OEAO's Legacy Power Rankings

[Dysole]

It's okay OEAO. We all know Migol is Best Dwarf Hero.

~Dysole, who hasn't listened to the cast yet but does feel Chasers aren't too far behind the dwarves in overall power

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by OrcElfArmyOne

I still don’t think Mogrimm and Darrak are good enough for A (although Darrak is close), but the Axegrinders themselves are really efficient. Is Mogrimm better than Marcus, for example? I don’t think so, but I could be mistaken. He’s certainly not as good as Grimnak or Gilbert.

I agree; I think Marcus > Mogrimm by a decent margin.

1) Marcus is more essential to his armies than Mogrimm is to his. Marcus gives much more important boosts (move + attack) to Romans than Mogrimm does to either Romans or Dwarves, and Marcus+Raelin makes the 10th an elite build at 480 points and above (and ~500 pts / 20 figures is roughly the new meta level). Dwarves/Romans without Mogrimm are substantially better off than Romans/10th without Marcus.
2) There are cheaper alternatives to Mogrimm, while there aren't for Marcus. For Romans, MBS is a more efficient 5th attack activation per turn. For Dwarves, Darrak can provide a good attack. I don't mean to imply that Darrak is better overall than Mogrimm (he's not), only that alternatives exist to approximate Mogrimm's value in a way that they don't for Marcus.

[vegietarian18]

Maybe a bit simplified of a way of looking at it, but Mogrimm is a Roman bonding option and he isn't played in the best Roman builds. Darrak is the better Axegrinder bonder not because of power level but because of price point. 60 is a nice amount for the Axegrinders to invest in their bonder.

Mogrimm is solid but 120 is so much to spend on a bonding hero that doesn't really help your squad. It's the same reason Alastair MacDirk isn't in the very best Knight builds. In these big melee bonding builds the squad figures are so much more important than the heroes, so investing in heroes that kind of do their own thing isn't optimal.

I agree with Dysole that the gap between Dwarves and Chasers is close. I think the Dwarf Chaser gap is smaller than the gap between Dwarves and Knights/Heavies. IMO the traditional wisdom of Knights and Heavies as the clear top tier melee bonding with Romans and Axegrinders and Deathchasers close behind still holds true. Chasers and Romans have MBS which unlocks Raelin for them which helps them both a ton. Axegrinders play more similarly to the Heavies/Knights, but I think they're similar in power level to the Romans and Chasers. Without a hex limit and at high point totals Romans are the best bonding squad in the game, they are so cheap per figure.

I dream about this army all the time:

1000 points, infinity hexes

Romans x11
Marcus
MBS
NGS
Raelin
Marcu
Isamu

[Matthias Maccabeus]

The thing that Mogrimm, Grimnak, Alastair, and Eldgrim offer you is 6 chances of a kill / wound. That's ridiculous.

However Vegie has a good point that 120 points is a lot to invest if you're not getting a movement bonus, attack bonus, etc.

I think the biggest thing holding the chasers back is just the 3 man squad vs the 4 man squads. There's not a big gap between these 5 armies (Knights, Heavies, Dwarves, Romans, Chasers) however, I think the Dwarves are closer to the Heavies and Knights then they are to the Chasers. 3 man squad with 2 defense is pretty lame. The fact that they are included in the top 5 melee bonding armies speaks volumes to their bonding options and other abilities. I think they play pretty differently because of Raelin. Which we'll get into in the next podcast.

[vegietarian18]

In defense of Chasers, they have 2 defense, but they also have 4 attack. 4/2 is better than 3/3. And they have great ways to boost their defense with Raelin and Nerak. As for the three man squad, it's vastly ameliorated by Orc Battle rush in terms of board position, you have your army slowrolled just as well as any 4 man squad can, but on the very first turn of the game. Really the only place where the 3 man squad is a problem is in melee slugfests, since Knights and Heavies or Dwarves or Romans can trade with them much better. But Deathchasers play differently from those figures, they aren't meant for slugfest games, they are meant to seize board control instantly and use that to put pressure on the opponent. Classing them as melee bonding in the traditional sense is maybe what makes this debate hard since they are so different from the slugfest melee.

I'm definitely interested in the Raelin discussion though. I think Raelin for better or worse is most important figure in Heroscape.

[Dysole]

I'll admit I'm a Raelin junkie (what can I say she helps me play all the terrible units I love playing) so units that can use Raelin do get more of a look from me and I do think Knights and Dwarves struggle to use Raelin en masse (when they're splashed into something less so) since they kind of want to spread out while Heavies, Chasers, and Romans all want to stick together so it's a lot easier for them to stay within an aura. I'm not sure I'd argue 4/2 > 3/3 for a melee squad but I think it's a close point either way. I do think the extra attack and move flexibility do push the dwarves just ahead of the Chasers and that explosion special attacks being all over move the romans to the last place in that.

