regiment composition in HttT?

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cheerful coffin
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Joined: May 27th, 2006, 6:59 pm

regiment composition in HttT?

Post by cheerful coffin »

Basically this is my regiment composition. (my army, sadly enough, usually consists of <=2 regiments since money is an issue)

6 meatshield in front. This is because most units have movement around 6. Thus, I can avoid my force being too spread out.

5 units at the back, including:
2 flank units (cavalry or troops with >= 6 movements)
1 healer
1 captain/backup meatshield
1 heavy damage dealer (mage for undead or sharpshooter for cavalry)

and some scouts/gythons depending on the map.

I'm not quite sure if this is good or not. Maybe you guys can take a look and comment?
Flametrooper
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Post by Flametrooper »

Sounds okay to me. I usually have about 3 groups. One is led by Konrad and contains Delfador, and is my main group. The other two are lead by an elf captain/marshal, healed by a shaman or white mage, and contain basic units. Usually I also organize said 3 groups by race: elves, dwarves, etc. with what humans I have (mage, horse, outlaws) put in also. These three groups split up and operate independently, going through different areas of the map, and then regrouping into 1 big group when I reach the enemy leader or big center of battle.
hey.
williamager
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Post by williamager »

More information would be helpful. What meatshields are you using? By regiment, do you mean that you keep your units split up into groups like these? If you do, I would advise against it.

It sounds to me like you have too many meatshields, and not enough ranged. Ranged units are your factions forte. I generally recruit quite a few mages, and somewhat fewer archers. Although low hp, mages can effectively fight against just about everything you deal with in HttT. I generally have at least three or four for most scenarios. 4 silver mages can provide heavy damage dealing just about anywhere on the map in one turn.

I'm also not sure that the flanking units are necessary. Flanking isn't the greatest idea in Wesnoth, since it can easily result in the flanking units getting slaughtered, and provides little advantage for attacking. I would focus more on ranged and healing units.

Most importantly, tune your composition heavily to the situation. This, by far, is the most important advice, and is not limited to getting units of the proper race. If you are against enemies with poison, hire quite a few more healers. On a large map, hire more scouts than usual, especially if you have silver mages. If the terrain is not friendly, hire more meatshields. Use units with multiple purposes, too: Avengers can act as meatshields and ranged; Knights can act as scouts, meatshields, and heavy hitters; captains/marshals can act as leadership and meatshields, and so on. Don't segregate the purposes of your units so much. I've even used Arch and Grand Mages as meatshields before.

Unfortunately, replays aren't working in my SVN version, and I lost my most recent run-through, so I can't tell you what my composition was. But if I recall correctly, for dwarven doors, on medium, I had something like 1 marshall, 1 avenger, three elvish riders, four silver mages, an arch mage, a red mage, a hero, and probably two mages, three fighters, and a knight. So by your classification, I had 6 meatshields (Kalenz + Konrad), 7 heavy damage dealers, two healers, and four flank units (I may have had a horseman in training, too). The large size of the map and my large silver mage contingent led me to recruit quite quite a few scouts, and the good availability of good defensive terrain caused me to recruit more ranged units and fewer meatshields.[/list]
cheerful coffin
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Post by cheerful coffin »

my meatshield consists of level 1 fighters that I can use to throw away or as bait, and level 3 Elven champions since they won't die and inflict heavy damage in both range and melee. My elite avenger corps, initially recruited because of the forest terrain in the first scenario, usually on the flank in the later scenarios.

Regiment is just a way to keep track of what I should be training. i.e. if I have a regiment of what I want already, I will train another healer for the next regiment. I was planning to have the regiment operated independently. Yet, most of the time because of the hilly terrain, I have to form a long frontline and slowly advance my troops (e.g. crossroads).

But I agree with you that I am using a lot of meatshield. Yet a frontline of sacrificial/die-hard units is almost a necessity due to hilly terrain and orcs/trolls. Perhaps forming a third line, comprised with elite quick damage dealing troops (e.g. quick avenger), would remedy the situation?

oh btw, have you defeated all enemies on Dwarven doors? Is it even possible to fight on 3-fronts? I just ran for my life.
kiet
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Post by kiet »

I did,but it costed me an assasin when I tried to backstab the last Orcish Warlord.
Brrr.............he got quite a counter attack.
williamager
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Post by williamager »

It sounds like a major part of your problem is using Avengers as heavy ranged units. Avengers are actually very weak ranged units, and are further hurt by having neither marksman nor magical. Red mages or marksmen can usually do more ranged damage than Avengers because of the chance to hit - on 50% defense, an Avenger will deal 20 on average, whereas a Red Mage will deal 22.4, and a Marksman will deal 21.6. Also, resistances for pierce are generally higher than for fire, making the red mage even better. Avengers are essentially useless for ranged against undead.

You also should think about using Marshals instead of Champions for your front line. Marshals give +50% attack to adjacent level 1s - a Marshal assisted Fighter has a more powerful attack than a Captain. You also might want to rotate out units more often, and not let as many of them die. You can fill gaps in your ZoC with other units like Shydes and stronger mages - don't use meatshields exclusively for this. In addition, use ranged units for meatshields when facing enemy ranged units - the enemy will attack much more reluctantly, and will take much more damage if attacking (or will attack with a pitiful melee).

I have killed all of the leaders in Dwarven Doors before. I sent most of my troops to the east orc, and sent a few to the SW orc. I captured most of the villages on the map with three or four riders, and then used four silver mages to teleport around and kill off the two western orcs. Interestingly enough, Konrad was able to walk to the NE entrance alone, without being attacked. The strategy of teleporting silver mage assassins apparently can work very well in cases where you want to do something strange - I have heard that someone actually killed Li'sar in Ford of Abez with the strategy.
cheerful coffin
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Post by cheerful coffin »

:shock: you manage to train 4 silver mages? How can you have enough decent units to protect all those mages while they are leveling up? Are you playing on hard?

lol I was planning to get more captains and avenger. Unfortunately, my experienced units come with quick trait quite often, so I need to make them champion/avengers in order to withstand the onslaught in hard scenarios (e.g. Valley of the Dead & the siege of Elesefar)
williamager
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Post by williamager »

cheerful coffin wrote::shock: you manage to train 4 silver mages? How can you have enough decent units to protect all those mages while they are leveling up? Are you playing on hard?

lol I was planning to get more captains and avenger. Unfortunately, my experienced units come with quick trait quite often, so I need to make them champion/avengers in order to withstand the onslaught in hard scenarios (e.g. Valley of the Dead & the siege of Elesefar)
I was playing on medium. By Dwarven Doors, if I recall correctly, I had four silver mages, a white mage, a mage of light, an arch mage, a red mage, and a few mages. Obviously, I spent a considerable amount of my kills levelling mages - I only had one level 3 elvish fighter (a marshal), and no levelled elvish archers, for example. During Siege of Elensefar I recruited somewhere around 6 new mages in addition to the ones I already had.

As I said before, Avengers are not good at withstanding onslaughts, and are also poor attackers. They are made weaker because of ambushing in order to maintain balance, so most units are stronger. I usually only have one Ranger by VotD - I put him in the eastern forest, and leave him there with a few other elves while my other units kill off the two western leaders. But I wouldn't use them as primary units, especially in scenarios without large forests. They are primarily useful for sneaking up on lone units. Try using more mages - you will be quite impressed.
Flametrooper
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Post by Flametrooper »

You don't need very many white magi, even. Level up a few shamans for healing instead of mages to white, they level faster and woodlandfloat movetype + cure + slow is good. Keep ~2-3 white magi or MoL for undeads, but otherwise, elves are naturally better healers.
hey.
cheerful coffin
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Post by cheerful coffin »

Level up a few shamans for healing instead of mages to white, they level faster and woodlandfloat movetype + cure + slow is good. Keep ~2-3 white magi or MoL for undeads, but otherwise, elves are naturally better healers.
yep white mage needs too many xp, and it is only good against undead, and he is slow. Shyde, on the other hand, helps a lot when I want to secure a beachhead since she can fly/float (e.g. princess of Wesnoth)
Avengers are not good at withstanding onslaughts, and are also poor attackers.
lol what else can I do when the first scenario is a forest map + I have to kill things before my allies do :p? So I simply recruited 4 archers and 2 fighters. The archers become experienced (2 leveled up and 1 is very close to advance) by the end of the 1st scenarios, and then there is a loyal archer given in the crossroads scenario. (not that I mind that much, since it's a freebie :D)

So I pretty much end up recalling them in many scenarios. Now I have so many units to recall that I end up training a few units only. I was planning to train another mage. However, right now I have to train the fighter who already has half of the required xp when being a meatshield. (I don't even know how it happens.)

EDIT: I remember what happened. Konrad, a level 3 lord, is next to the fighter.
Last edited by cheerful coffin on June 14th, 2006, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
kiet
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Post by kiet »

Avengers are not good at withstanding onslaughts, and are also poor attackers.
The Avenger was meant to be flexible to use as it has almost balanced attacks.
And they are not weaker than the Sharpshooter out in open plain as it can attack with it melee and defend with its ranged.
But of course,if both are in forest the avenger is at a dissadvantage.
Kel
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Post by Kel »

Well, ambush helps a lot, especially in large forests. Most of my archers in HTTT go ranger->avenger line, especially since I favor mages. (So I recruit archers as hybrid fighters/semitanks.) By the end, I generally have 1 Sharpshooter and 3ish Avengers. I find that Avengers hold the line just fine, as long as you're not anchoring your line with them, even on the last level with all those lvl 3's.

My Silver mages and Arch Mages pretty much pick up the slack in ranged damage, and for everything else there's always Grand Knights. In campaigns, I generally favor mages over archers because the difference in initial recruiting cost (which balances the two in MP) is trivialized by upkeep and recall cost.

Re: healers, I usually have two Mages of Light to illuminate for my horsemen, one Shyde for mobile healing, and 3-4 Dryads for the rest of my healing needs. I really recommend leaving the majority of your healers at l2, since most of the upgrades they get at l3 aren't worth the experience and hassle of getting them there. And the upkeep, of course.
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn »

In HttT, I make archers, if strong and dexterous into rangers, if only dexterous, than sharpshooters. Quick is okay for both, though I prefer quick semi-mages, and resilient rangers... mages are more expensive, and weaker defensively than elves--no good defense in forest/worse melee. After ariund 3-4 sharpshooters i go for all avengers though...

With fighters, get only 1-2 captains, they are great for leading "regiments", but heroes are better, as you have Konrad already--8champions make killng horsies really fun later on.

I generally have only one regiment (I am still trying to find minimum units needed--so far I'm at 4-8 plus whoever is there at scenario beginning--I get no gold, and over-use healers/villages)

It consists generally of 3 "fighters" (One leader, if there are weaker units and two fighting ones), a "white" mage, "red" mage, "shaman", and "sorceress"* sometimes a horse, but not always needed.

*however advanced they actually are
...please remember that "IT'S" ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS" and "ITS" IS WHAT YOU USE TO INDICATE POSSESSION BY "IT".--scott

this goes for they're/their/there as well
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