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Old August 25th, 2009, 05:03 PM
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The Guy That Thinks Runa is Good (and has actually won games with her)
 
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Looking at "Other" Melee Armies, and Raelin Musings

Since the Heavy Gruts performed so well at GenCon this year, I've gotten to thinking about some other melee armies. First things first though - why did the Heavy Gruts / Grimnak do so well this year?

1) Rat dominance in the meta-game
2) Smaller maps and LOS blockers help melee
3) Chomp ignores Raelin's Aura
4) Raelin is a great asset due to Grimnak's survivability, the target on his back, and the Orcs tendency to bunch up. The smaller maps make it easier for Raelin to maneuver with a melee force.

When I thought about these points, I realized that there are some other melee armies that might have close to the success that the Orcs have enjoyed.

I'm not going to go into the Knights here. It's obvious that they can be a strong build on their own - small maps or not. Their base defense of 4, multitude of bonding options and "double-movement" of Jandar's Dispatch are clearly their strongest assets. They should be in any conversation concerning the strength of melee armies.

How about some of the other melee armies out there, though?

Hivelord / Nagrubs

This is the army that really got me thinking about making this thread. When I thought about the advantages the Orcs had and tried to think about what armies compared to them, I thought of the Hivelord builds - particularly with Tor-Kul-Na and including Raelin. Let's look at the points again:

1) Rats - Tor-Kul-Na's Trample Stomp prevents Scatter and, while not automatic, has the ability to get rid of multiple Rats in a turn.
2) Smaller maps help - check.
3) Ignores Raelin - Again, Tor-Kul-Na has a Special Power that can ignore Raelin's Aura.
4) Raelin makes sense - Tor-Kul-Na has 6 life (usually more thanks to Hivelord Life Bonding), which makes Raelin a great partner for him. Plus, due to Hivelord Life Bonding, the Nagrubs have an incentive to stick close to their Hivelord, making it easier for Raelin to cover everyone. Not only that, the Nagrubs small defense of 2 means they benefit more from Raelin's Aura then say, a Heavy Grut or Knight would, and every Nagrub saved could potentially be an extra life point for Tor-Kul-Na (or another Hivelord, both of which are great Raelin partners as well).

The crutch of the Hivelord army is that the Nagrubs are relatively weak attackers, so they usually need some support for the moment with Tor-Kul-Na finally goes down. There are plenty of options though with the points that will be remaining.

Tor-Kul-Na - 220
Marrden Nagrubs x3 - 310
Raelin - 390
Other Support (110) - 500

I've gotta go now, but to be continued.... talk of the Romans, Dwarves, Sacred Band, Zombies and Dividers....

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