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  #13  
Old October 25th, 2010, 10:36 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus View Post
If I sat down against you (or anybody for that matter) with any melee bonding army and you had DW7K and / or Roman Archers and you actually killed half of my army I would wear a pink dress for a week.

I would be willing to bet I have an army with Roman Archers that easily will kill 1/2 of your melee bonding army:

5x 10th
1x Roman Archers
Raelin
----------------
510
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  #14  
Old October 26th, 2010, 12:21 AM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

Nice Rankings MM, and I acually agree with most of them. The two that really stand out to me here, are Guilty McCreech, and the Sentinels of Jandar.

By your own definitions Guilty belongs in the C to C- range. He's the most reliable thirty point hero. he has the advantage of having a normal, double attack of 2 (height gets that up to two attacks of three, which is one attack short of a "productive" turn). While some of the Wyrmlings or Elementals might have more specific battlefield roles, Guilty is the go-to guy if you're thirty points shy. That's his niche, when you're army is 30 points shy, barring a couple of builds (Knights come to mind) Guilty McCreech is your Man; he's so generally useful that he makes sense as the last thirty points in most any army.

As far as the Sentinels go, I would think you of all people would recognize their worth. I was actually *this* close to running them at NHSD, after they tore-up my Greenscale/Zelrig army. Sentinels are good for the same reasons Raelin is, you just distribute the cost of drafting Raelin across your squads. Even against Big Z, they just don't die. Looking back, I'm actually surprised we didn't see more Sentinel builds when Atlaga came out . . . .

Now, who's going to make the Definitive List of Power Rankings (we have three sets now right?)

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Last edited by Xn F M; October 26th, 2010 at 12:56 AM. Reason: "Definitive List" needed to be capitalized, and spelled correctly
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  #15  
Old October 26th, 2010, 12:37 AM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by flameslayer93 View Post
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Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus View Post

@Flamesayer
If I sat down against you (or anybody for that matter) with any melee bonding army and you had DW7K and / or Roman Archers and you actually killed half of my army I would wear a pink dress for a week.
The reason I don't think you would do as well as you assume, is because the Roman Archers are also meant to be played as a team of trappings. The whole army isn't supposed to be little one defense soldiers.
Imagine it to be like this:

I had some archers and DW7k. The total isn't my whole team, but they were the ones I built the army around.

As your bonding hero comes around(for this we will use typical Human Champions like Finn or Hawthorne), the Deathwalker is obviously faster than your knights(KoW move is 4, DW7K move is 6) and should be able to get to one of your champions. In this event, I will have considered to have inflicted 2 wounds on one of your bonding heroes. Your Champion isn't just going to shake that off either. If your champion is within threat range of one of my Romans, they volley on him. Chances are, if your Champion can attack one of my Romans, they can reach your Champion. If your Champion cannot attack a Roman, then the ones who conveniently positioned themselves on various higher spots on the map while you were busy dragging your army over here(road or not, it can still be a lengthy process to bring a big enough swarm to not get completely pounded by Romans who are playing to counter you) put holes in Knights. 3 attack versus 4 defense(with dwindling numbers on each side mind you) can punch through fairly well. When your knights attack the pod conviently located on the ground ready to Volley at a Champion, it is unlikely that all of them are engaged. So an impromptu Volley can occur.

Let's imagine you got my DW7K tied down. I am relatively confident that he can survive an attack or 2 of 3. Then, well it's time to say arrow volley or just wiggle around to get engaged with as many things as possible before going BOOM! If your Knights are there on a road, I'll be glad to nail an nearby champion with the volley. You still don't want to disengage unless you need to risk the loss of a knight. And then even worse, you'd be untying my Deathwalker. Surround the DW7K with 2 or 3 knights and he already earned his points by getting rid of something more valuable by kills. By getting rid of some of the swarm.

