Attack or Defense?

[flameslayer93]

Here's a question that I don't believe has been asked(at least not in this form). Here's hoping I'm correct.

Here is the situation, in your army you have both a full life Thorgrim and a full life Finn. Now then, against a mystery enemy(lets imagine your buddy is picking their own army out of their own figures and they have as much of anything as they could ever need, and they are not in the same building as you), and assuming you had the choice to destroy one Viking or the other first, which would you kill and then put the spirit on the other Viking?

For those who are not following, would you rather have a hero with 4 life, 4 attack and 4 defense or a hero with 4 life, 3 attack, and 5 defense?

My response(based upon my own CasualScape background) has led me to prefer a 4/4 hero. I've never really had much luck with the +1 defense, it's usually the magic 4 defense that works best.

I'm interested in hearing others' responses.

[Wonderball68]

Survivability isn't worth much if you can't damage your opponent. Definitely would choose the 4/4.

[nate the dawg]

With no other factors counted into the equation, I have to go with Finn's bonus over Thorgrim's. The extra attack die can make a big difference, and skulls are easier to come by than shields.

[Son of Arathorn]

But higher survivability=longer time on the battlefield=more chances to attack.

[legoboy]

Let's look at the math...

Moving from three attack dice to four means that on average you go from rolling 1.5 skulls (ok, so half a skull doesn't amount to anything, but stay with me) to rolling 2.0 skulls.

Moving from four defense dice to five means that on average you go from rolling 1.33 shields to 1.67 shields.

I'd take the extra attack dice any day of the week. Kill Finn, put his figure (and spirit power) on Thorgrim.

[Killometer]

Assuming that specific situation, I'd want to put Finn on Thorgrim and end up with 4/4.

There are plenty of heroes where I'd rather have Throgrim's spirit, though-Nilf, Braxas, Krug, Kato, Q10 and Kaemon all spring to mind (note that they all have a Special Attack or Ability that I'd generally use before their normal attack, already have or can get a very high attack, hopefully won't be attacking, or have special defense-oriented powers).

[screwDriver]

Originally Posted by nate the dawg

The extra attack die can make a big difference, and skulls are easier to come by than shields.

Originally Posted by Son of Arathorn

But higher survivability=longer time on the battlefield=more chances to attack.

I'd say both are valid reasons. An extra attack can be a potent one but we've seen rats win games with only a single attack. In this light, I would suggest that you need to look at your opponent's pieces. Can you defeat your opponent with a 4-4 or a 3-5 figure?

For example, if my opponent has Ne-Gok-Sa with a 3-6 card, I'd for for Thorgrim with a boosted attack to make a 4-4 stat. But if I'm going against Sgt. D. Alexander with a 6-3 card, I'd choose Finn with a boosted defense for a 3-5 stat. Reasons, I need more attacks to break into NGS's 6 defense and a 4 defense is already a good counter to his 3 attacks. But with Drake, it's the opposite, a 3 attacks against his 3 defense has a very good chance of succeeding but his 6 attack against my 4 defense is something I need to worry about.

In addition, the terrain also plays a part. How easy is it for you to get height advantage? Or perhaps your opponent already had a range attacker with height advantage. These are something you might want to consider.

[Elginb]

I choose Eldgrim...

[Kaemon Awa 123]

It depends what I'm putting it on- if I had to do it to one of them, I'd choose to use finn's boost. But other figures benefit more from the defense, most often high life, low defense figures. I'd also take the extra defense with Krav.

[Aldin]

If I have an army featuring Finn and Thorgrim I think I need to at least suspect I also have the Knights of Weston. For me, that means I put Thorgrim on Finn because:

a) Most of my attack power will be coming from my Knights and not my hero and an attack boost for being adjacent to Finn is worth more to them than a defense boost from being adjacent to Thorgrim. This is partially due to the reasons noted above, but also because while my opponent can choose to attack Knights that aren't adjacent to my Viking and are thus without the defense boost, they cannot choose not to take an attack from a boosted Knight making an attack boost more efficient.

b) Added defense means Finn will be providing that bonus for longer than Thorgrim would be applying a bonus because he'll live longer.

~Aldin, synergistically

[Frylock]

I think that with only 4 life, I'd probably want more defense to keep them alive (depending on their other powers and synergies). I've never had good luck with 4life/4defense figures; they are just so easy to kill. However, I don't consider Major Q10 easy to kill. I'd take the defense die in this case.

[MrSpex42]

It all depends on the army.


EXAMPLE TIME!!!!!!!!!

• If I had an army with Charos and/or Samurai, I would want the extra defense. If they get attacked with that boosted defense, their counterstrike could end up killing the attacking character.
• If I had Jotun and/or Su-Bak-Na, the extra attack would be enough to scare away a DW9K (maybe).

Personally, I go with the survivability over pure power. You have a better chance to roll a skull over a shield anyway, so the extra chances to block, even if the probability is small, is useful. Plus, if you give Thogrim's spirit to somebody else, you can still get the attack aura from Finn, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem.