vegie's C3V/SoV Power Rankings

[vegietarian18]

Originally Posted by dok

Setting aside the dragons for a moment, what are the 5 and 6 attack metagame monsters that would make us not want to play Q9? In a more "normal" metagame with bring 2 or drafting or just not full-on cheese, there are many. But in the absolute cheese format like we are exploring in the VCheese event, I just don't think there are a lot of big hitters you are expecting to run into... except the dragons, against whom I still prefer Q9. (This is where power rankings get tricky, because it becomes a question of whether we're considering the most optimized metagame or the most common metagame.)

The differences in range and movement also matter. 4 move hurts the borgs surprisingly often, and the 8 range normal attack Q9 has is very strategically important in dictating the flow and location of the battle. Also the Queglix gun gives big tactical advantages at times, most notably against Krav and PKs.

So the big 5 or 6 attack metagame monster is Heracles, who actually gets 7 dice against Q9. To be fair, Incendiborgs do struggle with Heracles too, but not as much as Q9 does. To a lesser extent there's also Marutuk, who is just too easy to dissolve with engagements and double space denial because she can't attack small or medium figures when large or huge is nearby. Heracles has ridiculous mobility (24 spaces on initiative switch, with three chances to use Throw to make a hole for himself as well) that makes Q9 very easy to catch. Heracles hasn't seen a lot of play in either VCheese event, only one build, which was mtl's Stingers x5 Heracles from last time. I think that build is a too doubled down on hero killing. It lost to Knights in the first round which is pretty expected. There's my Cathar x4 Marutuk build that went 2-1, with wins over Knights, and Cathar + Incendiborgs, loss to Nilfheim Greenscales. I probably win the Greenscales matchup with Heracles instead of Marutuk as Marutuk was massive liability due to Sir Heroscape's great figure placement and game was still close. This build is probably the most promising evidence that Heracles can work, even though it doesn't involve him directly.

I guess the question is if Heracles himself is competitively viable, or if he's a spoiler pick like Cultists. Heracles has similar to Cultist fantastic matchups against Dragons and Q9; I think I'd even argue that he has better matchups since he's better at killing the big things than Cultists are which is how you win those games. He gives an edge in the Heavies matchup (unless he gets Chomped) which Cultists do not do. Relative to Cultists he also helps with Hydra, and against some of the just out of meta things like Deathchasers and Arrow Gruts. Against armies without Large Huge though Heracles is just a guy. I think the viable Heracles build is Cathar x4 Heracles; they complement each other nicely. But that sort of build where you're trying to tilt towards edges in variety of matchups easily can fall apart on either side if things go wrong.

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

In my own very limited experience with the 'Borgs, I found it to be quite difficult to get height against another ranged unit, given their 4 Move. Obviously against melee, it would be a different story.

4 move is definitely slow; they are the sort of figure that really needs to come out at the right time or they can get crushed. Your matchup vs. dok where you were playing the Incendiborgs definitely wasn't going to be an easy time for them, but I think a lot of that is due to Cal the Smuggler forcing you to cede board control.

Originally Posted by Chris Perkins

I agree with pretty much everything dok said above, but I wanted to add one thing with regards to the dragon matchups (when the dragon doesn't charge in for normal attacks, as it usually shouldn't).

Both top meta dragons (Quahon & Nilfheim) have an advantage against Incendiborgs that they do not against Q9: they can attack them multiple times per turn (almost always at least 2, sometimes 3).

2-3 attacks of 4 v. 6 (assuming Raelin) is going to get through much more often than 1 attack of 4 v. 9 and I think it makes the dragon matchup significantly worse for Incendiborgs.

Can Incendiborgs spread out more to avoid this? Sure. But doing so is going to make the rat screen less effective and might require one (or two) of them leaving Raelin's aura.

Now, obviously my round 1 matchup result doesn't support these claims, but I don't believe the outcome there was representative of the theoretical matchup between Quahon/Nilfheim v. Q9/Incendiborgs.

That's a fair point as well. My dad has Incendiborgs paired with Krav, which I think greatly helps in the dragon matchups as the dragons struggle to kill Krav, but Incendiborgs are certainly more vulnerable to the dragon specials than Q9 is. What your game showed is that Quahon can go cold with much more punishing consequences than other top tier figures.