New faction... sounds familiar?

[Derkej]

I bet yes, but here's a suprise: I (almost) have the basic pictures and hope You can help me with stats for units, names etc.
BTW. Hello everybady, it seems that I am new on this site.
So, actually I was working on some faction that would be balanced to play with default. No strange abilities, no OP units... Maybe some of You have played Evil Faith. Faction that I drew now, was to be the third faction, Lux, for my 1st add-on . But then I understood that Evil Faith is too odd with it's stats and abilities so I decided to create one, but decent faction to play with default. I don't know if the pictures are ok, but I hope You tell me what is wrong or what I need to change eventually. Evil Faith's units was drawed in franken method, but this time I drew all the units from zero. So, here they are:

Spoiler:

-First unit is a standard melee fighter (about x-3 dmg with sword, maybe), as You can see, he has two paths of advancement: one is unit with great-sword, I want to give him x-1 melee attack so that he could kill enemy with one strike, like dwarvish ranged unit. The second one is "shielder", he fights with two sharp shields instead of sword. He could have two similar attacks but one with blade, and second with impact damage.
-Next unit is chakram fighter- base ranged unit, but also good in melee combat. I was thinking about three attacks for him: chakram ranged, chakram melee and some kind of wind magic, but rather weak- he is not a mage after all.
-Then we have a special unit, that can be recruited from level 2 and advances to level 4. This is Mitrai's commander but I think it is too OP to give them recruitable unit with lvl 2 & leadership, so i think maybe on lvl 2 he should have some other ability that will stay with him to the 4 lvl? I was thinking about initiate from "Heir to the Throne" campaign- it could be original ability for Mitrai, like, e.g. berserk for Knalgans.
-Next unit is kind of harasser, with short-sword melee attack and darts ranged attack. I wanted him be a bit similar to ninja but I'm afraid that he look to European-style. He could have nightstalk but i think this ability is too powerful for lvl 1 unit.
-And then, we have a mage unit but this mage is more like monk- he fight only with fists, no firebolts or other stuff. Fist attack will have "magical" special. I think he could be also more resistant to some damage types.
-The last unit is spectral warrior-Mitrai's ancestor. This unit will have ghost movement type I think, so he would be better on water terrain, than others. I think he will have an arcane attack with sword. This unit will have 3 lvl's but whenever I try to draw higher lvl, picture looks much weaker than lvl 1.
-There also should be some scout unit so I decided to make horseman, but I have no idea what he should have on the first level- I already tried to draw some east-like horseman with sword, but he was terrible and now I have no vein to draw missing units or some alternate advancements.

I wanted them to look like some faction from east, e.g. feudal japan, but with absolutely no historical background. I'm not shure, if I made it right.
My faction is called Mitrai Empire but it can be changed anytime- if U have any other ideas, just write it.
The intension was to create faction focused on powerful melee attacks. Mitrai don't use any bows (propably becouse bows are dishonorable weapons).
They live far away from wesnoth, I think somewhere beyond the ocean-they are great navigators and possessed the power of wind in a measure. They sailed to the Wesnoth becouse it is their legacy.
I want them to be lawful and neutral units.
Their homeland is warm place with lots of steppes and lack of mountains or forest (I hope no one before me do not invented a similar background for his faction;) ).
This is basic movement type for mitrai at the moment:

Spoiler:

[movement_costs]
shallow_water=2
reef=1
swamp_water=2
flat=1
sand=2
forest=2
hills=2
mountains=3
village=1
castle=1
cave=2
frozen=4
fungus=1
[/movement_costs]
[defense]
shallow_water=70
reef=60
swamp_water=80
flat=50
sand=70
forest=50
hills=60
mountains=60
village=40
castle=40
cave=60
frozen=90
fungus=40
[/defense]
[resistance]
blade=100
pierce=90
impact=100
fire=90
cold=120
arcane=80
[/resistance]

It can be changed as well, if You think it is overpowered or something.
Next question is, whether they should be human race or Mitrai race? Can I give them human race with my own names (I think they should have east-like names)?
Like I said before, I have no unit-names and stats, I want to hear Your opinion/propositions about everything.

I hope You can help me, regards

[axefighterr]

Looks really good. Keep working on it!

[eloelo80]

Their homeland is warm place with lots of steppes and lack of mountains or forest

and defenses:
shallow_water=70
reef=60
swamp_water=80
cave=60
frozen=90 (wtf?)

