Ranged Units

[generic125]

I haven't played too much Heroscape, not enough to fully understand the depth and balance of different units, but from what I've noticed, ranged units dominate a lot of situations.

Obviously tying units up in engagement is a great way to deal with them, but the problem with that is most units that I try to get in with to tie them up either get picked off slowly or nuked immediately by their whole army.

What's the best way to deal with a unit that has around 6-7 range before my whole army is gone without doing anything

[obfuscatedhippo]

Range can certainly dominate. Especially if they are ranged squads like 10th Reg or Stingers that can pick off your opponent while they are still advancing.

The Maps that you are playing on can have a big impact - you need some Line of Sight (LoS) blockers to give melee teams a chance to close that 6-7 space gap, and to make your opponent move their units out of prime spots.

Just the Ruins from the base Master Set 1 can provide some cover for advancing units. The Evergreen trees and Rocks outcrops from the expansion are great - and the bonus defense from Jungle Trees and Shadow tiles helps a lot too.

Borogoves by Typhon2222 is one of my favorite maps. It has great LoS Blockers and Jungle/Shadow for defense. There are many different pathways to traverse to close the distance. My battles on this map can vary depending on flanking maneuvers or charging through the center.

Map:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads...itled)_AKy.jpg

Download:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community...o=file&id=4113

[Foudzing]

Hi generic125.

Your not the first one to have this problem at all.

There can be some reasons why you think ranged units dominate in Heroscape.

1: The maps

If you play on big and very hilly maps with no road or line of sight blockers at all it's normal that ranged figures are stronger.
I'm not fond of line of sight Blockers because it can block the way and slow troops which is good for range and it's very difficult to completely hide figures in Heroscape.

Also if you play with the fortress then do not put the hexes on the top of the pillars because if you do this it's way too strong for flying and ranged units.
You can use them as line of sight blockers like on this map:

Click here to dl it

Some road is almost a must have to balance Heroscape, Jungle is very good too.
If you have none of the two then try to reduce the size of your maps and to not make hilly maps.

2: Your pool of figures

I don't know what your collection is but if you have only RotV then it's normal that if you think range is stronger.

RotV has 3 of the best ranged squads in the game (Kravs, Airbone Elite and Marro Warriors) whereas the melee units are not that good. Taking a non-ranged unique squad is always a big risk because in a Unique Squad if a figure die you lose fire power and it's difficult to engage the opponent without losing any figure...
As you see on this thread the non-ranged unique squads are almost all bad ranked whereas the ranged unique squads are on top of the world.
Only Drake can deal with range in MS1 this is a bit sad.

The best way to deal with range is to swarm them because normally they have less attack and less defense than melee figures for the same cost.
But you can't do that with uniques figures you need multiples common squads.

So if you don't have multiples common squads it's normal that you think range dominates Heroscape because it's true.


If you think your game is still not balanced I suggest you to buy some of the following stuff in order to balance it:
- Fortress of the Valkyrie: road helps melee and Pillars can be used as LoS
- Ticalla Jungle: Very rare unfortunately but bushes can be used as LoS blockers and give +1 defense against range.
- Road to the forgetten forest: Quite rare too but the more road you have the better it is.
- Volcarren Wasteland: Very rare but you can custom it by painting your hexes. Solid lava on the heights force the shooters to move down at each end of turn (or they may burn).
-2 or 3 squads of Phantoms Knights: The best squad in order to counter range: huge mobility and 7 defense against ranged normal attacks.
- 2 or 3 squads of Deathreavers: These ones are very good against anything but big problems requires big solutions. I like them against range because they will engage the ennemy no matter what (except special attacks lol) they take the map control and prevent the ennemy to move forward and take height and meanwhile the ennemy deal with them you can move on with your main forces.

[generic125]

Right now I have 2 RotV, 2 SotM, and one of each of the FotV and Rttff, and a complete set of the first wave and the 7th wave I believe (with the elves).

Not enough roads is never a problem really, but lava tiles would be nice. I never really had an interest in the jungle set, and it's also crazy expensive, especially with the added shipping costs to Australia

The DnD master set isn't out of the question but I was always soured by it though due to it's abandoning of the Heroscape theme.

[generic125]

On a side note, are there any custom rules people have experimented with to attempt to balance ranged characters on all maps, such as miss chance (roll 5 or higher) or partial cover protection?

[AMIS]

You can search this site and quickly find all sorts of different thoughts on the balance of characters. I've never housed ruled any of them and never had issues.

Range is required to make competitive armies, personally I prefer to play themed armies (Romans vs Gruts, Elves vs Marro, etc.)
Pick up Orm's return if you can, it's normally pretty cheap and has 5 solid characters including Jotun who can be a powerhouse in bringing down some ranged figures.

