[Complete] PYRA Mudcrawler Is Devastating - The Tournament

[iceiceice]

I think if you think trolls could be cheapened you're missing a second aspect to northerner stratagy.

This is very interesting to me, if you know any good replays that showcase this (I guess you mean vs rebels or Knalgan?) I would be very interested.

Edit:

My experience with trolls is that Rebels and Knalgan have plenty of tools to deal with them at day time, for example Woses and Mages, or Ulfserkers. How would this slow siege with a wall of grunts and trolls work on a map like The Freelands, for example? It seems quite delicate because you really don't want to put the trolls on flat, but they require 2mp to get onto the mountains etc. If you don't get into the enemy villages early it seems like it could be difficult to set up the line so that you can push and pull effectively at the right times. Is the idea to reinforce with trolls after an early rush? Anyways count me a "skeptical noob".

[Horus2]

My experience with trolls is that Rebels and Knalgan have plenty of tools to deal with them at day time, for example Woses and Mages, or Ulfserkers. How would this slow siege with a wall of grunts and trolls work on a map like The Freelands, for example? It seems quite delicate because you really don't want to put the trolls on flat, but they require 2mp to get onto the mountains etc. If you don't get into the enemy villages early it seems like it could be difficult to set up the line so that you can push and pull effectively at the right times. Is the idea to reinforce with trolls after an early rush? Anyways count me a "skeptical noob".

I am playing almost exlusively low grunt concentration rushes with northeners out of hipsterdom, so you can skim my ladder replays, i always upload the replay, sometimes even supplementing the winning opponent not doing it, and i note down the factions. Chances are good that you can find some replays you would be interested in.
I am not starting it with grunts early on, because the sole purpose of them is to keep the villages stolen by that certain attrition.

I think if you think trolls could be cheapened you're missing a second aspect to northerner stratagy. Northerners can actually do siege attrician style pretty well too as opposed to rushes and trolls make that work both on offense and defense. There are tricks that can be used to get a lot out of regen once you understand it for what it is and is not. An important note here is that getting the most out of regen actually works counter to the roll of a troll in a formation. As a meatwall (where trolls preform better than grunts even with lower defenses [except villages but you only need one unit to hold a village hex you need several units to hold a village]) you want trolls to be on the corners soaking hits and hexsides but as a regenerator you want trolls to be on the inside where they'll only take major damage from retaliation and are not worth focusing down or can't be. Once you figure out when to use it for which and how to make it so that ToD swings don't kill you (this doesn't work well against loyalists or drakes [who also tend to have impact resistant units] but the idea still applies) you can effectively have each troll be either 60ish hp worth of grit (resistances and defense evens out) for 13 gold. It won't be doing damage very quickly but it can do damage steadily and it adds up especially when you throw in the stuff that you arn't killing because your damage is getting soaked.

That said, if in mainline they costed any more than what they do I wouldn't recruit them except vs undead [and even then, mostly to give me the edge in daytime encounters and to give me a responce to archers]. Using them to full extent requires a different style of play than northerners usually go and the normal way they play is frequently as or more effective.

Thank you for defending trolls, personally when i first stepped into the troll domain, i expected it outperform grunt rush most of the time. They are still very good, but currently i am in the disappointment phase when i am saying that grunt spam is still a minuscule better (but only a minuscule, mind you). The main issues are, as previously hinted, the low damage per hex ratio, the inability to perform a strong first rush, and the evacuation sometimes ending up catastrophically if you could not breach the defense line during the powerphase or gain other kind of advantage.
In practice, neither loyalists nor drakes are the worst nemeses of troll rush, if you hit the correct troll:archer ratio. Drakes are known to have a problem with holding villages, which eliminates one of the main concerns of this strategy. Loys are silly and tend not to adopt, stucking with spearmen instead. The real troublemakes are the rebels, because players not usually start to bother you with cavs as soon they notice, but they do with woses, and woses are really outplaying you in your own game. Orcish Archers once again to the rescue, but that ratio is delicate, and losing the majority of either trolls or archers is painful.

@nagafono: I hope we get to meet in a game, during the tournament. May be you will drop that sarcastic and dismissive tone after the game.

debuf one of them would be serious damage in balance and variety

Are we not having this discussion because many feel that DAOG causes some imbalance, and we all know where variety goes when it comes to an orcish grunt.

