Drakes vs Mass Archers (Rebels) or Mass Spearman (Loyalist)

[Yogin]

Could everyone be nice to one another?

Debates are fine, but being mean? condescending? I think that's going too far.

Ad hominems are worthless, and really only serve to make you disliked by everyone, even though s/he may support your viewpoint: argue over your opinions, not your personalities.

Agreed on all above points. So, let's actually talk about the content, which was in my initial post, which I asked you to address in my 2nd post, which I reiterated in my 3rd post, and which you finally addressed in your 3rd post to me with the following quote:

and yes i read your "7 points", too bad theyre wrong

Would you care to elaborate at all upon this? Because frankly, a bald declaration of "wrongness" without addressing any of the aforementioned arguments does nothing to illuminate why you think they're wrong.

It would be beneficial if you could address the specific points. For example
(1) Explain why it is a bad idea to attack an archer with a clasher during the day.
(2) Explain why it is a bad idea to force elvish archers out of forest.
(3) Explain why it is wrong to use ToD to your advantage.
(4) Explain why it is wrong to attack archers with melee, and defend with ranged(burners)
(5) Explain why it is a poor idea to use saurians vs. archers
(6) Explain why stealing villages with skirmishers and gliders is a bad idea when your opponent has limited mobility.
(7) Explain why using augur's and gliders vs. archers in forest is a bad idea. Elucidate us with why it is a bad idea to use units with high # of strikes for kills.

[Cackfiend]

(1) low hp - easy to kill with strong attacks on moderate defense, eg. clasher @ day;

attacking an elven archer with a clasher during the day is obvious, the problem is good elvish players most of the time dont have too many archers in range of clashers during the day. the archer is much faster than a clasher with the ability to move through forest for only 1 MP while the clasher has to use 2 MP per forest tile. this isnt exactly a ground breaking strategy idea... even a new player knows to attack an elven archer with a clasher during the day.

(2) poor defense in hills/grass: force it onto these - how? make them assault you;

yes this is always a good idea, and another obvious one. of course u want to try and lure an elf off of a forest tile. some maps this is easy and some this is hard. the easiest way to lure an elf off of forest tiles is to have a unit in a vulnerable spot, which means you're going to lose the unit. if there is a small or no chance of losing the unit i highly doubt any good elf player is going to lose their best advantage (position) to attack it. its a tough one because drakes are an attacking race and elves are a defending race... no good elf is going to give up position unless they can severely cripple you and not have to worry about much of a retaliation.

(3) it's neutral; attack during your time of day.[/list]

thanks captain obvious

(1) good ranged pierce damage: attack with melee, defend with range: when presenting a target to the elves, present a burner, not a clasher;

yes this is a good idea. keep in mind though that elvish archers that have the dextrous trait do 7 dmg a hit to burners, fighters, and gliders. I dont mind having a burner in range of a couple non-dextrous archers... but the dextrous ones cant hurt bad.

this is a hard thing to do though... almost impossible in some cases. killing off a unit with a couple clashers than replacing the dead unit with the burner would be the obvious choice, but most of the time you're still going to have archers in range of your clashers (atleast one) and you still gotta worry about the fighters hitting your burners (any good elf, even if going mass archer, still makes a couple fighters)

(2) pierce: use saurians;

saurians are useless vs the pierce aspect of an elven archer unless theyre dextrous. dextrous archers will still do 5 dmg a hit... same as non-dextrous. ive had good success with mass saurian skirms vs elves but it can be really unstable (1 saurian can hold off 4 elves or die to a single one)

(3) mobility: not really much of an issue - drakes have greater mobility - steal villages with gliders and saurians, since they both have even better mobility than archers. force the archers to go through hills/mountains to slow them down, or even better, to stop in grass;

WRONG

saurians are not faster than elvish archers. they both move 6 and can have the quick trait to get 7. archers move through forest at 1 MP each and saurians move through forest at 2 MP each (though they do move through hills at 1 MP)

you should know my opinion about gliders... they suck. even if you do manage to get behind a good player in a 1v1 a glider isnt going to do much on most maps. theres exceptions to this of course, but elvish archers would just destroy gliders.

i dont think id ever make a glider vs an elf player

(4) forest: (a)attack with magical: augur @ night, gliders as finisher

this is a horrible idea. a glider at night does a whopping 2 dmg a hit. an augur at night would do 6-3 at 70% to an elven archer and the archer would be returning 5-4 at 60% or 40%. this means you would need 2-3 augurs and maybe a glider to finish 1 archer... and you'd take massive retaliation dmg.

