Assault on the Ice Tower

[Xotli]

Assault on the Ice Tower

This is a scenario that the boys and I put together, based very closely on naps420's excellent map Ice Cavern, and his scenario for it "Attack on the Old Ruins." We made just a few mods, as follows:

Changes to the Map:

• I built out the right side by one more hex so that the two lower starting zones would be equal.
• I used dungeon tiles for the top level instead of rock. Could be relevant if Player 3 takes anyone with Hide in Shadows.
• I put a single shadow tile behind that single-space glacier at the front of the map (i.e. the one farthest away from Player 3). I mainly did this because I was running out of ice, but in the end it seemed like a reasonable thing to have.
• The upper glyph of Brandar is used.
• The lower glyph of Brandar is replaced by the glyph of Valdar (Move +2), for obvious reasons.

The Scenario:

• All snow and ice on the map counts as heavy snow and slippery ice.
• Players 1 and 2 each draft 750pt armies. No more than 250pts of each army may have Flying or Stealth Flying. (This is as per naps420's original scenario). Players 1 and 2 are a team.
• Player 3 is their opponent, and drafts a 1,000pt army. Their only restriction is that it has to fit in their start zone. Furthermore, Players 1 and 2 must disclose the contents of their armies to Player 3 beforehand, so Player 3 has the advantage of being able to counter-draft.
• All Classic, VC, and Marvel units are eligible for draft. (I probably would have thrown C3G into the mix too, but I don't happen to have any.)
• Player 3 plays with two X markers. At the end of every round, Player 3 may reveal one of their X markers and take a turn with that unit. (That is, Player 3 goes last in every round.)
• At the end of any round (after Player 3's extra turn), if either Player 1 or Player 2 is holding the glyph of Brandar, their team wins.
• At the end of round 10, if no player holds the glyph of Brandar, Player 3 wins.
• Player 3 is not allowed to hold the glyph of Brandar.

Now, if you've never played a 2v1 game before, you may think that Player 3 is getting too much advantage. In general, this is not the case: it's pretty hard to compensate for the fact that Team A has twice as many activations as Team B. That fact alone makes the single side pretty untenable in most 2v1 scenarios: having more points than anyone else does you absolutely no good when you're fighting on two fronts with allies who can benefit from all powers affecting "friendly" units and are attacking twice as many times as you. So giving Player 3 a single extra turn in this case is definitely not going overboard. Making that turn always show up at the end of the round, and giving them some flexibility (i.e. they can choose either of their two X markers) just helps guarantee that the game isn't over too quickly (similar to how, in naps420's original scenario, you had to roll 18-20 once you grabbed the glyph, only far less random).

The number of points, however, is very very tough to calculate. You might think you want the single player to have points equal to the combined points of the other two, but that isn't always the right way to go. In a Hold the Line scenario (which this definitely is), the defending force with the superior position can often hold back a much greater force, depending on just how superior the position is. I wasn't sure about this one, so I just left the points the way naps420 suggested in his original scenario. Team B's superior positioning really only consists of a) height, and b) chokepoints for non-flying access. It didn't seem like a lot before we started to play. However, what I neglected to factor in was the vast icefield in the center of the map, which means that it's very difficult for Player 1 and Player 2 to coordinate their efforts. So whatever advantage they gain from being able to boost each other's units is vaporware: it sounds nice, but in practice it's irrelevant. If we play this again, we might consider scaling back Player 3 to 900pts or so.

The Conundrum:

So here's the brain teaser portion of our exercise: What units would you draft as Player 1 or 2, to assault the ice tower, or as Player 3 to defend it? Remember, you have all official units (including Marvel) to draw from, plus all of VC. And you're looking at a very specific map and goal which is quite different from your typical tournament play.

Click the spoiler button if you want to see what the boys and I went with, and what our reasoning was.

Spoiler Alert!

