How best to play the Mohicans: A mathemical investigation

[Clarissimus]

Wave 9 has a provided a lot of units that don't play like anything we've seen before in Heroscape, such as the Mohican River Tribe. They get a bonus when close and a different kind of bonus when far away. Are they ranged units with optional melee power (like the 10th Regiment) or are they melee units with optional ranged attacks (like Agent Carr)? And what kind of units go best with their army (besides the obvious)? Raelin for extra defense or rats to tie up melee units? Or the Venoc Warlord to give them extra movement, allowing them to engage units quickly and frequently have a height advantage?

I decided the best way to begin answering these questions was to do some number crunching. Allow me to share with you what I've discovered. The follow graphs show the probability of a tribesman surviving an attack of 1-6 attack dice from various ranges. (Note that range 1 is melee). Don't forget that although Concealment works against most special attacks, it doesn't work if the Mohican is a secondary target from an "area of effect" attack like Zelrig's Majestic Fires or the Airborne Elite's Grenades. As a reference point I've included a "Krav Line" in each graph. Note that in melee situations Krav would have as much defense as the MRT.

The main lines of interest to me are the Red (2 attack) and Yellow (3 attack) ones, as these represent the mostly commonly attack values in the current squadscape metagame.









Some observations:

A Stinger attacking a Mohican from his max range has about the same chance to kill him as in melee.

A Rifleman (this includes 4th Mass, 10th Reg, and Harquebus), when faced the choice to move closer or Wait Then Fire from max range, should only move closer if he can get 2 spaces away from the Mohican. But the decision to move or wait will depend on the distance as well as whether the Mohican has the high ground. Sorry, Jexik, but it looks like you'll have to revise your flowchart

A Mohican from his own max range has better survivability if he moves to high ground than if he runs in engage the enemy on even ground although the latter may be the better decision if Brave Arrow is still alive.)

If Q9 is trying to pick them off he should roll 1-die attacks from a distance and 3-die attacks as he gets closer (the exact cutoff point varies depending on their defense bonus).

My initial impressions:

The concealment bonus is a lot better than I had expected. If you can afford both Raelin and Mittens in your army these guys will be really hard to kill! However, being a 3-man ranged squad with attacks of 2 puts them in the same category of uselessness as the Gorillanators and Samurai Archers -- what good is superior defense if you can't kill anything?

The "charge into battle" strategy gives them better attack and defense (and possible bonding with a very nice 50-point Indian) but I can't help but think people will just move their next squad of Stingers two spaces away and blast the River Tribe away. I think if you try to play them like a band of Agent Carrs you're going to want help against swarms of ranged commons -- bring along Zelrig, Q9, Krav, and the like. And as it's been already noted by a number of 'scapers, Deathreavers are much less effective against them:

"Ha, I tied up your MRT with my rats and now my ranged guys are free to shoot."

"Okay, now I get the extra defense and the concealment bonus. And bonding with Brave Arrow."