(b)attack with higher # of attacks for kills: not fighters, (c)lure out into the open: ignore forested areas, use your mobility to go around them.

again, obvious tactics vs elves. the problem is that it isnt so easy vs a good elvish player as you make it sound. The best units vs elves are clashers and saurians... but preferably clashers during daytime is the most powerful counter. problem is a good elf will outrun clashers any day of the week.

[Shade]

attacking an elven archer with a clasher during the day is obvious, the problem is good elvish players most of the time dont have too many archers in range of clashers during the day. the archer is much faster than a clasher with the ability to move through forest for only 1 MP while the clasher has to use 2 MP per forest tile. this isnt exactly a ground breaking strategy idea... even a new player knows to attack an elven archer with a clasher during the day.

-STUFF-

again, obvious tactics vs elves. the problem is that it isnt so easy vs a good elvish player as you make it sound. The best units vs elves are clashers and saurians... but preferably clashers during daytime is the most powerful counter. problem is a good elf will outrun clashers any day of the week.

Might I suggest that if you're running the Clasher through the forest after an archer you'll lose. Don't do it. Don't bait the pointy eared vermin out by making your units vulnerable. Bait the pointy eared vermin out by trying to put your Clashers on favourable terrain, preferably cutting the map between forest regions.

Then you play village tag with your highly mobile units, using clashers to to cut more portions of the map.

The pointy haired vermin will have to come out for gold. Use your mobile assets to hit them where they ain't, keep the clashers on good terrain to consolidate your gains. Whack 'em when they realize you have 2/3 of the villages and come out to play.

Drakes don't ever want to be fighting any faction on their best turf. While the Drakes look big and tough, and they are, the real key to the whole faction is mobility.

[Shade]

Mass anything is a poor strategy.

i appreciate you trying to help, but i find this really funny because when i played you, you massed dark adepts vs my drakes
in fact its the thing that made me think u weren't very good

The simple counter to adepts is fighters in Daylight:

Adept:
HP: 28 Cost: 16 Moves: 5 Alignment: chaotic XP: 48
shadow wave cold 10-2 ranged magical

Fighter:
HP: 39 Cost: 17 Moves: 6 Alignment: lawful XP: 42
scimitar blade 7-3 melee
fire breath fire 3-3 ranged

For 1 GP more, the adept should never get to use that nasty cold magic on you at night. He has no melee. In daylight use the scimtar. There's a really good chance you'll hit him once stealing 1/3ish of his HP, less of a chance of getting 2/3 of his HP, and a small chance of killing him, nearly killing, or striking out. On his turn if he moves to flee, run him down, if he attacks there's a good chance he'll take < 1/4 or < 1/2 of your HP-- But your counter should rob him of another < 1/6 or < 1/3 of his HP. The next turn you should either have him, nearly have him, or flee. Even if he counters with magic and both shots hit a second time, and he survives, you're still alive.

Given that the fighter is both faster an more mobile there is no excuse for getting caught at night, or ever having a fighter die...

Mass adepts shouldn't work.

[Thrawn]

(1) low hp - easy to kill with strong attacks on moderate defense, eg. clasher @ day;

attacking an elven archer with a clasher during the day is obvious, the problem is good elvish players most of the time dont have too many archers in range of clashers during the day. the archer is much faster than a clasher with the ability to move through forest for only 1 MP while the clasher has to use 2 MP per forest tile. this isnt exactly a ground breaking strategy idea... even a new player knows to attack an elven archer with a clasher during the day.

but it isn't wrong, which is what you said his points were. Also, unless they want to give up huge territory, they are going to have to keep units in range of your clashers....

(2) poor defense in hills/grass: force it onto these - how? make them assault you;

yes this is always a good idea, and another obvious one. of course u want to try and lure an elf off of a forest tile. some maps this is easy and some this is hard. the easiest way to lure an elf off of forest tiles is to have a unit in a vulnerable spot, which means you're going to lose the unit. if there is a small or no chance of losing the unit i highly doubt any good elf player is going to lose their best advantage (position) to attack it. its a tough one because drakes are an attacking race and elves are a defending race... no good elf is going to give up position unless they can severely cripple you and not have to worry about much of a retaliation.

again, you admit it is a true point...why did you all him wrong?

