2019 C3V Playtest Tournament - Complete (Congrats dok)

[vegietarian18]

Originally Posted by infectedsloth

PTI

There are three reasons why I believe this tournament’s structure is inherently flawed and leads to weak or unreliable data.

1: Take Two seems like a flawed format for testing figures. With take two many times one batch of armies will be stronger then the other. This leads to one persons armies being played at a higher rate then other possible army combinations. The armies were also designed to be balanced against each other. The results is a format that encourages the same balanced matchup over and over again. That meta simply doesn’t produce a lot of good date. Not to mention you’re not gonna see matchup archetypes that are all but required for testing a unit properly. There’s too much outside influence before the game even starts creating a balanced matchup. This comes at the cost of the figures being playtested. A focus on creating balanced matchups is not the philosophy that we should be encouraging. We want to see how units do in verity of settings.

2: Both armies contain units that are being play tested. This a cardinal sin of play testing. It’s really science 101. We want to control variables, not introduce more. If a match is a blow out is it becomes one unit was too strong, the other unit too weak, or a combination of both? There’s no way to tell. If you play against established armies you don’t have this problem. We’re trying to answer question here, not cause more.

3: Take a moment to look at the armies in this tournament. It doesn’t look a thing like any tournament that’s been played in scapes 15 year history. Y’all created an artificial meta that is not representative of reality. I’m at a loss who thought it was a good idea to test units it this bizarro meta.

This tournament tells you so little. It’s a real shame that we’re getting so little date out of so many games. It’s also troubling that skewed date is being used to informs design decisions.

I do agree that Bring 2 is not an optimal choice for a playtesting tournament format. I think it's used because it's basically the tournament standard for online.

And the artificial meta is kind of because there really isn't a C3V meta lol. Like who could honestly say the second and third order effects of the post-Nhah Scirh Cultist meta with the first real hard counter to Q9? Like are 4th Mass better now that Q9/Raelin/Rats is riskier to take? What about Haduc making Elves at least an entire letter grade better, do you need to pack more hero killing now? I don't think anyone knows, there aren't nearly enough competitive Bring 1 tournament C3V games played. So C3V just does it's best and errs on the side of caution most of the time.

I disagree about playtesting unit vs. playtesting unit. I understand your logic of their strengths and weaknesses cancelling each other out but honestly most people here have enough of a basic feel for Heroscape figures that they can tell if something is off by that much. It's a lot about getting more eyes on the units, and more people taking them out for a spin instead of just talking about them in threads. There probably could be a lot more done, for sure. But we are doing our best with the limited time and enthusiasm resources that we have.

[Dysole]

Vegie and I should be starting here shortly. He has trees and I have acolytes.

~Dysole, who still hasn't played anything she brought

[vegietarian18]

Dysole won. It started with Corvor rushing the pod of Acolytes, taking two wounds from a Sentinel swing and then running away without much damage besides one runner dead. I brought back the runner and killed a few Acolytes, some due to Corvor not doing damage. Corvor came back in a few turns later and got a huge swing turn, him and the Acolytes killing all the Runners and one Sentinel in a single turn. Corvor died but the damage was done. From there the trees were desperately trying to regen and couldn't get space. The Monarch repeatedly failed (four times in a row) to kill an Acolyte clogging the road and the Krav came in and blew the rest of the army up. Good game.

Wildwoods: You can't use the Runners as offense, you have to use them primarily as resurrectors for Sentinels. The army definitely needs more testing as it's completely different from anything else in Heroscape but I really love how fractal the stats are. I do find them a bit uninteresting to play because they are so slow that there isn't much you can do, but they kind of need to be slow so the regen isn't too good. I feel like they are going to end up the kind of army that can pretty much always be beaten by a good player playing well even against another good player, kind of like Zombies. But that's okay, they are really cool.

Acolytes and Corvor: Acolytes still feel way too cheap to me. They have the same stats as Knights of Weston (+1 move) for slightly cheaper per figure, and they bond with better figures. Speaking of better figures that they bond with, Corvor is really really good. I'm still of the opinion that Terrifying Presence should be removed; it makes it too easy for him to safely make aggressive moves. Or just make it the Skull Demon's -1 attack but only to commons.

[Dad_Scaper]

Yup. The Acolytes are under the magnifying glass at the moment. It's my sense that it's been a fun army to play, but there is a balance issue.

Thanks to vegie and dysole, and to everyone doing so much great work in this event.

[Dysole]

My quick take mirrors vegie when it comes to Acolytes and is pretty close when it comes to Corvor (I think Terrifying Presence could work in its current form, but it's gonna be a very tight tightrope). I'm more optimistic than he is about the Wildwoods being good, but I do really like the army.

~Dysole, briefly

[Leaf_It]

Originally Posted by superfrog

Leaf_It and I starting now.

I took a while to get this posted, so I'm sorry about that. It honestly slipped my mind among other things going on at the time.

I used Swamp Two Ways: Marro Drudge x3, Durgeth Ravagers x2, Re-Tak-Shi, Uzog

superfrog used Wild Would: Wildwood Monarch, Wildwood Sentinel x2, Wildwood Runner x3

I lead with the Durgeth hoping to get some good hits in, and set up some kind of squishy screen, while using the 2 or 3 order marker to slowly advance the Drudge. superfrog's defense was decent, but I got a few hits in before loosing most of the Durgeth. The last Durgeth got to a Move glyph and stayed there until the very end of the game. After failing to get Emerge from swamp to trigger for me,(I actually did roll a 12 once by this point, but with one space to move, there was no where that I wanted to move her at the time, because any diretion would have put her in a worse position than where she already was) I finally put an order marker on Re-Tak-Shi, and moved her up next to a high ground location. The Drudge pod with Re-Tak-Shi is pretty decent... It is by no means the best, but the Drudge felt powerful for the first time ever. Rolling 3 and 4 attack dice, I slowly whittled away at the Monarch, and took a stray runner every now and then. I honestly didn't touch Uzog after the Durgeth died, and he only activated twice before that point. He was left stranded next to a Sentinel, which was helpful because it kept it tied down. The Monarch and the other wild woods killed a Drudge here and there, but I was killing the Wild Woods faster than they were respawning. In the end I was down to 1 squad of Drudge, a Durgeth still on the Glyph, and ReTakShi at full life, while superfrog closed in with a Sentinal, and a Runner hid behind a wall. I failed to kill the Sentinel, which then became a Monarch. I couldn't kill the Monarch fast enough, and it ate through my remaining Drudge, Re-tak-shi, and the last Durgeth taking 4 wounds in the process.

