The Classic Gauntlet

[OEAO]

The Gauntlet is a concept from other gaming communities that I haven't seen explicitly laid out on HeroScapers. Basically, the Gauntlet is a generic list of strong archetypes and armies for a particular format or tournament. The purpose of the Gauntlet is to quickly and efficiently test an army by "Running the Gauntlet": you jam your build into all the archetypes and most of the builds to learn its (and your) strengths and weaknesses.

Take the following Gauntlet as an example. It doesn't really matter if every army is 100% optimized because you're looking to get a general sense of how good things are.



Format: 500 Points, 24 Hexes

WtF Nonsense:
6x 4th, Sam Brown, Kyntella
5x 10th, Raelin, Marcu

Range+Screen:
3x Glads, 3x Blasts, Raelin
5x Stingers, Raelin, Kaemon (no screen, but this is the easiest place to put them)
3x Stingers, 3x Rats, Raelin, Kaemon
3x Rats, Q9, Raelin, Hydra
3x Greenscales, Nilfheim, Raelin, Marro Warriors

Bonding Melee:
4x Heavies, Grimnak, Nerak, Marro Warriors
5x Knights, Gilbert, Eldgrim, Isamu
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Darrak, Marcu, Isamu, Oto
5x Romans, Marcus, MBS, Raelin, Marcu
5x Death Chasers, Raelin, Nerak, MBS, Theracus

A+ Junk:
Zelrig, Eltahale, 2x Dwarves, Marcu, Isamu
Countless other examples (Cyprien, Airborne, PKs, Braxas, and Q10/Kaemon are all good)



Format: 450 Points, 18 Figures

WtF Nonsense:
4x 4th, Sgt Drake (SotM)
4x 10th, Eltahale, Isamu

Range+Screen:
3x Greenscales, Nilfheim, Raelin
3x Rats, Q9, Raelin, Marro Warriors, Marcu
4x Stingers, Raelin, Kaemon, Isamu (no screen, but this is the easiest place to put them)

Bonding Melee:
4x Heavies, Grimnak, Nerak
4x Knights, Gilbert, Zetacron
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Arkmer
4x Death Chasers, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Marcu, Swog
4x Romans, Marcus, Raelin, MBS, Marcu

A+ Junk:
Same figures as before, except probably Zelrig



Format: 16 Figures, 400 Points

WtF Nonsense:
4x 4th, Alastair
4x 10th, Raelin, Marcu (or Marcus)

Range+Screen:
3x Rats, Q9, Raelin, Marcu
5x Stingers, Raelin, Marcu (no screen, but this is the easiest place to put them)

Bonding Melee:
4x Knights, Gilbert, Isamu
3x Heavies, Grimnak, Nerak, Marcu
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm
3x Romans, Marcus, Raelin, MBS, Marcu
4x Death Chasers, Raelin, MBS, Nerak

A+ Junk:
Same as before, except Zelrig gets even worse



Now, you don't have to test into each specific matchup, but you should know how to play generally into each archetype. The next few CoV episodes will be diving more in depth to the archetypes (how to play with and against them).

I'll also be posting more of these Gauntlets (including a VC-inclusive one with Nathan), which will hopefully make testing your builds less daunting.

Happy Scaping!

 

[mtl1998]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This is really cool. I’m definitely gonna use this as a template next time I playtest new army ideas. It seems simple yet effective. Should streamline my playtesting considerably. And if I’m playtesting with a buddy I’m sure it would be easy to persuade them to play a really strong army.

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This is really cool. I’m definitely gonna use this as a template next time I playtest new army ideas. It seems simple yet effective. Should streamline my playtesting considerably. And if I’m playtesting with a buddy I’m sure it would be easy to persuade them to play a really strong army.

That's great! I've found that having a list of pre-made armies also heavily cuts down on the time spent before games deciding what to play, giving you more time to grind games.

 

[vegietarian18]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Cool idea. I think it's helpful to have a preset list of armies to run through. Honestly I'd love a Reverse the Whip gauntlet since it's often even more difficult to come up with armies for that.