Player 1 (son #2)
Quahon
Theracus
Spiders x3
Mohicans x2
EOV
Mittens
Siiv
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750pts (230pts flying), 24 spaces

It's always tough helping my eight-year-old come up with a decent idea for an army. This time, the fact that he'd been wanting to try out Big Blue led to a natural synergy with a mostly scout army. The nice thing about this army is that, with Mittens, just about everyone in it has 9 move, and most of the rest have 7 (the only exception being Quahon). Big Blue plays the heavy hitter. My Pretty Pony wouldn't be my first choice, but the kid likes him, and he might be able to ferry one figure up to the top before keeling over uselessly dead. The Mohicans give him something to ferry: they can be dangerous if we can get them close enough. Venocs would just get shredded on the long trek to the top, but the EOV have a pretty decent anit-range power to help them through. The spiders don't have much going for them outside of their speed, but they bond with Quahon. Siiv is a fairly decent choice, as 40pt filler goes. He has the speed to keep up with the rest of the pack, despite not being a scout, and he can do some damage in the endgame.

Player 2 (Xotli)
Laglor
Microcorp Troopers x2
Yetis x1
Iron Man
Master Woo
Drow Chainfighter
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750pts (240pts flying), 15 spaces

The Troopers were practically custom-made for this scenario: it would almost be stupid not to include them in at least one of the attacking armies. They can play in the big central icefield, which most other units can't, and Hard Targets gives them protection from the often extreme height advantage that Player 3 will have firing down on them. Their Heavy Weapon SA is just a bonus. The only real disadvantage the Troopers have is their middling range, which is what Laglor is for. Iron Man is our primary heavy-hitter: he's got good defense, decent move, decent range, and two attacks of 4, which ain't nothing to sneeze at. Master Woo is an unconvential choice, granted, but he's basically a way to sneak around the limit on flying figures--his Stealth Leap will do just as well to get up to the top quickly, and Master's Assault can be pretty vicious, if I can get him into the thick of things. The Yetis exist for one reason: grab that glyph! The chainfighter is a waste of 25 pts, but what else was I gonna take? a Sahuagin? The Dumutef and the Swog can't even get up the ladders ...

Player 3 (son #1, @Quillon )
Zelrig
Hatamoto Taro
Kaemon Awa
Tomoe Gozen
Izumi
Tagawa
Tagawa Archers x3
Saylind
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1000pts, 21 spaces

Now, I personally wouldn't have gone with the samurai army in this particular scenario, but my eldest has loved the concept ever since Tomoe came out, and wasn't about to let this opportunity slide by--how often do you get a chance to spend 750pts on a massive samurai army? And, you could do worse than a buttload of counterstrikers for your opponents to have to wade through to get to the goal line. The Tagawa archers make an average ranged force, but you don't need anything spectacular to hold a plateau with extreme height on practically everything you're shooting at. Hatamoto Taro over Kato Katsuro is a weird choice in my book, but he's a grown man (practically), so he can make up his own mind. Saylind is just an 80 pt filler here, but Zelrig is a true terror against the squads attempting to storm the heights. He can sit up there at the edge of the plateau and rain Majestic Fires down on everyone, or swoop down for hit-and-run attacks if he's careful not to get swarmed and tied down.

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts! I'll chime back in a bit later with some impressions on how things worked out for us in our first attempt with this scenario, and perhaps a mini-battle-report.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Very cool Xo, thanks for sharing.

[caps]

Good call leaving out C3G. They are a lot of fun but to start, their metagame is totally different from what you find in anything not-C3G, and they interpret a few core rules differently from Classic (and added several rules of their own). Unlike the Marvel set from Hasbro, their level of gameplay-compatibility with Classic is (intentionally) not very high.

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If I were the 3rd player I would probably pick up something like

80 Raelin v1,
250 Captain America,
185 Nilfheim,
240 3xShieldsmiths of Granite Keep
100 Syvarris,
110 Airborne Elite
30 Kira Jax / Guilty McCreech

If I were the other two players...
I don't know for sure. But off the top of my head it would probably include one of the Raelins and then Shieldsmiths + MicroCorps Troopers. And something that flies, like Nilfheim or... CYPRIEN!

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EDIT: Now, looking at your armies, I find the absence of Cyprien very puzzling, but the fast-moving army makes sense, and the presence of the Troopers makes sense as well. I can see the Samurai being effective if they are not killed from a distance first.

[Xotli]

Glad to see some attention here! I've been meaning to swing back around and talk about how our game actually went.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

If I were the 3rd player I would probably pick up something like

80 Raelin v1,
250 Captain America,
185 Nilfheim,
240 3xShieldsmiths of Granite Keep
100 Syvarris,
110 Airborne Elite
30 Kira Jax / Guilty McCreech

See, I wanted to do a Taelord / Omnicrons core--you so rarely get to play around with that(*) that fielding a 1,000pt army is an opportunity not to be missed. I mean, imagine 12 or so snipers, Taelord-boosted, shooting at you from extreme height ... terrifying, it would be.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

If I were the other two players...
I don't know for sure. But off the top of my head it would probably include one of the Raelins and then Shieldsmiths + MicroCorps Troopers. And something that flies, like Nilfheim or... CYPRIEN!

