How to play - Northeners vs Drakes - Huumy

[Huumy]

Northeners by Huumy:

Hey I'm not an expert playing with these guys, but that's part of the reason I'm making this guide.
Last guide I made (the undead one) helped me alot to better my play with the ud.

I also want to thank every1 for good comments, I recommend every1 to read the comment section too, there's usually lot of additional strategies and tips how to use units or just funny stuff.


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Northeners in general

Good stuff:
→ Cheap units with high HP.
→ Ranged 3-3, marksman poison
→ Good movement over hills and mountains
→ Can buy lvl 0 unit
→ No vulnerabilities to any damage type (expect trolls and nagas).

Not so good stuff:
→ Low damage/unit.
→ Lack of ranged attacks.

So basically Northeners (ORCS!) fight by outlasting opponent army, it's gonna be brutal and long fight but the army with last man standing in enemy village is the winner.

For starting recruit vs random I like 3-4 grunts, 1 archer, 1 wolf, (1 assassin if it helps you to grab village) 0-1 goblin.

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Northerners vs Drakes

Drakes have blade resistance and are vulnerable to piercing, still buy lot of grunts and only few goblins and archers. Why? You need LOTS of HP vs drakes before adding any extra piercing damage.

Units you are using
→ Grunts: These are the big core of your army, you need lots and lots of these. They have lowish damage vs drakes but insane HP. With lots of grunts you can have 10 units where your opponent only has 7 or 8 units. It makes it hard for drake player to fight overwhelming numbers. (Horde cool hits with axe much!)
→ Archers: Always have one and once you have comfortable amount of grunts add few of these to your army.
→ Assassins: These guys are not necessary (depends on your playstyle). If you feel like they are useful in your army and you know how to use them, get them!
→ Goblins: Always good to have one (gives you 3 weaker attacks instead of 2 stronger). Easier to finish of units and lowers your upkeep slightly.
→ Trolls: Have one of these to soak up damage and regen.
→ Wolf raiders: Have one to scout and finish of units where no1 else can reach. When you use him in battle make sure hes worth the 17gp.
→ Nagas: If there's lot of water nagas are good.


Basic flow of the game
You want to be agressive at first night (if the map is not HUGE), you want to get your units in his face and if you see your opponent haves too expensive-, weak-, or badly placed army in best case you can steal his villages or kill units. But usually best play is just to force your opponent units to defend. Retreat in good time and make sure you can't be zocked. At day defend, at night attack. In long game with high upkeep goblins get better and better, still don't over do it you can also simply bank the money.

When fighting
→ Keep yourself on good terrain.
→ If theres going to be big fight make sure you start it at night and when day comes you can finish of the drakes and still be left with grunts at low HP.
→ Rotate your grunts, theres nothing more durable than northenern army that uses villages.
→ If you really need to kill enemy with low HP on good defense (saurians in this matchup) use assassin marksman.
→ Fighting in equal numbers vs drakes is not good, always have more troops than your opponent in fights.

Leveling units:
1.Troll: I don't prefer too many of these in this matchup but if you have chance to level one, do it!
2.Grunts: absolute beasts, lvl 2 grunts are hard to kill and hit hard.
3.Archers: More piercing ranged damage.
4.Rest of your units.
What units you don't want your opponent to level.
1.Drake burners: leadership and better melee damage.
2.Drake clashers: Firststrike with HIGH damage.
3.Rest of units.

[monochromatic]

I have a slightly different view of this matchup.

Grunts - these are very useful, but because of having blade damage they don't do well most drakes. Their greatest advantage is having a lot of hp yet being extremely cheap. Thus they are perfect for holding villages, especially to slow the drakes when it is turning into day. They will also punish any saurians on bad terrain.

Archers - your only real counter to clashers. Grunts at night do only 8-2 (IIRC) with lots of retaliation. They will die easily, but level them and they won't die that fast. Their fire attack also makes them helpful to take down saurians.