(3) it's neutral; attack during your time of day.[/list]

thanks captain obvious

again, a point that isn't wrong

(1) good ranged pierce damage: attack with melee, defend with range: when presenting a target to the elves, present a burner, not a clasher;

yes this is a good idea. keep in mind though that elvish archers that have the dextrous trait do 7 dmg a hit to burners, fighters, and gliders. I dont mind having a burner in range of a couple non-dextrous archers... but the dextrous ones cant hurt bad.

this is a hard thing to do though... almost impossible in some cases. killing off a unit with a couple clashers than replacing the dead unit with the burner would be the obvious choice, but most of the time you're still going to have archers in range of your clashers (atleast one) and you still gotta worry about the fighters hitting your burners (any good elf, even if going mass archer, still makes a couple fighters)

you admit he has a point here. And even if you can't totally block the clashers, you can make sure the enemy pays on your next turn...

(2) pierce: use saurians;

saurians are useless vs the pierce aspect of an elven archer unless theyre dextrous. dextrous archers will still do 5 dmg a hit... same as non-dextrous. ive had good success with mass saurian skirms vs elves but it can be really unstable (1 saurian can hold off 4 elves or die to a single one)

yeah, saurians are iffy, but less so than using drakes at night against elves...and you need something to prevent them from advancing at night...

(3) mobility: not really much of an issue - drakes have greater mobility - steal villages with gliders and saurians, since they both have even better mobility than archers. force the archers to go through hills/mountains to slow them down, or even better, to stop in grass;

WRONG

saurians are not faster than elvish archers. they both move 6 and can have the quick trait to get 7. archers move through forest at 1 MP each and saurians move through forest at 2 MP each (though they do move through hills at 1 MP

you should know my opinion about gliders... they suck. even if you do manage to get behind a good player in a 1v1 a glider isnt going to do much on most maps. theres exceptions to this of course, but elvish archers would just destroy gliders.

i dont think id ever make a glider vs an elf player

couple things here..
1. Yogin never said that all drake units are faster than all rebel units.
2. There are rarely large swaths of forest in a row...
3 Using gliders is important: although they are weak, they have marksman and are more manuverable than augers: making them perfect for killing off really damaged units: whuch is what Yogin suggested...why waste a potential 18 damage on a units with 2 hp?

(4) forest: (a)attack with magical: augur @ night, gliders as finisher

this is a horrible idea. a glider at night does a whopping 2 dmg a hit. an augur at night would do 6-3 at 70% to an elven archer and the archer would be returning 5-4 at 60% or 40%. this means you would need 2-3 augurs and maybe a glider to finish 1 archer... and you'd take massive retaliation dmg.

see above


I fail to see how his points are wrong...

[krotop]

(3) mobility: not really much of an issue - drakes have greater mobility - steal villages with gliders and saurians, since they both have even better mobility than archers. force the archers to go through hills/mountains to slow them down, or even better, to stop in grass;

WRONG

saurians are not faster than elvish archers. they both move 6 and can have the quick trait to get 7. archers move through forest at 1 MP each and saurians move through forest at 2 MP each (though they do move through hills at 1 MP)

Saurians oftenly have better mobility thanks to 2mp per mountain, 1mp on sand, swamps, caves and other slots that sometimes occur on a map even if it's not the main pattern.

(4) forest: (a)attack with magical: augur @ night, gliders as finisher

this is a horrible idea. a glider at night does a whopping 2 dmg a hit. an augur at night would do 6-3 at 70% to an elven archer and the archer would be returning 5-4 at 60% or 40%. this means you would need 2-3 augurs and maybe a glider to finish 1 archer... and you'd take massive retaliation dmg.

I agree with Yogin, except maybe that finishing a 2hp unit doesn't happen often to me. Though, if the archer has 5hp left, you have a decent chance to kill it with a skirmisher (~75% I think). In the better cases, you have other units to cover and/or hard hitters behind to threat . Once you've taken the forest slot, your opponent has 2 choices :
1st. forget his dead unit.
2nd. counter-strike.

