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Competitive Armies Discussion Discuss, critique, and build ideas for tournament-caliber armies.

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  #1  
Old March 5th, 2008, 10:24 PM
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"Competitive armies" vs. "Fun armies"

Just wondering what peoples ideas are going into tournaments. Do you like to play armies that you are not sure will do so well but are ones that you know you will have fun with, or would you rather bite the bullet and play an army you may not enjoy much for the sake of winning? Am playing in my first tournament at the end of march and am leaning towards the "fun" side.

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Old March 5th, 2008, 11:50 PM
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Well the point of a game is to have fun. Every army that I have played with either competitively or just for "fun" have been fun. The question is whether they are really fun, or just fun. Whether an army is competitive or an army nobody would usually play and not expected to do well. If I have the crown on from the last tournament I will usually play an army most people don't play. But if I'm going into a new tournament or haven't won it in a while I will try to make a competitive army. Either way I will have a "fun" army in my opinion and have fun playing it.
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Old March 6th, 2008, 12:47 AM
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I think it's possible to have fun and play a very good army. I've played in lots of tournaments, and I like to do well. However, I think there are enough good units out there to win a tournament with entirely different armies. When I go from tournament to tournament, I almost always pick a completely different army. I've recently played Krav, Nilfheim, Zombies, Stingers, 4th Mass, Raelin, and Rats, so this time I'm looking at Romans, Trons, or Arrow Gruts. There are lots of other good units I could use, but these ones are both interesting to me right now, and I think they have good potential given the maps and glyph selections. There are plenty of good units out there that are fully capable of winning or doing well in a tournament, and I just keep using new units to keep it fun for me.
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Old March 6th, 2008, 02:41 AM
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Personally, I tend to have a lot of fun when I play the strongest armies I can make, so there's little conflict for me.
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Old March 6th, 2008, 11:59 AM
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I like playing armies that have good synergies but not necessarily tournament armies. Its all about variety. Who wouldn't be bored out of their skull if they had to play Raelin Krav every game.


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  #6  
Old March 6th, 2008, 05:00 PM
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The problem I have balancing these things, is that I can't stop from getting synergistic units. If I have Mittens, that means that I HAVE to have some frenzy units, and then of course big vipers.. and then I'm out of points! Or if I have Krug, then I might as well have some orc archers, and you can't have just one squad of those, because that's dumb, and once you have three squads of orcs, you need some riders... As soon as I have a bunch of Marro, I just have to pick SBN since I have so many d20's to care about... I need help!
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  #7  
Old March 6th, 2008, 05:10 PM
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I try to bring as competitive an army as I expect to face, and to make it something fun for me to play no matter what. As Grungebob put it, "my favorite games are the close ones." This means that if I'm going to a tournament where people can bring anything, I'm going to bring top tier units, but ones that I like. If I'm playing around with my friends, I'll try to play something less reliable, like Snipers and Vipers if they're going with their Cowboys and Samurai army. I won't play Deathreavers in casual games unless I'm specifically testing an army for a tournament. I don't ever really play Q9, mostly because I don't like playing him.

I feel you on that synergy thing Acinonyx. It's really hard for me to pick an army that doesn't have synergy, because it's what I do automatically now. However, when I first taught my girlfriend to play, she wanted an army that was all female units. I gave her Braxas, Old Raelin, 2x WoA, and Kyntela Gwyn for 410 points. I used 2x Minions, Taelord, and Isamu for the same. I lost horribly, despite picking a somewhat decent, synergyistic army, and for obvious reasons. Another favorite of mine when playing against new players is to give them Krav and Syvarris and other good ranged figures, and to play Romans and Vipers and Mittens and play them imperceptibly less well than I usually might- show them the power of range.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fomox View Post
(I've also played many matches with great, fun people who were using Q9. So using Q9 doesn't make you a tool. But being a tool sure seems to make you use Q9.)
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  #8  
Old March 6th, 2008, 05:28 PM
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So, what you are saying is....you were afraid to let your GF have the Nakitas.

