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Competitive Armies Discussion Discuss, critique, and build ideas for tournament-caliber armies. |
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#1
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How do you use Marro well?
Brief back story really quickly, started playing Heroscape in 2007 with RotV and my friend got SotM a couple of months later when it released. I had various other units as well, enough to make a full marro army but whenever either of us used marro we would get wiped. 12 years later after a long hiatus I am rebuilding my collection from nothing and I have to say, either I am still as bad as a 13 year old with no knowledge or the marro aren't very good.
Before making this thread I looked for one addressing this and maybe I missed it but I saw nothing. Today, for instance, I was playing a themed game; Jandar Nordic/Heroic units vs marro. 710 points on Sir Heroscapes Arroyo map and NGS shackled not only my Nilfheim but Thorgrim in consecutive turns and it still wasn't a close game. Oppenent had hive, 2x stingers, warriors, NGS, KMS, and SBN and it wasn't really even a competitive game. Now I have drones x2 and Me-Burq-Sa in the mail and maybe those are the missing links but does anyone have some insight as to why the marro always seem weak? |
#2
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
The strength of the Marro comes from certain units more than others.
Marro Stingers, Marro Warriors, Tor-Kul-Na w/ Marrden Nagrubs, and even Marro Dividers are all pretty competitive. The key is that with all of these units, you can get 3-5 attacks/abilities in per turn which is a huge difference compared to units like SBN and MBS. The other thing is that Marro really have to be used in a swarm. The more commons you have, the more effective they'll be. Most people probably play with 3-5 squads of Stingers for example. If you want to play Drones, most would recommend 5 squads to achieve their full potential. If you don't have that many of each squad, you could possibly still piece together a decent army. Just focus more on loading up with the stronger units I mentioned above. |
#3
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
I don't know what the Jandar army looked like but the biggest flaw I see with the Marro army you posted is that it is mostly high cost, single attack heroes. A somewhat simplistic view of the how to win the game is to maximize the number of attack dice you roll per order marker. When looking at an army through this lens, suddenly the 50 point Marro Warriors are doing more work per turn than the 160 point Su-Bak-Na.
IMO, the Hive is never worth its points, it cant move, its attack is terrible, in this army composition it would need to rebirth 8 Stingers in order to make its points back. Rebirth happens 40% of the time, so the other 60% an order marker on the stingers is objectively better. It could possibly have use to simplify order markers if you're running multiple different common squads, say 2x Stingers, 2x Drones, 2x Drudge, then you get a shot at rebirth each turn and 3 options of squads to activate each OM. In the army you listed above, its 160 points of dead-weight. Stingers, in large numbers, are the gold standard for a 3 person ranged squad and are arguably one of the easiest units to play. Their stats start good, they don't need to meet any conditions to become good or to boost their stats, such as squads like the Mohecans need to. I like to play them at 4 squads minimum. It is also worth noting that a critical rule to follow while playing with stingers is to never use stinger drain. There, of course, are exceptions to this rule, but more often than not its not worth it. Marro Warriors are one of the best unique squads in the game. Not because they kill everything all the time but because they almost always kill more than 50 points. With 6 move and 6 range they are very maneuverable. They can spread out and cover a very large area of the board and threaten everything with 4 attacks of 3 (assuming height, which you should have). Once one or two fall they have the opportunity to respawn themselves so they don't have the weakness that most other unique squads have. Other uniques lose value once their numbers dwindle, but the MWs stay threatening with even one left. Good for a few first round attacks or gylph grabs and if you keep on safe, they can clone and come back in the endgame to clean up. Ne-Gok-Sa and Me-Burq-Sa are significantly worse by themselves or with other marro, then when they are with a unit that bonds with them such as the Romans or the Death Chasers. Kee-Mo-Shi is bad. Don't play her. Su-Bak-Na isn't great. Essentially you're paying 160 points to have a Glyph of Lodin. not worth it. Adding a few squads of Nagrubs makes him better, but Tor-Kul-Na and Wo-Sa-Ga are strictly better with Nagrubs. Assuming you have access to all the SotM figures. The 710 point army I would make is... Ne-Gok-Sa Su-Bak-Na Tor-Kul-Na 2x Marrden Nagrubs 2x Marro Stingers Marro Warriors 700 Points, 21 spaces |
#4
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
Oh wow I didn't realize it takes that many squads as I've read the minimum you want for commons is 2 squads, of course more would be better, I just thought 2 squads would make them competitive. So with the amount of units I currently have maybe I'll relegate Marro to small point armies until I build up more. (drones going for 50$ a pop it brutal)
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#5
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
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Tarn Airborne Elite Raelin (RotV) The 3 Viking Warriors Nilfheim Edit:And Syvarris to fit the "heroic" theme My AE got a turn two drop and they cleaned the entire map grabbing height before the Marro could. I'll try out that army too next time a play Marro. I'm slowly adding enough common squads to field more swarm like teams but All Things Heroscape prices seem high and EBay's have been even higher. Was looking at getting a lot of drones and Wo-Sa-Ga yesterday but 5 squads of drones plus WSG is 400$. |
#6
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
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#7
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
Yes I know you CAN at 2x I just worded that poorly. I meant I thought that was the baseline for how many common squads to field but doing a lot more reading on strategy and army discussions I see that is not the case. Thank you all for the insight, I have more stingers and x3 drones in the mail so we shall see how it goes.
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#8
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
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#9
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
Hello, there is a post talking about the recommended amount of each expansion and units. It says Stingers, which I have used on a few occasions, are good at 4x. I can attest to this, but the stingers are comparatively cheaper to purchase than others (like the dividers) so you could get away with 5x. They are a fairly common unit and are very good. Link for more info.
https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...29&postcount=1 Keep doing what you're doing, but do it better. ~Self Classic Card Scans & Tourney Map Building Requirements Excel Sheet |
#10
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
Just proxy all your other Marro as extra Stingers or Drones. Problem solved.
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#11
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
Yeah I've thought about that, works well enough just playing at home.
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#12
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Re: How do you use Marro well?
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Su-Bak-Na is excellent when used with certain units, namely Stingers and Dividers. SBN w/3x Dividers bumps their chances of surviving an attack to 25%! (16 - higher!) That's HUGE. Not sure if you have any dividers, but if you get your hands on them use 'em, or proxy them. My fave Marro Hero is by far Tul-Bak-Ra. His teleportation ability gives him HUGE mobility. Plus when he takes damage he can summon marro reinforcements, (i.e. stingers/dividers) to swarm the enemy. I nearly always rush him outta the start zone and clock someone with 4-5 dice depending on height, then smile as they hit him for 2-4 wounds and summon a chunk of my army next to him. Dividers are perfect for this, since they can just sit there and take shots while your Stingers move into position. Never been a huge fan of Tor-Kul-Na tbh, although his potential to go on a rampage with grubs nearby is dangerous. I'd prefer SBN since he's much cheaper, or even WSG, although she is admittedly a bit more fragile. For 50 points MBS is still great by himself, with or without bonding options, and NGS is a great glyph grabber. (Good luck getting thru 6 defense/5 life.) Here's a reliable 500 pt army that works for me, if you wanna test it out: Dividers x 3 - 150 Stingers x 2 - 120 Tul-Bak-Ra - 130 MBS and Marro Warriors = 50 + 50 = 100 = 500. (Or sub in NGS + Isamu for 100 if there's a good glyph face up you wanna grab.) Another one: SBN - 160 Dividers x 3 Tul-Bak-Ra - 130 Marro Warriors - 50 Isamu - 10 = 500 "Our mother has been absent ever since we founded Rome; but there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home." |
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