In the second case, he's likely to send elves on hills and plains as, like Thrawn said, forests are rarely put together in mass (in balanced maps at least). If you well chose the place where the battle has to occur, you're likely to have advantage over the fragile-when-out-of-forest elves.

You already knew that : drakes use their mobility to strongly strike on a very precise spot and the difficulty is to correctly choose where to fight. That last point is what we (I include myself as I'm quite crappy with drakes) should train in.

EDIT : Maybe, you can find answers in some 1vs1 replays in the archive. I also have posted a replay in a "what drakes do against loyalists ?" thread, but you may think that the level wasn't high enough to give true clues.

re-EDIT : Found the page : http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 72&start=0

[Konrad II]

Indeed Cackfiend, it seems you thought these points were good ones, but that they were obvious, except the 2 last ones which I think can be good too. 1 was explained, here's my part for the other:

(4) forest: (a)attack with magical: augur @ night, gliders as finisher

this is a horrible idea. a glider at night does a whopping 2 dmg a hit. an augur at night would do 6-3 at 70% to an elven archer and the archer would be returning 5-4 at 60% or 40%. this means you would need 2-3 augurs and maybe a glider to finish 1 archer... and you'd take massive retaliation dmg.

If you manage to get your saurian against the archer on a hill, on swamp, on forest, on mountain, hm.. I think that's about it for the 60%s, then it is a good idea to strike the elvish archer with a saurian imo. After that, and depending on the enemy's HPs, you can choose to send in a good fighter or a finisher such as the glider. The good part with the glider is, it does deal lame dmg with his markshman, but you're almost sure he'll hit at least once.

Personally I wouldn't use the magical without some 60% around for my augurs against elvish archers. I often recruit a skirmisher or 2 against elves, especially to counter attack them at night. They are very nasty at night and have 4 attacks, good chances to hit the elvish enemy.

If your opponent "masses archers", I would probably only have 1 or 2 saurian(augurs) because they're fragile against the archers, but deal good damage if placed on 60%

[Cackfiend]

If your opponent "masses archers", I would probably only have 1 or 2 saurian(augurs) because they're fragile against the archers, but deal good damage if placed on 60%

exactly




when i said he was wrong, i meant of the things that i pointed out.
i strongly disagree that augurs is a counter to mass archers (ive tried it), i strongly disagree that gliders are good vs elves (ive tried it), and i strongly disagree that skirms have a mobility advantage over elves... if anything theyre about as fast as eachother and quick intelligent skirms have 20 hps... which means only 4 shots from an archer kills it.

and everything else was just kinda obvious imo... i mean for a drake player anyway. i would still like to see some examples of some really good elf and drake players playing eachother and the drake winning consistently and not because of a EV advantage.

[Cackfiend]

i appreciate you trying to help, but i find this really funny because when i played you, you massed dark adepts vs my drakes
in fact its the thing that made me think u weren't very good

The simple counter to adepts is fighters in Daylight:

Adept:
HP: 28 Cost: 16 Moves: 5 Alignment: chaotic XP: 48
shadow wave cold 10-2 ranged magical

Fighter:
HP: 39 Cost: 17 Moves: 6 Alignment: lawful XP: 42
scimitar blade 7-3 melee
fire breath fire 3-3 ranged

For 1 GP more, the adept should never get to use that nasty cold magic on you at night. He has no melee. In daylight use the scimtar. There's a really good chance you'll hit him once stealing 1/3ish of his HP, less of a chance of getting 2/3 of his HP, and a small chance of killing him, nearly killing, or striking out. On his turn if he moves to flee, run him down, if he attacks there's a good chance he'll take < 1/4 or < 1/2 of your HP-- But your counter should rob him of another < 1/6 or < 1/3 of his HP. The next turn you should either have him, nearly have him, or flee. Even if he counters with magic and both shots hit a second time, and he survives, you're still alive.

Given that the fighter is both faster an more mobile there is no excuse for getting caught at night, or ever having a fighter die...

Mass adepts shouldn't work.

hmm maybe you got off topic here... we werent looking for a counter to DA's as drakes

when i played yogin i did go mass fighters and won fairly easy


its actually prolly my easiest matchup

[(S)elfish weirdo]

Now, I do not play nearly as frequently as I used to, and no longer wield the treehuggers. However, as I recall, there was one drake strategy that would crush my treehuggers no matter what I did. I haven't used it myself, but I have had it used against me a number of times, with nasty results for my part. This of course means it might be wise to take the details of this post with a large dose of scepticism, or possibly morphine.

The key to victory as a drake against the treehuggers is your mobility. Treehuggers may win when fighting from the forests, but they are frail and delicious when on grassland. So how does one remove these hippies from their precious plantlife? Forest fires? Annoying alitteration? Agent orange? Nay, the answer is mindnumbingly simple and easy on the enviroment and the sanity of greenpeace. Saurians.

Saurians may not be the most durable of distratctions, but they do often have more than 20 hit points, which means that on 60% defense it'll usually take three of the hippies to dispatch one these dastardly creatures. That means three hippies taken from the frontline. Send throught one or two saurians to defensive positions surronded by grassland and the hippie frontline will tend to crumble. Even if it does not leave any direct holes, this should be sufficient for your Clashers/Burners to break throught and engage the wounded Treehuggers trapped on grassland. If you have been paying attention to the night/day cycle, the temporal setting should favor you as well. The fact that you're behind enemy lines also means any drake too wounded to fight can just run off and steal a hostile village, thus remaining useful.

So what if there's a mage nearby? While mages are costly and worthless against the drakes themselves, and thus not seen in abundant supply in such a matchup, even if there is a mage covering all possible attack routes, you should have the monetary advantage if the enemy is spending such gold. Three saurians can often kill a mage outright if you launch them during second watch. Even if they do not, a single mage is just not that scary during night.

I'll assume you have sufficient familiarity with woses to realize that all attempts of that kind is futile against the drakes.

By sacrificing one or two fairly cheap units, you can gain time of day advantage, terrain advantage, the advantage of easy village theft and likely wound the treehuggers to some extent by the high defense saurians, defening from attacks on low defense terrain. Unless you have anything against ordering your lizardly minions to their comparatively certain deaths, this is indeed a worthy bargain.

So what if the hippies decide to live and let live, not disposing troops from their frontlines? Then you can help yourself to their villages. You'll win by outnumbering them.

Of course, this doesn't work nearly as well against the other races for various reasons. But I have yet to invent or see a valid (S)elfish response.

[Shade]

The only scenario that is really problimatic for the drakes is massed Loyalist Spearmen. That being said, imagine this scenario (I've tested this on small 2p maps in an armchair sort of way):

Loyalist recruits Seven Spearman

Drakes recruit 4 Burners and an Auger

This eats the 100 GP that both sides have.

They charge each other (Fight to the death, in a fine display of bravado).

Even on small maps the Drakes can force the engagement since they ignore terrain when moving and the auger is faster. Meaning that you can either force the Spearmen to: (1) jump in on you on really bad terrain (With you on 'good for Drakes' terrain), or (2) get to jump in on them. Ideally, you DON'T want to let the Spearmen jump in on you even on bad terrain.

In case one- If they can get 2 or 3 Spearmen on one Drake, They might be able to bring him down, but they'll be get hurt... They can try that again, the same thing might happen, but if you're in formation they should have a hard time bringing another drake down... This scenario goes usually ugly and you probably still lose.

In case two- Where you get to pick the spot and jump in, you should be able to make two Spearmen dead, with little in the way of counter damage. Suddenly it's 5 v. 5. The next turn the Spearmen strike back-- But since they're bound by terrain they'll have a hard time killing more than one Drake and wounding one or two others. But the Spearmen will get hurt in the process. Most of them will take at least one hit. If you're feeling brave- Use the most wounded Drakes breath on the most wounded spearmen. Use the auger and healthier Drakes to finish him off (and cover the wounded), and try to get at least one other Spearman dead or a couple more severely wounded.

At this point there should be 3ish Dead Spearmen, a couple of really hurt ones, and a couple of slightly hurt ones. There should be at least 2 surviving Drakes (who are relatively healthy) and the Auger. The healthy Drakes and Auger should be able to carry the day vs. 2 really hurt and two slightly hurt Spearmen.

Case three is that the Spearmen catch you sleeping-- That ends in disaster.

