S.F. Bay Area — LEGACY TOURNAMENT — March 12

[CornPuff]

Regarding KoW vs Ashra, if you have 250 to spend knights are a better value, because you move 4 or 5 figures a turn compared to 3. I've fallen into this trap myself. I decided to play 5x Repulsors and 2x snipers in a 500 point game thinking my numbers would overwhelm, but numbers mean nothing when your order markers limit your movement and attack per turn. I got annihilated.

I think WoA are better in legacy, but mainly because the typical units that would tear them up from range are more expensive then they used to be. So they aren't that much better, but as a small cost counter-unit, I don't think they have to be. Small power units can't be turned into 'bread and butter' units just by cost change.

DA is right; Legacy can't eliminate bad matchups. It can stop dominant builds.

I'm kind of surprised nobody picked up Q9. 7 defense is downright scary at any cost. I like Legacy because I can play him with no guilt

I'm glad everyone had fun!

[Typhon2222]

Still chewing over your comments RV....

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

You have to remember you by choice limit yourself to fantasy themed units, when the majority of 'scape players do no such thing. As a result, that likely skews your map building in a fairly significant way. If I ran rats, Krav, and Q9 on Quicksilver Fane, a melee army would very likely not reach my starting zone.

I'm not sure I follow. Against Rats, Krav, and Q9, what kind of melee army, on what kind of map, would be able to reach your starting zone?

For myself, the idea of playing a Roman Legion lead by an alien warlord and backed up by missile wielding robots WAS the draw that got me into Heroscape. That's so cool!

I have to confess, the longer our group plays, the more we've expanded out of the pure fantasy theme. We actually play with Mohicans and Ashigaru now! Yeah, wild, I know.

[Typhon2222]

Originally Posted by Menchi

Every time I go to one of these tournaments I'm left thinking to myself, I should have brought Alastair. KoW x 3, Alastair, Finn, and Isamu would have served me better than the Dividers. Hell, even the Grut Army I had planned would have done better. Though I suppose with how my dice were, nothing could have saved me.
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Overall I had fun, even with the abysmal record. Despite our love for the game Ronin and I don't actually play the game that much, so it's good to be able to get out and throw some skulls. Normally tournaments are the only time we actually get any Scaping in, though next Saturday we should get some play time in at Game Kastle. Eudemonia was actually a really nice place to play for the number we had. I'll claim that I claim to like Games of Berkeley better since my dice won me my first tournament there, but Eudemonia is definitely more spacious. If another tournament were to be held there I'd be down to attend.

Glad you could make it, Menchi. Wouldn't have been the same without you.

We'll definitely have another tourney at Eudemonia soon. And if you don't bring the KoW and Alastair, I'll cry.

[Devil's Advocate]

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

But it wasn't special attacks that gave the Ashra trouble in Berkeley. It was Arrow Gruts, it was 10th Reg, it was Marro Warriors. Simple range gives them trouble too, not just Special Attacks, and even in legacy pricing I think 240 pts of Knights is still better than 250 pts of WoA (12 KoW vs 15 WoA) overall. Why? Because the KoW aren't specialized. Their strength is generalized leading them to be stronger in more types of matchups, while the WoA are specialized and as a result suffer more often. And even if the aim of Legacy, Devil's Advocate, is not to prevent bad matchups, or as Typhon says, to rebalance over games, not a single match, that doesn't change the fact that unspecialized units are stronger because they have fewer bad matchups overall.

Say WoA were 40 points instead of 50. Then I could have 18 WoA for 240 points, but I'd not be convinced that that will make them more viable. The matches they dominate they will do so to even greater effect, thanks to the extra six figures, but will those six really swing the tide in bad matchups? I don't think it'd make that much of a difference. You only move three a turn, so vs a range heavy army, you have to slow roll in order to not suffer bringing up a few, having them get gunned down in engagement, and then wash rinse repeat. But with 3 defense, slow rolling them is harder. And shore, you can add Raelin, but you can do that with anything and thus I'm not shore that makes the WoA better.

In essence, yes, you can lower the cost of some units to make them fit better. But I don't think Legacy can make everything more optional in the competitive scene. I think you'd have to go to certain extremes in Legacy pricing before WoA are likely to succeed as evenly as KoW in the same number of matchups. And if you went to those extremes, you'd only be skewing the game in other ways.

You have to remember you by choice limit yourself to fantasy themed units, when the majority of 'scape players do no such thing. As a result, that likely skews your map building in a fairly significant way. If I ran rats, Krav, and Q9 on Quicksilver Fane, a melee army would very likely not reach my starting zone. In some ways I think it's admirable that your group in Berkeley sticks to the fantasy units you guys have the most fun and interest with, but I also think you guys are robbing yourselves by not playing with the full range of Heroscape.

