The Breakdown of a Competitive Army Part I

[KCU Master 2007]

The Breakdown of a Competitive Army Part I
Building a Competitive Army

Part II

As many new players develop, there is something that is intriguing to many players, tournaments. Now, the draw for tournaments varies for every player but common to each of these gatherings are competitive armies. There are several other articles already in existence that help players build armies to take to tournaments. However, there is not one, to date and to my knowledge, that gives a step-by-step template to build tournament armies. That is the goal of this article.


Now, understand that this is an article geared mainly for newer scapers, or at least scapers that are new to prebuilt armies (drafting games tend to be more random and laid back). The benefit to building armies is that you can design it so every unit works to its maximum potential. Also, please note that there are other ways to build armies and this is not meant to be the definitive guide for building tournament armies.


Now, the articles that I mentioned before I would strongly suggest having read (or skimmed at least) or open in another window at the same time as reading this. There are three of them: Jexik’s What's in an Order Marker, gamuven’s Idiot’s Guide to Building a Competitive Army, and spider_poison’s Heroscape Power Rankings.



Building an Army
For some people this, can be the most daunting task in heroscape tournaments. What do you want to take? Who figures are you going to fight against? There are three steps to actually putting together any army, not just competitive armies: pick an army core, pick support units, and pick “filler” units or extra units to help fill your total points. The following does not have any “filler” units, but there are competitive armies including “filler” units.


Now, the first thing to look at is the core of your army. This is going to be the main damage dealing part of your army. Army cores can consist of a couple different things, but using a Menacer Hero or Squad, or a Bread and Butter Squad or Hero tend to be the best options in my experience. What you choose for your army core typically dictates your how you choose the rest of your army. You’re next pick are the support units for the army. Supporting units are primarily Defenders, Cheerleaders, or even a cheap Shark or Menacer.

For example, if you pick a Menacer as the core of your army it would be very good to pick up at least a few Defenders. After picking Defenders you can now pick up a Shark or two to add in extra firepower. On the other hand, if you choose a Bread and Butter unit as your core, Cheerleaders become your primary support.. After that, Defenders can be used to protect your masses as they move across the board and Sharks can provide a more dangerous target while destroying a significant chunk of you’re opponent’s army. The last part of building an army is to pick your “filler” units. These units typically come from Clean Up units or, occasionally, cheap Sharks. I will break this process down and actually build two armies, one with a Menacer hero core and the other with a Bread and Butter squad core (these are not original armies built from scratch, but are armies that follow this method and are primarily for example).


For simplicity, and usability, I’ll draw up two 540 point armies to match those of the majority National Heroscape Tournament. The first army that will be built is going to use a Menacer hero as its core. So, the first step is to pick the hero. There are a couple of choices, two of the most powerful “stand alone” Menacer heroes are Major Q9 or Nilfheim. My personal favorite is Nilfheim, so I’ll pick him. He carries a 185 point price tag and leaves you with 355 points left to use. As a Menacer, Nilfheim is a high priority target for your opponent but he will typically be able to withstand a lot of abuse before being destroyed. However to improve his effectiveness, Defenders can be used to tie up enemy units and allows you to prioritize your own targets.


Arguably the best Defenders are the Deathreavers. For 40 points, you can have four units that have the ability to move on your opponent’s turn and with 4 defense they can hold their own against most attacks. A solid amount of Deathreavers is typically 2-3 squads. Personally, I would go with 3 squads leaving you with 235 points. What I would do next is pick something else that will do one of two things: keep your opponents focus off of Nilfheim OR be able to take advantage of the fact that Nilfheim is on the board and your opponent cannot leave him alone. The type of unit that comes to mind is a Shark.


