Castle Siege Ratios?

[MartinDWhite]

I have played a couple games with the castles now, and I have read a few reports from castle games. It seems like the castle provides a SIGNIFICANT advantage and that to succesfully attack a castle will require a 2x to 2.5x point advantage.

In the games I played snipers/syvaris on the wall get such an advantage that they kill off most things before they even get to the wall to fly over or attack back.

Deadeye and Q9 seem to be the most effective seige weapons, but they are easy to defeat by stepping back to draw them in then shotting them when they get in range.

The 33% advantage in the official senario seems to be too small for the attacker.

What do ya'll think should be the attacker advantage?

[gamjuven]

Not sure what the advantage should be but it should be changed. Or perhaps One should concentrate fire on the door, break it, then use drake and eov to clean up. That's what I'm gonna try next time.

[K/H_Addict]

i tried a game with 2x the points, and that was still a bit uneven, so 2.5-3x maybe?

[Teamski]

i tried a game with 2x the points, and that was still a bit uneven, so 2.5-3x maybe?

That much, hey? Wow..... Hopefully, I will be testing this out this weekend at the comic shop. Won't they be surprised!

-Ski

[happyjosiah]

Keep testing folks, this is an important issue. So far, the castle defender has won every time I have played the included scenarios.

[RichardD]

Historically, castles provided a HUGE advantage to the defender - the attacker would need at least 2.5 to 3 times the number of defenders. Sometimes far more (take Thermopylae, for example - not a castle as such, but a natural, definsible pass. How many days did it take a million Persians to deal with a couple of thousand Greek defenders?)

Now of course there's no reason to believe that HS game mechanics are based heavily on reality, but I'd *start* with the assumption that you need twice as many attackers as defenders, and work my way up from there.

Unless Wave 6.5 includes something to even up the odds ...

[K/H_Addict]

6.5 will be a castle expansion. Its going to have a Drawbridge, 4 flages (one for the remaining generals), and a cannon or 2 that will attach onto wall walks like battlements.



That would be sweet!

[Teamski]

Historically, castles provided a HUGE advantage to the defender - the attacker would need at least 2.5 to 3 times the number of defenders. Sometimes far more (take Thermopylae, for example - not a castle as such, but a natural, definsible pass. How many days did it take a million Persians to deal with a couple of thousand Greek defenders?)

Now of course there's no reason to believe that HS game mechanics are based heavily on reality, but I'd *start* with the assumption that you need twice as many attackers as defenders, and work my way up from there.

Unless Wave 6.5 includes something to even up the odds ...

That might change if you are playing 2 or 3 on 1. Having 2 to 3 turn markers to each one for the defender might change the ratio requirement.

-Ski

[Hahma]

Historically, castles provided a HUGE advantage to the defender - the attacker would need at least 2.5 to 3 times the number of defenders. Sometimes far more (take Thermopylae, for example - not a castle as such, but a natural, definsible pass. How many days did it take a million Persians to deal with a couple of thousand Greek defenders?)

Now of course there's no reason to believe that HS game mechanics are based heavily on reality, but I'd *start* with the assumption that you need twice as many attackers as defenders, and work my way up from there.

Unless Wave 6.5 includes something to even up the odds ...

That might change if you are playing 2 or 3 on 1. Having 2 to 3 turn markers to each one for the defender might change the ratio requirement.

-Ski

That would be more like it Teamski, 2 or 3 on 1 with the extra turns should help even it up with all the extra turns. But it seems from all the books I've read, whenever an an enemy had to assault a fortress or castle, it seemed like they needed anywhere from 6:1 to 20:1.

Perhaps wave 6.5 could include some dwarven sappers to help get in faster. I recall reading a method of seiging a castle would be to have sappers tunnel underneath the corners of the wall and set a huge blaze in the tunnel directly underneath the wall. It would weaken the foundation of the wall and cause it to fall into the tunnel, thus weakening the wall at the point for ground troops to storm through.

