How will C3V units affect the Metagame?

[flameslayer93]

Marutuk is good, but fails to rats/any other screen because of LEA’s. She doesn’t get to leave those for free. Compound that with an effictive cost of 200. 8 dice doesn’t mean crap when you only get to use it once...

Good read so far.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

Marutuk is good, but fails to rats/any other screen because of LEA’s. She doesn’t get to leave those for free. Compound that with an effictive cost of 200. 8 dice doesn’t mean crap when you only get to use it once...

Good read so far.

Agreed. I find it hilarious that you (OEAO) consider Marutuk that game changing. She’ll fall easily enough to any squadscape army with a competent player. Jotun likes to throw lots of dice as well but he hasn’t broken the game yet, and he can throw and has a multi target SA.

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

Agreed. I find it hilarious that you (OEAO) consider Marutuk that game changing. She’ll fall easily enough to any squadscape army with a competent player. Jotun likes to throw lots of dice as well but he hasn’t broken the game yet, and he can throw and has a multi target SA.

You guys realize they have more in their army than just Marutuk, right? Cathar, Cutters, and 10th are all real options to pair with her.

She can use Dismissive Swipe DURING movement, and it's better than Throw by a large margin for that reason. She shouldn't be taking LEAs. She's 30 points cheaper than Jotun, yet has two more life. Comparing her to Jotun is ludicrous; she's closer to Tor-Kul-Na, who's really good. The difference there is your whole army is Torky after adding Grubs, whereas Marutuk fits in with already-good units really easily. I think she's at least an A-.

[All Your Pie]

It's also worth noting that Marutuk isn't the only unit that hard counters Dragons and their like really well. Heracles, Augamo, and the Nhah Scirh are all nigh-impossible for large/huge special attackers to deal with.

I don't know much about counters to heavies or top tier double-blind play, but I do know that I would probably never bring Nilfheim and Greenscales to a VC-inclusive event. VC has a way higher density of SA and large/huge counterdraft figures than classic, all of whom are sitting around B+ or higher.

[Dad_Scaper]

There’s a lot in there to unpack, OEAO.

I understand you to be saying that Marutuk, a single hero figure, alone makes Greenscales armies weaker. But that seems to me to be more of a counter-draft, right? I mean, Q9 isn’t bad because Repulsors and Dwarves exist, right? He’s still A+ and in Tier 1 armies?

And I know the Utah guys run double blind tourneys. But GenCon? I was there, and I don’t remember them. Unless you mean General Wars, which was a pretty messed up version of straight army building. If that’s the one you meant.

I don’t want to discourage you from the academic and abstract study of which is the best 480 point, 24 hex army. But it does matter to me that, in the real world, that format is only rarely played. Which is a good thing, too, because the original designers did a much worse job than we’ve done of balancing their body of work for competitive play.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by OrcElfArmyOne

You guys realize they have more in their army than just Marutuk, right? Cathar, Cutters, and 10th are all real options to pair with her.

She can use Dismissive Swipe DURING movement, and it's better than Throw by a large margin for that reason. She shouldn't be taking LEAs. She's 30 points cheaper than Jotun, yet has two more life. Comparing her to Jotun is ludicrous; she's closer to Tor-Kul-Na, who's really good. The difference there is your whole army is Torky after adding Grubs, whereas Marutuk fits in with already-good units really easily. I think she's at least an A-.

Theoryscaping sure, there’s merit to “thinking” about it...but try playing with her, then come back and let’s talk. I think this discussion is best served by those that play with VC units. No offense to the Classic Heroscape Purists, since there is a legitimate place for playing the game that way like it is at Gen Con...and obviously there is a definite draw in playing the game that way.

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

There’s a lot in there to unpack, OEAO.

I understand you to be saying that Marutuk, a single hero figure, alone makes Greenscales armies weaker. But that seems to me to be more of a counter-draft, right? I mean, Q9 isn’t bad because Repulsors and Dwarves exist, right? He’s still A+ and in Tier 1 armies?

And I know the Utah guys run double blind tourneys. But GenCon? I was there, and I don’t remember them. Unless you mean General Wars, which was a pretty messed up version of straight army building. If that’s the one you meant.

I don’t want to discourage you from the academic and abstract study of which is the best 480 point, 24 hex army. But it does matter to me that, in the real world, that format is only rarely played. Which is a good thing, too, because the original designers did a much worse job than we’ve done of balancing their body of work for competitive play.

Well, a counter-draft can still be good overall. Repulsors may as well not exist because they're bad against the vast majority of the top tier, something that I don't think holds true for Marutuk. Marutuk is good against dragons, majors, and Heavies. I think that's enough of the top tier for her to be a good figure overall. The things you pair with her can counter whatever else you may face; Cathar if you expect Knights, Cutters if you expect 4th and 10th, and 10th for literally anything Marutuk can't handle.

