Armies & Units Played

I should warn you though that it won't be long before you're classifying them by record, general, year-of-release, size,...

Any units you're itching to give a try next?

You're my idol Ollie-- your unit variety is awe-inspiring!

I love the Shao-lin Monks, but I can't figure out a good army for them. Any suggestions?

I don't think I've ever been described as an idol before. Idle, certainly...

I have a new favourite way for including awkward units: draft tournaments. There's one near me next month and I'll be packing my pool with targets and or tough-to-use units. I suspect I'll be doing a lot of picking from the other guys' pools but a few should get a game or two.

Other than that, pair them with the strong stuff. They might work well as Q9 guards: Monks x2, Woo and Q9 is a reasonable 480pt army. Lure stuff in with the Major and then strike with the whirlwinding monks when stuff gets close (and then switch back to Q9 when they all die ).

I like it, except that I'm avoiding Q9 for the moment.

I've been thinking about using the Monks with Raelin 2.0-- her bonus isn't as confining as Raelin 1.0's, which allows them to use their superior mobility. Acolarh could be useful, too, just because he gives them that early game boost to get them into the battle for a quick first strike (before dying). I figure they need to be teamed with a dominant ranged unit and hero killer-- maybe Krav Maga or Braxas?

I've been wanting to make a post like this one, but I worry it would only bring scorn... although nobody plays TKN as much as I do.

ollie's "reel 'em in and shaolin assault 'em dead" strategy works nearly as well (sometimes better, actually) with the Krav as with Q9. Raelin 2.0, Krav, Woo, Monksx2... that's 520 and not that bad. Watch out for Daniel's minions, though!

@Elginb, what's the motivation for avoiding Q9? If it's the cheese factor I think you can safely avoid being accused of that if you're fielding monks and Woo alongside him. In fact, it's only when more than one of the three A+ers appear in the army that I start to worry when I see them across the board.

@dok, you should do it anyway. Surely the whole point of blogs is self-absorption?

dok: Unfortunately, I don't have Woo (the only figure outside of the next D&D wave I don't have, I think), so it would have to be something like Raelin 2.0, Krav, MonksX3, Black WyrmlingsX4 (that'll teach those Minions), Otonashi and Isamu for 600 points?


Ollie: I guess it's the cheese factor. Part of it is not wanting to copy dok-- the Q9/Raelin combo is kind of his, now (in Colorado, anyway)-- I'd at least want to beat it before using it. Rats have always just irritated me, no matter how useful they are. But you're right, non-traditional use of those figures should be fair game.

I'm not sure I'm ready for a full-on blog, but here's what I've played. Thank goodness for the draft tournaments.

Try a Deathwalker with the monks. While your opponent is busy trying to kill your Deathwaler, your monks can pummel them to oblivion.

I'm totally on board with a drafting tournament-- I'm sorry I missed the last one. I don't like the idea that you can lock someone out of drafting common units after they've been drafted once, but the overall idea of it (each player brings two draft pools that both draft from) is pretty nifty. I've always been a drafting guy.

Yeah, it's great. It adds a cool element of strategy, but more importantly, it removes the incentive to bring only stuff at the tops of the rankings. I played 11 figures I'd never played in a tournament before (including a couple that I don't even own!) in just five games.

If you go through all the drafts with all the different rulesets on killercactus's mock draft thread, the overwhelming conclusion (at least to me) is that the draft isn't significantly more or less fair, or more or less skill-based, with any of the different drafting systems. The differences show up less in how slanted armies end up being on average, and more in how common-heavy or synergistic they end up being.

Personally, I like not completely overturning the common-heavy metagame, so I like the "draft as many commons as you like in one turn" rule. ollie is partial to the "common freeze out", which is pretty similar in effect but does allow more denial drafting. killercactus likes "up to 2x in one pick". Again, all of them produce fair results, they're just different sorts of fair results.

As to the Monks: You could try

160 Monks x 2
120 Raelin SotM
100 Syvarris
80 Finn
40 Theracus
500

I like that-- fly Finn into the middle of the action, then the Monks hop next to him for an attack boost. Syvarris gets the boost when Finn dies.

The only problem with all the teams suggested so far (except for the Q9 one, I suppose) is that they all get slaughtered by Braxas and change.

How about:

Monks x2 - 160
Raelin 2.0 - 120
Fen Hydra - 120
Krav Maga - 100
Total = 500 points

Or

Monks x2 - 160
Raelin 2.0 - 120
Mimring - 150
Arrow Gruts - 40
Swog Rider - 25
Total = 495 points

Or how about

Monks x2 - 160
Raelin 2.0 - 120
Iron Golem - 100
Krav Maga - 100
Marcu - 20
Total = 500 points

It occurs to me-- for the last one, Nakitas might be good:

Monks x2 - 160
Raelin 2.0 - 120
Iron Golem - 100
Nakitas - 120
Total = 500 points

The first one looks pretty strong. The Hydra is a great counter to Braxas, Q9, and lafleurhero's Grimnak.

Also, just for the record, I'm not the only one to run Q9 around here. kpucblek ran Q9/Raelin/Krav/Nakitas/ratsx1 at last year's NHSD.