Since we already have 3 squads of Deathreavers on the board, a Shark will be able to work very well because of the protection it already has. Let’s pick a ranged unit that has been around since the very beginning, the Airborne Elite. The only problem with them is when they drop, it is all left up to luck. By being a squad of 4 with an honorable base attack of 3, the Airborne Elite are going to cause trouble for your opponent whenever they drop. You may even be able to take advantage of an early grenade depending on your opponent. By taking the Airborne Elite you have brought your point total down to 125 points. There is a very powerful Shark/Menacer unit that can strike fear into any opponent, especially in the late game when they have limited range or (heaven forbid) partial squads. That hero is Krug. With a double attack and an increasing base attack when ever he gets wounded, Krug is very powerful hero if played correctly. Now, as mentioned earlier, this army does not use “filler” units because the core and support units end up taking all of the available points. So your army ends up looking like this:

Nilfheim - 185
Deathreavers x3 - 120
Airborne Elite - 110
Krug - 120

Let’s look at a basic strategy for how this army could be played. At first, many of your order markers would need to be on the deathreavers to get them into the field to tie down enemy units (this is know as the rat screen). As Defenders you don’t need to worry about them trying to kill anything, just engage what ever you can and hold it there until a more powerful unit shows up. After that, you need to present Nilfheim as a threat to your opponent by killing what you can after moving him from your start zone. Depending on when the Airborne Elite drop, that is how long you will continue to move Nilfheim. Once the Airborne Elite drop, however, you must switch your attention to them. As Sharks, they need to keep moving and eliminate any immediate threats. Their first job should be to clear any threats away from Nilfheim, as a Menacer he can take a bit of a beating, but loosing Nilfheim early or mid-game will make the rest of the battle difficult, but not impossible. After, he is safe, the Airborne Elite should proceed to destroy all they can till they’ve lost about two members of the squad. They are now at half power and your attention should again be on Nilfheim. After he is gone, bring out Krug to end your game. Remember, this is just a basic strategy on how I would play this particular army. You must be able to adapt any strategy to the map and how your opponent is playing.


The biggest problem with this particular army is the fact that order marker placement can tend to be tedious and can result in horrible effects if messed up. Because of this, I tend to rarely play these armies. I would rather play the next type of army.


My preferred army type is one that revolves around the use of a Bread and Butter squad. My favorite to use is the 4th Massachusetts Line, so we’ll build an army centered around them. Being a Bread and Butter squad (and even just being a common squad) it is almost understood that you need multiple squads of them to be effective. I find that 3 squads is my sweet spot where as some argue that they are their strongest at 4 or even 5 squads. For this build, we will be using three squads for 210 points. Now, before we move on, the 4th Massachusetts Line has something called Valiant Defense. If the rest of your army is Valiant, then you automatically add one more defense dice every time to roll defense dice for the 4th Massachusetts Line. With that in mind, let’s find another solid squad to use as Defenders.


This is one of the very few points at which Jexik and myself disagree. I believe that the Knights of Weston not only a good Bread and Butter squad but can be used very effectively as Defenders in this army, although they are very aggressive in the process. With their defense of 4, the Knights of Weston aren’t going anywhere fast, this also holds true because their move is also a very humble 4. But, they make a very powerful squad that can help keep any aggressors from getting too close to the crux of your army, the 4th Massachusetts Line. So, since they are going to be in the line of fire more often than not, three squads is a good amount for them and that carries another price tag of 210 points. Another great thing about the Knights of Weston is the fact that they can bond with any human champion.


This gives us many options that can be used, but lets pick a hero that can be used as a Cheerleader for both the 4th Massachusetts Line AND the Knights of Weston. That hero is Sir Gilbert. Sir Gilbert fits nicely in our price range at 105 points leaving us, again, with 5 extra points. Sir Gilbert is an excellent choice for this army because he is a Cheerleader that bonds with an attack aura,the ability to move other figures that follow Jandar, and can hold his own in battle. Not to mention, he is also a valiant figure meaning your army is all valiant, giving the 4th Massachusetts Line an extra defense die. This army does not use the combination of units that I discussed that the beginning of the article (it lacks any kind of Menacer, Shark, or Clean Up) but is a good, solid army none the less. There will be an example of one of those particular armies later on. Again, the core and support units of this army take all of the available points, so no “filler” unit is necessary. So, your army is going to look like this:

4th Massachusetts Line x3 - 210
Knights of Weston x3 - 210
Sir Gilbert - 105

The basic strategy for your army is to use Sir Gilbert to position your army early in the first round. You do this through bonding from you're supporting Bread and Butter squad, the Knights of Weston. This allows you to not only position your knights at strategic points across the map in the first turns, it also allows your Cheerleader, Sir Gilbert to begin moving the crux of your army, the always consistent 4th Massachusetts Line, into position with Jandar’s Dispatch. One other thing this does tactically is that it can confuse your opponent. By leading out with the Knights of Weston, you may be able to bait your opponent into exposing a key unit to kill the Knights of Weston with. Odds are the 4th Massachusetts Line won’t move extremely fast, but 3 free moves of 2-4 (on average) isn’t bad either. By this time, you’re opponent is either moving across the board to meet you, or turtling (basically establishing a fortified position to be attacked at) himself. If he is turtling, don’t be afraid move against it. Other than that, this army is a very straight forward army. If some big unit comes out make sure to use the Knights of Weston/Sir Gilbert combo to deal with them. The same units can be used to tie down opponents for the 4th Massachusetts Line to pick their own targets while taking advantage of their Wait then Fire bonus.


There is one big problem with this army, it requires 25 starting hexes. In most tournaments, the limit is 24 spaces. Most of the time, you’re going to have to kill off one unit before the game even begins. Before you choose, look at your opponents army and decide what to loose based on that (unless the TD says otherwise).


I’m not saying that you could walk into a tournament with either of these armies and come out winning. What I am saying though, is that these armies both have the elements needed to work well together and make a strong appearance at tournaments.



Some Basic Criteria for an Army to Be Competitive
The next thing to consider comes from Gamjuven’s article. Here he outlines 16 specific points about competitive armies. However, points 6 (maps available) and 8 (rules of the setting) are always changing, and 14 (point differential) may not be applicable the tournament you are attending. His last point, 16 (what would you draft against it) is completely up to you. So, we will take the remaining points from his article (there are 12 of them left) and use them to judge the two armies we built. As a rule of thumb, if any competitive army meets over half of those 12 remaining points, you probably have a good army on your hands.


Now, let’s look at both of the armies we just drew up and see if they could stand up against some other competitive armies. Here’s the first army we drew up again:

Nilfheim - 185
Deathreavers x3 - 120
Airborne Elite - 110
Krug - 120

Let’s look at Gamjuven’s points and see which ones this army has built into it. I’m not going to write out the whole point, rather I’m going to give the number and you can view his article for more details. First is 2 (history and record); Nilfheim and the Deathreavers have appeared in many tournament winning armies over time. Next is 3 (consistency); the same units are very consistent and are capable of winning time and time again. The Airborne Elite and Krug aren’t quite as consistent here but are consistent choices regardless. This army also meets 7 as the Deathreavers are some of the most versatile units in the game. Nilfheim can also switch between his special attack and his normal attack of six depending on the situation (special for squads and normal for heros). It also meets 12 and 16 as this army only takes up 20 hexes and has only four army cards in it. Now, there may be some of the other points that this army fits into that aren’t as obvious in this army (such as points 13 and 14) but there are a couple that this army fails at (such as 4 and 9) where as the others are moderate for this army. Again, I cannot promise that you will win with this army, but you could make a good showing if nothing else.


