C3V/SoV-inclusive Power Rankings

[dok]

I consciously avoided looking at your rankings (or OEAO's, or even my own) when making this, to get a fresh perspective and avoid groupthink. I'm glad you like them.

I'll bump Kuthnak to B+. That's as far as I can go with theory. I need to see results to go higher.

[vegietarian18]

Results:

vegie dad at Online NHSD 2020, 4-1 with Deathchasers x5, Nerak, MBS, Kuthnak. Wins over Vydar Is The Man (Dwarves), Dysole (Gladblast) Loss to Bodacious Blood (Blades and Kuthnak)

BodaciousBlood at Online NHSD 2020, 4-1 with Blades x4, Kuthnak, Grimnak, Tornak (sit 1). Wins over Vegie Dad (Chasers and Kuthnak), Loss to Vegietarian18 (Blades and Kaemon)

boromir96 at Peoria Monthly April 2021, 4-0 with Deathchasers x6, Nerak, MBS, Kuthnak. Wins over infectedsloth (Dwarves) and Vegie Dad (Knights)

[dok]

None of this really seems inconsistent to me with Kuthnak as B+, though. Strong matchup for 'chasers into Dwarves is no surprise of course. Kuthnak chasers lose to Kuthnak Blades (again, no surprise). And Blades without Kuthnak beat blades with Kuthnak (suggesting Kuthnak was a wose investment than Nerak, et al).

Contrasting against Raelin is unfair (nobody's arguing for Kuthnak at A+) but none of those results look to me like Kuthnak swinging a bad matchup in favor of the orcs. They certainly suggest he's not pulling those armies down very much, but I'm comfortable with high B+ for now.

[vegietarian18]

Sure that's fair. High B+ isn't that different from A-. I think Kuthnak does help a little bit into Dwarves and Knights, the big melee bonders that Deathchasers normally struggle against by not having enough attacks per turn; he gives them the effective attacks per turn to compete there. But otherwise he doesn't change things for them massively, they're still high attack high speed low defense bonding squad. He's not game altering for Deathchasers, but he's good. It's hard to rate a figure that's just a component of a larger already good army. I think it would take a while to prove Nerak was really good if he released now.

Now it's time to see the tournament results that put Boreos at A-

[dok]

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

I think it would take a while to prove Nerak was really good if he released now.

I mean... prove? Sure. But a bonding half-Raelin that costs 50 and works with multiple known strong builds is so obviously good based on our understanding of how Heroscape works that I don't think it would be a big stretch to start him up high.

(By contrast, Kuthnak operates in the tradition of self-destroy powers, which are a mixed bag. So there's less of a benefit of the doubt.)

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Now it's time to see the tournament results that put Boreos at A-

Hahaha, fair. Boreos is so clearly the lynchpin of the Talingul army, though; it's just a drastically weaker army without Boreos in it. Talingul effectively gets to move up for free, and both the vortex and the figure grab are critical to give a low figure melee army some board control.

I don't think it's a stretch at all to say Boreos delivers A- value to that army, even if the overall army power is below that. I guess that's kind of the opposite problem from Kuthnak - how do you prove the value of a unit when the overall army doesn't match that value?

[Dad_Scaper]

"Linchpin," you barbarian.

[Vydar_XLIII]

I really appreciate the downward trend this iteration took. It really helps to delineate between units that were previously B+ to B-. So much so that C+ is now the most populous tier. I have 1 question and 1 contention.

Firstly, why drop the Trons without dropping the Stingers? I'm not sure whether or not I agree with dropping the Trons in general but I definitely think they're still better than Stingers.

Secondly, I definitely think that you ranked the Specters too high. In S40 I did well but my army went 1-4. They lost to your TKN and grubs, Grey_Waves' Blackgaard, mtl1998's Cyp, Braxas, Rat pod and superfrog's Red Ants and EI.

• TKN was bid down and still won.
• Blackgaard was the army I expected to be bid down but GW dropped 2 specters and so I immediately accepted and won handily.
• Cyp/Braxas was weird because Cyp and Braxas get worse the less squad figures there are. So having fewer specters actually leveled that playing field.
• Against superfrog, I lost that in the draft when I decided to go more specters over Augamo.

Their only win was when I was piloting Vegie's Death Chasers. The specters have advantage on a lava map and admittedly I am unfamiliar with Chasers. The chasers were bid down significantly and it came down to 1 specter left.

Honestly, my take away from that tournament was that I did so well because other people overestimated the Specters. I would have put them at B- on your old list and probably C+ to C on this new scale.

[dok]

Really interesting stuff VitM; thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by Vydar is the man

Firstly, why drop the Trons without dropping the Stingers? I'm not sure whether or not I agree with dropping the Trons in general but I definitely think they're still better than Stingers.

This is a great subject that I could easily do a deep dive on. (Hey @OEAO if you haven't had a pod on this specific comparison, I'd be down.) I certainly like playing 'trons more than I like playing stingers, but I'm not sure they're really the better army overall. As I said I could get super into the weeds on this but the short answer is that 'trons are stronger into their good matchups but stingers probably have smoother matchups overall.

That said, if there's a gap between them it's very small, and stingers are certainly right on the borderline with A-. I could easily see dropping stingers down.

Originally Posted by Vydar is the man

Secondly, I definitely think that you ranked the Specters too high. In S40 I did well but my army went 1-4. They lost to your TKN and grubs, Grey_Waves' Blackgaard, mtl1998's Cyp, Braxas, Rat pod and superfrog's Red Ants and EI.

• TKN was bid down and still won.
• Blackgaard was the army I expected to be bid down but GW dropped 2 specters and so I immediately accepted and won handily.
• Cyp/Braxas was weird because Cyp and Braxas get worse the less squad figures there are. So having fewer specters actually leveled that playing field.
• Against superfrog, I lost that in the draft when I decided to go more specters over Augamo.

Their only win was when I was piloting Vegie's Death Chasers. The specters have advantage on a lava map and admittedly I am unfamiliar with Chasers. The chasers were bid down significantly and it came down to 1 specter left.

Honestly, my take away from that tournament was that I did so well because other people overestimated the Specters. I would have put them at B- on your old list and probably C+ to C on this new scale.

Heh, maybe I'm on the list of people who overestimated them. I thought I should have won the specters vs. TKN game* so that may have colored things somewhat. Generally speaking I see a cheap 4-figure squad with mobility and I think it's probably good. The Gnids show the limits of that way of thinking, but specters are clearly better than that.

Still, they do struggle into matchups against higher-defense figures, which makes them hard to rate. It's no surprise they got shredded by the Blackgaard (another difficult-to-rate unit), or struggled to finish TKN after taking out the grubs.

I'll drop them to B-, but I still think they have enough utility to avoid C+.

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by dok

Really interesting stuff VitM; thanks for posting.

This is a great subject that I could easily do a deep dive on. (Hey @OEAO if you haven't had a pod on this specific comparison, I'd be down.)

Let's do it. I'll be in touch.

[dok]

OP updated, albeit with just basic formatting.

[quozl]

Originally Posted by dok

In the process of putting together the updated Delta pricing spreadsheet

Where's that at?

[dok]

Originally Posted by quozl

Where's that at?

We used them in OHS Season 41; the list we used for the event is linked there. I have some updates to it queued up, and will release them after the even concludes (just the finals left).