Yeah, our thinking was, one army with as much speed as possible, for hauling ass up those ladders, and one army that could do something with all that snow and ice. In retrospect, though, yeah, I should've gone with Cyprien over Iron Man. I was thinking that the extra defense and the range would be worth the extra points (and the single extra attack die would be a nice bonus). But Cyprien has the two extra move and disengage, and one of his "attacks" can possibly heal him. Throw in the 2 extra life and 90 more points to play with, and it probably would have been worth losing 3 spaces of threat range.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

EDIT: Now, looking at your armies, I find the absence of Cyprien very puzzling, but the fast-moving army makes sense, and the presence of the Troopers makes sense as well. I can see the Samurai being effective if they are not killed from a distance first.

Yes, we should have been able to shred those samurai before counterstrike could come into it. But unfortunately my youngest had difficulty playing the Mohicans effectively (and of course the Tagawa archers weren't sitting still waiting to be shot), and the troopers were basically decimated by Zelrig before they could do much.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of how the armies played out:

The Scout Army: These guys proved able to get up the ladders despite withering fire from the archers up top, just by dint of sheer speed, so their raison d'être was well founded. In fact, Player 3 was lucky that Player 1 was eight years old. If we could have consistently remembered that he should be rolling for Frenzy with the Blacksnakes, and if he'd been a bit more receptive to advice on OM management, there's every chance that Player 1 would have carried the day. As it was, he got within 2 spaces of the goal with one figure, and within 10 or so 2 or 3 more times. Even Siiv proved useful, able to make it up the first ladder in the endgame and take out at least one Tagawa swordsman before the archers could take him down.

Theracus was as useless as expected; he managed to deliver a single Mohican to the plateau, who in turn managed to kill a single archer next turn, but it cost him 2 life, so thereafter he wasn't worth putting an OM on.

The biggest disappointment, however, was Quahon. I read so much around here about how terrifying and gamebreaking Quahon is, but we just didn't see it. She is so terribly difficult to place on the map that even flying can't overcome her 5 move. Unable to get into position, she was unable to line up her lightning breath to hit more than one enemy at a time, and Zelrig eventually crushed her. The spiders never pulled off a single Entangling Web, and, though they were excellent at getting up the ladders, they weren't much use once they arrived.

The Mongrel Army: I screwed up. I freely admit it. Basically, I was so busy trying to make sure I kept the troopers in sight of Laglor that I ended up letting them burn. The archers weren't going to get their extreme height advantage, so of course my eldest didn't even bother with them: it was Zelrig all the way, baby. He managed to take out an entire squad in one attack at one point. Eventually I decided that I had moved the troopers out too early and needed to take down Zelrig first. Iron Man was decent for that task: he took Zelrig down to 2 life before being taken out himself, and Master Woo was able to finish the job. But by that time the troopers were all gone, so my army was pretty much eviscerated.

The yetis, OTOH, did exactly what they were supposed to do: hauled ass across that giant snowfield, secured that glyph, and refused to be dislodged. Zelrig finally managed to do it, although it took him until very late in the game, because he didn't fit into that overhang any better than Quahon did when she was trying to tee off her lightning breath using Zelrig as the conductor. He eventually managed to clear them out, but they'd earned their points by that time.

The Samurai Army: He couldn't complain. Zelrig certainly earned his points, and the archers were a formidable force. (Then again, from that height, pretty much anyone with a ranged weapon is a formidable force.) The swordsmen were less useful, although all they really had to do was cut down people as they came up the ladders and take out anyone who got close to the goal, which job they performed well enough.

Saylind wasn't much use, and Tomoe didn't manage to take down anyone either. Hatamoto Taro actually managed to pull off an Adjacent Tough one time, although I don't think that justifies his points.

At the end of 10 rounds, the survivors were one Tagawa swordsman, 2 or 3 archers, a half-strength KA, and HT.

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Anyone else want to propose some suggestions for either side?


(*) Because, you know, Taelord costs too much.