Who knows :shrug:

[MartinDWhite]

I think the historical reference is nice (6:1 - 20:1), but in human history they did not have flying creatures or magic spells.

I think the right combination of figures might be able to attack the castle better and not require the extreme point differential.

How about
EOV - can't easily be hit by range
vipers - get in fast
Q9 - to take out the door from a distance (quickly to let the EOV in)
dead eye - to provide cover for Q9 and pick off people in castle
Viper warlord - to allow 2 more movement spaces for EOV, and vipers

That team might have to much emphasis on getting in the castle. One must still defeat the emeny once in the castle.

[Kepler]

A demolitions expert that could destroy the door in a single attack would be a nice new unit.

[davidlhsl]

Personally, I think you only need to draft one unit to take down that castle door...

http://upload4.postimage.org/891324/Setphasersonkill.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/891324/photo_hosting.html)


-David

[Agent Minivann]

I think the historical reference is nice (6:1 - 20:1), but in human history they did not have flying creatures or magic spells.

I think the right combination of figures might be able to attack the castle better and not require the extreme point differential.

How about
EOV - can't easily be hit by range
vipers - get in fast
Q9 - to take out the door from a distance (quickly to let the EOV in)
dead eye - to provide cover for Q9 and pick off people in castle
Viper warlord - to allow 2 more movement spaces for EOV, and vipers

That team might have to much emphasis on getting in the castle. One must still defeat the emeny once in the castle.

Magic spells makes me think there might be some future special abilities that affect the door ( and future objects like it). I don't think that sappers will be a functionaly feasible option, as the castle is solid once assembled. If they merged the breakaway ruins from Marvelscape with future castle expansions, this is a workable idea.

Another option for a seige that occured to me is Mimring. Use every bit of the range 8 special attack to hit defenders, and then fly to the top to hold it. Sure Mimmy won't last long up there, but then the defenders have to divide attention between the dragon on top and the barbarians at the gates.

And @ davidlhsl: I see your Enterprise and raise one Deathstar. What is it they say? One shot, one (billion) kill(s)?

[Jason]

Not owning a Castle my initial guess was 3:1 or 4:1

[Snotwalker 8000]

I was concerned about the gameplay balance of including castles in Heroscape, and it looks like that's coming to pass... However, I think the onus is on the Attacker to WISELY choose his army. As others have mentioned, historically, the ratio of attackers to castle defenders has been pretty high... Overall, the typical accepted historical ratio is 1:10. 1,000 defenders in a castle should be the equivalent of 10,000 attackers.

BUT, when we include the flying units, extreme range units, etc, HS's ratio is much smaller. I would venture an opinion of a 2:1 ratio AT LEAST. As someone else mentioned, 2.5:1 might be necessary as well.

But as for WISELY choosing an attacking army, one should definitely draft the following:

- Krav Maga (excellent 7 range / 3A strength for picking off wall targets while having good D aginst non-adj attacks)
- Drake (Ranged attacks?... what ranged attacks?..:) )
- EOV (10D against range... awesome to charge in once door is down)
- AE (drop and/or 8 range @ 3A strength... nuff said)
- Sents (sheilds of valor + flying... nuff said)
- Charos (9 life/good D gets him to the wall, wreak havoc on top)
- Marro Warriors (send in 3 for some shooting, keep one in reserve to clone... rinse, repeat... force the defender to come after you to end the endless cycle!)
- DED (10 range... nuff said)
- Monks (leap, baby, leap!)
- Q9 (Awesome for pounding the door with range 8, attack 4+)

The above units have specials/innates that greatly reduce the threat of ranged units on high, and/or allow them to quickly assault the battlements. If people are choosing orcs, marros, knights, Kilts, etc to charge the walls in waves of suicidal exercises in futility, then they are getting exactly what they deserve when their ill-choosen armies are mowed down with ease from on high. The right unit for the right job is the key to remember when castle-storming.

Given a wise selection, I can see 2:1 being a solid ratio.

SW8K

[Sapper]

Great list Snotwalker.

A few other good additions would be:

Saylind, Realin and Nakita Agents.