Units remaining: 1 Monarch with 4 wounds, 1 full life Sentinel, 1 runner.

Thoughts: I never used emerge from swamp this game. I rolled above a 12, I think 3 times, but never with a roll above 15. That single space was never a good move to make, because Drudge were always in the way of the direction I would have wanted to move. The ability is going to be fairly useful on water/swamp maps, but off of them, it's mostly useless if you can't roll above a 15.

[flameslayer93]

Heroscape Guy and I are playing now. His Demons, my Commie Dwarves.

Edit: My commie dwarves won.

[Zetsubo]

I thought I had posted this earlier. Here it is now.

Point Total: 475
Map: Valledon Fortress
Glyphs: Valda and Wannok

Toogwick_Tuk - Army: Mohican River Tribe x3, Teeth of the Makwa x2, Makwa Bowhunter x3, Brave Arrow
Zetsubo - Army: Venoc Vipers x3, 53rd North Carolina Sharpshooters x3, Venoc Warlord, Capt. Nathaniel Blount

Which units survived?
1 life Brave Arrow, 3 Bowhunters, 4 Teeth of the Makwa, and 3 Mohicans. Zetsubo conceded with a 2 life Venoc Warlord.

General Battle Report/Flow of game (be as detailed or general as you like)
Vipers and Mohicans battled back and forth for the first round and a half, but one frenzy wasn’t enough to stop Toogwick. Nathaniel Blount was out in the middle with the intent of supporting the vipers. His forces pushed through my snakes and surrounded Captain Blount. Blount didn’t have much of a chance by himself. The Teeth moved toward my start zone and came into conflict with my 53rd. The confederates held the natives back a bit until their superior numbers overran my forces. Venoc Warlord tried to make a stand however I conceded at the end of a round leaving VW with 2 life.

How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Rebel Yell was used once on a Teeth rolling 2/4 skulls against 0/1 shields. Support was never used due to him never being near an engaged scout (mostly cause the vipers didn’t stick around long enough)

Any additional comments (theme, balance, fun factor with and against)?
Blount didn’t do much during this game. He was caught overextended from the rest of my army once the viper screen disappeared. The Makwa Bowhunter got a couple of turns with one boosted attack on Blount giving him 1 wound

[dok]

@Toogwick_tuk @Dysole

I just want to say, before dice-offs happen, that if I'm matched up with one of you (or if I'm not for that matter) in the next round, I'd prefer we play with the latest suggested playtesting version of the figures, rather than the versions from the start of the event.

[All Your Pie]

Game planned with CP at 4 PM central tomorrow. We’re facing off with our respective RTS armies.

[Toogwick_tuk]

@dok
I'd be down with that.

[Chris Perkins]

Just finished up with AYP.

Round 1, we both missed emerge from Swamp. I used an OM to move up my RTS, while AYP left him in the start zone to develop fire elementals instead. I started an RTS/TBR/Drudge pod on the high ground on the wannok side of the map.

Round 2, AYP hit emerge and moved his RTS up next to the middle triangle of 4-height. He won init and moved all three water elementals up on the height and adjacent to RTS, where they started to throw Tsunamis at TBR. He managed to teleport up 2 more drudge and lasted for about a round of fire, but he drew fire away from RTS. I assume AYP targeted TBR first because of his ability to teleport over to Kurrok (which is what I was planning to do once he moved Kurrok further forward), but AYP protected against that well.

We each sent one unit to valda - AYP got there first with a fire elemental, but my drudge killed it after two attacks and then moved on valda for the rest of the game. For rounds 2-4, I was taking heighted shots on fire elementals away from my RTS while keeping at least one RTS boosted attack into his water elemental triangle each turn. Eventually AYP ran out of elementals and had to move kurrok in.

I hit a well timed emerge from swamp with RTS and moved my RTS up on the center triangle (two vacated spots from dead water elems) hoping for an init switch, which I got. I moved my drudge pod around RTS, some on the center height, and finished off all but one elemental. AYP then moved kurrok into single combat with drudge, but missed his next two resurrects on elementals and fell fast (3 boosted drudge attacks per turn).

Wannok finished off the last water elemental, and then all AYP had left was his RTS for single combat against my RTS-backed drudge pod. He killed 2 or 3 of my Drudge that round with RTS, but wannok + RTS+backed height attacks (2 per turn) finished off his RTS, ending the game.

Water elementals with RTS was actually stronger than I expected - he was throwing a lot of dice at TBR in the early game. But losing one or two just kills it's power too fast (I think AYP whiffed 2 or 3 times with his Water elems on RTS-backed height). The fire elementals ended up feeling like an after thought in this army though, with only 5 of them and AYP prioritizing water elems in most cases. Elementals + Kurrok still seem much stronger without RTS & water elementals than with it, they just need 8+ fire elementals too badly and can't afford to use those points elsewhere (plus, the points on RTS don't necessarily help keep Kurrok alive, whereas something like Raelin or Rats would).

gg AYP