Casters of Valhalla

[OEAO]

Welcome to Casters of Valhalla!

(Special thanks to Trex and The Grim Reaper's Friend for the logo!)

Casters of Valhalla (CoV) is a competitive HeroScape podcast focusing on reaching higher levels of play. We will be discussing various topics ranging from units to army selection to maps to strategy. We're excited to have discussions and learn from one another, and I hope you, the listener, learn with us as well!

I (OEAO/Mike) run the podcast, and I am fortunate to have some excellent co-hosts. Common co-hosts include Matthias Maccabeus (Ken) and infectedsloth (Nathan), as well as the other three members of the CoV, Major Q23 (William), ISB3 (Matthew), and Cleon (Cody). I've also had the pleasure of bringing on quite a few people as guests, from strategy genius Jexik to top-tier player Dok.

I recommend starting with Entry 3. The first two were very free-form, but the ones from Entry 3-on are much more focused. We've gotten much better at pretty much every aspect of podcasting, and each episode is better than the last.

Episode List:
Entry 1: Introductions and Unit Discussion
Entry 2: An Introduction to Luck and Skill
Entry 3: A+ to A Units
Entry 4: A- Units
Entry 5: B+ Units Part 1
Entry 6: B+ Units Part 2
Entry 7: Rankings Methodology ft. Dok
Entry 8: Behind the Scenes of GenCon
Entry 9: KenCon Wrap-Up
Entry 10: Bonding Melee
Entry 11: When in Rome... Bring Raelin?
Entry 12: Death Chasers and OnlineCon Recap
Entry 13: Strategy with Jexik
Entry 14: Sportsmanship and Competition at GenCon
Entry 15: Announcing ScapeCon!
Entry 16: ScapeCon Pricing and Prizing!
Entry 17: Pre-ScapeCon Hang #1
Entry 18: Pre-ScapeCon Hang #2
Entry 19: ScapeCon Bets
Entry 20: ScapeCon Meta Prediction
Entry 21: ScapeCon I Wrap-Up/ScapeCon II Announced!
Entry 22: Greenscales and Nagrubs
Entry 23: ScapeCon I Side Event Metas
Entry 24: The Competitive HeroScape Buying Guide
Entry 25: HeroScape AoA Crowdfunding Campaign Review
Entry 26: The History of Competitive Maps
Entry 27: Top 50 Maps of All Time (50-36)
Entry 28: Top 50 Maps of All Time (35-21)
Entry 29: Top 50 Maps of All Time (20-11)
Entry 30: Top 50 Maps of All Time (10-1)
Entry 31: Going to a Tournament: What Next?


We are now live on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Sounder.

Please engage with us on this thread and continue the discussions from the episodes! Let us know what you’d like to hear us discuss, as well as general feedback on ways we could improve.

Also, please leave your questions for us in this thread, here!

Resources:
My Power Rankings
Original Power Rankings

Jexik's Cookie Cutter Armies
Jexik's What's In An OM?

My Terminology Guide
Jexik's Competitive Abbreviations

Thanks for listening!

 

[OEAO]

CoV Entry 1: Introductions and Unit Discussion

Join us as we briefly introduce ourselves and dive into some unit discussion: Greenscales, Major Q10 vs Frost Giant vs Kaemon, and Romans vs Dwarves vs Death Chasers.

 

[OEAO]

CoV Entry 2: An Introduction to Luck and Skill

Join us as we begin exploring how luck and skill impact the game, some of our favorite and least favorite units, and what competitive HeroScape was like back in the day.

 

[Unhinged Manchild]

Sweet, more Heroscape content for me to listen to on my 50 minute commute to work! I’m excited to check this out!

 

[Dad_Scaper]

Excellent, thanks for sharing. I feel like I'm in Indianapolis. Good job, fellas!

 

[Sir Heroscape]

Very cool. I'll have to put this on while I commute...would be good to hear what ya'll have here.

 

[Pumpkin_King]

I’m lazy, so I’m following until you get on Apple podcasts, haha.