Assassins - not very useful. Drakes are a fast faction with generally lots of hp. They can easily fly to a village and heal, and clashers/fighters or even burners can easily take care of this guy. Don't recruit more than one if you really need it.

Goblin Spearman - the core of your army. You might think *what?*, but they really do well against the faction. Even against saurians at night they'll do a reasonable 6-3 (IIRC). They'll murder burners and gliders. Suiciding a couple spearmen to a clasher and then finishing it with an archer is a useful way to get rid of those. Level one into an impaler and your opponent will shrivel in fear. Leveling it into a rouser will make all the spearmen around it will make them that many times more effective.

Trolls - useful for defending against the daytime attacks. They also can take out saurians if they are on bad terrain.

Wolf Riders - the saurian hunter. Their fast moves, great mp, and three-strike attack make them perfect for taking out saurians. But be careful as that drakes can easily defeat this guy. Level him into a goblin knight rather than a pillager.

Naga Fighters - good if the map contains a lot of water. But even then don't over-recruit, as they are not that great against drakes.

The drake player will most likely recruit a good number of drakes and very little saurians, as you have the perfect counters for those. You'll most likely face a great deal of clashers and fighters, along with the occaisional burner and maybe an augur for healing. It will be a battle with numbers. They will have a vastly overpowered though irreplaceable army, while you have a cheap army but great in numbers. Try to overrrun them in the first night, but if you fail, do not be afraid to take some losses. Let them advance to near your base, and then crush them on the second night. Until that point, they won't be able to recruit many units after the first wave, while you can recruit almost a goblin a turn! Use that to your advantage and give your opponent a psychologically hard time by swarming him with units. Taking a lot of losses is normal, just make sure their units don't level!

[Skrim]

Level him into a goblin knight rather than a pillager.

You sure about this? All the Knight has is a stronger blade melee attack, making it better for use against Saurians and Burners. The Pillager has a neat ranged Slowing attack, which is pretty effective against Drakes, preventing them from retreating, hindering their attack or allowing you to melee a Clasher or Fighter with less retaliation.
The fire melee is also pretty good against Saurs, and if you still want to melee Drakes with it for some reason, it retains the Wolf Rider's original blade attack too.

[monochromatic]

I guess slow could be useful against drakes, mainly not for the damage, but for the speed. I just prefer the knight to the pillager in this matchup somehow.

[Velensk]

I too have an entirely different take on this match-up.

Grunts: you'll need plenty of these. They will discourage your enemy from using too many saurians and provide excelent hp for their cost.

Assassins: Another unit you'll need some of but not overly many. As orcs you should always be attempting to use your superior numbers to pin enemies down to prevent them from retreating. When you do the assassin is important for weakening them. Assassins can also be used to force drakes to retreat at day unless they have augers around. Your enemies units are not particuarly suceptable to poison however it does get through their resistances and every unit that they must either retreat or lose matters so much.

Archers: A good unit for poking at clashers. I wouldn't get too many as they don't provide good hp for their cost and they are very suceptable to drake melee.

Goblins: provide good damage for their cost especially against burners and fighters. Have a few of them around if he recruits many of those units. It is occasionally useful to keep a few slightly wounded ones around to suicide them doing some damage but leaving the hex open.

Trolls: I do not find trolls useful. They are slightly better at taking damage than grunts but cannot hold villages, don't do very much damage, and above all only have four movement.

Wolves: Needed for scouting/disencouraging saurian use. Good to level into pillagers because slow is incredibly useful against drakes.

Naga: barely worth its cost against drakes in the water avoid using too many unless you really need navel control.

On defense pull back when you must but sacrifice grunts if it means you can keep them around for better times. I frequently find that I run my grunts right next to them at day and then don't attack simply so that if they want to finish them off they'll have to stick around and if they leave any holes in their line next to a grunt I can slip it through and trap them.

