How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

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Huumy
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Joined: October 15th, 2009, 9:52 pm

How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by Huumy »

Drakes by Huumy:

Guide for 1v1 with default settings.

I think this is one of my weakest races and I had no idea how to start this Drake part of the guide, because my playstyle could be described ”do what seems best in the situation”. I hope this part of the guide helps me to understand how I play as drakes. Also I like the feedback and questions, because I'm not 100% sure that what I say in this guide is true or best way to play. I just hope some1 finds something useful from it :)

<<<--->>>
Drakes vs Elves (Rebels)
Elves have low HP and much lower damage than your units, but elves are cheaper and have way better defenses. Worst thing you can do vs elves is to attack their defensive line blindly. Always try fight with overhelming force abusing drake mobility and/or fight them away from forest.

Units you are using
You need big mix of units to kill elves.

→ Saurian Augur: You want atleast 2 with your bigger army. Augurs are great killing elves on forest, but they also get killed really easy. These are your army damage dealers Augurs are good vs elvish archers and shamans.
→ Saurian Skirimisher: You sould couple of these with your bigger army, if for nothing else but taking the forest hex you just emptied. Also great at finishing with skirmisher ability and 4 attacks. Also it's sometimes worth to trap retreating opponent army with skirimisher.
→ Drake Glider: Have one of these to scout and finish low HP elves on good terrain.
→ Drake Fighter: Your meat of the army are these and clashers, mix them depending what your opponent is recruiting. Fighters are good vs shamans, fighters and woses.
→ Drake Clasher: Your meat of the army are these and fighters, mix them depending what your opponent is recruiting. Clashers are good vs fighters, woses and archers.
→ Drake Burner: You need atleast one of these to damage melee with only small retaliation. Burners with augurs are your ranged damage dealers, these are good vs elvish fighters during the day.


Day and night cycle
As drakes you should attack at day, this way you do more damage and keep augurs back healing if there's no good spot for them to attack. Woses and mages are mostly waste of money for rebels so no need to worry about them. As Day turns to night there's good change that both armies are heavily injured this is your time to take advantage of your saurians, augurs can finish of any low HP elves anywhere and you can trap opponent units with skirimishers.
How to win?
→ Try to avoid fighting (do not fight) with small parts of your army.
→ Always start fights by attacking or luring the elves out of forests. Because drakes are not good at defending.
→ Don't think you will certainly hit ¼ when you really need to. If possible make use of magical or marksmanship attacks first to finish elves on forest before missing 8 times with clashers.
→ Scout where possible woses are.


When fighting
→ Don't let the elves fight on forest hexes, either kill them fast or retreat.
→ Don't leave saurians on 40% def.
→ Try protect your augurs from elvish fighters or atleast have them on good terrain.
→ Make sure your opponent don't get easy lvl2 kills from your saurians.


Units you want to level:
1.Drake Burner to Drake Flare: Leadership with drakes is awesome.
2.Saurian Augur to Saurian Oracle: More magical damage. Tho still very weak unit, be careful.
3.Drake Clasher to Drake Arbiter: Has 10% pierce resist, 19 more HP and bad ass halberd.
4.Saurian Skirimisher: Only good if you know how to keep him alive and killing him not worth it. The best thing is not the damage but the increased HP with the skirimisher ability.
5.Saurian Glider: Has 50% defense places where other drakes only have 30%. Still very weak, but has powerful 5-3 ranged marksman attack.
6.Drake Fighter: Better damage and HP.
What units you don't want your opponent to level.
1.Elf Archer: I favor ranger over marksman (in this matchup), but either way it's pain in the ass to kill on forest hex.
2.Elf Fighter to Elf Captain: Leadership is always good.
3.Elf shaman: Healing ability or lots of magical damage. Also harder to kill.
4.Elf Scout: Actually good damage with bow and sword, good at killing or finishing saurians and drakes.


