Dwarfish Thunderer debate

[Martinus]

First of all. It is very easy for a thunderer to hit someone. With the usual 60% chance to hit, it hits over half the time. Only someone without their right minds would fire one at an elven archer in woods and think it might hit.

.

Hmmmmm i recall doing it 2 times and hitting

[Martinus]

You know.... the Thunderer is honestly one of my favorite units. It can't very well tank,

I disagree. Thunderers attack is as big as troll's in day (against a dwarf - even at dawn/dusk) and it got resistances + nice hp + ok defence on hills - mountains - castle. Last game i played northerners against dwarves and i spend a turn and like 3 grunts and one troll attacking 1 thunderer on a castle hex. He survived with about half hp leaving my units with 2/3 and 1/2 hp. Dear Lord.

[Thrawn]

You know.... the Thunderer is honestly one of my favorite units. It can't very well tank,

I disagree. Thunderers attack is as big as troll's in day (against a dwarf - even at dawn/dusk) and it got resistances + nice hp + ok defence on hills - mountains - castle. Last game i played northerners against dwarves and i spend a turn and like 3 grunts and one troll attacking 1 thunderer on a castle hex. He survived with about half hp leaving my units with 2/3 and 1/2 hp. Dear Lord.

Is that the game I'm thinking of?

[Martinus]

Probably:)

The one where our opponents fled cowardly before our might! (Yeah i know we didn't do best but still they fled )

[Airk]

The only time I use the dagger attack from the Thunderer's is when facing a unit that A) Won't clobber me on retaliation and B) Will die from one dagger hit. Two stabs that will kill have a far better chance of resulting in a kill than one shot that will overkill.

[F8 Binds...]

You know.... the Thunderer is honestly one of my favorite units. It can't very well tank,

I disagree. Thunderers attack is as big as troll's in day (against a dwarf - even at dawn/dusk) and it got resistances + nice hp + ok defence on hills - mountains - castle. Last game i played northerners against dwarves and i spend a turn and like 3 grunts and one troll attacking 1 thunderer on a castle hex. He survived with about half hp leaving my units with 2/3 and 1/2 hp. Dear Lord.

Big as a troll's attack at day? Are you crazy?
thunderer- 18-1= 18 damage
troll- 7-2 -25%= 5-2= 10 damage... (now which one does more damage?)
only a troll at night can equal the attack. 9-2=18-1

[Thrawn]

I disagree. Thunderers attack is as big as troll's in day (against a dwarf - even at dawn/dusk) and it got resistances + nice hp + ok defence on hills - mountains - castle. Last game i played northerners against dwarves and i spend a turn and like 3 grunts and one troll attacking 1 thunderer on a castle hex. He survived with about half hp leaving my units with 2/3 and 1/2 hp. Dear Lord.

Big as a troll's attack at day? Are you crazy?
thunderer- 18-1= 18 damage
troll- 7-2 -25%= 5-2= 10 damage... (now which one does more damage?)
only a troll at night can equal the attack. 9-2=18-1

melee attack, foo! he is disagreeing with

It can't very well tank[/quote

[F8 Binds...]

Big as a troll's attack at day? Are you crazy?
thunderer- 18-1= 18 damage
troll- 7-2 -25%= 5-2= 10 damage... (now which one does more damage?)
only a troll at night can equal the attack. 9-2=18-1

melee attack, foo! he is disagreeing with

It can't very well tank

What an idiot I am! sorry. Still it would work with a troll's attack during day.

thunderer- 6-2 -20% troll resistance= 5-2= 10 damage
troll- 7-2 -25% time of day= 5-2 -20% dwarf resistance= 4-2= 8 damage
please forgive me. (can't ya tell i was drowsy when i wrote this?)

I'm an american. I'm not always being smart like y'all others.

[Spanner]

My problem with Thunders is that leveling them up is pretty tricky. With other units you can use other units to reduce enemy units to low HPs, then hit it with the lv 1 unit you want to level and have a good chance that the lv 1 kills it (due to more attacks).

With Thunders, it's less certain because there is only one attack.

But this is a newbie speaking....

[Sombra]

I think a good example of the use of thunderer is the 4th match between Peitro and Soliton (Final round of tournament).

Huge battle between Drakes and Knalgans (or in this case : Clasher against thunderer)

[Airk]

My problem with Thunders is that leveling them up is pretty tricky. With other units you can use other units to reduce enemy units to low HPs, then hit it with the lv 1 unit you want to level and have a good chance that the lv 1 kills it (due to more attacks).

With Thunders, it's less certain because there is only one attack.

But this is a newbie speaking....

The flipside of this is that you need to do a heck of a lot less whittling down to start taking potshots with your thunderer - does that unit have 10 hps left? 12? 14? Fire away! Of course, if you -do- shave something down to the level where an elvish shaman could beat it to death with her stick, the thunderer always has his dagger attack to fall back on.