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Old March 6th, 2008, 05:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by R˙chean
So, what you are saying is....you were afraid to let your GF have the Nakitas.
No, I didn't have the Nakitas yet. Haha. I have them now though. I loaded up on harder-to-find waves first, like waves 1 and 2.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fomox View Post
(I've also played many matches with great, fun people who were using Q9. So using Q9 doesn't make you a tool. But being a tool sure seems to make you use Q9.)
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Old March 6th, 2008, 05:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acinonyx
The problem I have balancing these things, is that I can't stop from getting synergistic units. If I have Mittens, that means that I HAVE to have some frenzy units, and then of course big vipers.. and then I'm out of points! Or if I have Krug, then I might as well have some orc archers, and you can't have just one squad of those, because that's dumb, and once you have three squads of orcs, you need some riders... As soon as I have a bunch of Marro, I just have to pick SBN since I have so many d20's to care about... I need help!
There are a lot of synergystic combinations in Heroscape that I wouldn't classify as "competitive," Just try to use them instead. Here are some examples:

Mittens + Venoc Vipers + Aubrien Archers and / or EOV

Greeks + Parmenio + Marcus + Valguard

Valguard + Tarn Viking Warriors

Blade/Heavy Gruts + Grimnak + Tornak + Ornak

Acolarh + Elves

Hatamato Taro + Samurai and / or Ashigaru

Empress Kiova + Einar Imperium and / or Marcus

Master Woo + Shaolin Monks

Macdirk Warriors + Human Champs (though they recently won a tourney)

Nakita Agents + Gorillinators and / or Laglor

Runa + Minions of Utgar

I could go on... all of those combinations are very syngerystic but I probably wouldn't bring any of them to an ultra-competitive tournament. These are the kind of armies I love to play in casual games. However, if you bring something like these against Q9 + Raelin or 4th Mass + 4th Mass + 4th Mass, you might be in trouble.

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  #11  
Old March 6th, 2008, 07:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by killercactus
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acinonyx
The problem I have balancing these things, is that I can't stop from getting synergistic units. If I have Mittens, that means that I HAVE to have some frenzy units, and then of course big vipers.. and then I'm out of points! Or if I have Krug, then I might as well have some orc archers, and you can't have just one squad of those, because that's dumb, and once you have three squads of orcs, you need some riders... As soon as I have a bunch of Marro, I just have to pick SBN since I have so many d20's to care about... I need help!
There are a lot of synergystic combinations in Heroscape that I wouldn't classify as "competitive," Just try to use them instead. Here are some examples:

Mittens + Venoc Vipers + Aubrien Archers and / or EOV

Greeks + Parmenio + Marcus + Valguard

Valguard + Tarn Viking Warriors

Blade/Heavy Gruts + Grimnak + Tornak + Ornak

Acolarh + Elves

Hatamato Taro + Samurai and / or Ashigaru

Empress Kiova + Einar Imperium and / or Marcus

Master Woo + Shaolin Monks

Macdirk Warriors + Human Champs (though they recently won a tourney)

Nakita Agents + Gorillinators and / or Laglor

Runa + Minions of Utgar

I could go on... all of those combinations are very syngerystic but I probably wouldn't bring any of them to an ultra-competitive tournament. These are the kind of armies I love to play in casual games. However, if you bring something like these against Q9 + Raelin or 4th Mass + 4th Mass + 4th Mass, you might be in trouble.
Yeah I guess this is where I have my issue. I really like the monks and Master Woo combo, but whenever they have been played against even a decent army they stand almost no chance, plus another problem that I have is that I don't have some of the best bonding options so I am limited to what I can field, I could just throw Q9 some rats and Raelin out there but I would be bored to tears and wouldn't realy enjoy playing them. I also really like Mittens and the AA but they usually don't fare to well either. I have no idea what the comp will be like at the tournament, as of right now we only have about 5 or 6 experienced players coming and what may be several newbs/low experience players, so as of right now I think that I am leaning toward just playing an army that I really enjoy as opposed to one where I have a better chance of winning.

Eastern PA scapers first ever tournament http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=13169[/img]

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  #12  
Old March 6th, 2008, 07:19 PM
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a frenzy army can definitely be competitive. The last game I played was an army with the Venoc Warlord, Vipers, and Aubriens vs a Stinger and Hive army. It waas an absolute slaughter for the frenzy army. Extra turns are just gravy when you factor in the aubriens 7 range outranges most other ranged squads and the vipers 9 movement allows 1st strike against almost all melee
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