Just on a completely different note, the Ogre Pulverizer 500 point Chaser build isn't great. That's three bonding heroes and only four squads of Chasers, and Chasers die fast. If I'm playing Deathchasers bring the cheese at 500 I'm doing 5x Deathchasers MBS Nerak Raelin Theracus. Theracus is actually great with Deathchasers and great with Raelin if you know what you're doing with him. But in reality 500 is just such an awkward point total for DCs that I'm probably just not running them period. That's one thing that I don't see talked about a lot, how certain armies power spike at very specific point totals and you don't need to worry about them as much at other point totals. For example I'm not too scared of 480 or 490 point Heavies but they are much scarier at 500, and even more scary at 520. Deathchasers are even more of a power spike army since they are really only good since Nerak and MBS are amazing with them so they don't have many build options. Deathchasers are really only Cheese viable at 400 and 460 (455).

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Cool idea. I think it's helpful to have a preset list of armies to run through. Honestly I'd love a Reverse the Whip gauntlet since it's often even more difficult to come up with armies for that.

Just on a completely different note, the Ogre Pulverizer 500 point Chaser build isn't great. That's three bonding heroes and only four squads of Chasers, and Chasers die fast. If I'm playing Deathchasers bring the cheese at 500 I'm doing 5x Deathchasers MBS Nerak Raelin Theracus. Theracus is actually great with Deathchasers and great with Raelin if you know what you're doing with him. But in reality 500 is just such an awkward point total for DCs that I'm probably just not running them period. That's one thing that I don't see talked about a lot, how certain armies power spike at very specific point totals and you don't need to worry about them as much at other point totals. For example I'm not too scared of 480 or 490 point Heavies but they are much scarier at 500, and even more scary at 520. Deathchasers are even more of a power spike army since they are really only good since Nerak and MBS are amazing with them so they don't have many build options. Deathchasers are really only Cheese viable at 400 and 460 (455).

That's a good point on power spikes at different totals. Knights are probably the best army in the game at 455 (5x Knights Gilbert is just insane). I'll update my Chasers builds in the OP; I'm not that experienced with them and without the Ogre, but I'll take your word for it.

As for RtW, it's even more dependent on the point total than cheese. However, I can post my Gauntlet from last year's testing, which will at least give people a baseline. There are certain things I can't post from it, but I can at least post most of it.

 

[infectedsloth]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

That was a fast turn around, I like it.

I'll also be posting more of these Gauntlets (including a VC-inclusive one with Nathan), which will hopefully make testing your builds less daunting.

Forget this Nathan guy, he's probably a scrub. Pick me instead.

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

That was a fast turn around, I like it.

I'll also be posting more of these Gauntlets (including a VC-inclusive one with Nathan), which will hopefully make testing your builds less daunting.

Forget this Nathan guy, he's probably a scrub. Pick me instead.

I'm almost always slow with posting things, but not always.

 

[Chris Perkins]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This is a nice resource, enjoying reading through it.

One initial thought: I think there's some value in separating Range+Screen & just Range.

At 450 pts & 400 pts, you have Stingers + Raelin in Range + Screen without any screen (unless you're counting the stingers as screening for themselves).

Range + Screen plays quite differently than just Range, especially in round 1, and the separation might be valuable for helping show the differences in how those armies should be played.

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This is a nice resource, enjoying reading through it.

One initial thought: I think there's some value in separating Range+Screen & just Range.

At 450 pts & 400 pts, you have Stingers + Raelin in Range + Screen without any screen (unless you're counting the stingers as screening for themselves).

Range + Screen plays quite differently than just Range, especially in round 1, and the separation might be valuable for helping show the differences in how those armies should be played.

That’s definitely a good point on separating them out. I’ll do that later. I made the 500 gauntlet first, and just adapted it down to the other two totals without changing where things were. I’m also going to add more examples of good A+ Junk armies. Thanks for the feedback! Sorry we won’t be able to hang and play at GenCon this year.

 

[Jexik]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Although it doesn't fit neatly into your categories, I think at 400/16 figures the following army is pretty solid.

3x Arrow Gruts
3x Swog Rider
Krug
Raelin 395 (14 figs)

 

[Vydar_XLIII]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Bonding Melee:
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Arkmer

Why do you put Arkmer in with the dwarves at 450? I realize there is only 1 figure left, but I would run Me-Burq-Sa over Arkmer every time. Am I missing something?

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Bonding Melee:
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Arkmer

Why do you put Arkmer in with the dwarves at 450? I realize there is only 1 figure left, but I would run Me-Burq-Sa over Arkmer every time. Am I missing something?

Well, I don’t think MBS is that great when he’s not bonding. The reason he gets an A in my ratings is because he bonds with Romans and Death Chasers.

Further, Arkmer helps a lot in one of the toughest Dwarf matchups: Knights. 10th is bad too, but neither Arkmer nor MBS helps there. MBS really needs Raelin to compete with 10th at range. Arkmer also helps into Heavies, which is not irrelevant. I’m just not seeing a reason to take MBS over Arkmer with the current expected meta. I don’t think non-bonding MBS is generally better than Arkmer for the points anyways, and I think the upsides of Arkmer are even more important with Dwarves than with other armies.

 

[Vydar_XLIII]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Bonding Melee:
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Arkmer

Why do you put Arkmer in with the dwarves at 450? I realize there is only 1 figure left, but I would run Me-Burq-Sa over Arkmer every time. Am I missing something?

Well, I don’t think MBS is that great when he’s not bonding. The reason he gets an A in my ratings is because he bonds with Romans and Death Chasers.

Further, Arkmer helps a lot in one of the toughest Dwarf matchups: Knights. 10th is bad too, but neither Arkmer nor MBS helps there. MBS really needs Raelin to compete with 10th at range. Arkmer also helps into Heavies, which is not irrelevant. I’m just not seeing a reason to take MBS over Arkmer with the current expected meta. I don’t think non-bonding MBS is generally better than Arkmer for the points anyways, and I think the upsides of Arkmer are even more important with Dwarves than with other armies.

I guess I'm undervaluing Arkmer's utility in those melee matchups. I assume you send him up to a choke point and Engagement Strike everything you can, while you develop? Is that worth the 2 OMs that it takes to get him there? Or is he ranged support? My assumption is the former, because I think MBS is better for a single range attack than Arkmer. My choice of MBS was for being able to kite pretty well in the endgame. I agree that he isn't great when not bonded but with 14 threat range, and Paralyzing Stare he is a pretty decent cleanup unit for 50 points, something that Arkmer can't achieve.

Funnily enough, I just listened to the Bonding Melee episode of Casters of Valhalla, and I feel like I'm still undervaluing those units, as if I'm still in the 2010 metagame. It doesn't help I only own 1 squad of knights.

 

[The_X_Marker]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This thread has really helped me in quickly setting up soloscape games during quarantine.

I've had the cheese team essentially be an "AI," similar to the Gloomhaven "AI" for enemies. While it takes a lot of the strategic depth out of the other player, and while it makes it somewhat possible to use strategy to cheat the "AI" of the game, it feels alright for just passing the time playing again.

There's 1,000 threads on X army at X point value, but this is a standout for aggregating all of the top tier armies in one place.

 

[vegietarian18]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

For Dwarves x4, Mogrimm for 450 with one figure left I would go Marro Warriors and sit three Dwarves.

 

[Cleon]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

^Dwarves + Q9 is really strong

I know I’m a huge Stinger fan, and I admit they’re in the mid to low end of the top tiers (hard to exactly say, since they’re so splashable, but a horde is probably closer to the low end), but I’m surprised Stinger horde+Raelin isn’t on the 500pt. or 450pt. lists. When I think of top tier cheese, Raelin+Stingers x7 comes to mind (or 6 and Isamu at 450). I concede it’s not the best army ever (before Matthias slaps me), but I still think it’s strong enough to be included. I’d stick it with the 4th Mass and 10th Reg horde categories.

It’s also a pretty tough discussion since there’s so many slight variants of top tier armies, and some of the conventionally ‘weaker’ variants might be better in particular metas (I guess that’s the overall discussion of competitive play... ). Like with the prevalence of melee nowadays, I’m pretty partial to running Charos with the 4th Mass, over more 4th Mass. But yeah, still a good idea to get a list of cheese builds to put armies to the test.

