Knalgan's counter for undead

[Agasu]

Hi everyone, I've got a battle ahead and I need a good advice
My opponent claims to know the super-duper-ultimate undead tactic (ghost spam+couple of skel warriors+1 ghoul), and he says that Knalgans have no countermeasures for it.
I believe in balance and in "better player wins" principle, but I want to know your opinion - is this tactic really that hard to counter? Did you have examples in your own experience?

[Colouredbox]

Skeles die vs footpads and dwarvish fighters. Ghosts die vs thiefs and ranged attacks, and the ghosts really aren't good in killing things.

[hhyloc]

I'm not a good MP player, but a ghost spam isn't cheap (20g per ghost) so you'll have a monetary advantage over your opponent, just use Dwarvish Fighters to defend against Skeletons, Thieves can deal with Ghosts, use Footpads to harass Skeletons and Ghouls. You'll win in the long run since both pads and thieves are cheap (14 and 13 respectively). If he use Ghosts to capture your villages, use Footpads to do the same to his villages .

[monochromatic]

Only outlaws will do. Yes, father Hodor be with you.

[Agasu]

tnx to everyone
just finished that game
"super-duper-ultimate tactic" was proven not so super-duper
i have easily protected my villages with footpads and poachers, got myself 4 or 5 kills ahead and after like 30 turns of banking my opponent was washed away by wave of gryphons. I suppose it's not the best way to do that, but i wanted to make it bright and demonstrative )))

[Yubtzock]

tnx to everyone
just finished that game
"super-duper-ultimate tactic" was proven not so super-duper
i have easily protected my villages with footpads and poachers, got myself 4 or 5 kills ahead and after like 30 turns of banking my opponent was washed away by wave of gryphons. I suppose it's not the best way to do that, but i wanted to make it bright and demonstrative )))

Could you provide a replay?

It's true though - it's generally hard to counter it (in development version even more so - footpads got nerfed).
Cmon ghosts are completely worth those 20gp. 18 hp and 50% resistance to every dwarven damage type as well as 50% dodge everywhere? they can easily surround you without losing any advantage and if you amass to kill them they can easily spread out to villages to get nearly 50% of their well-armoured hp back.

Even if you get 3 thieves for 2 enemy ghosts it's still not enough, and if you are playing for a longer game with such setup you spend more more money on upkeep. That and the fact that if you bought the thieves, your enemy can buy skeletons now, knowing your units are heavily on blade damage and with higher upkeep. You get the dwarvish fighter, and the enemy gets more ghosts, adepts, ghouls - everything wanting different unit as a counter, at the same time being a good unit vs almost most other dwarvish units.
And after banking your only option ARE gryphons. dwarves wont make it to the battlefield mostly, and massing outlaws forces your enemy to change strategy (to ghouls on defense, adepts or skeletons on offence) but ghost will hold off your units long enough for your upkeep to slow your reinforcements while the enemy banks in for new wave of undead).
This all just my experience while fighting the undead with dwarves.

Which brings back the idea to get the rune-sth line into default for knalgans MP (they have their hammers as magical with 70% hit) after extending them to lvl1. That could be exactly what knalgans need to fight off the undead more than in a small percentage of lucky matches.

btw. is there a way to see a summary of faction-vs-faction outcomes and statistics somewhere?

[Caphriel]

Quetzlcoatl did that for a subset of games a while back. It was not a representative sample.

On Knalgan vs Undead, ghosts are expensive and deal very little damage. If the Undead player spams ghosts, the Knalgan player can easily counter with a mixed army with a few extra thieves. Ghosts cannot remove units from villages effectively, and it takes a long time to recruit enough of them to form effective zone of control. At that point, they still have pathetically low damage output. It makes me happy when my opponent recruits a lot of ghosts against my Knalgans, because they have such terrible damage output that using them for more than killing ulfs and blocking critical hexes is wasted money.

[Battlecruiser_Venca]

Against UD go pads and ulfs

[Caphriel]

You know footpads are being nerfed, right? -1 damage/attack melee and ranged. With the intent of fixing that exact balance problem, I believe.