I think is exaggerate, apart of tell me: each fraction have horseman? And if bows are dishonorable so why they use darts and shurikens? Maybe in their steppes honor is other think?

I've just never seen fraction like this one, and you done good job so far

Good luck!

[Dixie]

Looks really good! Some comments:

The last unit, the ghost-like thing, might effectively look a bit much for a lv1, hence your problem with drawing levels ups. Maybe make this one a level 2 and create a new lv 1, a bit shorter, with a shorter sword, shorter scarf...?

A recruitable Lv2 leader effectively sounds pretty OP to me. He graphically shares a lot of traits with your fighter (first unit), maybe make him an advancement path of that one? It's a bit standard, but meh. If you want it to be relatively easily obtainable, you could make your fighters require quite few XP to level (24? 18?) but be kinda brittle to compensate. In conjonction with no healers, this could make for a very interesting mechanic.

Depending on the versatility you want your faction to have, it is relatively standard for factions to have 6-8 recruitable units (IIRC). If you merge the leader, you have 5. You also absolutely need a recruitable scout, i.e. a unit with at least 8 movement points. I think however the faction might lack a bit variety, maybe have an additional advancement line or two. Although not having variety could be a design choice (like Northerners), but is it?

Scout: I tend to think horse riders are pretty common, it would be very interesting if it was something else. Now, I have no idea what your faction's theme is aside from it being rather dark, so i'm just gonna throw some ideas out there: A lizard rider? A small spirit? A ghost rider (can be a ghost horse if you want)? A crow? A lizard or lizard rider? Just a nimble runner type, like the footpad? Some kind of giant worm or Chtuluh-esque flyer? A gargoyle?

Fighter: Keep in mind that RIPWLIB (IIRC), by which I mean, have an advancement path that has at least as many strikes as your lv1. Also, I'd exaggerate your strong 1-hitter's sword. Make it bigger. Way bigger. Like Cloud Strife, ridiculously unusable bigger. Or change is for a giant axe if you prefer. But right now, your sprite doesn't scream "I HAVE ONLY ONE STRIKE AND YOU BETTER HOPE IT DOESN'T HIT!". I think the elvish champion has a bigger sword than this. This definitely won't do OUTCLASS THE ELVES! Lol

Ninja: Please, pretty pretty please, do not make this an orcish assassin clone. Fine something to make him different. Anything. A special ability like hit-and-run (having movement points left even after an attack) but not poison/marksman to compensate? Some kind of concealement ability, like bieng invisible in mountains, at day whatever? Having a special attack type, like cold-darts (could be justified by being some form of freezing poison)? Maybe they could even inflict slow? Just throwing ideas out there.


After that, it depends how you want your faction to play, how you want it to feel, which should be closely related to its theme. Often, a faction is defined not by what it has or is, but by what it lacks. If you grossly analyse mainline factions, loyalists have variety (a lot of recruitables!) there are relative all-rounders, but are a bit standard; Undeads generally lack mobility and are kinda inflexible; Northies have some cheap units, they can swarm, but they absolutely lack variety and their specializations are expensive; Knalgans lack healers, but they are though. They also take longer to level. They have lots of hyper-specialiazed niche units; Drakes lack variety too, they are big, strong, mobile, but expensive. Etc. How about your faction? How would you define its play-style in a sentence or two?

Also take note that what heavily defines a faction is its staple unit. And this goes in the sense that "factions are balanced against factions, not units vs units". All factions have an hyper-cost-effective unit which is its staple, a unit you will likely see a lot. But its weaknesses also define how you faction plays, and making up for it is generally harder or more expensive. For exemple, loyalists have the spearman. Good piercing attack & HP for the price, but it is one dimensional, not so mobile and lacks range. Northies have the grunt and troll. Good HP, very cheap, but below-average offense, kinda slow, and no range. Etc. Which of your units will it be? What is your faction specialized at? At they mostly ninjas or monks with a bit of an organized military to support their covert ops? Are they sword fighters at heart, chakra throwers? This might not be universal, but this staple unit might be the one to seem to get the most love, too, design-wise. Have the most advancement paths or something s an added incentive to have more of these units.

