Please, re-think Orcs. :(

[Tonepoet]

But lack of option isn't the biggest orc problem, economy is.

Orc units are cheap with a trade-off of then being, well... kinda weak overall. Okay, they suck! But they are cheap right? You got what you pay... Orc players will end up building more units because of this, however...

With more, units, a higher upkeep and on the long run, they will have less gold. Having 2 spearmen and 1 mage is better then having 4 grunts and I dare to say, it's more effective.

You need more runts and less grunts in your army. You see, upkeep equals combined level of all your units after subtracting the number of villages. This means that Goblin Spearmen, which have a level of zero until promoted have no upkeep. You could easily get two grunts and three goblins for the price you could get four grunts solid. You could also get two grunts, an Orcish Archer and a single Goblin Spearman for the same price. Six goblins total is also a choice if you like spamming things and the next turn's upkeep won't hurt so much, though they are kinda weak by themselves.

Aside from that, in multiplayer I advocate as few Grunts as possible, I.E. only when you have 12 gold, if ever, as the individual functions are cloned by other units. Wose Killing is outdone by the Orcish Archer, which also matches the speed. Melee retaliation is best performed by trolls. Orcish Assassins are faster and hold villages somewhat more effectively in most cases. Wolfriders are faster still and are somewhat more reliable in attacking elusive foots since while they do less damage they have that extra strike. Goblin Spearmen are much cheaper melee. The only use that isn't matched or bettered by another recruitable unit is a decently high amount of raw melee damage, which the Grunt is somewhat unreliable for because it only has two strikes. Therefore I conclude that they are the least functional unit in the Northerner's faction.

I won't go so far as to call Grunts useless in this thread as I have in the past on multiplayer, as there are very specific situations where a Grunt is perhaps more useful then anything else. This is especially the case against the Ulfserkers whom plauge me so... However I will also state that you should only require very few to cover all the instances in which you should need them in game and a grunt heavy strategy relies quite too heavily on luck for my taste.

[Big Papi]

there are very specific situations where a Grunt is perhaps more useful then anything else.

Let's change the "very specific situations" to "most situations." Then we will agree, and there will be peace between our peoples.

[Sapient]

Yeah, I know the conventional wisdom is that Grunts are awesome and you should recruit them like cannon fodder, but I tend to think of them as "village trolls"... e.g. I'd rather have a troll for mountain, hills, grass, and sand... but if it's a village hex near the front lines, I agree a Grunt is much better. And since a lot of action takes place near villages, you'll still want at least one grunt for each front.

However, buying that many goblins in first turns sounds insane! Considering they have no ZoC and little hitpoints, goblins are like free EXP to the enemy unless you have enough L1 units to group them with.

[Sombra]

As grunts are for the unit to really take a punch at the weaker enemies (shamans, archers, DA, soothsayers etc) Good village holders, cheap, good movement high hit points. Goblins are great as scavengers, against horses and drakes and for long games if upkeep cost can be a problem / hold villages at the fringes of the battle. Alas they are slow have no ZOC and can be taken out with only two lucky hits.

THe nice thing about northerners is: Especially in the beginning usally many more northerners run arouand than from any other faction. Quite mobile they are able to threaten teh enemy early in the game regarding key vikllages and gain aslight but important advantage in gold.

[Glowing Fish]

The discussions about balance having been throughly balanced and tested,

I still have to say I find the orcs the least...aesthetic of the factions. A good player can win with them, just like they could with any others, but due to the lack of abilities and the like, it doesn't have the same feeling of panache as I get with the other factions.

So I just don't play northerners. I don't think they are badly done, they just aren't my thing.

[Thrawn]

Yeah TP and his unconventional theories. I agree that grunts aren't as good as people think, but like Sapient, I think they are more useful than you portray them as being.

Even if the 2 strikes make them somewhat luck-oriented, against units on normal/bad terrain they ca still be depended on. I prefer them to other orc units when taking villages (assassins work, but they have less hp, and it's a waste of 5 more gold to keep them on a village)

re:goblin spearmen, several discussions about this, iirc, but in general.

They can't really be spammed, but having a few is useful. ALthough they exert no ZoC, they can be placed on terrain you don't want people using. You can use them to bait peopel into attacking them rather than your other units, as well as to disallow multiple units from attacking on of yours.

[Nebiros]

When you're a 12 gold unit, you don't need to be reliable to be useful. Against 50% def you will get a double-hit 25% of the time - which can kill things pretty good, especially at night. Against 70% def you will still get that double-hit 9% of the time - and it will often kill the target (especially elusivefoots with their negative resists).

The high variation in damage screws with your opponent's ability to anticipate your moves. If they plan for the most damage they could possibly do you can easily intimidate them and push them around, and if they plan for average damage you'll get lucky and kill some while getting unlucky and leaving others untouched - but it's usually better to have an untouched enemy and a dead enemy than two moderately wounded enemies. Elvish fighters are much less likely to do that kind of spike damage, even if their average damage is slightly higher.

Yes, sometimes you whiff completely. That's why you don't send grunts against a 2 HP enemy - use an archer or wolfrider or even a goblin, which can get 3 strikes.

Trolls are better for blocking (against most enemies), but when you want to hurt an archer (orcish or elvish), bowman, poacher, footpad, burner, shaman, assassin, adept, mage, augur... a grunt is better. Trolls don't resist several of those units anyway. And the more trolls you make, the more of those fire and cold using units you will face, if your opponent is not brain-dead. Grunts counter the units that counter trolls.