[Jetrel]

They use thundersticks.

If you use the word gun, turin will shoot you with one.

They use guns.

But they don't use gunpowder - no one in the game's world knows how to make that. They use a different explosive, of which one component is something they mine from the earth. But the biggest thing about this explosive is that the making of it is a vehemently guarded secret, and even if others knew how to make it, it can't be made without certain ingredients that only the dwarves have access to. It's not a cat that can get out of a bag; it's utterly exclusive to the dwarves, and will stay that way. The human civilizations of wesnoth's world (and the elves for that matter) won't figure out how to make this stuff for some millenia, if they ever do.

It is therefore effectively no different than a dwarven kind of sorcery - the thundersticks may as well be "death wands" as far the average human soldier is concerned. The dwarves very actively encourage/propagate the idea that their weapons are sorcerous in nature, as it adds considerably to the fear they instill.


(One of my biggest beefs with "guns" being in wesnoth; real guns, is that gunpowder technology is a pandora's box; when the secret gets out, the world can never go back to *not* using guns; the science behind them is too simple. This screws plotwriting, because any civilization set a few centuries after wesnoth is almost invariably going to be in the industrial age, and then we have to reconcile magic and technology interacting. That's a quite messy path to go down; right now we can leave certain questions blissfully unanswered (like - "is magic technology, or something else?").)

[Jetrel]

The saving grace of the thunderer line is how much its melee attack has increased in power from its early incarnations.


Old:
Thunderer - 34hp 4-2m 18-1r
Thunderguard - 42hp 6-2m 28-1r
Dragonguard - 52hp 12-2m 40-1r


Current:
Thunderer - 34hp 6-2m 18-1r
Thunderguard - 44hp 6-3m 28-1r
Dragonguard - 59hp 9-3m 40-1r


All of a sudden, he's a rather threatening unit in the melee. As befits the dwarven race, he's not this fragile "archer" unit that any melee unit can take on. Ironically, this makes him a very good defensive unit, since if he is on mountains (combined with his good resistances), it's very dangerous for anything* to attack him, because the retaliatory damage will always be considerable.

* (Well, "anything L1 and not grossly resistant to pierce/blade", but you get the point.)

[Higher Game]

Bowmen are still the kings of melee damage in a "ranged" unit, though. 6-2 melee is great by itself, but a strong bowman hits 9-2 at day, the same as an orc grunt's basic damage! That is probably the hardest level 1 unit in the game to counter effectively. Strong bowmen are amazing.

Plus, they get a guaranteed damage bonus against drakes, while elf archers have to hope for the dexterous trait. 3 shots gives a solid chance of connecting, unlike the thunderer. Finally, human bowmen are cheap.

The thunderer is a great defender due to his hit points and resistances, as are all dwarves. Its defense allows it to take a risky shot and retreat to try again later, and eventually it will connect. The dwarf neutral status is also nice, since that lucky shot might not connect at a good time if they were lawful or chaotic. Of course, they still have to deal with a lawful/chaotic opponent's day/night bonus.

Overall, I find that the ranged units are balanced well. Thunderers are strangely a defensive unit, bowmen are flexible, orc archers have a nice fire arrow as a finisher, especially at night, and elf archers have fast movement, forest defense, and a chance at being dexterous and very powerful as a result.

Thunderers are good against factions that will unquestionably be aggressive against the dwarves, since they lose power over time due to a loss in swarming ability as the number of units increases. This means drakes and orcs. Thunderers are good on defense against these guys, especially drakes. They are nice at shooting trolls, though.

Against more balanced factions, like rebels and loyalists, it's probably a better idea to go for poachers. Poachers can hold forests to keep elf archers out, and they hit mounted units effectively. They also fight well at night, which is the best time to attack these factions.

[Noyga]

They use thundersticks.

If you use the word gun, turin will shoot you with one.

They use guns.

Well for us they use some kind of guns.
BTW, the concept of "guns" is something unknown to the culture of the different wesnothian cultures (elves, humans, ..) so the word "gun" would never be used by them.
For these reasons they are never called "guns" but "thundersticks" or "dragonstaff"
I did this in the Extended Era too for the same reason : the Dwarvish Flamethrower main weapon (a flamethrower) is called "firestick". The *copters bombs are called "bombs", but they are described as eggs of an unknown beast. Perhaps i should change their name to something like "thundereggs".


About thunderers vs poachers i usually use both :
- thunderers are better for defend on hills, mountains and bad terrain (because more resilient), and have a better melee
- poachers have a better defense on forests and swamps and usually have a good defense on more terrains than the thunderer
- poachers have a better accuracy (because more strikes) : they are better to finish a badly hurt unit and more likely to hit a target on good terrain (not a lot of damage, through), less prone to randomness.
- thunderders more more damage at day and dawn/dusk, poachers at night
- thunderers can kills a target without being hurt (because the target will be dead before the retaliation): that's a nice thing