PYR is not just about chaotic and lawful units. I can very easily generate a faction that contains a grunt, DA, wolf for a night attack, and then follow it up with a spearman, drake clasher or something else. What i wanted to say was that default northerners, need grunts to be cheap because of the lack of damage dealing ability, but in a DAOG grunts do not need to deal damage.Very few people go for just chaotics or just lawful units, and there's always other damage dealers, support in the mix.

But if you find my POV as 'destroying a half list of recruits' you may very well discard this one too.

@Horus2: In the spearman and mage combo, depending on who defends, the spearman will have to act as a damage dealer. The situation is not the same as a DAOG combo, where DA can hurt almost any defender, barring the ghoul( who has too few hp), unlike the mage.

Very good point, one alignment factions are gluttons for punishment as i percieve it. You can keep the necessary variability with 3-4 units of one alignment. I see less "mixed fruit soup" strategy in this tournament, maybe it is another side effect of the meta with less ulf and more magi.

However.

It is very general misconception that DA, just because it has two different attack type, is more versalite. Rather the opposite! I made calculations a long time ago when i set the 1 gold price different between the Mage and DA. It turns out that DA is more likely to deal less than 20 damage, and only against 4 standard units its arcane attack has any potential. Basically there are no fire resistant units other than dwarves (but they have cold as well, so DA:M 18:18 dmg) and a handful of drakes and the Fire Guardian, which are famous for not having a high defense that requires a mage to remove them from there, but that is not relevant for the analysis, interesting factoid nevertheless. There are more cold resistant unit that you would think!



Direct message to nagafono: personally i don't mind the spicy sarcastic tone and you can always have balance discussion in this style if it is just the two of us, but since abhijit already expressed the discomfort about it, so please cut it.

I think you are overestimating skeletons here. Gliders and footpads can definitely cause them troubles while being a lot faster. The dwarf hammer is not measly either, imo. Aside from that, heavy infantry can take more hits and can have the fearless trait which makes it potent. I suggest to try a 1g decrease in price. Right now they are hardly pickable imo.

I keep my statement that dwarvish hammer is measley. It was consolidation price for Knalga many moons ago when devs cut the Thug out of the recruit list, the cause of its existence is the same what is for the DA arcane attack: skeletons. Even though skeletons are impact sensitive, Troll Whelps and Dwarvish Fighters are only capable of keeping up an average damage output of 20, what is expected from a core fighter. Sure sometimes skeletons have to confront HI and Wose as well, but tell me honestly, how frequently they pop up in the recruit lists? The best offer in the field is Thug, and even that one is surprisingly underrepresented. It never was the guys with various below average impact damage that trashed skeletons in this tournament, those were only able to chip away some health from 1-2 skels before MAGIC USERS ARRIVE AND WREAK HAVOC UPON THE FOUL UNLIFE.

[Velensk]

If rebels are what give you trouble then you must be using the trolls differently than I'm used to (I think rush is the key word, I don't rush with trolls and rarely open with any). Although I use trolls I never have so many that I can't take down a wose, and in fact, I consider much the point of using the trolls to be forcing the rebel player to get woses/mages which are much less efficient. On the other hand, all the regeneration and attrition fighting in the world won't save you from a lawful force that can flank you with impact resistant units and deals so much damage they can destroy their targets in a round.

[abhijit]

Kira1 vs abhijit game 2, round 1 is live!

[Blop]

@ Horus: One question about the skeletons: On what basis is the cost of them considered? I still feel like they are generally worse than alternatives.

[iceiceice]

Velensk: But if you had trolls for 12gp, you would recruit many more of them?

[Blop]

game 2 between Kira1 and myself starting now!

[Velensk]

If trolls costed 12 I'd definitely recruit more of them and would play alternate strategies more. They wouldn't displace grunts as the main unit but it would give factions that already have trouble with well played northerners even more of a problem. There's no reason to do that.

[iceiceice]

Ok, very interesting. Thanks.

[abhijit]

mumma vs abhijit, game 2 is live on Silverhead Crossing!

The game has ended, with a win for me. Replay attached.

[Kira1]

Kira1 vs abhijit on fallenstar

Spoiler:

First rush worked well this time. GG

[Kira1]

mumma vs Kira1 on grand houde mountain

Cheers to the dev of this map (i think its Dreadnough )
A map with 17 villages and the 17th village in the center can only give a lots of battles !!

I won but it was funny to try for both i think!!
GG

[Abstract]

Abstract Vs amikrop on Ruphus Isle starting now.

[nagafono]

the second game between nagafono and Snowman will start today (Friday) at 19.00 GMT

[Abstract]

Danniel_BR Vs Abstract starting now.