These theory-scaped results are assumed on the following builds:

Knightsx4 280
Finn 360
Hawthorne 450//////18 figs

Roman Archersx6 350
DW7K 450///////19 figs

It would be assumed that our builds do not have to be exact. More or less, I'm playing Trap&Kill. Your playing Bonding Swarm. Your knights can't move quickly enough on many maps w/out road(and more often than not, you are going to be somewhat constricted if you wanted to get the bonus, likely feeding me kills). Only about half of my Romans have to move at all and until your knights are out about halfway, they have plenty of time to get ready. Then I scatter the OMs on DW7K to follow my initial strategy.
1. DW7K hates knights. Just one little knight can completely tie him down. Then the knights could completely ignore him. You wouldn't want to risk a double-disengage from the knight just to put 2 wounds on a Champion. The best strategy against Da Bomb is just engage him with a single squaddie, and forget about him.

2. Keep in mind that although the knights are slow, the archers are just as slow. And the knights are moving 5 figures per turn, as opposed to three. Not to mention the knight army only has one place to put OMs vs. 2 for your army. You probably wouldn't have time to set up a perfect pod on height before the knights reach you.

3. Even if you somehow managed to get all 6 squads of archers on height, the knights would still tear through them. 3 attacks of 3 against 4 defense<4-5 attacks of 3 against 2 defense.

4. As far as volley is concerned, I would be happy if you were targeting my heroes instead of my squads. Those four squads of knights could beat that army without any champions. You'd be much better off just going for the knights.

I applaud your efforts to use underplayed "bad" units in armies, but the reality of it is the Roman Archers and DWs are outclassed by better units like knights. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play them, though.
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  #16  
Old October 26th, 2010, 01:21 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by Xn F M View Post
Nice Rankings MM, and I acually agree with most of them. The two that really stand out to me here, are Guilty McCreech, and the Sentinels of Jandar.

By your own definitions Guilty belongs in the C to C- range. He's the most reliable thirty point hero. he has the advantage of having a normal, double attack of 2 (height gets that up to two attacks of three, which is one attack short of a "productive" turn). While some of the Wyrmlings or Elementals might have more specific battlefield roles, Guilty is the go-to guy if you're thirty points shy. That's his niche, when you're army is 30 points shy, barring a couple of builds (Knights come to mind) Guilty McCreech is your Man; he's so generally useful that he makes sense as the last thirty points in most any army.

As far as the Sentinels go, I would think you of all people would recognize their worth. I was actually *this* close to running them at NHSD, after they tore-up my Greenscale/Zelrig army. Sentinels are good for the same reasons Raelin is, you just distribute the cost of drafting Raelin across your squads. Even against Big Z, they just don't die. Looking back, I'm actually surprised we didn't see more Sentinel builds when Atlaga came out . . . .

Now, who's going to make the Definitive List of Power Rankings (we have three sets now right?)
I love the Sentinels, I mean c'mon how can you not love angels with giant war hammers?

However except for Rev's 4th x 4 / SoJ x 2 and I know one time Karhma had success with SoJ x 1, they aren't often in the top of tournaments. A C+ does mean they are better than average since C means average.

I just think Guilty gets outshined by the other filler options more often than not.

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  #17  
Old October 26th, 2010, 01:35 PM
Devil's Advocate Devil's Advocate is offline
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus View Post
However except for Rev's 4th x 4 / SoJ x 2 and I know one time Karhma had success with SoJ x 1, they aren't often in the top of tournaments. A C+ does mean they are better than average since C means average.
Yeah, how could you compare the Sentinel's sucess to the vast Tournament success of the River Tribe, Brave Arrow, Capuans and Theracus. The Sentinels have only won the above Tournaments whereas Theracus and Brave Arrow consistently are in tournament winning armies.
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  #18  
Old October 26th, 2010, 02:05 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

DA's snark aside, I guess I'm confused as to exactly what perspective you're writing from here.

If it's "what's done well and does well in my experience", then I can't see stingers at a B-. They're consistent winners in the hands of good players.

If it's "what effective with and against a melee player", then I don't really see Q9 as an A+. He's really good, obviously, but he's not too scary to knights/heavies/axegrinders. He's tough for knights and axegrinders to beat if there are rats in the way, but that's more due to the rats than Q9 himself. Stingersx3 + ratsx3 + Raelin is at least as scary to knights as Q9 + ratsx3 + Raelin, and potentially more because they can get start dealing 3 attacks of 4 if they can find some height. (And it's much more scary to axegrinders.)
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  #19  
Old October 26th, 2010, 02:23 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by dok View Post
DA's snark aside, I guess I'm confused as to exactly what perspective you're writing from here.

