Unlimited Start Zone Cheese Meta

[Sheep]

How would unrestricting Start Zone spaces affect the VCheese meta? Let’s assume 500pts. I’d assume the main new competitors would be both squads of Ants, Hounds, and Vipers.

[MegaSilver]

Spam Rats. Cover them with Raelin Backed Krav

[Muskie]

agree with MegaSilver. Krav, 8xrats, Raelin. Boring and a long game, but I would win.

[Sheep]

I feel like if Rats + Krav + Raelin won VCheese games we'd already see it. All it would take is Kuthnak or a special attacker to put that army to rest.

[Leaf_It]

This is actually the format for this month's Utah Monthly. We've done it a couple times over the last 4 years. We require that you bring extra tiles to fill out the startzone as much as your army needs. The extra startzone spaces can only touch your own startzone spaces, and are all on level 1. It's been interesting, but every time we've done it the winning army has been small armies of heros with either area of effect attacks, or just multiple attacks, and usually some kind of screen. Q9, Nilfheim, Kaemon Awa, Mimring, Zelrig, Asterios, Quahon... You get the idea. Although, I think the hordes of squads have made it to second.

Here's the thing though, Unless you are using a Squad that costs less than a certain threshold, it's just a normal Heroscape game. Blade Gruts, Deathreavers, and other 40 point squads can really take advantage of it, but Knights of Weston cost 80 points a squad, and almost always need Gilbert for the Mobility, so they are just playing a normal game. For 500 points, the cutoff to getting any kind of advantage is; 70 points for a 40 figure squad, 55 for a 3 figure Squad, and 35 points for a 2 figure squad. If it costs even 5 points more than those cutoff points, you couldn't fit another squad within the point total anyway.

[Dysole]

4th x7 sounds a bit disgusting. Rats, Q9/VIs, and Raelin is another possibility but I'm not sure they can do a lot more beyond what they can normally do. Cutters would be an interesting option with like a Nilfheim to handle a special attacker but they probably lose to the strong bonding melee armies. Spiders and Quahon needs a bit more than 500 to work with but could be strong. Troopers, Rats, Raelin, and Laglor/Hydra has the same thing. Glad/blast as well.

Ultimately, I think the meta would be better for rats, spiders, 4th, and blades. (Might be missing some others but cheaper squads or those that don't need support are what you want until you get to higher levels and then stuff like glad/blast and troopers start to look really good). Double hex squads improve slightly but they still get trounced by most things.

~Dysole, not sure how much it moves the needle

[Knox]

It's not the meta, but unlimited start zone makes the zombies more fun

[Leaf_It]

I think the best VC Squad for this format, which @BiggaBullfrog actually ran at one of our events, is the Xualtiaca Fire Ants. With Swarming, you get to move more and more ants per turn (assuming you survive), and with Swarm Sting, you get to attack every figure engaged to any ant you can get into an engagement. The potential is incredible.

The best Official Squad is probably 4th, or Stingers.