Ok, so a few more ideas for things to define your factions or elements you might consider adding:

Having the ninja being your staple unit could be interesting. Since it generally is more a support unit, making it a central one could be unsettling and rather unique. It would be harder for your faction to control land and hold points, you would have to rely on mobility and guerrilla tactics more.

The graphics don't really fit, sadly, but it could be interesting that your leadership unit levelled up from your ninja, if it were your staple unit. Keep in mind that leadership means that this unit has weight in its society, it is an important individual. Nobody would think of making poachers, fencers or orcish archer the leader of their societies (except for the odd hero). It is not necessarily a must-be (seeing how it's not the rebels' case), but having your leadership units level from your staple unit sure ays a lot to me, anyway.

I said something earlier about how your fighter unit could be relatively brittle but advance quickly. It could be an interesting trait to have "across" the faction. Maybe not on ALL units, but if 2 or 3 of the main ones had it, it would certainly give a special feel. It might go well with the ninja being the staple, too. In conjonction with no healer, it would be interesting. Attack to upgrade to heal; it would necessitate an aggressive play-style. Lower HPs also means less healing downtime on villages, it would go well with a mobile faction.

To go with relatively brittle units, of course a relatively high attack would be important, but be wary of not going overboard. Also, since they would have little HPs and not much in the way of healing, giving slow somewhere to a Lv1 could be a big help. It would also reduce the opponent's mps, helping you outmaneuver him. I don't think any other mainline unit has slow on a melee attack; something to consider, maybe?

Also keep in mind that aggressive guerilla tactics usually go better with ranged attacks, since you can more often pick at ennemies without retaliation. Your faction, however, seems in majority melee-centered, however, but this could be alleviated by making your staple more range oriented. Like it it were your ninjas - make it's melee a makeshift attack and have its ranged one be the most interesting. Even if darts don't scream "DPS badass", they could have an invaluable effect or something. Like cold-slow, for instance. You could also make you chakras a good, averagely cost-effective unit, to ensure it is widely used.

Also try for each unit and advancement path to have a purpose, to have a use aside from looking cool or existing. Sticking to the brittle ninja-oriented faction, an interpretation could be: Your fighter is what it has closest to a tank. It's not a very good tank, but it make does; your chakra thrower is your main damage output; Your ninja is a good damage output, could make do as a scout and is your main defence mechanism with slow; the monk would be your sniper to remove unit from hardpoints; the last one, I'm a bit at a loss with. Maybe make him your scout? If not, have him use a specialized damage type that would help balance the faction in certain match ups or something, an alternative to your fighter...

A few considerations / ideas following this interpretation:

If your fighter is intended to be the "tank" but you want it relatively brittle, have it have discouraging attacks. The heavy 1-strike is particularly effective in this regard. It will not be a tank so much as it will be able to take a lot of punishment, but because it will always be a bargain to attack it. Maybe instead of making his attack x-3, make it something like 10-2? For this to work, however he would have to have something similar in range. Unless you created an ability that gave him resistance boosts against range to make up for it (justified by its shield?).Or, alternative to all this, keep the x-3 attack but give him an ability that noticeably boosts his resistances on defence.

There also are some considerations if the monk is a niche sniper. First off, a lot of hex-holding tanks will have decent melee counter-attacks, so you'd want your monk to be able to survive them (although slowing its target would make up for it some). But you do not want him to become your main tank, especially with such a discouraging melee counter! There are many ways to go about this, depending on your preference: maybe it has an ability boosting its resistances on offense only? Maybe he'd make a decent tank but has a rather steep cost to make up for it? In any case, this particular unit should not fit the "brittle but level up quickly" scheme too much, because he will both need decent HPs and rack in exp.

Maybe this would fit better someplace else in my post, but I'm just thinking about it now, so: your faction also lacks water-control. You don't need to have a water-dedicated unit like the naga or mermen, but you at least need some way of surveying it. Undeads have bats (and ghosts to some extent), Knalgans have gryphon riders and poachers (in swamp), drakes can almost all fly even if they suck when over water, etc. How will you blend this in? Will it be your ghost-like unit? Or a flying scout / non-water-blocked rider (like on some kind of giant worm or snake)?

Other thing not seen in mainline, berserk on a ranged attack. Be wary that this would be very, very strong (because tons of units don't have a ranged attack or a weak one), so maybe keep it for a level two, and make the attack something kinda lame, like 4-3 or 5-2.