It does also amuse me how Nagrub and Greenscale armies aren't really considered the same here since they are more like groupies for the big hero rather than a cohesive unit.

~Dysole, who likes Valguard more than Ne-Gok-Sa as a bonding option for Romans but it might also be because she feels Valguard is pretty underrated (partially because he's like the fourth option for the Romans most of the time)

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

In defense of Chasers, they have 2 defense, but they also have 4 attack. 4/2 is better than 3/3. And they have great ways to boost their defense with Raelin and Nerak. As for the three man squad, it's vastly ameliorated by Orc Battle rush in terms of board position, you have your army slowrolled just as well as any 4 man squad can, but on the very first turn of the game. Really the only place where the 3 man squad is a problem is in melee slugfests, since Knights and Heavies or Dwarves or Romans can trade with them much better. But Deathchasers play differently from those figures, they aren't meant for slugfest games, they are meant to seize board control instantly and use that to put pressure on the opponent. Classing them as melee bonding in the traditional sense is maybe what makes this debate hard since they are so different from the slugfest melee.

I'm definitely interested in the Raelin discussion though. I think Raelin for better or worse is most important figure in Heroscape.

I’m not saying Chasers are bad, heck I won a tourney with them the one time I ran them.

I’m just saying if you’re running Chasers and I’m running Dwarves, I’m walking away with the win. Dwarves love fighting Nerak and MBS.

Once again saying, “but with Raelin,” just doesn’t do it for me as an argument except with Elf Wizards and Mohicans.

[Cleon]

The way I view it is Dwarves are on the verge of A- and A, I can kinda go either way, either a high A- or low A. They’re kinda tough to rate because there’s the melee bonding army of them, and there’s also splashing them, which makes them incredibly flexible; they’re definitely most splashable out of these 5 melee squads.

So to me these days it’s looking like Knights/Heavies > Dwarves > Romans/Deathchasers. Knights and Heavies are very close, I give it to the Knights but it’s close, and Romans and Deathchasers are close (I think I give it to the Romans, but it feels weird because I personally like the Deathchasers better ). I lean towards the Dwarves being closer to the Romans/Deathchasers, but I do think there’s a wider gap than I had previously thought.

One thing that I think is worth bringing up is the Deathchasers are only a 3 squad but they bond with a (uncommon) hero that has double attack. The pulverizer is not stellar like Gilbert, Grimnak, or MBS, but it does often provide you with that 5th attack.

[vegietarian18]

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

I’m just saying if you’re running Chasers and I’m running Dwarves, I’m walking away with the win. Dwarves love fighting Nerak and MBS.

Once again saying, “but with Raelin,” just doesn’t do it for me as an argument except with Elf Wizards and Mohicans.

Fair point on the Deathchaser head-to-head with Dwarves. But also head-to-head I think 5x Romans, Marcus, Raelin, MBS stomps any other 500 point melee bonding army.

I kind of go back and forth on the Raelin thing. Yes she makes everyone better but some things she helps more than others. Gladblast is certainly power-ranked with Raelin in mind; Vydar has historically performed very poorly in General Wars and it's because the Gladblast really needs that +2 defense sitting behind the Cyberclaws. I really do think Deathchasers are at a similar level where Raelin is so crucial to their best builds that she needs to be accounted for.

Originally Posted by Cleon

One thing that I think is worth bringing up is the Deathchasers are only a 3 squad but they bond with a (uncommon) hero that has double attack. The pulverizer is not stellar like Gilbert, Grimnak, or MBS, but it does often provide you with that 5th attack.

Personally I'm not a Pulverizer fan. Back in the day my first ever tournament win was with a Pulverizer build (Deathchaers x5, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Pulverizer for 555 points) but I've just soured on him since. He's kind of slow for what the Deathchasers want to do. If you're going to play a big guy with Deathchasers I personally prefer Warhulk. I've played Deathchasers with Warhulk a few times in online events to decent success. He's fragile but Flail Hurricane gets you more than 5 attacks in a turn if you do it right.

[Jexik]

I'm gonna ask you the same question that I posed to dok - what are your thoughts on moving Fen Hydra up to A+?

Are there any matchups where you're like, "aw sweet, he's got a hydra."

[dok]

Originally Posted by Jexik

Are there any matchups where you're like, "aw sweet, he's got a hydra."

Yes. Firestorm.

[Jexik]

Do you still run that in something like a 4x400 these days?