The way I described this is the way I ussually play. Against some drake styles it won't work very well. Against auger/clasher stratagies I tend to use more archers, against fighter/burner stratagies I tend to use no archers at all.

[Yoyobuae]

You'll most likely face a great deal of clashers and fighters, along with the occaisional burner and maybe an augur for healing.

I disagree. Northies are a faction of mostly melee specialists (grunts,trolls,wolf,naga). The only hibrid melee unit is lv0 and has a really weak ranged attack (3-1 from goblin).

Because of the numeric disadvantage, the drake player needs to deal far more damage than his opponent. That's the only way to reduce the number of northies and avoid being overrun by them.

The main way to do this is to take advantage of the free hits ranged units get vs melee only units. Burners are very good at this. They'll hit hard with their firebreath and retaliate quite a bit with their rather good melee attacks.

At night, Augurs take their place, good to evict those grunts sitting in your village. Their melee is also good (for a mage unit), although it's better not to expose them to grunt's melee blade.

Drake fighters/clashers only purpose is to keep the burners/augurs alive. IMO, not too many of them are needed for that.

[monochromatic]

Hm. Being more of a Northies player than a Drakes player, I've played this matchup from the north side. I always found clashers to be more of a pain to my forces, in fact, since they have great resists to blade, lots of hp, and a heavy melee attack. For me, burners just cost too much to be used against northies. I can easily pin on down with a wolf rider, and then zoc lock it with a grunt and stab it to death with a gobo. Impalers are really good at this: non-weak impalers do 11-3 to non-clasher drakes at night, and that's devastating.

Especially if you're facing someone like me who always overuses gobos, I find clashers work much better against them (and if there too many gobos, saurians can then take over). But saurians can easily die to grunts and wolves and clashers don't, making clashers sort of the better of both worlds.

Again, the reason why I don't suggest burners is simply because they are too fragile, ironically. Maybe against grunts/trolls only they'd be good, but because of the presence of the dirt cheap goblin spearman IMO they are not the best choice. But then again you're the drake player, so you may be in fact right.

[Yoyobuae]

I think we just have a different perspective. The first drake units northies should run into are in fact clashers/fighters. They are the best thing to have in the front lines against a mostly melee/blade faction.

But when the drake player gets his turn, he'll need something he can use to attack. Using clashers/fighters vs grunts isn't such a great idea (way too much retal). But burners/augurs can attack them freely, without losing HP in the process.

Also, drakes need both burners and augurs. If there's lots of grunts, then get more burners. If theres more gobos, more augurs (maybe even some skirms).

In this match up, I find it very important for drakes to achieve kills without too many losses. Firstly because it compensates the unavoidable numeric disadvantage and the gold losses from stolen villages (it's very likely northies will achieve village steals). Secondly, it allows units to accumulate experience. Northerner spam might be a powerful, but it also feeds tons of exp to the enemy.

As northerners, you really don't want to let those burners/augurs level to fire drake/oracle. If they do, ouch!!!

[Velensk]

Speaking as drakes: At day I have absolutely no objection to using drake melee on grunts. For the amount of hitpoints you should have taking 6-2 retalation isn't going to slow you down much (especially if dealing 9-3 or 9-4 damage). I don't like using many burners as I find them a bit too vulnerable too expensive for how easilly they can go down in the wrong situation. I prefer to just keep a couple augers around and heal the scratch damage as I retreat/advance. Even at dawn/dusk grunt retaliation isn't too bad as long as you can keep killing.

I also pretty much always take the soothsayer. Oracles do best damage at a time when I don't like toe be fighting but the ability to cure poison/regenerate even more quickly is always useful.

[Caphriel]

In my experience on both sides of this, overusing goblins is a quick way for the northerners to lose. Sure, they do a lot of pierce damage, but some of them will be slow, and none of them will be quick, which lowers your average MP and exaggerates the drake mobility advantage. Also, they're super-fragile, such that they can often be killed by a single unit attacking them during the day. Some goblins are good, but too many reduces your overall HP by too much.