Jotun and roads are two ways to even up the battlefield but one of the best methods is the swarm - Zombies, Drones (even Nagrubs can be a pain for ranged armies considering their cost is normally half of a decent ranged squad). Combine 120 points of Nagrubs with Tor Kul Na and suddenly you got the start of a powerful Marro army - add three squads of Stingers for a competitive and solid 520 point army.

The collection you have does tend to lean towards range trumping melee although Gladitrons and elements (still don't like them but...) can cause havoc with them.

Don't through out DnD'scape - lack of Historical and Sci-fi does suck but there are a lot of solid units in that mix.

[obfuscatedhippo]

Originally Posted by generic125

On a side note, are there any custom rules people have experimented with to attempt to balance ranged characters on all maps, such as miss chance (roll 5 or higher) or partial cover protection?

I remember a variant called Fog of War, or something like that, which reduced Range in half. So Range 6 became Range 3 for the duration of the game. That could help.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by generic125

Right now I have 2 RotV, 2 SotM, and one of each of the FotV and Rttff, and a complete set of the first wave and the 7th wave I believe (with the elves).

With this collection I guess the main cause of your problem is that your maps are too big or too hilly or both.

Also you don't have any multiples common squads besides SotM squads.
I believe Nabgrubs+TKN and Drake V2 are the only thing that can face range in your collection.

Reallly just add some melee common squads to your collection, reduce the size of your battlefields, use road, and you'll be good.

@AMIS: It's not Orm's Return but Raknar Vision. Orm's Return is the set with Charos.
I don't think Jotun is such a great counter to range he can be shot like a rabbit. And in this set you also have Q9 who is a ranged terror.

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by AMIS

You can search this site and quickly find all sorts of different thoughts on the balance of characters. I've never housed ruled any of them and never had issues.

Range is required to make competitive armies, personally I prefer to play themed armies (Romans vs Gruts, Elves vs Marro, etc.)
Pick up Orm's return if you can, it's normally pretty cheap and has 5 solid characters including Jotun who can be a powerhouse in bringing down some ranged figures.

Jotun and roads are two ways to even up the battlefield but one of the best methods is the swarm - Zombies, Drones (even Nagrubs can be a pain for ranged armies considering their cost is normally half of a decent ranged squad). Combine 120 points of Nagrubs with Tor Kul Na and suddenly you got the start of a powerful Marro army - add three squads of Stingers for a competitive and solid 520 point army.

The collection you have does tend to lean towards range trumping melee although Gladitrons and elements (still don't like them but...) can cause havoc with them.

Don't through out DnD'scape - lack of Historical and Sci-fi does suck but there are a lot of solid units in that mix.

Range does not normally dominate melee, nor is it required to make competitive armies.

Generic, you own 1x Wave 8; that is the one with the elves and 10th Regiment.

Your best bet is to get two more complete waves (minus the hero pack) of Wave 1. The melee units in there are very competitive:

Roman Legionairres: great for their price, solid units.
Blade Gruts: underrated units, good mobility, Grimnak is a beast, and Tornak is good against range.
Venoc Vipers: excellent mobility, can easily close the gap against range.

I would also suggest making smaller maps with a nice road through the middle from one starting zone to the other. Use the trees and tower pieces to block range line of sight. I would also suggest making symmetrical maps, as they tend to help increase balance.

[Smithy Winfred]

If I feel a map is too range powerful (like a castle, or lots of hills) I like to use a special rule to counter it (dense fog obscures over five spaces away, a vertigo field glyph prohibits range in a certain area, etc). It's a nice way to quickly change a unfair game into a even match without having to go through the trouble of finding the perfect map to fit your needs.

[generic125]

I forgot to mention that I also have the first large expansion set, I'd love to get the others, but at over 300 a pop, it's a little out of my price range.

On the topic of getting doubles of common units, I'd also love to do that, but at the same time, there are so many units I don't have that I'd love to get at least one copy of, so there's a bit of a hard decision there.

The last map I played on was from the tournament map thread, Embattled Fen


I'll have to play on it again to see how it is for ranged units, but the battlements don't give much cover.

A glyph that halves enemy units ranges might be a fair way to 'nerf' ranged units, as they can still deal with it, but I might try a game with the miss chance in place too to see how it goes.

[Rexmax2]

Originally Posted by generic125

I forgot to mention that I also have the first large expansion set, I'd love to get the others, but at over 300 a pop, it's a little out of my price range.

On the topic of getting doubles of common units, I'd also love to do that, but at the same time, there are so many units I don't have that I'd love to get at least one copy of, so there's a bit of a hard decision there.

The last map I played on was from the tournament map thread, Embattled Fen


I'll have to play on it again to see how it is for ranged units, but the battlements don't give much cover.

A glyph that halves enemy units ranges might be a fair way to 'nerf' ranged units, as they can still deal with it, but I might try a game with the miss chance in place too to see how it goes.

I myself also have the same problem of buying multiple sets of commons so what we do is we use replacements, using squads not in play to play as a different cjaracter