[Aranas]

...- Marro Warriors (send in 3 for some shooting, keep one in reserve to clone... rinse, repeat... force the defender to come after you to end the endless cycle!)...

:twisted:

[primal]

during the last NC Skirmish, our attacking team had just crashed the door when Mrs. Primal had us stop. We had the defenders on the ropes and we were loading up the knockout punch.
Drake on the door, totally. if you roll good, you have it licked. just have to have Dead-Eye watching the wall for someone throwing spitballs at you or something.

[markwars]

SN8K, that's an awesome list. Thanks. ;)

[ptucker78]

A friend and I played a game where we each took a turn defending the castle from a dragon seige (all the dragons except Su-Bak), giving the dragon army 1000 points and the defending army 750 points. I won both attacking and defending, so I think it just really depends on the luck of the dice, and what army each side has drafted.

Attacking I won with the 4 dragons, 3 sets of drones (who did nothing whatsoever), and the Crav Maga agents. defender had Syvarris, dead-eye, the elven archers (one set), and I don't recall what else.

Defending I won with 2 sets 4th Mass powered up by Raelin and Taelord, and Deadeye Dan. Also had Finn, but he didn't really do much (I think the viking was drunk (inside joke)).

[mathguy]

I played the first official scenario (2 v 2) twice and both times the team that was trying to prevent the 3 unique heros reinforcements won handily.

But that's just 2 games. In retrospect, better strategy could have been used by both sides. So I'm looking forward to more games with the official scenarios.

[DarkSpade]

I think a solution could be glyphs.

Put glyphs outside of the castle.

[mrbistro]

I won both attacking and defending, so I think it just really depends on the luck of the dice, and what army each side has drafted.

Yes, but you can't always count on being able to draft all-dragon armies.

I agree with most that the official scenario seems way off. It's too easy to create a defending force with little thought, while the attacker has to really be at his best from beginning to end, and still has the odds against him.

But I don't think there's any easy answer. A straight-forward castle design such as the one in the official scenarios probably requires 1:2.5 odds. But let's be honest, many of us won't be making straight-forward castles that sit on even ground and are nothing but a single wall. I for one plan on making elaborate castles with multiple lines of defense. I think the only answer to this is that scenario designers are going to have to work three times as hard designing castle scenarios. The odds needed for a balanced game will change radically from map to map.

[markwars]

I'm really interested to see how this will be addressed in upcoming tournaments.

[Pilgrim]

Is there any consensus on the ideal ratio of points, defender to attckers, in a castle siege scenario?

Specifically, if you have one defender and two attackers, how many more points should the defender have relative to the attackers?

And if the points in the game get too high, does that ratio break down?

[Taelord]

You make my head hurt.

[netherspirit]

Hmmm, I believe there was a thread on this...let me find it.

EDIT - Merged.

[theats]

um, the ALAMO, anyone?

186 defenders, 6000 attackers. thats a BIG difference.

hey, that may be a nice scenario, anyone care to make it?

[ScoringRubric]

it`s those 2 damn autoshields that bog me down when assaulting a castle without flying units. you need serious attack stats or even perfect rolls get ruined.

[Hendal]

I find taking out the door just takes way to long, kinda makes the game boring.. You sit outside of range and fire away till you take it out.

Pick DED so he doesn't shoot down on you, Q-9 and his flag bearer ( the gorilla ) and have 10 range with a large guy shooting 4, if you can get height all the better, but it still takes 4-8 rounds to take the door out, oh yea, pick off anyone on the wall who shows himself cause you have the best range, other wise it is really hard.

So if you pick DED, Q-9, and the Vydar flag bearer.

AE, drop em in side the castle.

The sentinals, flying over the wall, and hopefully their defense holds for there slow movement.

2 people to 1 is a really good option, IMO

[krai]

I think haveing a new type of card called a ploy would help a ploy would represent there being some thing thing that happened before the battle such as exploding runes/mines being placed or a mole who opens the castle door. these would of course cost a lot of points (2:1without a castle wont work well.)