How to play - Undeads vs Northeners - Huumy

[Huumy]

Undead vs Orcs (Northeners)

At best this can be nonstop fighting, at worst it's sitting in your base and massing lvl 0 units.
Units your opponent will be using is mostly trolls, archers, and grunts.

Units you are using:
----> Skeletons: These, walking corpses and ghouls are the meat of your army. Still archers and trolls kill these easily. Recruit more skeletons if your opponent goes heavy on grunts. Better at night.
----> Dark Adepts: They can really rip trough trolls and grunts. Don't over recruit, you always need stuff to protect these. Better at night.
----> Bats: Have one bat. They are good for scouting and finishing very low HP units but other than that they are useless in this matchup.
----> Walking corpses: 2-5 of these will be useful in your larger army. Good vs trolls and archers. Recruit more if your opponent dont have any grunts. Better at day. (If you are not sure how to use Walking Corpses you can also replace them with more skeletons, ghouls or ghosts).
----> Ghouls: You need 1-3 of these. Use them to poison archers and try to keep them on good terrain so they can poison the maximum amount of units in retaliation. Better at day.
----> Ghosts: Not anything you have to have but 1 ghost can become useful. Good at blocking a important hex, dies easily at night but is hard to kill at day. Good when leveled.

Basic flow of the game:
You can fight nonstop, still make sure you heal your weakened units.
-Trolls, ghosts, ghouls and walking corpses are better at day.
-Grunts, archers, skeletons and adepts are better at night.

Using time of the day: (copied from silent post)
For P1
-Begin to advance in the afternoon
-Begin attacking at dusk
-Push hard at first watch
-Retreat if possible/required at second watch

For P2
-Get within striking distance at first watch, avoid heavy casualties
-Attack at second watch
-keep attacking at dawn
-Stand ground/finish kills if possible at morning

When fighting:
----> Take the better terrain, it is really important in this matchup.
----> You want to attack full HP troll on good terrain? Use adepts.
----> Protect your adepts. Either get them on 60% def or have units to protect them.
----> Use ghouls to poison archers.
----> If you are losing the battle retreat and regroup.
----> Remember even your lvl 2 skeletons and adepts can't take much beating. Don't suicide them and give free lvl ups to your opponent.
----> Use Walking Corpses to attack archers and trolls. Also use skeletons, ghouls and ghosts with walking corpses to hold good terrain and protect your adepts.

Leveling units:
1.Ghost: You can opt to have crazy good skirmisher or solid unit with ok damage.
2.Dark Adept: More damage and HP.
3.Skeleton: More damage and HP.
What units you don't want your opponent to level.
1.Wolf rider: These guys are scouts but once they get 2 kills they turn into skeleton killing machines.
2.Troll whelp: They get more HP, damage, and movement. Fearless lvl 2 trolls are beastly.
3.Orcish archer: More damage and HP. Only needs 2 kills and few fights to level up.


Any comments are welcome.

[pauxlo]

What about skeleton archers? They seem to be a good way to attack grunts and wolves (if you can catch them).

[5dPZ]

Just a few comment:

Units to spam:
Ghoul - best defensive unit and combat starters
DA - best offensive unit

Units to have:
Skeleton - best melee offensive/defensive unit, but fragile to enemy fire archers and trolls
Ghost - ok defensive unit during day, invincible if enemy doesn't have archers ready
Bat - scout, kills, 60% def, 0 upkeep

Units to avoid, unless:
WC - weak to grunt, troll and archer; have one around to make corpses; spam when game are tied up for its 0 upkeep.
Skeleton Archer - weak to trolls; spam when enemy doesn't buy trolls (which is very unlikely).

[Huumy]

What about skeleton archers? They seem to be a good way to attack grunts and wolves (if you can catch them).

True this unit is great when attacking grunts and wolves. It's same as saying woses are good vs saurians (which is very much true) they do lots of damage and don't take almost any.
So why woses are not used to kill saurians? Because the matchup is rebels vs drakes and other drake units absolutely destroy woses.
It's same with the skeleton archers, they are great attacking grunts, wolves and trolls. But if your opponent attacks with grunts or trolls he don't have to worry about taking any damage. That's why I would use adepts instead of skeleton archers they do the same thing but just way better.

Units to spam:
Ghoul - best defensive unit and combat starters
DA - best offensive unit

Do you have any replays of some1 spamming ghouls and adepts? I would like to see it

Units to avoid, unless:
WC - weak to grunt, troll and archer; have one around to make corpses; spam when game are tied up for its 0 upkeep.

How is walking corpse weak to grunts and trolls? Both need 2/2 to kill it and WC does 6-2 in melee (even during the day and even to trolls). Weak to archers? These guys are good when attacking archers, and archers have hard time killing these? Are all orcish units weak to adepts?

[5dPZ]

Units to avoid, unless:
WC - weak to grunt, troll and archer; have one around to make corpses; spam when game are tied up for its 0 upkeep.

How is walking corpse weak to grunts and trolls? Both need 2/2 to kill it and WC does 6-2 in melee (even during the day and even to trolls). Weak to archers? These guys are good when attacking archers, and archers have hard time killing these? Are all orcish units weak to adepts?

Two ways to look at this:

1. 50g each, UD buy all WCs, Orcs buy all grunt, or all troll, see the outcome of war (answer: WCs won't be able to get a kill before they all die)

2. How much gold of grunt need to kill 1 WC (answer 12g), and how much gold of WC needed to kill 1 grunt (answer: Xg, X is much greater than 12).

Conclusion: WC is weak to those.

[monochromatic]

What is awesome, though, is having a WC killing troll. You then get a troll zombie and the Northies will have a hell of a time trying to take that down unless they have a Crossbowman or other trolls

Hint: Troll zombies get troll resists: 20% blade and pierce resists! Awesome!

[silent]

I think you should also add at what ToD cycle should be attacking at as the Undead, this may seem obvious but I'd like to offer some opinion on this if I may for this particular match-up, as I believe it varies depending on being P1 or P2

For P1

-Begin to advance in the afternoon
-Begin attacking at dusk
-Push hard at first watch
-Retreat if possible/required at second watch

Reason being is that if he stays to attack you at dusk, you get first use of 1st watch (the night), which allows you to strike the first major blow against his army with your now stronger units while his units have been weakened at dusk, and can now be killed more easily.

For P2

-Get within striking distance at first watch, avoid heavy casualties
-Attack at second watch
-keep attacking at dawn
-Stand ground/finish kills if possible at morning

P2 may need to take some hits in order to keep P1 close enough to be attacked at second watch, the last chance for either faction to hit the other one at full strength. A similar logic applies at dawn as P1 would then get first use of day which weakens his counter-attack further. If you're able to, holding your ground at day would be good as P1 will more likely use the day to advance closer to your army to better his position for his cycle of attack.

[Huumy]

Two ways to look at this:

1. 50g each, UD buy all WCs, Orcs buy all grunt, or all troll, see the outcome of war (answer: WCs won't be able to get a kill before they all die)

2. How much gold of grunt need to kill 1 WC (answer 12g), and how much gold of WC needed to kill 1 grunt (answer: Xg, X is much greater than 12).

Conclusion: WC is weak to those.

I don't know what kinda games you usually play, but I have never played vs some1 who has army only grunts or/and trolls or vs some1 who has army only WCs.
Point being the reason WC is good is not that they alone can do everything. It is because they are cost effective with your larger army. If you follow your logic of battle you should always recruit woses when you see your drake opponent recruit saurians.

I think you should also add at what ToD cycle should be attacking at as the Undead, this may seem obvious but I'd like to offer some opinion on this if I may for this particular match-up, as I believe it varies depending on being P1 or P2

For P1

-Begin to advance in the afternoon
-Begin attacking at dusk
-Push hard at first watch
-Retreat if possible/required at second watch

Reason being is that if he stays to attack you at dusk, you get first use of 1st watch (the night), which allows you to strike the first major blow against his army with your now stronger units while his units have been weakened at dusk, and can now be killed more easily.

For P2

-Get within striking distance at first watch, avoid heavy casualties
-Attack at second watch
-keep attacking at dawn
-Stand ground/finish kills if possible at morning

P2 may need to take some hits in order to keep P1 close enough to be attacked at second watch, the last chance for either faction to hit the other one at full strength. A similar logic applies at dawn as P1 would then get first use of day which weakens his counter-attack further. If you're able to, holding your ground at day would be good as P1 will more likely use the day to advance closer to your army to better his position for his cycle of attack.

This is good point. I'll add this. Thank you .

[Yoyobuae]

Two ways to look at this:

1. 50g each, UD buy all WCs, Orcs buy all grunt, or all troll, see the outcome of war (answer: WCs won't be able to get a kill before they all die)

2. How much gold of grunt need to kill 1 WC (answer 12g), and how much gold of WC needed to kill 1 grunt (answer: Xg, X is much greater than 12).

Conclusion: WC is weak to those.

What about zombies 0 upkeep? What about adepts softening targets to be zombified?

[5dPZ]

Two ways to look at this:

1. 50g each, UD buy all WCs, Orcs buy all grunt, or all troll, see the outcome of war (answer: WCs won't be able to get a kill before they all die)

2. How much gold of grunt need to kill 1 WC (answer 12g), and how much gold of WC needed to kill 1 grunt (answer: Xg, X is much greater than 12).

Conclusion: WC is weak to those.

What about zombies 0 upkeep? What about adepts softening targets to be zombified?

We are generalizing things here rather than specifics. People are ok when we say skeleton archers are weak to trolls. Following your logic, we can say skele archers are good vs troll when adepts soft them first.

In general, when there is an army vs an army, WCs are weak to grunt and trolls. Yes, you could soft orcs and trolls to 6hp and kill with WCs, but that's not because grunt and trolls are weak to WCs, rather they are weak to the units that softed them to 6hp.

[Yoyobuae]

We are generalizing things here rather than specifics. People are ok when we say skeleton archers are weak to trolls. Following your logic, we can say skele archers are good vs troll when adepts soft them first.

In general, when there is an army vs an army, WCs are weak to grunt and trolls. Yes, you could soft orcs and trolls to 6hp and kill with WCs, but that's not because grunt and trolls are weak to WCs, rather they are weak to the units that softed them to 6hp.

Ok, then following your logic, grunts and trolls are weak against adepts. So if UD buy all Adepts and Orc buy all grunt or all troll, UD should win right?

[Pentarctagon]

Just because they can be effectively used against trolls/grunts does not mean that they make better spam. those are two separate categories .
also,

What units you don't want your opponent to level.
1.Wolf raider: These guys are scouts but once they get 2 kills they turn into skeleton killing machines.

[Yoyobuae]

That's exactly what I'm arguing. It's too general to say "unit A is strong/weak against unit B".

What these "How to ..." guides do (or at least what I had the impression they do) is to describe the most likely scenario one would be facing for a specific match-up, then give pointers on how to deal with it. Aditionally, explaining possible variations to this likely scenario, giving pointers on how to adjust accordingly.

It's hard/detrimental to be too general when talking about strategies in Wesnoth. It's far better to focus on the specific case (or cases) which is the most likely (which usually is also harder to deal with).

[Pentarctagon]

oops, guess I missed the sarcasm there

[Huumy]

In general, when there is an army vs an army, WCs are weak to grunt and trolls.

Actually it was my whole point in this dicussion that in ARMY vs ARMY in this matchup WCs are pretty good. Why?
1. They have fearless trait (better at day)
2. No upkeep
3. If they get attacked they in most cases do damage in return (full damage to even trolls)
4. If they get attacked your unit that cost 9gp just lost HP (or died) but your more expensive units didn't get hit.
5. They make more zombies.

The points 1-5 are in random order. The part 3 and 4 are the parts that make them really good in ARMY vs ARMY fights.

In my opinion.