Your opinion on the new glyph "Thorian Speed"

[Captain_Gerbil]

So I bought the SoTM a week back and opened it this past weekend, and boy o boy was I disappointed to see such an over-powered glyph, as well as see the production of the 2 glyphs that affect either common or unique armies.

Let me tell you why I feel thorian speed glyph is so overpowered, or at least based on my gaming experiences. Based on my play groups experience with Sgt. Drake, we have abused his ability to walk in and clean up shop once a relatively good chunk of units with Special attacks are gone (especially if it means taking out remaining range units )

We play where glyphs are typically more in the center of the map, to prevent players from guarding a "valuable" glyph in some obscure position of the map the entire game (which is not to say that we don't make it so a player may have to change their army's strategy to capture/defend glyphs)

With thorian speed for your entire army:

First, your range units suddenly become pretty darn near invincible to other rangers, thus giving them a good 'ol extra can of "Whoop Ass". Chances are, you're going to try and gun down units that have Special Attacks, or have strong melee coming in to negate this glyph

Second, which is kind of neat, melee can traverse the battlefield without fearing or dealing with potshots and snipes from ranged units, which is what I already loved about Sgt. Drake.

Third, coupled with a +4 range glyph, you suddenly got UBER ranged troopers.


Yea, I got a strong opinion on how this affects range, as most my games involve a good deal of shoot outs, but most importantly melee closing in to mop up the left overs. I don't really bother with the preset scenarios in the book, so maybe this glyph, and some of the others from SoTM, are specifically more geared for the campaigns/scenarios provided in this set.

What do you guys/gals think about this glyph, and even some of the other ones from SoTM specifically?

[ugly1hornedmule]

With More and more special attacks coming out I don't see this a a really big problem. Also I think they are trying to lessen the power of range lately. With the new glyph and the jungle trees/bushed giving additional defense I think they are really just trying to make melle be able to work better against range.

[Captain_Gerbil]

With More and more special attacks coming out I don't see this a a really big problem. Also I think they are trying to lessen the power of range lately. With the new glyph and the jungle trees/bushed giving additional defense I think they are really just trying to make melee be able to work better against range.

Yea, that's actually what my playgroup was discussing the other day. We were kind of looking forward to a better balance of melee and ranged units, such that melee (as it is used now in my playgroup anyways) is used to mop up stragglers or small groups left in tight spots, rather than being some of the first in to tie up units.
Instead when they get sent to the front lines to tie units up, they get shot up and/or focus fired, typically because they are on lower levels and the range guys get a nice plus 1 modifier.
It seems as if melee really has to "sneak in" to some degree to arrive intact and dish out some pain.

Just my observation however. i could very well be wrong, or just play too many maps that encourage hardcore shoot 'em up matches

[ThrasherDarkrai]

How many MS are the maps you play? Generally, anything past three that doesn't have a helluvalot of cover benefits ranged wayyy more than melee. Also, how big are your cliffs, and how hard are they to get to?

[Captain_Gerbil]

Ah sorry about that. We typically sue about 1 master set and a half for 2 players, or 2 Master sets and odd and ends tiles from the wave packs for 4 players.

The highest we build for cliffs is anywhere from 3-5 hexes up from the ground. I'll try and take a picture tonight of this one map we have set up that uses the castle, although the castle is moved out of reach, and is more of a safe-house, rather than a combat booster.

Otherwise, we try to keep the cliffs relatively manageable, as well as we place roads to traverse to the tops of the cliffs slightly faster, to help melee a bit.

[Velenne]

I have a problem with it as well. I was really hoping for a "Fog" glyph of some kind, since the game is dearly lacking one. The Thorian glyph was a step in the wrong direction. I'll probably just house-rule it to effect all armies, like the Wind glyph.

[Wytefang]

Totally agree. It's overpowered. Same with Wannok, which ruins the end-game of most matches. Gone are the tense battles that occur when both sides only have a few squad figures left - with Wannok, it's simply a matter of waiting your foe out.

We're going to House Rule Thorian and Wannok.

[Argent]

I plan on playing a game, after my SotM arrives, where you have to find specific glyphs to win, with glyphs turned so you can't tell what they are and placed at random. I also plan on houseruling Wannok so that it wounds that person that's on it instead, same with the negation glyph. I think they're alot more fun this way.

Wannok
negation
pittrap
Mitonsoul

that should give me an ok ammount of negatives to spread about

[Captain_Gerbil]

So far i have always played with the tiles facing down, to increase the randomosity a bit.

I think Thorian could be house ruled to affect for a round, and then it is removed?

Negation is Temporary, and it can be pretty brutal, especially when you use it on Sonlen, o boy will you get tons of kicking and screaming and a good share of obscenities or on some sort of unique support, like old school Raelin, where she becomes a wasted 80 pts

Wannok, I forgot about this glyph, and this one possibly tops Thorian glyph, especially with the wait it out game and you have Marro Warriors (Water clone baby!)

[Ted]

I do not use glyphs all that often so it is not threat to me.

[Snotwalker 8000]

Haven't played the glyph yet, so trying to reserve final judgement, but I was rather surprised that it would only affect your opponent and not both/all armies on the field... I agree that an overall "fog" would have been better and more balanced for competitive play. If both armies have ranged units, whichever army lands on this glyph first will likely win the game. Initial impression is that it's overpowered like the +2 Defense glyph turned out to be.

But we shall see. It might do well in specific scenarios built around it's use, but probably not in general skirmishes.

[Rÿchean]

Thorian is not a good tournament glyph. The range glyph is never used in tournaments either.

However, the attack common and attack unique are a good thing. If you have them in a tournament glyph pool instead of the Glyph of Astrid, they in essence tone down the attack glyph into two sub sets of units that benefit instead of the entire army.