Also I don’t think Concan+PK’s x2 should be on the list......oh wait nevermind

 

[vegietarian18]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

I think the classic Kaemon Raelin Stingers is way better than just horde Stingers. So Stingers x5, Raelin, Kaemon for 500. 7x Stingers is just overkill in my opinion, Stingers have a lot of bad matchups. What Stingers are best at is hero-killing, even without the Drain, and most armies don't have a ton of heroes you need to kill. 4x or 5x Stingers is enough to win the Greenscales matchup. Kaemon helps the Rats matchup a ton and the melee matchup a little bit. Alternatively you can even go 3x Rats 3x Stingers Kaemon Raelin for 500 which is a little low on commons but it's a nasty build.

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Bonding Melee:
4x Dwarves, Mogrimm, Arkmer

Why do you put Arkmer in with the dwarves at 450? I realize there is only 1 figure left, but I would run Me-Burq-Sa over Arkmer every time. Am I missing something?

Well, I don’t think MBS is that great when he’s not bonding. The reason he gets an A in my ratings is because he bonds with Romans and Death Chasers.

Further, Arkmer helps a lot in one of the toughest Dwarf matchups: Knights. 10th is bad too, but neither Arkmer nor MBS helps there. MBS really needs Raelin to compete with 10th at range. Arkmer also helps into Heavies, which is not irrelevant. I’m just not seeing a reason to take MBS over Arkmer with the current expected meta. I don’t think non-bonding MBS is generally better than Arkmer for the points anyways, and I think the upsides of Arkmer are even more important with Dwarves than with other armies.

I guess I'm undervaluing Arkmer's utility in those melee matchups. I assume you send him up to a choke point and Engagement Strike everything you can, while you develop? Is that worth the 2 OMs that it takes to get him there? Or is he ranged support? My assumption is the former, because I think MBS is better for a single range attack than Arkmer. My choice of MBS was for being able to kite pretty well in the endgame. I agree that he isn't great when not bonded but with 14 threat range, and Paralyzing Stare he is a pretty decent cleanup unit for 50 points, something that Arkmer can't achieve.

Funnily enough, I just listened to the Bonding Melee episode of Casters of Valhalla, and I feel like I'm still undervaluing those units, as if I'm still in the 2010 metagame. It doesn't help I only own 1 squad of knights.

Thanks for listening!

Well, I think most people undervalue- or, at least, underplay- bonding melee. It's really just me and Matthias (Ken) that main bonding melee at the high level tourneys.

For Arkmer, I'd just save him for the endgame against Knights/Heavies. The problem for MBS is that threat range isn't a great measurement for kiting. If he was 6 move/8 range, he'd be comically better at kiting. 6 range just isn't enough against Knights/Heavies. Arkmer has the upside of Engagement Strike and 4 attack, which gives him much better odds than MBS. I don't think MBS is a bad choice, but I think Arkmer is very underutilized.

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

This thread has really helped me in quickly setting up soloscape games during quarantine.

I've had the cheese team essentially be an "AI," similar to the Gloomhaven "AI" for enemies. While it takes a lot of the strategic depth out of the other player, and while it makes it somewhat possible to use strategy to cheat the "AI" of the game, it feels alright for just passing the time playing again.

There's 1,000 threads on X army at X point value, but this is a standout for aggregating all of the top tier armies in one place.

Thanks for the kind words!

As long as the dummy army is making reasonable decisions, it's not a bad way to gain some experience.

Good to hear from you after so long! Hope you're well!

 

[OEAO]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

I think the classic Kaemon Raelin Stingers is way better than just horde Stingers. So Stingers x5, Raelin, Kaemon for 500. 7x Stingers is just overkill in my opinion, Stingers have a lot of bad matchups. What Stingers are best at is hero-killing, even without the Drain, and most armies don't have a ton of heroes you need to kill. 4x or 5x Stingers is enough to win the Greenscales matchup. Kaemon helps the Rats matchup a ton and the melee matchup a little bit. Alternatively you can even go 3x Rats 3x Stingers Kaemon Raelin for 500 which is a little low on commons but it's a nasty build.

I agree, I don't think straight Stingers is as good as mixed Stingers. Updated with those two builds, thanks!

 

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

Maybe someone just overlooked this in editing but I didn't see any chainfighters x 16 + Warden or chainfighters x 20 for the 500 point gauntlet.

 

[The_X_Marker]

Re: The (Cheese) Gauntlet

chainfighters x 16 + Warden or chainfighters x 20

Woah now, let's not get too crazy. These lists are supposed to be beatable, I can't think of anything that can beat that!