Like always don't make foolish attacks vs Elves. gl hf


Questions and feedback
yoyobuae wrote:I've wondered for a while if burners could be used as part of the ZoC wall.
Yes you should use any burners you have in defensive wall, they are great anytime expect night and even then they are decent. Problem with burners is that they are expensive and you don't really need too many of them. At day you can do great damage with burners but too many burners means that you have less units over all. So I would suggest trying getting more burners vs player of your level, if it works use it till it won't work :). Burners are not bad in this matchup but too many burners means that you are over run by elvish fighters specially at nights. Instead mix of clashers, saurians and burners keep you not dieing during night, not because any of them are better than burners but because you will have more chaotic units and more units over all. Also saurian high defenses and magical attacks will help vs elves.
The Black Sword wrote:I don't think there's anything wrong with a mix of the 2 types of units but it gives you a mostly neutral army which often leads to a boring game IMO so I try to specialise as one of them and saurians get run over by mass fighters a bit too easily for me.
This is what I feel like too :) Saurians are just too weak vs elves so you can't mass them too much. Tho I think they can really boost the drake army if recruited just enough and usually forcing elves to buy more fighters. So if you are using lot of saurians as drakes and have trouble vs elves, try recruiting less saurians and more drakes until you find the good composition for you.
Yoyobuae wrote:Units die. Units get recruited. As turns go by the composition each player's army is bound to change. Drakes can really take advantage of this by adjusting the alignment of their units according to ToD.
This is very good point. As drakes you can adjust your unit composition by the ToD. Just make sure that you have more saurians at fight during night and more drakes coming as the night turns to day.



Also there is some discussion atm in the multiplayer server chat: I have to admit my guide is limited to my experiences in this matchup. The games I can remember doing well have been vs heavy archer/shaman combo. This I usually have tried to fight with clasher and saurians. Tho vs different unit composition burners are better specially vs lot of fighters, also they are good at defense.
I think is there's many ways to play as drakes. Some more heavily focused on drakes, some get more burners :), some get less. But what I've experienced is that you need atleast some saurians to.
1. Have chaotic units
2. Have cheap units
3. Have skirimish and magical attack
Then there's the burners. I usually get only few of them to get almost free damage vs elvish fighters and use clashers and fighters to attack archers.

So more comments and discussion about what is good way to play as drakes and why. I have to admit, this is not my strongest match ups :)
Last edited by Huumy on December 12th, 2010, 11:27 am, edited 5 times in total.
"And the girl that you want is directly out in front, And she’s waving her caboose at you, You sneeze achoo, She calls you out and boom!"
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ozean
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Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by ozean »

there is a copy & paste mistake in this sentence: ;)
Huumy wrote:→ Drake Clasher: Your meat of the army are these and clashers, mix them depending what your opponent is recruiting. Clashers are good vs fighters, woses and archers.
(should be “these and fighters” instead of “these and clashers”)

Thanks once more for the great guides!

Maybe you could also say something regarding the day – night cycle?
Yoyobuae
Posts: 408
Joined: July 24th, 2009, 8:38 pm

Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by Yoyobuae »

Something that bugs me alot about rebels is the free shots archers get vs Clashers. Their resistances don't give dextrous archers extra damage (unlike drake fighters, 7-4, ouch), but those arrows still hurt quite a bit.

I've wondered for a while if burners could be used as part of the ZoC wall. They can retaliate rather well against both, elvish archers and fighters. If a shaman is used against them and fails to slow, the retaliation will also hurt.

Might work to counter archer spam, something that happens all too frequently in this match up.

As for time of the day, perhaps starting the offense at second watch (using augurs) and then continue fighting during the daytime would be good. Might as well make the most out of ToD bonuses against a mostly neutral faction.
Huumy
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Joined: October 15th, 2009, 9:52 pm

Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by Huumy »

Fixed thank you for feedback :).
"And the girl that you want is directly out in front, And she’s waving her caboose at you, You sneeze achoo, She calls you out and boom!"
The offspring, trolling you since forever.
The Black Sword
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Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by The Black Sword »

Hey,
I think this is a matchup where you can go heavier on burners than usual. At day elves pretty much can't attack a burner so they're very good at either attacking or as part of your wall to defend other units. You do need other melee units so your opponent can't make a wall of archers and to defend at night. In comparison to your guide I'd decrease my saurian numbers to just 1-2 of each and instead buy burners.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a mix of the 2 types of units but it gives you a mostly neutral army which often leads to a boring game IMO so I try to specialise as one of them and saurians get run over by mass fighters a bit too easily for me.

Another nice guide. :)
Yoyobuae
Posts: 408
Joined: July 24th, 2009, 8:38 pm

Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by Yoyobuae »

The Black Sword wrote:I don't think there's anything wrong with a mix of the 2 types of units but it gives you a mostly neutral army which often leads to a boring game IMO so I try to specialise as one of them and saurians get run over by mass fighters a bit too easily for me.
Not entirely true.