What about the radically different second army that was built? Here it is one more time:

4th Massachusetts Line x3 - 210
Knights of Weston x3 - 210
Sir Gilbert - 105

Let’s take a look at this one. The points that it meets (again, you can look through these points in Gamejuven’s article) are as follows: 2 (history and record in both the 4th Massachusetts and the Knights of Weston), 3 (consistency), 4 (synergy...lots and lots of synergy here), 5 (amount of attacks, you can get 4-5 attacks every activation), 7 (multiple roles), 9 (order marker placement), 10 (number of common squads), 11(ranged opponent), 13 (multiple ways of winning), and 15 (number of army cards). That’s 10 of those major points. Now, does the fact that the second army meets more of Gamjuven’s points mean that it is superior to the first army. Not really. The strength of the first army is a moderate number of powerful attacks. In most cases, Nilfheim and the Airborne Elite are going to kill most something almost every time they are activated because of their consistent 3+ (usually 4+ from height) attack. On the other hand, the second army has the numbers to make up for this and will kill two to three units on every turn with their moderate attack of 3-4 (usually).


In short, Gamjuven’s article backs up the fact that either of these armies could have a powerful showing at any of the upcoming National Heroscape Day tournaments.



The Army’s Grade
The last article I mentioned, spider_poison’s Power Rankings, can be used to give your army an overall grade to help project how a given army will perform. However, like everything else, his article cannot be the basis for building an army. Let’s give each of their units their grade and see what its overall grade is for both armies.


We’ll begin, again, with this first army and you can see their grades off to the right of their point values in parentheses:

Nilfheim - 185 (A)
Deathreavers x3 - 120 (A+)
Airborne Elite - 110 (A-)
Krug - 120 (A-)

As you can see, this is an army with a very high grade with an overall grade of about an “A”. As I said before, you have very powerful units, but it will take some coordination to get them to all work together well.


What about the squad based army? Here it is with their grades:

4th Massachusetts Line x3 - 210 (A+)
Knights of Weston x3 - 210 (A)
Sir Gilbert - 105 (A)

Again, a very high ranked army with an overall grade of an “A”. Again, I cannot stress to you how important it is to understand that just because you have an A ranked army does not mean you will win, but it does give you a very VERY good chance.



Some Winning Armies
One last thing that I would like to do, to help show that this is a sound strategy and not just random musings, is pick apart the three winning GenCon Championship armies. I will use spider_poison’s Power Rankings, Jexik’s color code, and I’ll point out a few of the main points that each army meets from gamjuven's article. There is one thing to consider, however, the power rankings have changed since new units have been released. Because of that, this section will be slightly weaker than I would like and not quite as accurate.

The 2006 GenCon Championship Army (Spider Poison):

Arrow Gruts x3 - 120 (B+)
Swog Rider x3 - 75 (B+)
Raelin - 80 (A+)
Krug - 120 (A-)

This army currently has an overall rating of "A-". A solid grade for a competitive army. Let’s break this army down a little bit. Arrow Gruts are a Bread and Butter squad and bond with the Menacer of the army, Krug. This allows Krug to take free turns whenever needed. The Arrow Gruts also bond with one of their two Cheerleaders, the Swog Riders. The Swog Riders increase attack and defense for adjacent Arrow Gruts. The final Cheerleader, Raelin, has to move independently but can be kept out of the line of fire easily in this particular army. Let’s now look and see how many of the basic criteria it has it. The points it meets are: 4 (synergy), 5 (amount of attacks per turn), 7 (multiple roles needed), 9 (order maker placement), 10 (number of common squads), 12 (hexes), and 15 (amount of army cards). That’s 7 of the major points, more than half. So this fits the trend of we’ve seen so far. Spider_poison's army also follows the outline I described early using a Menacer instead of a Shark (these unit types are very similar though).


