How to counter Drake clashers with Rebels?

[TheGreatRings]

I was just playing a game on old Isar's Cross (75 starting gold). I was Rebels, my ally was Loyalists, and our opponent was playing both other sides I think, as drakes.

What's leaving me slightly stunned right now is that they recruited nothing but clashers the entire game. Not one single other unit. And they won.

Now before you ask, I didn't know what they were playing as, so my initial recruits were two fighters, a shaman, and a merman hunter. I also forgot to take one of my villages. I am already aware of these mistakes.

However, once I saw what I was facing, I started recruiting archers. I figured ranged + pierce damage was the best way to go vs clashers. For all the good that did me.

Now, I know I made plenty of other mistakes in this match, and that luck wasn't always on my side. But what I'm wondering is, faced with an all-clasher army, did I make the right choice in going with elvish archers as my sole response? Should I have used a different unit? Or a variety of units? Or to put it bluntly, what is the best Rebel counter to an all-clasher army?

[Pentarctagon]

archers are the best option. keep them on good terrain, such as forests, and then simply range spam. the key in a match such as this is to outlast the opponent, which shouldn't be to hard with clashers. a shaman would also be useful for the slowing effect. given the fact that the clashers can't respond to ranged attacks, and the fact that you should be on 60-70 percent terrain while they are on 30-40 percent should ensure victory in to long run. a elvish captain would be useful as well for the leadership bonus. DO NOT try and counter a drake's melee with a melee unit. a dwarf *might* be able to get away with it, but elves are no match in direct combat. a replay would be especially good to have.

[Caphriel]

On a normal, balanced map (unlike Isar's Cross), you'd take advantage of the fact that the clasher is the least maneuverable Drake unit to avoid them during the day. A mixture of archers, fighters and shamans is probably the way to go. As Pentarctagon said, you should have about twice their defense. But considering that you were playing on Isar's Cross and you can't run away from the massive clasher army during the day, I'd say maybe you'd be better off with more shamans and fighters, and trying to just slow them and let them wear themselves down attacking your fighters?

[csarmi]

Hunter was not a bad recruit either. I'd get 1-2 archers, 1-2 shamans and 1-2 hunters in total and the rest fighters. So you do 4-4 or 5-4... Who cares? They have terrible mobility over some terrains, bad defense and no ranged.

Massing archers is about the worst you can do. They do very low melee damage and they cost a lot of gold. Fighters is the way to go. Think about it. For the price of 3 clashers you can buy 3 fighters AND a shaman. Now - not taking defense into account - a fighter does about 30 damage on average (ranged attack + melee retal) while a clasher does 26. Now I did not even mention slow and having more units. Oh, and the higher defense.

[Skrim]

What is a "Hunter"? I haven't heard of any MP unit called "Elvish Hunter".

[jmegner]

What is a "Hunter"? I haven't heard of any MP unit called "Elvish Hunter".

Merman hunter:
http://www.wesnoth.org/units/1.6/C/Merman%20Hunter.html

You might want to check out the unit page; it's very useful:
http://www.wesnoth.org/units/1.6/C/mainline.html

[krotop]

As suggested before in the thread, you'll still need fighters or shamans too. How to fight a melee only army ? The most obvious plan is to try to always have them hit your melee units when it's their turn, and poke at them with range units when it's yours. The shamans are helpful to 'neutralize' a unit you can't kill, in general you don't want to slow a unit you'll intend to kill, with the exception of killing a melee based units with melee units (or in a less extend to range a ranged base unit).

[speculation]
It is also probable that you faced an experienced player wanting to have some challenge with a single unit. His recruit pattern was worst than yours, but probably a better knowledge in tactics and risk assessment made up for it.
[/speculation]

[Tonepoet]

I haven't had many problems with clashers in the past though I am noting there's a bit less forrest in the exact center, the most critical portion of Isar's cross and more in the background. This may require a change in the traditional tactics, I'm not sure. I haven't put it into practical application.

In addition to Pentarctagon's advice, which is great for an offensive strike against them, you may want to defend by attacking them with the Elvish Fighter's Bow. It's chip damage but at the very least you won't be hurting yourself in the process.

I'd say as rebels, playing as the southwestern team the defensive strategy I'd suggest is parking 2 elvish Fighters on 12,12 and 12,13 backed by a shaman on 11,14. Hopefully this will either deter their attacks or wear them down for nightfall. Switch to producing Elvish Archers and attack with them at night, preferably focusing their attacks on the same units whenever possible. This reduces the healing capacity of your opponent as units who're already at full health, cannot heal more.

