How much is too much? How little is too little?

[Dad_Scaper]

I just noticed yesterday that, in Spider_Poison's tiered army discussion thread, *the first army* in the OP uses Omnicron Snipers x1.

Huh, I said to myself.

[Kaemon Awa 123]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

I just noticed yesterday that, in Spider_Poison's tiered army discussion thread, *the first army* in the OP uses Omnicron Snipers x1.

Huh, I said to myself.

Do you mean Jexik's?

[Dad_Scaper]

Eh. Somebody's.

"Jexik" who?

[dok]

There's only a few squads that have been used frequently in top-tier armies at the 2x level:

• Deathreavers. The successful Deathreaver x2 armies have usually been rats&stinger builds where startzone spaces were the main limitation. This basically works because the Deathreavers are insanely cheap and efficient, and because you don't need to sink OMs into them anyway.
• Blastarons. This is another case where startzone spaces are at a premium (due to the need to get Gladiatrons as well). The 3x Glads/2x Blasts/Raelin/whatever I have points for build is a proven formula.
• Greenscale Warriors. Because the GSWs are so dependent on their Dragon King to be effective, taking just two squads is a conservative approach, so that you're not left with a bunch of weak GSWs if your dragon goes down quickly. (Spamming GSWx4 works as well, though.)

Aside from those cases, taking 2x of a common squad is basically a way of handicapping yourself.

Beyond that, it's become very clear that the winning approach with most strong common squads is to keep adding them until you've run out of most of your startzone spaces. Massed commons win games. 3x of a squad is nice, but 4x is better, and 5x is great. If it's a bonding squad, then one hero is great, but more heroes are optional and adding squads is usually better.

The best Heavy Grut builds generally have 4x Heavies at a minimum. Aquilla General Wars at Gencon has been won 3 years running by an army with 5x Axegrinders and a single hero. Matthias basically never plays fewer than 15 of a squad figure (5x of squads of 3 or 4x of squads of 4). The best 10th builds (except those that also use rats or Romans) have at least 4 squads of Redcoats. The best 4th builds usually fill up the entire startzone. Hendal has proven that 7x stingers is a winning formula, and when he dropped a few squads for Q9 in 2010, he ended up doing worse, not better.

In short, the answer to "how much is too much" is, "no such thing".

[Heroscapeguy]

Hey! I had an idea! dok said x7 stingers is a winning formula. Stingers do not bond. KoW, greenscales, capcan, blade gruts, cutters, and protectors all have some kind of bonding, and are competive in just 3 squads. Stingers, warforged, mezzodemons, 10th, and aubrien archers don't have bonding and are usually best with four or more squads. Microcorp are so expensive that four squads is overkill in a normal game.

So if you have bonding squads, 3 is a pretty good number (unless you're using orcs). And if you are using non-bonding you should have at least four squads (unless they are really expensive, ie. 100+ points).

So am I on to something? Or am I just repeating what has already been said?

[Taeblewalker]

Too much...is never enough!

[flameslayer93]

Originally Posted by Taeblewalker

Too much...is never enough!

I beg to differ. Just ask Taelord

If drafting more commons would compromise your army in some way, then that is when you have had too much to drinkdraft. Seriously, HeroScape teaches you about the real world.

Commons are dangerous, but if you draft 6 squads of 4th in a 500 point tourney with 24 spaces, then you are handicapping yourself by 80 points. Then again, for the sake of everyone else, try it and see what happens

[Sheep]

I think the Minions of Utgar are also an exception to "Too much is never". I know one can do some damage but 2 could do a lot more w/ Taelord. Maybe 3 if you are playing a 510pts army.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Heroscapeguy

Hey! I had an idea! dok said x7 stingers is a winning formula. Stingers do not bond. KoW, greenscales, capcan, blade gruts, cutters, and protectors all have some kind of bonding, and are competive in just 3 squads. Stingers, warforged, mezzodemons, 10th, and aubrien archers don't have bonding and are usually best with four or more squads. Microcorp are so expensive that four squads is overkill in a normal game.

Cutters and protectors don't have any sort of bonding.

Cutters are definitely better with more than 3 squads.

Protectors don't really work en masse, but this is just because they're too expensive/fragile to win a war of attrition against most foes.

Knights can work with just 3 squads, for sure, but that doesn't mean they can't work better with more. The reason a lot of people seem to think that you have to have a ranged component in your army is that they've never tried slow-rolling their opponent with Gilbert and 5 squads of knights. When you have that sort of high-defense melee squad figure redundancy, you can overwhelm most ranged armies.

I would argue that the big problem with the Steamroller is that it only has 3 squads. If it could take more losses before losing strength, it would be a much more formidable build.

Blade Gruts are definitely better with at least 4 squads - they're cheap, so you really ought to spam them if you play them, particularly given that you usually want both Grimnak and Nerak when playing Blades.

So, I agree with Greenscales (as I mentioned in my earlier post) and protectors, and half-agree with knights.

Originally Posted by Heroscapeguy

So if you have bonding squads, 3 is a pretty good number (unless you're using orcs). And if you are using non-bonding you should have at least four squads (unless they are really expensive, ie. 100+ points).

So am I on to something? Or am I just repeating what has already been said?

I don't think it's quite that simple - or if it is that simple, you should just say "you should have at least four squads if you have the startzone spaces".

I guess I should mention that I use nagrubsx3 a lot; I've brought builds with three squads of nagrubs at five different events. But this is because I usually play them with TKN and no other bonding hero. In that context, the grubs are a bit like Greenscalesx2 in that they really exist mainly to support the hero. That said, they are cheap, and I often consider adding a fourth or fifth squad (I did briefly consider TKN+grubsx5+Marro Warriors+Raelin for the main event this year, and I suspect it would have done about as well as what I did play.)

I also strongly considered Heaviesx3 + Raelin + Grimnak + Krav for the 2010 main event, but this was partially motivated by the reinforcement rules. You could easily argue that dropping the Krav for that fourth squad actually makes the build stronger, despite giving up 30 points and losing a highly effective ranged squad.

Originally Posted by heroscaper2010

I think the Minions of Utgar are also an exception to "Too much is never". I know one can do some damage but 2 could do a lot more w/ Taelord. Maybe 3 if you are playing a 510pts army.

The most successful Minion builds generally don't include Taelord. Colorado's 2010 NHSD tournament was won by a Minions x5 army. Minions are not really an exception to the "more is better" rule, IMO. The only downside to spamming Minions is it means you don't have any points left to cover a bad matchup, like autowounders.

[Filthy the Clown]

Originally Posted by dok

Aside from those cases [Deathreavers, Blastatrons, Greenscale Warriors, as outlined above], taking 2x of a common squad is basically a way of handicapping yourself.

Brutes seem like a weird exception to this. 2x Brutes appears to be the theoryscape-proven formula for them...But only if you include around 4 squads of Cutters. With the Cutters, you are actually getting more, cheaper squads of Brutes if you can take advantage of Expendable Rabble. And, this has yet to be proven as a top-tier build in the tourney scene.

It is kind of the same way with Mezzos, where 2x squads actually gives you 4x (provided you are not facing Special Attackers). This has also yet to be proven in a tourney scene (with less than 3 squads of Mezzos).

[dok]

4x cutters/2x brutes is a compelling formula, I agree. This is a case, like rats&stingers or Glads&Blasts, where you run low on startzone spaces and end up just giving more of them to the other squad. That said, as you note, it's not really a proven formula yet.

I don't see any obvious reason why more Mezzos wouldn't be more better.

[Filthy the Clown]

Originally Posted by dok

I don't see any obvious reason why more Mezzos wouldn't be more better.

I agree, although 2x could work if you only had 4 start zone spaces and 130 points left (although, Kaemon/Isamu is obviously superior in just about all formats). You are paying for 2x but actually getting 4x (again, in the absence of SA's).