Genre and the Metagame: The Place of Sci-Fi/Historical Units

[1Mmirg]

As I was updating the genre thread this started in, it got me thinking about this year's GenCon. I wasn't there, so feel free to correct me someone who was, but my sense was the D&D had an impact, but not a huge one. Also, there still seemed to be a nice range of figures, across the genres.

dok's winning army--Q9/Raelin/Rats/Hydra(Krav)--certainly shows some genre mishmash at its finest. In fact, I'd argue that the Hydra has introduced one of the first truly dominant melee fantasy units to the game. The Hydra (like the Dragons) is one of the truly solid fantasy units (and even, interestingly, works well with other fantasy units, like Kelda and Raelin, though his uses are broader as well).

Any other post-GenCon thoughts on genre's place/role (or lack of) in the current metagame?

[dok]

Interesting topic, 1Mmirg. This does speak to why I don't worry about the growth of the fantasy genre in Heroscape to the exclusion of Scifi/Historical - we already have plenty of competitive figures in those genres, and the lack of power creeep in the game means they're not going anywhere.

Because we have full army listings for the entire main event, you can slice and dice and look at the fantasy/historical/scifi breakdown to your heart's content. Just going through the top 16:

1. Raelin(R) Q9 Hydra 3xRats (Scifi/Fantasy mix)
2. Grimnak Nerak 4xHeavy MWs (Fantasy with some scifi)
3. Nilfhiem 4xGreenscale Raelin(R) (Fantasy)
4. Zelrig Raelin(R) 4xGreenscale (Fantasy)
5. 4x10th Marcus AE (Historical)
6. 4xKnights Gilbert AE Isamu (Historical)*
7. 2xGreenscale Nilfhiem Zelrig Isamu Otonashi (Fantasy with some sprinkles)*
8. Grimnak 4xHeavy Raelin(R) (Fantasy)
9. Braxas 4x4th (Fantasy/Historical mix)
10. 5xDividers Q9 Raelin(R) (Scifi with some fantasy)
11. Q9 MWs K.Awa 2xRats Raelin(R) (total mishmash)
12. 3xKnights Finn Hydra Krav (total mishmash)
13. Q9 Raelin(R) 6xVenocs (Scifi with some fantasy)
14. Alistair Finn 3xKnights Krav (Historical with some scifi)
15. Marcus Raelin(R) 2xLegos 3x10th (Hitorical with some fantasy)
16. 5xStingers Raelin(R) Hydra (Scifi/Fantasy mix)

* Isamu is technically from the future, but I'm not throwing scifi in just for Isamu - or historical just for Otonashi.

So, of the 16:

• 9 had more than 100 points in fantasy
• 4 had between 100 and 20 points in fantasy (read: they had Raelin)
• 5 had more than 100 points in scifi
• 3 had between 100 and 20 points in scifi (Krav or MW)
• 7 had more than 100 points in historical

You could do this breakdown for all 72 armies, if you wanted.

ETA: the winner through the years:

2006 - fantasy
2007 - scifi + Raelin
2008 - scifi + Raelin
2009 - total mishmash
2010 - scifi/fantasy mix

The Airborne Elite in Mattser's 2009 army are the only thing keeping historical from being completely shut out.

[1Mmirg]

Originally Posted by dok

Interesting topic, 1Mmirg. This does speak to why I don't worry about the growth of the fantasy genre in Heroscape to the exclusion of Scifi/Historical - we already have plenty of competitive figures in those genres, and the lack of power creeep in the game means they're not going anywhere.

Because we have full army listings for the entire main event, you can slice and dice and look at the fantasy/historical/scifi breakdown to your heart's content. Just going through the top 16:

1. Raelin(R) Q9 Hydra 3xRats (Scifi/Fantasy mix)
2. Grimnak Nerak 4xHeavy MWs (Fantasy with some scifi)
3. Nilfhiem 4xGreenscale Raelin(R) (Fantasy)
4. Zelrig Raelin(R) 4xGreenscale (Fantasy)
5. 4x10th Marcus AE (Historical)
6. 4xKnights Gilbert AE Isamu (Historical)*
7. 2xGreenscale Nilfhiem Zelrig Isamu Otonashi (Fantasy with some sprinkles)*
8. Grimnak 4xHeavy Raelin(R) (Fantasy)
9. Braxas 4x4th (Fantasy/Historical mix)
10. 5xDividers Q9 Raelin(R) (Scifi with some fantasy)
11. Q9 MWs K.Awa 2xRats Raelin(R) (total mishmash)
12. 3xKnights Finn Hydra Krav (total mishmash)
13. Q9 Raelin(R) 6xVenocs (Scifi with some fantasy)
14. Alistair Finn 3xKnights Krav (Historical with some scifi)
15. Marcus Raelin(R) 2xLegos 3x10th (Hitorical with some fantasy)
16. 5xStingers Raelin(R) Hydra (Scifi/Fantasy mix)

* Isamu is technically from the future, but I'm not throwing scifi in just for Isamu - or historical just for Otonashi.

So, of the 16:

Fantasy

• 9 had more than 100 points in fantasy
• 4 had between 100 and 20 points in fantasy (read: they had Raelin)

Sci-Fi

• 5 had more than 100 points in scifi
• 3 had between 100 and 20 points in scifi (Krav or MW)

Historical

• 7 had more than 100 points in historical

You could do this breakdown for all 72 armies, if you wanted.

ETA: the winner through the years:

2006 - fantasy
2007 - scifi + Raelin
2008 - scifi + Raelin
2009 - total mishmash
2010 - scifi/fantasy mix

The Airborne Elite in Mattser's 2009 army are the only thing keeping historical from being completely shut out.

Nice work, dok. Thanks. I added some colors above (I'm a visual learner, I guess ...). Historical does seem to be the area struggling for the overall position, but there are plenty of solid historical units in the top 16 and overall.

Fantasy also is the most represented in the top 16 and has consistently been in the top (but that is because of Raelin--even taking her out, Fantasy has done quite well).

Clearly, some of this is just about "what's new"--but Fantasy does have a strong position any way you look at it. The Dragons and Orcs are solid and go way back into Scape history.

I'm curious to see if the 4th will ever see an overall win (or perhaps a 10th hybrid army). The Knights and AE remain solid units, even if they aren't the most dominant thing out there. And Sci-Fi has plenty of solid pieces, even if many of them seem to be the units most often being metagamed "against" by the newer units (though this goes back to Repulsors, Quasatch, etc. and isn't about D&D, per se).

I do like that the overall place holds up my original point--mishmash armies seem to bring about powerful synergies and pay off well.*

[IAmBatman]

Super here, but did you (or anyone else) ever breakdown what those numbers are at for historical/fantasy/sci-fi with C3V/SoV releases included? I'm wondering if they've changed the ratio at all.