Dwarves may be underrated. I think they're better than most people do (and Ken thinks they're phenomenal). I don't think people realize how good Dwarves are and, thus, don't run them as much as they should. When they do, they often run sub-optimal builds (not enough squads in order to run Migol). The "classic" dwarf build for some reason is 3x Dwarves and the three heroes; that's comically worse than 4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Darrak, and 40 points of stuff (or 5x Dwarves and 30 points of stuff instead of Darrak, I could be convinced to run either one). Dwarves also run into a little bit of trouble with WtF squads, but I think that's largely a player issue rather than a matchup issue.

I mean, 4x4 (and 4xwhatevers) may as well be double-blind. Plenty of other formats are slight variations (Assassin's Creed, Treasure Quest, Lightweight, War of the Worlds...) We cycle in and out events, but there is always one format every time slot where you bring one army and play it for four rounds, albeit often with some extra rules added. The point is that not everything is Take 2, or Cluster Draft, or Pod Draft, or Reverse the Whip, or...

I don't think I'm going to touch the last statement.

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

Theoryscaping sure, there’s merit to “thinking” about it...but try playing with her, then come back and let’s talk. I think this discussion is best served by those that play with VC units. No offense to the Classic Heroscape Purists, since there is a legitimate place for playing the game that way like it is at Gen Con...and obviously there is a definite draw in playing the game that way.

You realize I've played with and owned about half of VC, right? As have many "purists".

I'm actually watching two elite players play right now: Knights vs Cathar/Marutuk. Let's see how Marutuk is in a bad matchup.

EDIT: MARUTUK PLAYED POORLY IN A BAD MATCHUP JUST DIED, CLEARLY SHE'S FINE

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

Which is a good thing, too, because the original designers did a much worse job than we’ve done of balancing their body of work for competitive play.

I’m not going to post about customs, but this is a super unfair comment Ben. This game died when it wasn’t supposed to so you can’t propose to assume what intentions designers had in mind to balance things.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

I’m not going to post about customs, but this is a super unfair comment Ben. This game died when it wasn’t supposed to so you can’t propose to assume what intentions designers had in mind to balance things.

I would be surprised if Craig disagreed with me. You think they had some remedy for Raelin up their sleeves? Something to make Q9 less ridiculous? Maybe a way to make the Grok Riders relevant?

No, I don't think so. We got what we got, with some of the most ridiculous and broken units (Krav, Raelin, Marro Warriors) in the very first set. Even if they did, it doesn't matter now. For reasons that were - even if you're right - beyond their control, we were left with a "meta" that is not balanced.

We are more careful about balancing for competitive play than they were. Or, maybe, we just have the luxury of more time than they did. It's not a dig on the original designers; I love 'em. Some of those guys are my personal friends. But the original game was never designed for what we (the larger "we," including you and all those who bring Heroscape to tournaments) do with it.

All we in the C3V do is stand on the shoulders of giants. But let's not play pretend, either. Changing the metagame (the way OEAO & others are defining it) is part of what happened with every release. The Fen Hydra, your Drow Chainfighters. The "meta" was always changing. We aren't breaking. We are expanding.

And the Tier 1 armies - the best of the best, the top 3 - are still Tier 1 armies. For better or for worse. All we've done is add more stuff for people to use.

Don't believe me? Ask Jerry or Craig if they think we've done a faithful job of building onto the canon. Ask if their plans were better. I'll give you a hint! Craig has said that we've done everything he would have done.

I'm not saying you, or even you plural at GenCon, need to like something you don't like. Go ahead; leave us out. I am satisfied that we've achieved what we set out to do, with or without appearing in Indy. But it's been many, many years since event organizers started relying on non-double-blind events to bring people in. It's not a problem we made, and we sure as heck didn't make it worse.

Again, Ken. You're great. You guys do what you want. I have no beef with you. But we as a larger community were orphaned in 2010. I will not treat the received handful of official units as an untouchable sacred text, and I don't think guys like Jerry or Craig would want us to.

That said, I respect the bounds of competitive play, and we work very hard not to break anything. Maybe some things move a little in the swirl; that's ok. Maybe it's important for some of us that sometimes things move. But we haven't broken anything, and that's because we work really [bad word] hard not to.

[Sir Heroscape]

Amen, DS. Amen.

[Matthias Maccabeus]

DS, Your last post said quite a bit about stuff that I wasn’t even talking about, referring to, or thinking about. Please feel free to reread my post and then shoot me a pm or text if you want further discussion. I will bow out of this discussion because I don’t have info to make this discussion meaningful.