Massed Spearmen are particularly problematic for the Drakes. A Spearman gets a lot of value for 14 GP vs. the Drakes... But if you force the issue on your terms you still stand good gamblers odds of winning. But the masses Spearmen is where the Drakes fall down to some extent.

I haven't tested 6 Skirmishers vs. 7 Spearmen at night... But that would be interesting... While frail they are: slightly pierce resistant, faster, more nimble, do well on nasty terrain, and ignore ZOC. If you have the space that would be fun. edit: Also, the skirmishers level like little buggers, getting one to Lv. 2 would be a tide turner. Edit: All skirmishers don't do so well, but throw in an Auger... Hmm, that Auger is an important little critter.

[eyu100]

The only scenario that is really problimatic for the drakes is massed Loyalist Spearmen. That being said, imagine this scenario (I've tested this on small 2p maps in an armchair sort of way):

Loyalist recruits Seven Spearman

Drakes recruit 4 Burners and an Auger

This eats the 100 GP that both sides have.

They charge each other (Fight to the death, in a fine display of bravado).

Even on small maps the Drakes can force the engagement since they ignore terrain when moving and the auger is faster. Meaning that you can either force the Spearmen to: (1) jump in on you on really bad terrain (With you on 'good for Drakes' terrain), or (2) get to jump in on them. Ideally, you DON'T want to let the Spearmen jump in on you even on bad terrain.

In case one- If they can get 2 or 3 Spearmen on one Drake, They might be able to bring him down, but they'll be get hurt... They can try that again, the same thing might happen, but if you're in formation they should have a hard time bringing another drake down... This scenario goes usually ugly and you probably still lose.

In case two- Where you get to pick the spot and jump in, you should be able to make two Spearmen dead, with little in the way of counter damage. Suddenly it's 5 v. 5. The next turn the Spearmen strike back-- But since they're bound by terrain they'll have a hard time killing more than one Drake and wounding one or two others. But the Spearmen will get hurt in the process. Most of them will take at least one hit. If you're feeling brave- Use the most wounded Drakes breath on the most wounded spearmen. Use the auger and healthier Drakes to finish him off (and cover the wounded), and try to get at least one other Spearman dead or a couple more severely wounded.

At this point there should be 3ish Dead Spearmen, a couple of really hurt ones, and a couple of slightly hurt ones. There should be at least 2 surviving Drakes (who are relatively healthy) and the Auger. The healthy Drakes and Auger should be able to carry the day vs. 2 really hurt and two slightly hurt Spearmen.

Case three is that the Spearmen catch you sleeping-- That ends in disaster.

Massed Spearmen are particularly problematic for the Drakes. A Spearman gets a lot of value for 14 GP vs. the Drakes... But if you force the issue on your terms you still stand good gamblers odds of winning. But the masses Spearmen is where the Drakes fall down to some extent.

I haven't tested 6 Skirmishers vs. 7 Spearmen at night... But that would be interesting... While frail they are: slightly pierce resistant, faster, more nimble, do well on nasty terrain, and ignore ZOC. If you have the space that would be fun. edit: Also, the skirmishers level like little buggers, getting one to Lv. 2 would be a tide turner. Edit: All skirmishers don't do so well, but throw in an Auger... Hmm, that Auger is an important little critter.

Yes. One thing I found out while playing Flight to Freedom (Blue River) was that you MUST attack spearmen FIRST (before they attack you, even if it means retreating very far).

[Cackfiend]

Yes. One thing I found out while playing Flight to Freedom (Blue River) was that you MUST attack spearmen FIRST (before they attack you, even if it means retreating very far).

DEFINITELY!


when it comes to burner vs spearman anyways....


having a strong resilient or resilient intelligent clasher in a village during the day can be a nice counter to hold off a spearman heavy army though

[Cackfiend]

text

lol, good post

i will try this, but somehow i doubt a good elven player will break lines to chase after skirms. they would more than likely use their units behind their front lines to kill the skirms and keep their front line in tact

[(S)elfish weirdo]

text

lol, good post

i will try this, but somehow i doubt a good elven player will break lines to chase after skirms. they would more than likely use their units behind their front lines to kill the skirms and keep their front line in tact

Yes, because that's all easy and dandy when the drake gets to position the saurians and the treehuggers have to dispatch an average of about three for every saurian sent through. Because you always have half a dozen or so extras lying around right behind the frontline in reserve, right?