 

[Dysole]

Quick Thoughts

Listened to the first one as the second one looks to be quite long and I don't have that time at the moment. Good things. I think I rank Romans, Dwarves, Chasers in double blind but it's an order I'm flexible to. (I do want to note that dok's 2015 army played Romans x2, MBS so it's possible to "splash" Romans like you do dwarves, but I do think there's a larger dropoff between the massed version and the splash version with Romans or Chasers than with Dwarves)

I also think the merciful Q10 is better than Frosty and Kaemon due primarily to 8 range and large immunities.

Also completely agree about A-/B+ scape vs A stuff. Q9 and 4th are some of my least favorite units because they win boringly.

~Dysole, looking forward to the future

 

[SuperSamyon]

Just listened to the first one. Great work! I'm glad our community is still producing content. Let's keep this game alive!

 

[OEAO]

Re: Quick Thoughts

Listened to the first one as the second one looks to be quite long and I don't have that time at the moment. Good things. I think I rank Romans, Dwarves, Chasers in double blind but it's an order I'm flexible to. (I do want to note that dok's 2015 army played Romans x2, MBS so it's possible to "splash" Romans like you do dwarves, but I do think there's a larger dropoff between the massed version and the splash version with Romans or Chasers than with Dwarves)

I also think the merciful Q10 is better than Frosty and Kaemon due primarily to 8 range and large immunities.

Also completely agree about A-/B+ scape vs A stuff. Q9 and 4th are some of my least favorite units because they win boringly.

~Dysole, looking forward to the future

Thanks for listening! Romans and Dwarves are both very good, so we see arguments for both sides. I think the “splash” comment had to do with running only running a few squads without any bonding; 1-2x Romans with MBS is certainly a valid option.

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

 

[OEAO]

Thanks everyone for the interest! @Dad_Scaper had a great idea for us: a Listener Questions segment, where we can discuss any questions people post here. Please post any questions or topics you want discussed in the future!

 

[OEAO]

Just listened to the first one. Great work! I'm glad our community is still producing content. Let's keep this game alive!

Thanks for tuning in!

 

[Dysole]

Discrepancies

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

And I also find counterstrike a bit overrated, so that probably plays into our various assessments.

~Dysole, observationally

 

[OEAO]

Re: Discrepancies

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

And I also find counterstrike a bit overrated, so that probably plays into our various assessments.

~Dysole, observationally

I did too, until Matthew’s Kaemon soloed 9 Dwarves and Mogrimm surrounding him two years ago...

 

[Dad_Scaper]

The second episode is starting to feel like a slog. Aim for one hour, I think. Which was probably your plan all along, but (like you said) you recorded these first couple together and then rushed the editing. I did appreciate the nod to one of my tournaments!

 

[OEAO]

The second episode is starting to feel like a slog. Aim for one hour, I think. Which was probably your plan all along, but (like you said) you recorded these first couple together and then rushed the editing. I did appreciate the nod to one of my tournaments!

Thanks for the feedback, I agree that it’s too long. We also recorded until after 1AM, so we started getting sleepy lol. I also don’t think the second one is the type of thing you should listen to front to back, it’d definitely be better if it was split up over several commutes.

That tourney was a ton of fun! It’s too bad we don’t live closer.

 

[Dad_Scaper]

The second episode is starting to feel like a slog. Aim for one hour, I think. Which was probably your plan all along, but (like you said) you recorded these first couple together and then rushed the editing. I did appreciate the nod to one of my tournaments!

Thanks for the feedback, I agree that it’s too long. We also recorded until after 1AM, so we started getting sleepy lol. I also don’t think the second one is the type of thing you should listen to front to back, it’d definitely be better if it was split up over several commutes.

That tourney was a ton of fun! It’s too bad we don’t live closer.

Yup.

With 100 guys on the cast, I think 30 minutes might feel to short. My guess is your sweet spot will be 45-60 minutes.

 

[Dysole]

Best Case Worst Case

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

And I also find counterstrike a bit overrated, so that probably plays into our various assessments.

~Dysole, observationally

I did too, until Matthew’s Kaemon soloed 9 Dwarves and Mogrimm surrounding him two years ago...

It's certainly not bad (as your scenario indicates), but I think it's too often judged based on its best case scenario which inflates its value in people's minds.

~Dysole, who thinks its best function is as a deterrent to an attack

 

[OEAO]

Re: Best Case Worst Case

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

And I also find counterstrike a bit overrated, so that probably plays into our various assessments.

~Dysole, observationally

I did too, until Matthew’s Kaemon soloed 9 Dwarves and Mogrimm surrounding him two years ago...

It's certainly not bad (as your scenario indicates), but I think it's too often judged based on its best case scenario which inflates its value in people's minds.

~Dysole, who thinks its best function is as a deterrent to an attack

I agree, but it’s also not hard for it to kill 1-2 squaddies, which still has value. It’s not great of course, but it’s nice. 7 range is usually enough imo because you’re already out ranging WTF and Queqlix.

 

[Cleon]

Yeah this episode definitely felt like a test, we really weren't organized and I think we were all stoked to finally get it off the ground that we just went with it. The second half definitely goes down the road of tangents and just has a hanging out feel, Nathan and Matthew left and it was basically us just chilling and talking anything heroscape. And I can talk about anything-heroscape for hours so it was fine by me haha, but for the listeners I imagine they want more of a structure.

Next episode we'll be more structured and prepared. I mean in this episode I asked midway through if we had started recording lol.

If you guys have any questions or topics you want us to answer or talk about, please post them here. It will be cool to respond directly to people. Kind of like a Q&A style thing.

 

[Tornado]

Re: Discrepancies

8 range and large immunities are certainly nice; I guess I don’t think that his benefits and losing Counter Strike is worth the 30 extra points.

And I also find counterstrike a bit overrated, so that probably plays into our various assessments.

~Dysole, observationally

I agree. Personal quote, "Fear no Counter."

 

[Dad_Scaper]

Yeah this episode definitely felt like a test, we really weren't organized and I think we were all stoked to finally get it off the ground that we just went with it. The second half definitely goes down the road of tangents and just has a hanging out feel, Nathan and Matthew left and it was basically us just chilling and talking anything heroscape. And I can talk about anything-heroscape for hours so it was fine by me haha, but for the listeners I imagine they want more of a structure.

Next episode we'll be more structured and prepared. I mean in this episode I asked midway through if we had started recording lol.

If you guys have any questions or topics you want us to answer or talk about, please post them here. It will be cool to respond directly to people. Kind of like a Q&A style thing.

I encourage you to make your next few episodes start with very basic concepts. Find something simple in the rules and build on that.

By starting with simple concepts and building from there, you will be making a podcast that is a little bit more accessible than one in which you are all just picking up threads you left hanging as you stood around the table (or played at) the finals in Indy. I'm definitely not saying "dumb it down." I'm saying, when you talk about adding structure to future episodes, structure them by beginning with some simple thing that is readily understandable. Spend some time on that and jump into the weeds from there.

 

[OEAO]

Yeah this episode definitely felt like a test, we really weren't organized and I think we were all stoked to finally get it off the ground that we just went with it. The second half definitely goes down the road of tangents and just has a hanging out feel, Nathan and Matthew left and it was basically us just chilling and talking anything heroscape. And I can talk about anything-heroscape for hours so it was fine by me haha, but for the listeners I imagine they want more of a structure.

Next episode we'll be more structured and prepared. I mean in this episode I asked midway through if we had started recording lol.

If you guys have any questions or topics you want us to answer or talk about, please post them here. It will be cool to respond directly to people. Kind of like a Q&A style thing.

I encourage you to make your next few episodes start with very basic concepts. Find something simple in the rules and build on that.

By starting with simple concepts and building from there, you will be making a podcast that is a little bit more accessible than one in which you are all just picking up threads you left hanging as you stood around the table (or played at) the finals in Indy. I'm definitely not saying "dumb it down." I'm saying, when you talk about adding structure to future episodes, structure them by beginning with some simple thing that is readily understandable. Spend some time on that and jump into the weeds from there.

Absolutely agree. I’m going to make a conscious effort to cover more basic information first. For example, our next episode will cover the double blind meta in general: what’s good and why it’s good. It doesn’t make sense to jump into more complex topics without establishing a baseline understanding of that.

 

[Unhinged Manchild]

Just finished up the 2 hour episode, I enjoyed it. It’s very different for me to hear how you guys feel about certain units, and I suppose it mostly makes sense since you speak from a competitive/gencon experience, and I’ve only played scape with maybe 20 people total.