The 2007 GenCon Championship Army (Mattser Truck):

Major Q-9 - 180 (A+)
Laglor - 110 (A)
Krav Maga Agents - 100 (A)
Raelin - 80 (A+)
Marcu - 20 (A-)
Isamu - 10 (A)

This army also a very high rating, with about an “A” overall rating and some of the most feared and powerful units in the game. There is no boding in this army but it really isn’t needed as there is so much other synergy in it. The two Cheerleaders in this army increase range and defense both by 2, something that makes this army nearly impossible to defeat. Let’s look at the major points in this army: 1 (meta-game, Major Q-9is the meta-game), 2 (history and record in Krav Maga Agents and Raelin), 3 (consistency), 4 (synergy), 5 (number of attacks per turn), 7 (multiple roles), 11 (good against ranged opponents), 12 (hexes), 13 (multiple ways to win). That is 8 of the major criteria for a competitive army. There are a few problems with this, and the biggest one is order marker place management. If your opponent begins to close on you, you have to be careful to not waste an order maker. Even if that did happen, odds are a wasted turn are going to be rare with this army as Major Q-9's high defense and 4 life will keep him around for a bit and the Krav Maga Agents are nearly impossible to kill at range with a 5 defense and stealth dodge.


The most recent, 2008 GenCon Championship Army (Spider Poison):

Gladiatrons x4 - 320(A)
Blastatrons x2 - 120 (A)
Raelin - 80 (A+)

This army continues the trend of tournament winning armies being a high overall rating, this one with an “A” rating. Let’s pick it a part a little bit. The Bread and Butter squad, Blastatrons, movement bond with Gladiatrons AND get an extra attack die for each Gladiatron adjacent to an enemy unit. Not only that, the Gladiatrons can literally lock down a vast amount of popular figures keeping the Blastatrons and Raelin safe. So in this army, the Gladiatrons serve as Defenders but also can act as a Cheerleader for the Blastitrons. Raelin, in turn, can risk moving a bit closer to give extra defense dice to more figures. Remember though, Spider Poison himself says that this army requires finesse to play, so you can't just take it to a tournament and expect to win. Now, let’s check the criteria it meets: 2 (history and record in Raelin), 3 (consistency), 4 (synergy), 5 (number of attacks), 9 (order marker placement), 10 (number of common squads), 11 (a ranged opponent), 15 (number of cards). This one also meets 8 of the criteria laid out in Gamjuven’s article.



Conclusion
Now, there are two more rules to keep in your mind at all times. The first of these is this: regardless of how good the machine is, its the pilot that makes the difference. Simply put, no matter how high or low of a rank your army has, how you play it can make all the difference. The second is just as important: HAVE FUN WITH IT! Heroscape is a game and you should have fun with it. If you’re to concentrated on winning, any mistake or roll of the dice could eat at you and lead to more mistakes. So, just have fun and accept that fact that there is going to be a small amount of chance. Also, this is not the only way to build an army, but it is a very good way to build them. Look for hidden synergy in units and try to find new ways to surprise your opponents.

Enjoy and happy ‘scaping!

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What's in an Order Marker - At the end of Jexik's post is a complete list of Characters divided into their categories discussed here.

Heroscape Power Rankings - Spider_poison's power rankings

Idiots Guide to Building Competitive Armies - Gamjuven's article with major criteria for building competitive armies

The Books of Heroscape - RevDyer's index of the Book of Heroscape

Synergy Charts - This PDF shows in an easy to follow way, the synergy between units.

Spider Poison's Battle Report - Battle report of GenCon 2008 Championship.

Mattser's Battle Report - Battle report of GenCon 2007 Championship

*I have been unable to find the 2006 Championship Battle Report yet, but I'm still looking...any information on the subject would be appreciated.*

[Jexik]

Nice way to incorporate earlier knowledge into a helpful guide! I don't think I ever would have put together the order marker guide without the power rankings.

Knights, Sir Gilbert, and 4th Mass is a solid build- I've lost to that army more often than anything else. My first loss at my first tournament was against gibberish 47 playing 4x 4th Mass, 2x Knights of Weston and Sir Gilbert at a 530 point tournament. The next spring at a 470, I lost to 3x 4th Mass, 2x KoW, and Sir Gilbert 3 times in one day, at the hands of gibberish 47 (again!), Phloid, and supergeek.