You see, the Drakes and especially Clashers have very high H.P. so they're very hard to kill in a single attack. However, to make up for it they have lower defense than the average unit on just about any territory, so the H.P. is lost faster, discounting factors like resistance of course. This makes them bad in long term fights which require constant engagement like how Isar's Cross is traditionally played. Why? Because it is harder for them to refill their larger H.P. values back to maximum. Each time you engage by focusing as much damage onto clashers as you can, as long as nothing dies, you should have the longer term benefit.

Also, clashers lack the pierce weakness and speed of most drakes, making them slightly more well suited than fighters for cross since they're more defensive and have less ground to cover anyway. However, they also lack a ranged attack. Elvish fighters on the other hand don't. Keeping in line with the play defensively maxim I'm advising here, don't use the sword to fight a Clasher unless it gives you a considerably better chance to kill. You should use their bows, if you must have a fighter in that spot.

A potential flaw with this route is that it hinges very strongly on not having anything die during the day unless it's cheaper than a clasher and you can get a retaliatory kill out of it. Naturally, caution and situational analysis is advised.

[donkey_noob_trash1]

On a normal, balanced map (unlike Isar's Cross), you'd take advantage of the fact that the clasher is the least maneuverable Drake unit to avoid them during the day. A mixture of archers, fighters and shamans is probably the way to go. As Pentarctagon said, you should have about twice their defense. But considering that you were playing on Isar's Cross and you can't run away from the massive clasher army during the day, I'd say maybe you'd be better off with more shamans and fighters, and trying to just slow them and let them wear themselves down attacking your fighters?

I agree with Caph's assessment for several reasons...

1) You can't archer "spam" on Isar's, because elvish archers are too damn expensive, and if you give up even 1 village to the enemy drake army it will take you about 2 turns to buy an archer. That's just too slow of a trickle to make a big differencce.

2) Archers have too low HP and are too terrain dependent to be an effective fighting force by themselves. Let's look at a very likely scenario- the clashers raid you during the day and pull back at night. During the day, he can just send his clashers in and attack your troops that aren't hiding in the forrests and make sure that he can't be attacked by your archers from the forrest. Why would any good player beat his head against a brick wall? Just go AROUND the entrenched archers! Meanwhile, at night, you are hoping to gain some ground. But how do you gain ground on Isar's with archers? Again, moving them onto 40-50% terrain is insta-death for them... even at night. Elf archers will be doing 5 or 6 damage by 4 strikes (5-4 or 6-4) to the Clashers, while the Clashers will be doing 4 or 5 damage by 4 strikes (4-4 or 5-4) to the archers. Now, Clashers on average have about 20ish more HP than archers. Hmm... who's winning that battle??

You know, crazy recruitment styles often catch people completely off guard. In this case, I think you got kinda screwed. If your opponent randomed into drakes and spammed Clashers, you had no way to be prepared. However, sometimes when opponents do that, it totally backfires. Anyways... better luck next time against an all Clasher spam. I doubt you will ever see it again...

[fareley]

your loyalist partner should have spammed spearmen
that would have made the game more interesting
for your side, i have to admit everything i know was already said
get archer but not only archer, try to let the enemy always run into your fighter not into your archer (because as already pointed out if you get only archer you may have an advantage at your turn but his melee against your poor archer makes up for that completely), if you can use them get some merman hunter (since this will increase the size of overall terrain you can make good use of), a shaman if you want to (but remember that +4 healing won't save your archer at day against 3 clasher, just use them to ensure the safety of your archer poking at the clasher if he survives or slow clasher if it is secure to place the shaman there)
and don't forget that a slowed drake will do nearly as much damage to an archer/shaman on flat than he would do if he wasn't slowed and your archer/shaman was at the forest

[TheGreatRings]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Out of curiosity, I think I'll try using all clashers myself sometime, and see how effective it is. Maybe this game was just a fluke and I was playing badly or got unlucky or something. I'll also bear in mind the suggestion to use fighters as the bulk of my force. I figured archers would be best because of ranged plus piercing damage, but on such a small map, yes, I kind of got overwelmed before I could wear him down with ranged attacks. At least that's how it seems to me.

It was kind of shocking at the time though. I don't think I've ever even seen a one-unit army before, never mind lost to one. Also, the same player was controlling both opposing sides I think, so the opposition was entirely composed of clashers.

[Araja]

I tried an all-Goblin attack with Northerners, obviously I was hideously mauled by my opponent but he did agree it was a funny match.

In his words: "Well, that made a nice change"

[Elvish Scientist]

You will need shamans to slow the clasher you that you will kill next turn. Once you level one of them to a sorceress, you opponent has a problem.

[Pentarctagon]

a shaman will work wonders against drakes. slowing a drake basically makes it even weaker than a normal unit and with worse dodge .