slaying Zelrig

[KCU Master 2007]

Originally Posted by fil

Cyprien remains my fave to take down large, fleshy targets.

There's nothing like dropping a 20 on someone who's bringing Z into your business.

You know...Morsbane would also be a good choice. 20 for an instant kill, 15-19 to negate all specials. With out his majestic fires, Zelrig becomes pretty tame...and still costs his 185.

[ej]

Originally Posted by Einar Gen.

He was obviously joking... Either way, I find this thread very personally offensive.

I wasn't, actually.

Nevermind me... I've been crabby lately and I haven't played HS ever since the first weekend Wave 8 came out. Having Zelrig ruin my fun has left me disenchanted. I AM a little annoyed that he was designed specifically to take down common squad figures - that just seems a little too game-breaking to me (I was also annoyed with the Unique/Common glyphs in the SOTM set, but since glyphs aren't a big part of my HSing I didn't grouse much about that.)

Imagine a special ability that effected only Wave 5 figures, or Units Bought at GenCon, etc. COMMON is an artificial designation within the game. Having an ability that targets that attribute goes against, well, common sense.

But ej, I hear you say... what about Mindshackle, which is used only against Unique Heroes? Doesn't that nullify your whole argument?

... yeah, I guess it does. But the fact remains, Zelrig made some of my matches the other day infuriating. I don't mind losing in Heroscape... I do it all the time, but I usually still have fun doing it. Zelrig changed that.

[Majai of Dreams]

Originally Posted by Gdawg4

After playing Zelrig for the first time today Im quite confident that the best way to deal with him is simply terrible luck. I sent him out at the start of the game to burn my friends 4 squads of harquebus still in the start zone. I targeted 7 at once, got ready to roll, and whiffed the roll! My Friend attacks me, does 3 damage, then I attack him and whiff the roll again! The same thing happened again! After 3 rounds, Zelrig was dead and I never rolled a single skull!...........Now thats the best way to counter Zelrig.

Relying on luck is unfortunately not the best strategy. I can sympathize completely about whiffing on explosion attacks. I never seem to roll well with them.

You might want to prepare a strategy that will suffer less casualties if luck is against you. Otherwise you will take heavy losses.

[Einar Gen.]

20 for an instant kill, 15 through 19 to negate all specials.

It's actually 16 through 19...

[fetelgeuse]

Originally Posted by ej

I've been crabby lately and I haven't played HS ever since the first weekend Wave 8 came out. Having Zelrig ruin my fun has left me disenchanted.

Hence the avatar?

I understand your frustration, but I'm sure you guys have all had the experience of playing with someone who wants to use nothing but a mass of the 4th Mass. ie. the guy that started this thread. While it is not an impossible army to counter, having to counter it does seriously limit your options for an army (unless you just don't mind losing every time). And from what I've read on these forums, it sounds like competitive play has been dominated by large groups of the same common squad. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I applaud the designers for coming up with a figure who could single handedly make it possible to change that, or at least make you think twice about using the same old tournament armies. So, Nomyster, if you're that worried about Zelrig crushing your 4th Mass., maybe you should try changing it up a bit and using some different units. This game is all about variety; it absolutely reeks of it. Maybe if you play a few games with some different units, the next time you want to use the 4th, your friends won't automatically have the big Z at the ready.

[Zelrig]

Originally Posted by fetelgeuse

Hence the avatar?

Zctually he has had that avatar for as long as I can remeber... And I was a lurker for a LONG time.

[KCU Master 2007]

Originally Posted by Einar Gen.

It's actually 16 through 19...

Yeah, your right. Was trying to do it from memory and just messed up. My bad, thanks for catching it.

[Kroc]

Lost of love, ej, but your reaction makes me think the designers got it right. I gotta go with fetelgeuse here.

I don't think there is a single competitive army out there with out at least 2x of some common unit. In such an environment what should they do to mix it up? Make something that kills common units. Its their job, its what they should do. Ruin our current strategies and make us evolve new ones.

I don't think Zelrig is a game breaker, he only got an A- in the power ranking. If he becomes a required unit in tournament armies then I say "Yea, rah!" But he won't be, because too much Zelrig means no commons means no Zelrig. He's exactly the sort of unit we need to balance the game.

NOW I get to curse myself for not getting AA when I was in the US this year.

[Fourshadow]

I think Zelrig is a lot of fun. Sometimes I think his point value is actually too high--but that's probably due to my overwhelming amounts of rotten luck..ie rolling blanks or shields on attack rolls, skulls on defense rolls. It happens far too often.

I have no problem with him being a counter to commons. The simple solution is one that has already been suggested: space the figures out! If a 185 point figure is only able to eliminate one common figure per turn, that Zelrig user is not going to get his points worth by the time Z dies....and they will be pretty frustrated--been there, done that.

[Heroscape Elffy]

Personally, I now hate the Ashigaru. If the opponent knows how to play them correctly, it sucks. 550 points, add 9 extra spaces.
Kato 200
Ashigaru x2 of each 200
10th Foot x2 150

I used Zelrig and Braxas and someother known squad killers...I got overwhelmed.

[Scapemaster]

Deleted...

[JusticeProctor]

Jumping on the bandwagon (they are fun! They move slowly and are easy to catch up to...), I will wholeheartedly and entirely agree with fetelgeuse and Kroc when it comes to Zelrig being a fantastic addition.

While not on the same level as ej in his disgruntlement, I was very let down the more I learned about what it takes to make an awesome tournament army. I have read articles about the use of rats, over and over again. I have read about the (over)use of 6 squads of 4th mass. Does anyone remember what got folks into HeroScape in the first place? It might have been the alien fighting the orc on a dinosaur, not the idea of WarHammer diluted onto some plastic tiles.

As for slaying ole Z, I find that killing him is like killing Braxas. Strong heroes overcome his four defense. The idea is not to charge him with commons....

I would really like to see a game-changing errata to the rules, something like no more than two or three common squads at a time. But hey, we can all dream.