Another idea I had when I read your shield unit description (lv2), maybe some form of "protect", where it would take a fraction of an adjacent allied unit's damage in its place? Or more blandly just boost adjacent units resistances. Although the sprite doesn't suggest that to me, it would need a bigger shield (draw more focus towards it).

So to sum it up a bit; before writing anything else down, try to think about your faction as a whole. What,s its background? What are its traits? Are they passive, aggressive, versatile and resourceful, strong and honorable or cunning and deceitful, etc. How will it generally play as whole? What will its strengths and weaknesses be? What will its staple unit be? It should reflect as much as possible everything you have decided on previously. Other units have to fit in and complement it. Design no unit just for the sake of it, each unit or advancement path should have an intended purpose.

In any event, this all seems very promising! Good work on the sprites, good luck with the faction, and don't hesitate if you want to keep brainstorming ideas!

Also, if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend Velensk's faction designing guide.

(and sorry for the wall of text, I got carried away )

[GL_Network]

and defenses:
shallow_water=70
reef=60
swamp_water=80
cave=60
frozen=90 (wtf?)

I think is exaggerate, apart of tell me: each fraction have horseman? And if bows are dishonorable so why they use darts and shurikens? Maybe in their steppes honor is other think?

You seem to have forgotten the WML defense value is the opposite of what it is in game, so frozen=90 means they'll have 10% defense on frozen hexes.

It is still probably too low, they will be worse than anything else on frozen maps (and seriously, 4 MP per square? Are they coldblooded or something? It's on par with that of a saurian). I also think they should have at least 40% defense on sand if they are supposed to live in warm places and steppes.

[iceiceice]

He could have nightstalk but i think this ability is too powerful for lvl 1 unit.

You made me think with this comment. It occurred to me that if your faction had for example a level 1 scout with nightstalk, I don't see that it couldn't be balanced with stats / cost adjustment, and it could possibly have a huge impact on how you have to play against them, especially in the first night.

In fact it might make a big change in how you would have to play esp. during the first night in random vs. random if you played Default+Mitra era. I'm not sure what would be the maps where this would be the strongest either.

It would be unusual in that it would be the first faction I know of which is lawful-neutral and with nightstalk units, although there's nothing wrong with that... you might also consider making some of the units liminal like the Khalifate?

Anyways I don't know, you just made me think about it

[Velensk]

The problem with stealth abilities, especially on fast units is that they create known unknowns which are a kind of information really hard to balance in wesnoth.
-The problem is that even if the unit is really weak, forcing a player to take into account that there may be a really fast unit in a wide area without any solid way of finding out is like asking them to play a guessing game, frequently without much reward for being right (other than not being wrong) and punishing them for guessing wrong. It's not a fun situation to be in as the other player. It's also not a power that's easy to balance just with stats because stats work somewhat on another demension.

That said, it is possible to do stuff with it. I'll use the two mainline stealth abilities as examples and then bring it back around to some ways to work around it.
-The two factors to take into account are how much impact not being sure where the unit is has on how you play (which is generally proportional to what the unit can do) and how hard it is to get knowledge to protect yourself with/on the flip side how hard it is to conceal this knoweldge.

In mainline the two recruitable stealth traits are ambush (on wose) and submerge (on skeletons).
-Not being sure where the wose is has a huge impact because the wose is a fairly strong unit and it showing up where you don't want it can be devestating. However, to balance this out, wose stealth only works on forests (and mainline maps avoid creating huge clumps of forest) and woses are also slow. A player fighting rebels only needs to worry about patches of forest that are outside his vision range and are not too far away from last known wose positions. Woses being slow make it hard to conceal them too far forward and as woses are expensive you can frequently guess that there are some woses when he's sitting back on defense with too few units (especially if as rebels he is not occupying critical forests). It ends up being a slight perk for the wose that can occasionally create a surpising ambush)
-Submerge on skeletons is a different story. Unlike woses who like forests under every circumstance, skeletons don't fancy deep water and are terribly vulnerable if caught in it. They are also very slow, so even if there are large patches of deep water, they won't be able to creep forward in it very quickly. Deep water also tends to be surrounded by shallow water which also slows skeletons a bit. On most maps, deep water isn't near anything important so it's hard to mount much of an attack from it (though you can do a decent ambush). Skeletons are generally less powerful than woses but it can still be painful to have your retreat cut off or to be attacked from a couple extra hexes when you weren't expecting it. It ends up being a very map dependant and risky ability but one which can counteract a primary undead weakness (lack of mobility).
---As a secondary side effect, if a concealed unit is not revealed and a skirmisher steps next to it the skirmishers movement is stopped as though it had a ZoC.