Note that both times those armies were under the point limit, but still performed rather well. Zelrig is certainly pretty nasty for an army like that (as he is for a Deathreavers/Stingers army), but as gamjuven points out in his article, remember to consider the metagame- how many people are really going to play Zelrig ? And come to think of it, Jandar's Dispatch is a great way to disperse a starting zone in a hurry.

[wk4c]

It was a good read for sure. Liked how it made alot very, very simple.

Nitpick: Blastitrons are spelled as Blastatrons, and Gladitrons are spelled as Gladiatrons.

[KCU Master 2007]

Originally Posted by wk4c

Nitpick: Blastitrons are spelled as Blastatrons, and Gladitrons are spelled as Gladiatrons.

Alright. I'll go back and fix that right now. Thanks for the feedback.

[Flavius Maximus]

Very nice, I would like to try out the 4th Mass, KoW, Sir G army sometime. Too bad I only own Gilbert.

This was a very helpful post, KCU Master, us inexperienced folks need stuff like this to make us feel competent.

[S1R_ART0R1US]

The number one thing that helped me to build better armies was just to read about other players' experiences with them. Certainly articles like Jexik's and S_P's rankings helped me to form my opinions of what makes an army/unit good.

Reading about the success of past strategies and failures of others really helped me to see the value of certain units and how they work together. My skill (at least in my mind) has definitely improved as I learn more and more about how units perform. I think a good starting point for any new player is preexisting army. Look at tourney winners and example armies in articles like these.

Sometimes it can be hard to put all these things together, and working with a solid base can be really helpful.

[Xn F M]

Great article KCU. Hopefully I'll be able to put the information from this (and the reverenced articles) to good use on NHSD.

btw. In the "Army Grade" section it looks like you forgot to list the units grades.

[KCU Master 2007]

Originally Posted by Xn F M

Great article KCU. Hopefully I'll be able to put the information from this (and the reverenced articles) to good use on NHSD.

btw. In the "Army Grade" section it looks like you forgot to list the units grades.

Hmm...AH I know why that happened. They were there when I edited the article in my word processor but I copied and pasted in the actual post. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll fix it right away.

Again, sorry for the grammatical errors that I missed and haven't been pointed out yet. I rushed the editing a bit so this was ready for NHSD.

[Einar's puppy]

That deserves a rep. I've played at 3 tournaments, and I've done pretty respectively in all of them (3rd, 16th, 3rd) yet this still helps me. I'm going to do this kind of thing to my first 3rd place army, at 600 points.

Zelrig -185 (A-)
10th regiment of foot x3 -225 (A)
Realin -80 (A+)
Krav Maga Agents -100 (A)
Isamu -10 (filler) (A)

It certainly meets the rankings requirement! It has bread and butter, which is assisted by the multi purpose Zelrig (I'd have zelrig attack quick, and then when he's wounded, he'd stand there and make my opponent waste turns attacking him. It gave me time to move realin) to help the 10th. They also get helped by Realin, though she'd better stay back to help the KMA instead.

Meets 1(realin and KMA are well known) 2(Realin KMA combo has been used to good results) 4(realin helps everyone, and the 10th keep her safe. Zlerig also works well to buy them some time) 5(3-4 attacks per turn, and Zelrig can hit a ton) 8(meets all requirements, and keeps it's self alive) 10 (3 squads seems good to me) kind of 11(KMA backed by realin) 12(less than 24 hexes) 15(really only 4 you will use)

So I think that works as a pretty good army, and it sure seemed to show it! 8 points match, with one kind of since the KMA can't kill a horde of ranged figures, especially with the 10th's small range.

Very helpful.

[KCU Master 2007]

Way to apply it to an army that has done well for you.

It makes me happy that this useful for more than just rookies.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Kroc]

KCU you rock! I have read all of those articles, and all of those sources, but the way you bring their ideas together and discuss how to evaluate an army with them is awesome. +Rep, and thanks.

[KCU Master 2007]

Just wanted to give this a bump. Hope this is helping people out.