Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

[tekelili]

As far as i followed the discussion, DA's were still considered as the core unit in this matchup, so far. I think they can't be a good counter neither for Ulf's (for obvious reasons) nor Footpads. Since the DA has a magical attack, it doesn't matter for the footpad which hexes he is standing on. They can always be placed in a manner, that DA has to attack from 40% def terrain. Then, cth for DA is 70%, for the footpad 60%, so it is not that big difference. DA deals 10-2 on average, but the footie gives 5-2 retaliation + 5-2 melee on the following turn. That means, damage output of footpad vs. DA is nearly the same. Additionally, footpads have more hp, and damage output and hp is further increased by the strong trait, while DA's don't have this trait. Finally, the footpads are cheaper and faster, which means they can be ganging up on the DA's wherever they want. The threat of the Ulfs reduces activity range of the DA's even further.

Try to launch a footpad line vs a da line and just watch what happens: footpads get pawned. The issue here is the amount of concentrate damage dealt. 2 da can do 10-4 damage on a single footpad (so they can kill him) while 2 footpads cant kill a da. If a da attacks a footpad and is retaliated on next turn by 2 footpads, he gets a total of 5-6 damage wich is less than 10-4. And even on flat, difference between 30 and 40 defense still matters in the final output of total damage. And finally, the fact that da can break the footpad line at some moments of day to enable ghost instat kill of ulf, makes ulf advance to threat your villages a lot harder and gives you time to build a big army that disable footpad speed adventage.
I think that level a ghost is almost automatic victory vs this foot-ulf tactic, so a great army of da that enable a ghost kill ulfs is a very big threat to knalgan player that ghouls just cant do. Of course, I am talking to play in a very defensive way for long time, wich is not very fun, but I think wasnt proved unsuccesfull in provide an even match yet.

EDIT: I forgot to say that there is also a huge movility adventage of da over ghouls. Not only 2/3 of your da will have 6 mp, but more important: Ghouls must protect a village from be taken for a footpad from inside, while da can do also from back. In a map like freelands this often leads to an effective 2 turns earlier change of flank defense of da over ghouls (and those pesky footpads will do fast change of attack flank looking for outnumber you)

[alda]

Hi, just wanna add some food for thought :

http://ladder.subversiva.org/gamedetail ... %3A49%3A30 (savefile included).

In this ladder game on Hornshark Island, we both chose random faction, I was player 2 and got Knalgans and after seeing on my second turn that my opponent was undead, I went for Footpads and Ulfs only (well, except a dwarf fighter I recruited I don't really know why...).

So I won the game.

I don't show this game to prove that this strategy is overpowered, and I know that in this game you could still argue about luck and the fact that my opponent wasn't maybe playing the best (though I don't think I did, too, and still had no real difficulty to win).

I just want to point that in this particular situation (Hornshark Island and being player 2), with random factions chosed, it's rather easy to go for this strategy pretty soon, since you can see your opponent's faction at your 2nd turn, and by this time, you should have only recruited 3-4 units, most likely already including a footpad.

What do you think of it ?

[5dPZ]

From my experience, as soon as u figure out ur dwarf vs undead, start buying pads - it's never too late. I haven't lost any dwarf vs undead match up yet, after oesis told me this strat. Those 3 other units you bought first turn vs random won't be as effient as pads, but they can serve as meat shields, or u can simply ignore them on offense (since they may be too slow to retreat) and let them guard villages from bats.

[Rigor]

I just had this very enjoyable game with a slight humming in my head...whos the song writer again....ah right tryx youtube for
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - City Of Refuge (acoustic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_NGUQ7q ... 1&index=40

very very nice i tell you

situation:

HE picks the guard, so I pick the ugly slimy monster to meet him in a fair battle.

unsurprisingly he figured out he has to build a lot of footies, but i think the message, that he should avoid hordes of zombies (or, UD in general) at night didnt quite pass through and the biggest joke was, later he said that im a coward or something, because i picked faction AFTER him. like i know how to kill dwarfes effectively with undeads HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

and here are the lyrics:

Spoiler:

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/nick-cave-an ... efuge.html

actually my disk got stuck in the first line

[Rigor]

tekelili vs rigor on the updated hamlets map picked ud vs dw

when rng favors u, u should be grateful and rejoice.

of c its a rather bad example if u killed an ulf in the first round, but the aftermath was pretty funny: still unwilling to give up, the horde of the zombies swallowed the audacious footie-troop in no time.

[UngeheuerLich]

Has someone tried this matchup on 1.9.6?

I played this matchup against Velensk sometimes ago. And he used footpads mobility + punch against anything I could recruit with great success.
With only 4 damage on melee and ranged on footpads (back to the value they had many versions ago) i could imagine that this strategy is somewhat less difficult to deal with.

[Horus2]

To put it in short, this is what i think about the footpad nerf's importance:

Semler vs Horus laddergame

I'm posting it here too, because it illustrates very well what tekelili was talking about... well 2 years before.

[teamleader]

Thats like spamming spearmen when fighting drakes.