Army building based on terrain??

[Neveryll]

For the most part when I look at people's chosen armies I seem to see either a zerg stylized army (many low cost units) or a army exclusizely focused on range. Do you think that is because of the lack of decent cover for the most part in the Heroscape official release?

I get the feeling if the main set included another two more ruins and maybe a couple of small trees that you would see a larger variety of units played because there would be more cover for units to hide behind. What do you all think?

[K/H_Addict]

make cover with terrain. buy more than your desired 2 sets. i have 3 here at my house t build with. A friend has 2 at his house, and another friend also has 2 to use. 2 is a decent amount, but you can never go wrong with more terrain. Check out http://www.housemousegames.com/ for master set terrain, expansions, etc. She is stationed in CA, and shipping of 1 large heroes across the country to VA was just over $10. thats not too bad.

[Neveryll]

I actually bought an extra 8 or 6 ruins from them just for this reason. I'm just curious if some people feel that the reason most armies work the way they do is because of a lack of cover is all.

[K/H_Addict]

i dotn think it's due to lack of cover. I think it depends more on the controller of the army. Some people have better strategic skills than others, and thus can play some armies better than other people could. ya know?

[Snotwalker 8000]

Actually, I agree that it has to do largely with the terrain layout. When my friends and I first started playing in january, we were BIG on the ranged units due to the simple fact that we didn't have enough terrain/trees/ruins to provide cover for melee units. When playing with only 2 MS, there's not much left over for obstacles.

However, with now having many many trees, about 18 ruins, and extra terrain pieces coming out of our ears, we can now make much more "3D" battle fields with forests, ruined cityscapes, canyons, pillars, etc... Melee units now are much more valuable because they can actually survive long enough to get within engagement range of those pesky ranged units that enjoy the hit and run play style.

Once you move beyond the "official map" type battlefields, and create lots of obstacles, the mix of melee/ranged units is more balanced out.

That being said, I would also like to point out that even "way back when", an all-ranged army would rarely win. Without a core of "heavy infantry" melee units, no army is likely to do well.... the reason one didn't like facing an all-ranged army before had more to do with the frustration over the quickly-suffered high casualties when "closing the gap".... but once that gap was closed, the ranged units would inevitably crumble into heaps of hacked-up meat chunks.

Best thing you can do is buy more trees/roads (provides much needed mobility to slow-moving melee units) and grab a few more ruins from HouseMouse.

[K/H_Addict]

i dont use ruins as cover too much. Occasionally, i will attempt to keep the strategic, but most of the time, i put 2 within each starting zone, and the rest get scattered about the field, filling in "bare" spots, as well as trees. I do like to use them to hide my well-valued melee units, such as the Tagawa Samurai, while i move them in, or wait for finn/thorgrim to die.

[Gambit]

yeah, me too........................stuff :drool: