Faction/leader choices - random?

[Astoria]

[Aelaris]

Weakness to leader-ganking is an interesting metric to apply to leader choices. As loyalists, I do this a lot, and as Knalgans, I've used the threat of a suicidal Urf to force a good defense for a marksman. I'd really like to see a chart of when an Urf has what chance against which leaders, but since that takes work, here's stuff for the Horsemen.

Off the top of my head, Horsemen do 9-2 damage, which is 11-2 during the day (Kinda like Grunts), and 22-2 on the attack. Therefore, with two hits, a non-strong Horsemen can do 44 damage. Against someone with 60% defense (i.e. on a castle), that has a 14% chance of hitting. With two horsemen, you would have a 52.4% chance of two hits.

(Not counting any lead-up, since that requires a sustained attack of the leader. If the leader is silly, and gets hurt, then so much the better. I think something happened to leader traits, but quick reduces health, and strong brings the damage of one of your horsement up to 24-2)

So that's 44 piercing damage. Who dies?
(Bolding popular ones)

For the racially drake lvl 2s:
Sky Drake dies, but isn't a leader (or at least I never got it on random). All other (racially) Drake leaders have enough health to overcome their weakness - barely. Also, it's not 16% and 52.4%, it's 36% and 82%... and for two horsemen, a good 47.5% chance to hit three times.

Dwarves:
No racially dwarf dwarves die to two horsemen hits. Thunderer comes close, with 44 HP, but is resistant to pierce, because dwarves are awesome.

Elves:
Hoo boy... Elvish Marksman, Ranger, Rider, Druid, and Sorceress all can be ganked by a suicidal horseman. Hero and Champion are the only ones who aren't.

Humies:
Dark sorcerer, surprisingly, has 48 HP. Can die to a strong horseman, but to have good odds you need two, and that's unlikely. (Of course, 16% to end game isn't really horrible.

Duelist, Red Mages and White Mages have less than 44 HP. And I thought DAs were the fragile ones...

Lieutenants and Trappers both have 40 HP, leaving them fair prey.

Orcs:
Crossbowman and Slayer, unsurprisingly. Note that with the slayer, even with two horsemen, your CTK is only 34%

Saurians:
Not sure on the rounding. 20% resistance is .8 damage, which brings 22 to 18? That's 36 from two hits? If that's the case, then they all die anyway. 29 HP for a level 2 is abysmal, and the lowest I have seen.

Trolls:
Haha, no.

Undead:
Not a problem against pierce.

Woses:
Of course not.

* * * * *

So what does this all mean? Well, I'm a ganky loyalist player, so I did this all from my perspective, but revealing your leader and choosing those means you'll have to play a little more defensively against Loyalists, negating the benefits of strong ranged attacks, leadership, and healing. Keep your leader 10 hexes away from the edge of your sight, to avoid awkward surprises.

(Also, if you want to deal damage, the Red Mage is probably better than the Elvish Marksman. Less flimsy, more damage, better damage type (Elves have piercing covered).)

[Caphriel]

(Also, if you want to deal damage, the Red Mage is probably better than the Elvish Marksman. Less flimsy, more damage, better damage type (Elves have piercing covered).)

Red mage does 8-4. Marksman does 9-4. Also, the marksman has 6MP and a better move type, which makes a bigger difference. On a lot of maps, the marksman can reach most villages in one less turn than the red mage, reducing the total number of turns spent not recruiting by two in many cases.

[Aelaris]

(Also, if you want to deal damage, the Red Mage is probably better than the Elvish Marksman. Less flimsy, more damage, better damage type (Elves have piercing covered).)

Red mage does 8-4. Marksman does 9-4. Also, the marksman has 6MP and a better move type, which makes a bigger difference. On a lot of maps, the marksman can reach most villages in one less turn than the red mage, reducing the total number of turns spent not recruiting by two in many cases.

Marksman hits with 60% accuracy on the offense, doing 9-4, for an average of 21.6 damage. Red Mage hits with 70% accuracy all of the time, doing 8-4, for an average of 22.4 damage. Now, the Marksman can do more damage, if the opponent is on 30% terrain, but I find that to be sufficiently infrequent. Add to that your opponents will be generally be avoiding units that are weak to pierce, and, well, I still think that the Red Mage does more damage.

The 6MP and better move type do make a difference, but I guess I've killed enough leaders, particularly Elvish Marksmen, to feel uncomfortable using a Marksman offensively.

[Caphriel]

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant by "more damage." My mistake.

[Aelaris]

No, my bad - I was referring to theoretical damage throughout the post, and then switched over to practical damage for only the last sentence.

I would also like to make the shout-out that the Silver Mage leader is somewhat broken on large multiplayer maps. Significantly better than the other loyalist leaders. Just saying.

[TheCripple]

There is no Silver Mage leader - Silver Mages are level 3, and you can only get them if you level up a Red Mage. Given that leaders shouldn't be seeing all that much combat anyways, and the mage line isn't exactly low on experience requirements, it's a non issue.

[Desertofsounds1]

There is no Silver Mage leader - Silver Mages are level 3, and you can only get them if you level up a Red Mage. Given that leaders shouldn't be seeing all that much combat anyways, and the mage line isn't exactly low on experience requirements, it's a non issue.

Aelaris was propably just talking about Age of Heroes.

[maredi316]

Random is my favorite.

Okay, it sucks when you are the faction you least want to be (Knalgans for me) but otherwise, they are alright and are generally acceptable due to the fact that the opponent will waste much gold on general units because they do not know what they are facing.
For example, the spearman is very effective against virtually everything but undead, so the average person spends 2-3 on them. However, this is mostly useless against skeletons, which means they would have wasted about 14-28 gold on unneeded spearmen.(one spearman is effective even against undead to kill stupid wandering DA, cover villages, use as meat shields)
Also, it prevents the mass production of specialized units. Specialized units are deployed when the enemy finds out what your faction is, which retards their arrival time to the battlefield. This is useful if you are using a mobile faction like the Rebels or the Drakes.

The problem is you get crappy leaders at times. Stuff like the Trapper, Necrophage, Elder Wose, Orcish crossbowman etc