Goblins won't exert ZoC to help keep them from getting away, and you need more hexes to attack with 24 gold worth of goblins than to attack with 24 gold worth of grunts. I don't generally make many goblins except on really big maps or when I see piercing-weak enemies, but YMMV. (I find my opponent often succeeds in killing them without losing anything in return, which makes their cheapness not so useful.)

I agree that four grunts and nothing else is a bad recruit, but that doesn't mean that there's no point to having any grunts at all. Grunts have their uses alongside other units.

[Sombra]

Nice post Nebrios

[Doc Paterson]

Nice post Nebrios

Seriously; that was right on.

Five stars.

[joshudson]

On level 0 units (this includes goblins)

I recruit them whenever the map is the kind of map where a scout could slip around the main front and grab a village behind it. I will make a level 0 unit for the specific purpose of occupying said village. There are other uses, but that is an obvious one where level 0 is preferred.

[Weeksy]

There's also the fact that your enemy can be tricked into thinking that because goblins have no ZOC and do practically no damage, they aren't much of a problem behind their lines. On a few occasions I have been able to get a goblin behind an enemy, in such a way that I can ZOC them with two l1 units and a l0 when I wouldn't have been able to ZOC them before. Two L1's with a hex between them and a goblin on the opposite side leave the enemy immobile.

[Nebiros]

Neat trick. Another thing goblins are sometimes useful for is sitting in a village to deter raiders. The raider can't run straight into the village and if they stop to fight the goblin they might still be there when another unit comes along. Some raiders are weak to piercing too

[Tonepoet]

Sapient, I never said you'd recruit six goblins first turn. That would be an obvious mistake that'd be close to impossible to recover from. I was only suggesting different combinations of units you could make with 48 gold and 3- upkeep, to equal the cost of two spearmen and a mage. You can do it with six goblins, even if it is kinda... well strange. Still thought it deserved mention though.

Also, I stand by my word about only needing very few grunts, if any. The instances where you want them most is when high damage is needed and you only have limited space or a short amount of time in which to make your attack. The first option would disallow large numbers of grunts and the second I preferentially would avoid by making the war an attiration battle with the far more functional troll. It can work, as the sacrifice in attack power is made up in the healing of regeneration and this healing is also more reliable then the extra damage.

Another key point about units that deal large amounts of damage all at once is that the damage can be more easily "wasted". That is, you often times go over the amount of damage needed for the kill. Since you can't reallot the damage, the grunt's lack of a specific use other then high damage in only 2 strikes is largely unappealing as compared to a more moderate hitter like a wolfrider, goblin or troll. All of which are melee hitters, all of which have several more uses. This makes me feel that the Grunt is a highly overkill unit 99% of the time, leading me to recruit more of the others and less of them. My dislike of the grunt is highly compounded by personal experience. That would be that when I've needed the grunt to do what it does best, luck craps out on me.

As far as village defense goes, I'd say any unit can do it aside from the troll in most cases. The Assassin is usually the most effective choice, as its defensive ability relies more upon its evasiveness, which is higher, then it's HP, which is lower. This makes the Orcish Assassin an effectively faster healer, as the fixed HP value of 8 heals a higher percentage of it's total HP. It also sends most types of enemies away to heal with poison.

Still, there are others. If you find the stats of the assassin maligned or its price too high, then the Orcish Archer has gruntlike defensive stats at a reasonable price and you usually need anyway. Joshudson pointed out one of my favorite uses for goblins, protecting those usually low priority villages from unexpected theft at a highly economical price. Finally the Wolfrider, while only having only 50% def on a village, will still at least outperform a troll there and its ability to reach in time can hardly be argued against.

A grunt, being a primarily offensive choice, I'd only use for the purpose of 'defending' a village over another available choice is for perhaps one reason. This would be melee weapon specials, the ones that compound turns like Charge and especially Beserk. An Ulfserker will usually chew through an Orcish Archer or Orcish Assassin like it almost wasn't there, due to their low melee. A grunt at full health however, will probably outlive an offending Ulfserker with the way most maps have low defense.

Basically, there are five reasons for which I'd want a grunt. Each of which I find rather rare or hard to plan for, because of different reasons I will give alongside

1. To defend a village against an Ulfserker or maybe a Horseman. These deal such extremely high numbers of damage in such short times. This situation is rare because it only deals with a very specific kind of unit, hardly a basis for making them the bulk of your army.

2. To utilize attack space when hexes are few, but existent. This factor is in control of the enemy and changes on a turn to turn basis.

3. To attack a unit that can and likely needs to be killed this turn, preferably. Usually this means only leaders, weakened units on villages with at at least 9+HP or weakened units who're likely to perform a successful retreat which have at least 9+HP. Furthermore such units shouldn't be weak to impact, pierce or fire and not have an explicit blade resist. These are a lot of conditions to fill.

4. Speed, which the Wolfrider and Orcish assassin do better anyway.

5. My budget allows me twelve gold and only twelve gold which I probably have to spend right now. Rare because the troll costs only 1 extra and fancy accounting with the other units allows me to make a lot of different unit combinations across the course of two or more turns.

Also, I had to leave right before posting and I must say it's nice to see some goblin love. I feel that they're the most underrated unit in the Northerners faction. Low cost, three strikes, pierce and a ranged attack. How many people use them to prevent level-ups?

[Beholder]

I think the grunt to little damage to a supposed high damage unit, the low number of hits doesn`t help either.

Id wish orcs had a strong melee, would fit better the race, I think.

[Velensk]

For their cost grunts have very good damage and Hit points, better than any of the other races main melle units. I would not call doing 11 damage per hit weak especialy when you can have so many of them so easily.