players who use the supposedly overexpensive guardsmen?

Yes this very blunt but I think if you want to know why it is used instead of saying it's a bad unit, maybe go find out why some really good players use it OR better go play those players without using a guardsman.

What I'm saying is I respect your chance to state your opinion but to me it seems you are not taking count in any facts that are against what you already think you know.

[MRDNRA]

Ultimately what you need to remember is that the developers have said that factions are balanced against factions, but units are not balanced against units.

[TheCripple]

I'd also make a point regarding villages. If you have a village, it gives +2 gold and -1 upkeep (up to a point), which makes it basically +3 gold. Moreover, if you hold a village your opponent doesn't, and as them taking a village is basically +3 gold for them and -3 gold for you, it comes to a 6 gold difference, per turn. A guardsman that survives and holds a village is thus more valuable than something that merely does more retaliation but has a village captured anyways, unless the other unit is 13 gold or cheaper - and this assumes that they hold the village for only one turn, and die the second, without that meaningful increasing retaliation damage. That is absurd, and from a broad economic perspective dropping the price significantly makes the guardsman worth too much, due to the village holding alone - the capacity to fight on flat terrain better than other dwarves just adds to that.

[ShakeZula]

It seems a like a lot better unit when are trying to attack it rather than when you are using it. Let someone waste a turn attacking it then attack them when they are -25%. Throw it out in front when the enemy is advancing to delay the time between when they become weak again, if they fail then you can launch a nasty attack with your other units.

[Aelaris]

I've never had a good time using Guardsmen, so don't take my word on this, but my experience is along the lines of what ShakeZula mentioned.

A guardsman is time. Yes, the enemy will eventually kill it, if left to their own devices. No, it probably won't do decent damage in return. No, it will not be able to escape. But optimal ToD is only two turns long, and wasting even a single turn cuts that in half. Less good ToD for the enemy means less retreating and casualties on the Knalgan end.

However, that being the case, I'd still rather have Fighters and Thunders. They are going to be always useful, rather than having the occasional situation where they are useful.

Thematically, the Guardsmen has to exist. It's the dwarves doing what they do best: Being tough. The Urfserker already covers the other aspect. However, them being the epitome of the dwarven theme means that every other dwarf can do the Guardsman's role to some extent.

Thus Guardsmen being underwhelming.

Suggestions:

Combining the themes and failings, might I recommend that the Guardsman (in addition to the bonus Steadfast ability) always have the Healthy trait as one of their two 'normal' traits. My experience is that Healthy on a Guardsmen makes a big difference, gaining 10 in a village, and healing a little even as they trek their way towards wherever they are trying to go. More-over it changes the psychology of the opponent, since the opponent now has reason to hunt down wounded guardsmen, rather than just ignoring them.

The other change I would make is to bring their defenses in line with the Fighter. Why does a dwarf who specializes in holding the line suck relative to the more offensive dwarves when it comes to blocking attacks?

Both of these changes would be small enough to not noticeably alter gameplay for most players, make sense in context, and keep the Guardsmen firmly in their role of being a Thou Shall Not Pass.

What do you think?


EDIT: Checking the changelog, it looks like Steadfast was originally taking half damage, not doubling resistances.

Guardsmen changes, so you know:
0.8.3: Guardsmen created.
0.8.4: reduced blade, pierce, impact, fire and cold resistances, reduced cost, reduced number of ranged attacks
0.9.0: improved attack to 5-3
0.9.3: steadfast now doubles resistances up to 50%; vulnerabilities are unaffected
0.9.3: resistance to cold from 20% to 10%
1.1.0: Guardsmen has two traits again.
1.1.1: HP from 35 to 42, ranged attack from 4-1 to 5-1
1.3.1: increased the XP requirement of the Guardsman from 42 to 47

I see a trend of reducing defense while increasing attack. No changes from 1.3.1, though, so Knalgans are either balanced, or at least nobody cares about the Guardsman. I think I would have liked the old absurdly-defensive-but-hopefully-ignorable version. Any old foggies know why all these changes were made?