Nightstalk is an entirely different monster than either submerge or ambush because it isn't terrain dependant, so you can't see a shadow darting from one cave to another (or whatever). Instead, for a two turn period, you have a unit that could be anywhere within it's move radius that you havn't walked troops nearby. This is incredibly powerful and there's a reason there are no recruitable mainline units with it. As long as the position of the unit would make a difference on how you play, not knowing where it is forces you to have to guess or expend resources that would rather be doing something else to try to find out (which is a kind of guess too)

If you want to do something with it, I think there are two things you could use to counteract it. You can either diminish the damage not knowing where it is causes or you can limit how much guessing it creates.
-The first one is difficult because the position of even the weakest units in wesnoth is important. Any unit can capture a village, any unit can prevent a single unit from stealing a village for a turn. It might be interesting to create a stealth unit that couldn't capture villages (or maybe just villages owned by the enemy) thus limiting its effects to what it can do to enemy units which could be made relatively weaker by giving it poor stats.
-The second one is pretty difficult with nightstalk. Even a slow unit with nightstalk can create a lot of guessing. You might be able to make a unit that is only stealthed on it's enemies turn (so enemies can see it moving around but if they cannot see its destination then they have to guess where it went).

[siddh]

-The first one is difficult because the position of even the weakest units in wesnoth is important. Any unit can capture a village, any unit can prevent a single unit from stealing a village for a turn. It might be interesting to create a stealth unit that couldn't capture villages (or maybe just villages owned by the enemy) thus limiting its effects to what it can do to enemy units which could be made relatively weaker by giving it poor stats.

In draconian era that I'm making I have several units with different kind of stealth abilities, but for the most part I feel they're not going to be a problem. It is largely because the stealthy scouty units "owl with nightstalk", "lynx with ambush", "witness orb with day/nightstalk" can't capture villages. This is achieved through an ability (although there may be some bugs). Even despite not being able to capture villages they create the possibility of zoc trapping your opponents surprisingly in a circumstance unfavourable (But I have been considering dropping ZOC from owl/eye, not because ie. the Eye would make the faction it is in OP, but rather because that technique is mostly not how I want to create the "balance"). But the era is very much different from default and the balance scheme of the era is entirely different than in default. There are no fast units in the game and having better access to information/scouting is part of balancing the era.

Here's a suggestion you could consider:

I have this ability called "cavehide" for bats in the previously mentioned era. The idea is that the unit is only stealthed as long as it has all movement points. So regardless of the "stealth medium", this means the unit doesn't essentially have "stalk" but instead "hide". You can hide the unit but you can't move with the unit if you want it to remain undetected. Here's the code (there may be some bugs). In the case of the era, the bats hide in caves, as you might expect from bats

Code: Select all

#define ABILITY_DRACONIAN_CAVEHIDE
    [hides]
        id="draconian_cavehide"
        name= _ "Cavehide"
        female_name= _ "Cavehide"
        description= _ "This unit can hide in caves as long as it has not moved."
        affect_self=yes
		[filter]
			[filter_wml]
				moves=$this_unit.max_moves
			[/filter_wml]
		[/filter]
        [filter_self]
            [filter_location]
                terrain=Uu,Uu*^*,Uue,Uue^*, Uh, Uh*
            [/filter_location]
        [/filter_self]
    [/hides]
#enddef

To use the ability you can just change both instaces of "draconian" into "yourera" and add it to your ability macroes with whatever edits you may make of course

Ps. However I'm not saying that this alone is enough to assure the stealth ability isn't op, but the hide ability is much more easy to balance than nightstalk would be.

[Dixie]

Hide ability is very interesting and could be a good way to balance stealth. I think, however, that with such a strong limitation it should not be terrain restricted. Also, maybe instead of requiring that the unit has full movepoints to remain hidden, it could ask for the unit to have at least 5 or 6, that way a scout could still move slowly, 2-3 hexes, and remain hidden, but still cripple its mobility if he wants to be invisible.