If it's "what's done well and does well in my experience", then I can't see stingers at a B-. They're consistent winners in the hands of good players.

If it's "what effective with and against a melee player", then I don't really see Q9 as an A+. He's really good, obviously, but he's not too scary to knights/heavies/axegrinders. He's tough for knights and axegrinders to beat if there are rats in the way, but that's more due to the rats than Q9 himself. Stingersx3 + ratsx3 + Raelin is at least as scary to knights as Q9 + ratsx3 + Raelin, and potentially more because they can get start dealing 3 attacks of 4 if they can find some height. (And it's much more scary to axegrinders.)
I didn't even see his comment, so no worries. I mean he is the reason the ignore button was invented...

It's more (and perhaps I should change the title) from the perspective of a melee enthusiasts players perspective. Does that make sense?

I figured my Stinger rating would be the most controversial with players. In my experiences with melee, especially melee bonding Stingers just lose almost every time. If it weren't for the back-stab of Hawthrone I think my tourney record against stingers with melee bonding armies would be like 15-0 (or something very close to that).

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  #20  
Old October 26th, 2010, 02:31 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

The 1 player that fears Theracus more than Stingers it seems. Have to fear that 1 attack per OM and being able to transport 1 figure for 1 turn.

Also, considering there is no ignore button there is a particular irony in the comment
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  #21  
Old October 26th, 2010, 02:46 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate View Post
The 1 player that fears Theracus more than Stingers it seems. Have to fear that 1 attack per OM and being able to transport 1 figure for 1 turn.

Also, considering there is no ignore button there is a particular irony in the comment
Sure there is, all I do is click your name and voila! Add Devil's Advocate to Your Ignore List is an option.

More to the point, melee has plenty of reasons to both fear and appreciate Theracus more than Stingers. Theracus provides mobility which can be difficult for melee to counter or which can be very appreciated by melee in getting important units into useful positions sooner.

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  #22  
Old October 26th, 2010, 03:14 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

I would suspect that the Phantom Knight's are walking the line between A- and B+ on your scale, with the only real disadvantage being a lack of bonding. Sure, Insubstantial is one of their stronger attributes when dealing with ranged, normal attacks. However, their mobility, coupled with stealth flying, really lets them choose targets of opportunity...Which seems like a real advantage when playing against a wall of melee. Of course, the unmodified defense of 4 does not hurt either (of the A and A- list, only the Knights of Weston have this, out of the gate).

With this in mind, what is your reasoning for keeping them at B+, rather than A-? The lack of bonding/lack of fourth squad member (either of which the squads on the A and A- list have)?
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  #23  
Old October 26th, 2010, 03:22 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

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Originally Posted by Filthy the Clown View Post
I would suspect that the Phantom Knight's are walking the line between A- and B+ on your scale, with the only real disadvantage being a lack of bonding. Sure, Insubstantial is one of their stronger attributes when dealing with ranged, normal attacks. However, their mobility, coupled with stealth flying, really lets them choose targets of opportunity...Which seems like a real advantage when playing against a wall of melee. Of course, the unmodified defense of 4 does not hurt either (of the A and A- list, only the Knights of Weston have this, out of the gate).

With this in mind, what is your reasoning for keeping them at B+, rather than A-? The lack of bonding/lack of fourth squad member (either of which the squads on the A and A- list have)?
I think it's a combination of the fact they haven't been out very long and there's only 3 of them. They had a very strong performance at the TTO, but I'm not sold that it was the PKs more than the 10th in that army. The PKs and Hydra are definitely on the rise and if they continually do well like they have, becoming an A- won't be a problem.

@Aldin You said that better than I ever could.

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  #24  
Old October 26th, 2010, 03:35 PM
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Re: A Melee Perspective on the HeroScape Power Rankings

Quick question, Matthias. Have you played much against Silver Surfer with pure melee? How did it work out? I see you put him down in the Bs so it must not have been too frightening.
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