I’ve always loved the Feral Troll (let’s say that him, Syvarris, DW9K, and Zombies are my “pet” units that I typically just love regardless..) and from my experience with the troll, it is exactly as you guys say: he gets trashed by almost anything with multiple attacks, and he really only pulls his weight in hero only games, or in end game phase where there’s half squads or wounded heroes remaining on the map.

I know this unpopular opinion, and it’s my personal one, but I just hate Raelin (RotV anyway, SotM isn’t nearly as borked.) I 100% agree that she makes bad units usable, but she also makes so many high tier units even better/sturdier, and I feel that she is about as brain-dead easy to use as 4th Mass.

As far as ideas for content, here’s my two cents:

Go (maybe even in set/unit release order) over how you feel every unit in Heroscape can be best used and also how to best defeat/bypass them, maybe sticking strictly to rtw and prebuilt blind games. Perhaps in one episode, review the RotV set, and then in the next, review wave 1, and then 2, etc. Just an idea from me, and it is selfishly suggested because I feel like I would both be most interested in that content, and glean the most knowledge from it.

At the very least, it is a ton of content that can be produced, if the demand is there and you guys feel like supplying it.

Nice job, regardless!

Edit: Just remembered; constructive criticism - it sounds like somebody was breathing into their mic throughout that episode? Whatever it was, it wasn’t particularly pleasing to listen to. It’s minor issue that could probably easily be improved upon/fixed.

 

[OEAO]

Just finished up the 2 hour episode, I enjoyed it. It’s very different for me to hear how you guys feel about certain units, and I suppose it mostly makes sense since you speak from a competitive/gencon experience, and I’ve only played scape with maybe 20 people total.

I’ve always loved the Feral Troll (let’s say that him, Syvarris, DW9K, and Zombies are my “pet” units that I typically just love regardless..) and from my experience with the troll, it is exactly as you guys say: he gets trashed by almost anything with multiple attacks, and he really only pulls his weight in hero only games, or in end game phase where there’s half squads or wounded heroes remaining on the map.

I know this unpopular opinion, and it’s my personal one, but I just hate Raelin (RotV anyway, SotM isn’t nearly as borked.) I 100% agree that she makes bad units usable, but she also makes so many high tier units even better/sturdier, and I feel that she is about as brain-dead easy to use as 4th Mass.

As far as ideas for content, here’s my two cents:

Go (maybe even in set/unit release order) over how you feel every unit in Heroscape can be best used and also how to best defeat/bypass them, maybe sticking strictly to rtw and prebuilt blind games. Perhaps in one episode, review the RotV set, and then in the next, review wave 1, and then 2, etc. Just an idea from me, and it is selfishly suggested because I feel like I would both be most interested in that content, and glean the most knowledge from it.

At the very least, it is a ton of content that can be produced, if the demand is there and you guys feel like supplying it.

Nice job, regardless!

Edit: Just remembered; constructive criticism - it sounds like somebody was breathing into their mic throughout that episode? Whatever it was, it wasn’t particularly pleasing to listen to. It’s minor issue that could probably easily be improved upon/fixed.

Wow, thanks so much for all this feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed it, but we definitely have plenty to work on.

It's important to note that local metas vary, and the values of units often depend on what you play against (like in the case of the Feral Troll). If your local group runs a lot of heroes, he's pretty solid. If they spam commons like the 4th Mass and Stingers, he'll get destroyed. We will usually be talking in the context of A- level armies and better, and he just doesn't pull his weight against that tier.

Raelin is definitely stupid and easy to use. We like her impact on the RtW meta for allowing weird units and lower numbers of commons, but she's terrible for the game in standard double blind games.

I like your idea on going through the units, although we'll be doing it from the top of the power rankings down/families of units. The reason for this is that talking about units often depends on the other units you'll pair with them. Take Grimnak; talking about Grimnak by himself isn't very useful, as he should be bonding. I think it makes more sense to talk about the melee bonding Orcs family as a whole: ie, Heavies, Blades, and the Orc Champions.

I'm not sure who the breathing was, sounds like it might have been a couple of us who were using headphones with mics close to our faces. I'll have us try recording without headphones next time.

Thanks again!