As far as village capture, I feel that preventing it entirely would really harm the faction in mainline, as all other factions count on their scouts for early game village grabs. So maybe, as Velensk said, allow it only capture neutral (un-claimed) villages, preventing the unit from claiming enemy ones. Another alternative could be requiring that this unit passes a full turn on an enemy village to capture it, also possibly making it un-stealthed on villages. So it would be possible for it to capture villages, but it would be much less efficient in doing so than other scouts still.

[iceiceice]

Yes so on reflection, I guess Velensk is probably very much right about fast units with nightstalk being not such a great idea. It might be too hard to get balanced results on a majority of maps if you put such a powerful ability on a scout.

One reason I thought nightstalk + lawful might be a good fit is because then you won't be using it while you are fighting, the idea is rather that you use it to help run away. But on the other hand if you really had nightstalk, then you would also be using it to advance in preparation of your day-time attack as well. So maybe something like "duskstalk" would be less powerful and more specific to what I had in mind. On the other hand if you are only hidden for one turn, I guess it would make a huge difference whether you are P1 or P2 then, so it might not actually be workable for that reason.

Trying to think about factional dynamics / playstyle of the faction -- it sounds like you want to make a mainly lawful, mainly melee-oriented faction. So for instance how are these guys going to fight the drakes? Are the samurai going to end up being basically stronger / more cost effective than the melee drakes, but slower? Are the samurai weaker than the drakes and the Mitrai need to use magical attacks with special damage types? Are the samurai weaker vs pierce than blade, so that clashers are effective but fighters are less so? Are the drakes supposed to fight with fire / mobility advantages? Are the drakes supposed to be forced to make saurians? If the drakes need to make lots of skirmishers then indeed nightstalk would be a huge asset to Mitrai, because as Velensk points out this ability neuters the skirmish ability somewhat.

I think that the hide ability is potentially extremely strong, if it isn't terrain or time of day restricted. Even if the unit can't capture villages. In many maps I think it's just not feasible to "comb a region" looking for a hidden unit, and potentially devastating if there is one. Maybe one idea is to make it a recruitable level 2? Then at least if it is sitting hidden for a long time, you will be paying a lot in upkeep for it, and your opponents' units which survive an encounter would get more experience than they otherwise would. I don't know, it's just a thought.

[Derkej]

Thanks a lot for your advices and for great ability code- I really liked idea to ambush whenever unit rests. I think I already have a name for that ability- camouflage. But I must ask, is that ability is used by computer? It is very important for me that AI can use full fraction potential. And I don't wont my add-on to be simillar to Khalifate, then maybe in the future my fraction also will join default... just kidding I was reading Velensk's guide, actually this is the reason why I give up Evil Faith project and trying to do well balanced fraction. I think Mitrai should be fight masters, they trained to perfection the art of melee weapons and fighting style that leaves no uncertainty: kill or die (but in fact they aren't like crazy barbarians or vikings-they are focused and aware during combat). So, theoretically they should be an "off-tank" fraction that have a tons of damage but small amount of hp but I'm afraid that we have already a lot of fractions balanced like this. I also very liked idea to create recruitable unit that have meele slow attack- then I would give ambush to this unit and it would be great support; I think it would be Our ninja- but I have no idea what meele attack with slow could fits to spy-like unit.
What about a leadership unit? In Mitrai culture, warrior who shows the courage and determination like no else, is awarded by the Emperor with special rights-he becomes a kind of wassal; additionally he gets an special symbol- banner, which symbolizes hard, but right path through life with penance and justice, like the cross in Christian culture- and that's why in Mitrai fraction we have a leading unit, I think.
I wonder what kind of creature should be fraction's scout. The most ridiculous unit I thought about is a flying sea-devil's rider, that can, besides flying, dive into the deep water and stay invisible under it I already wanted to do graphics of it, but (maybe happily) I did not have time for this.
And what about fighting versus Drakes? As You can see, Mitrai will have +10 defense against pierce and fire and if I decide to place ghost-unit permanently in the fraction, they will also have a strong arcane-type damage. And their weakness in -20% cold damage will force Drakes to buy more augurs that are actually very weak when not covered by drakes. I lalso want to create an unit with Mitrai-version armored foot and We can play with its resistances so We can prepare that unit to fight well against the drakes. I was also thinking to change the great-sword wielders to naginata fighters- then one massive attack would fit better, I think.