For myself, the idea of playing a Roman Legion lead by an alien warlord and backed up by missile wielding robots WAS the draw that got me into Heroscape. That's so cool!

If the WOA had been 40 instead of 50, I think the army gets much stronger. Instead of Crixus, you now have the points to add a Kaemon, AE, 2 squads of phantom knights, or Elthale all of whom are huge upgrades

[Serenity]

Agreed. The WOA are useful if not dominant. Getting them for few points and being able to get (much?) more capable supporting units can make the entire army formidable. I think that this is where Legacy points helps in general. The gulf between the elite and good units is reduced without getting into complex power/stat related changes to the units themselves. Increased numbers of figures and/or better options for the rest of the army hopefully bridge the remainder of the gap.

Don't get me wrong, I like changing the powers/stats of units like the CUC does. I think they're doing great work. It is more complicated however than simply changing the point costs of units.

Personally, I wish WOC or Hasbro had something similar to the CUC's work and errata'd the weakest units with completely new cards to replace the old ones. They could have included these new cards in packs of Wave 14 and I'd have been so eager to get my hands on them. Heck, if they had included them in a unique Hero pack, they might have solved some of their problem in getting rid of those packs.

[Killz]

Hey, thanks Typhoon for orginizing this, it was really fun.
I don't know if the Deepwyrm drow did that bad, I think it was also me using them wrong. But I think if I had feilded Raelin, My archers would have done way better. I guess I just tried to make my two army ideas into one.

Me and some of my friends are gonna do some more battles using this, and I think I'll try and do some switches to find out if the archers really are that bad. But once again, thanks!

~Killz

[dok]

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

even in legacy pricing I think 240 pts of Knights is still better than 250 pts of WoA (12 KoW vs 15 WoA) overall. Why? Because the KoW aren't specialized. Their strength is generalized leading them to be stronger in more types of matchups, while the WoA are specialized and as a result suffer more often. And even if the aim of Legacy, Devil's Advocate, is not to prevent bad matchups, or as Typhon says, to rebalance over games, not a single match, that doesn't change the fact that unspecialized units are stronger because they have fewer bad matchups overall.

As others have said, that's only really true in isolation. It still comes down to army construction. If you rely on mass WoA, you're probably going to lose around half of your games, outside of a HoB/slugfest-type environment. But when paired with a unit that covers the bad matchups, specialists like the WoA can be pretty strong.

You actually did the reasonable thing by pairing your antimelee figures (WoA) with one of the game's best antirange figures (KMA). I assume the Krav were the MVPs of your win over the 10th. I'm surprised you lost to the MacDirk army, and if you had won that one you would have been one of the 4-1s. It was a fairly strong showing, particularly considering that you had Crixus thrown in there as pseudo-filler.

[Utgars Servant]

Thanks again for the Tournement Typhon, it was a lot of fun.
I think I would have done better if I had fielded the Iron Golem and my 10th better. Thanks for all the advice for my battles Ronin and Serenity and Menchi. the only map I kinda didn't like was the Quicksilver fane because it was hard to manage my Golem because I would just be block and not able to get up and then the zetacron killed it. But the good side of that coin was I was able to sort of snipe my enemies with the 10th.

[Typhon2222]

Originally Posted by Utgars Servant

Thanks again for the Tournement Typhon, it was a lot of fun.

Glad you and Killz could make it, US! Gotta love BART.

I sent off the Fortress Set to Killz today. It should arrive Wednesday, so hopefully you two can start playing with it soon.

[Utgars Servant]

Yeah together we have 5 fortress sets so that wll be fun playing with all of them.

[Robotunit197]

If you were to hold another Legacy tournament (yes please ), it would be fun to test out higher point totals (for example: 540, 565, 555) to see how some units perform at that level.

[Typhon2222]

Originally Posted by Robotunit197

If you were to hold another Legacy tournament (yes please ), it would be fun to test out higher point totals (for example: 540, 565, 555) to see how some units perform at that level.

Glad you enjoyed the Legacy framework, Robo! Serenity seems to have liked the new options it offers too. So did Berkeley Alan/Rune/John/Paul (though our group has been playing with Legacy for so long now that we just take it for granted as normal).

I'd love to have another tournament, and soon! Though I'm hoping that the next one can coincide with whatever first Saturday or Sunday that Killo actually gets off from his new job, so I'm not sure when that will be....

Only problem with much higher point totals is that games get longer. Or if we still hold games to the same length of 50 minutes, then more units remain on the board. I wonder if something like an even 500 might be a nice balance to strike....

You DO realize, don't you, that evil archfiends Menchi and RoninValentina are plotting to bring standard A+/A tournament fare to the next one — Nilfheim, KoW, Q9, 4th Mass, Rats, etc. — in order to see how well they do in a Legacy format. And the higher the point totals, the more room they have to fit all those scary units in.