Units die. Units get recruited. As turns go by the composition each player's army is bound to change. Drakes can really take advantage of this by adjusting the alignment of their units according to ToD.

ToD is switching from night/dawn/morning soon? You can attack with saurians and have them do damage while they still have their ToD bonus. Getting them killed isn't that bad since they wont be very useful during the daytime anyway. If they happen to survive, then have them heal while drakes fight the daytime battle, they can be used later during the next night. On top of that, recruit a few drakes as daytime approaches.

All of this makes together allows the drake army to almost switch "polarity" as ToD changes.

Making this switch correctly allows drakes to keep the pressure for 4 turns even.
silent
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Joined: February 20th, 2009, 5:53 am

Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by silent »

Hmm been a while since I've played this matchup but I think a few people here are underestimating the importance of saurians, somewhat.

I'd almost have the oracle over the flare in terms of leveling importance as it levels quicker, and makes it so much harder for elves to defend when you can unleash high magical damage to cut through their forest defence at any time but day. The small healing too can make a fair bit of difference, allowing your units to fight on longer. Being able to break defensive lines or force elves back further is not something to be underestimated, and even though the flare can do a very good job of this as well, his leadership means stuff all if you can't hit a target.

Additionally, unless your opponent has been quite lucky to get an unusual amount of strong fighters, skirmishers are a real pain, as their good evasion and pierce resistance make them rather hard for archers to take them down, and fighters too, to a lesser extent, unless strong, as only strong fighters can take advantage of the 10% blade weakness saurians have. Being able to land an extra blow on an important unit too, similar to the fencer of the loyalists, is not something to underestimate either.
Huumy
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Joined: October 15th, 2009, 9:52 pm

Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by Huumy »

silent wrote:I'd almost have the oracle over the flare in terms of leveling importance as it levels quicker, and makes it so much harder for elves to defend when you can unleash high magical damage to cut through their forest defence at any time but day.
It's true that saurians level easier, but in "what units you want to level" I listed the units in order I think is best choice to level up if possible. In other words, how easy it is to level units don't matter in my listing. So you are right that saurians are easier to level and it's easy to finish things with augurs so they level up often.
silent wrote:Being able to break defensive lines or force elves back further is not something to be underestimated, and even though the flare can do a very good job of this as well, his leadership means stuff all if you can't hit a target.
So here's the thing. Leadership gives all of your level 1 units 25% more damage, so how I usually use the leadership units is just moving around the attacking units so they make more damage. So if you have 1 drake flare alive all you can boost all of your augurs to do more damage. I think the damage is less than level 2 augur, but still if you have more than one level 1 augur you do decent magical damage. That's why I think the leadership ability is so good. :)
"And the girl that you want is directly out in front, And she’s waving her caboose at you, You sneeze achoo, She calls you out and boom!"
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silent
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Re: How to play - Drakes vs Rebels - Huumy

Post by silent »

Huumy wrote:
silent wrote:I'd almost have the oracle over the flare in terms of leveling importance as it levels quicker, and makes it so much harder for elves to defend when you can unleash high magical damage to cut through their forest defence at any time but day.
It's true that saurians level easier, but in "what units you want to level" I listed the units in order I think is best choice to level up if possible. In other words, how easy it is to level units don't matter in my listing. So you are right that saurians are easier to level and it's easy to finish things with augurs so they level up often.

My bad, Should've realised that meaning.
silent wrote:Being able to break defensive lines or force elves back further is not something to be underestimated, and even though the flare can do a very good job of this as well, his leadership means stuff all if you can't hit a target.
So here's the thing. Leadership gives all of your level 1 units 25% more damage, so how I usually use the leadership units is just moving around the attacking units so they make more damage. So if you have 1 drake flare alive all you can boost all of your augurs to do more damage. I think the damage is less than level 2 augur, but still if you have more than one level 1 augur you do decent magical damage. That's why I think the leadership ability is so good. :)
Hmm well at night, Oracle and 1 augur = maximum of 48 damage (10 * 3 + 6 * 3)
Vs 2 augurs under leadership = 42 (7 * 6)
Still you do make a good point, your option should normally remove stubborn elves from their forests anyways, due to their low HP.
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