Balancing quality and quantity

[cristomeyers]

Plus the points you get just for toppling the bugger.

 

I far as my opinion, the support rules are fine. 5 Goblins should be able to drag down a Templar. The trick lies in keeping the swarm from getting in a position to do that.

[wildbill]

Willbill frequently posts about armies without elites.

 

 

This is true. Do you want to know why? It's because my elites aren't anything exciting. Ivar is one of the lower clerics in the game (and I'm talking dedicated cleric, not comparing him to a sgt w/cleric abilities), Margara is about average at best, Kara is too expensive for my tastes (my opinion! ), and honestly, I haven't used Durgam since the v1.2 change, so I can't comment on his effectiveness now. He used to be less than worthless. Now I think he might actually be useful. Hmmm...

 

But, if you pay attention to my builds, I do normally field a lot of tank solos: Thorvalds, mostly. Occasionally I'll plop down the Griffon. I think Thorvald is the man, and routinely try to field two, if not three, of them. When I first started playing, I would run them out there essentially all alone. And yes, they would get swarmed and killed. Not any more! I either run all of them together, or maybe with a small unit of something in support, or a bear with a unit, or whatever combo I need based upon the opponent I am facing.

 

We usually have lots of terrain on the table. So, it is easy to hold key passages with the bears and support with the rest of my troops. But, sometimes I'll run across the table anyways and attempt to put the smack down.

 

As far as tournaments go, I guess I would have to know what is generally thought of as a swarm army in terms of number of models. However, with that being said, as a whole, my Dwarves are typically cheaper than most of the other armies. I don't know why, it just is. So, I tend to have quite a few out there. Plus, I don't typically take a lot of equipment either, so that allows me to take more models. However, lately, I have been adding in a Totem so that helps...

 

Wild Bill

[Feanor]

A rough tourney army for me usualy was this:

Selwyn imp. protection

Lyssete GME firestorm ice shards dispell

5 warriors

 

Meridh

6 archers

 

Centuar

 

Meridh

3 warriors

 

Meridh

3 warriors

Approx. 1000 points, is this a swarm? maybe I do try to pack in as many minis as I can but still find a character can really pack a punch.

[Tenebrien]

A rough tourney army for me usualy was this:

Selwyn imp. protection

Lyssete GME firestorm ice shards dispell

5 warriors

 

Meridh

6 archers

 

Centuar

 

Meridh

3 warriors

 

Meridh

3 warriors

Approx. 1000 points, is this a swarm? maybe I do try to pack in as many minis as I can but still find a character can really pack a punch.

 

It always seemed pretty swarmish from my side of the table, lol. "Ahh!!! I'm getting slowed down by hordes of weenie elven meatshields erstwhile the Vale Archers of Doom up on the hill are having their way with

everybody within 34", with no problem firing into melee mind you." Shooty elven bastages. Ah man... I live even farther away now, though. Are we going to be able to kill each other at MisCon again?

[Tenebrien]

It always seemed pretty swarmish from my side of the table, lol. "Ahh!!! I'm getting slowed down by hordes of weenie elven meatshields erstwhile the Vale Archers of Doom up on the hill are having their way with

everybody within 34", with no problem firing into melee mind you." Shooty elven bastages. Ah man... I live even farther away now, though. Are we going to be able to kill each other at MisCon again?

 

That being said, I should additionally point out (to stay on-topic) that I've always done my best in tournament formats when I've upped the body count of my force in any way possible. I have not played in abundance of tournaments, due to lack of them in my area and the fact that I can't run my own as a Black Lightning Rep until my new place of residence actually has a gaming store that carries Reaper products (hopefully we will soon, though... people, myself included, are making a big push for it). But I've played a few nonetheless. I'm telling you though, bringing 12-19 bondslaves attached to Sgt. Iks, in addition to having a lot of terrain on the table, made a big difference in my ability to stay alive in tournament situations... they almost always die horrific deaths, but they buy invaluable time to maneuver, hold choke points, segregate components of the competition's faction, or whatever. The only time they have been nearly useless was against Feanor's elven archers, and his handful of 10 d10 shots per turn.

 

I will also mention that I agree with Storminator and do NOT find these types of armies and their associated style of play to be that satisfying. And thus, I have been perfectly happy having to decrease my winning odds somewhat in pickup games by building army lists that I find fun/interesting. I also enjoy more limited tournament formats, like 2-man decked out gladiator-style, which I've done very well in, and would like to see additional creative formats like a town or city-scape board with teams capped at 10 figures and 1000 or 1250 points with the inclusion of stunts, for example.

[Feanor]

I do plan on some different lists and i really like the rule in the dallas warlord tourney posted up in the general discussion 3 300 points models mandatory that really helps balance it.

[wrightjd]

Here's a quick army that I used to devastating effect, I never fielded it again because I thought it was blatantly broken and absolutely ridiculous:

 

Sir Broderick 78

Templar Knights x8 216

 

Sir Conlan 30

Templar Knights x8 216

 

Sir Conlan 30

Templar Knights x7 189

 

Sir Conlan 30

Templar Knights x7 189

 

I'm pretty sure at the end of the game I had well over half my number. Only army I could even see having a shot at it (that's not also a swarm army) is a Mage heavy Darkspawn army, other than that I think this army could pretty much run the board. It could lose to someone with a flyer with a ranged attack I guess, but it would take hours.

[Castlebuilder]

I have been meaning to respond to this thread since it was first posted, and kept getting distracted. I play a Bull Orc swarm army a lot of the time, and I have great success with it. I do pretty well with Crypt Legion armies too. On the contrary, I've seen a 1000 pt Overlord army with 7 or so figs come within a dice roll of defeating a large Reptus force. Being a swarm player, the two things I fear most are choke points and area of effect spells. I can't tell you how many times I've had a firestorm dropped on me after swarming some hero. Also, if my enemy can get most of his force on one flank, I know I'm in trouble.

 

I would argue against making it harder for grunts to kill big'uns who get themselves out all alone. A hero with some grunts to support him is a terrible thing to face. A hero all by himself is a sucker (or bait....). I think that is the way it shoud be. In my opinion, heavy hitters are wasted if you use them to engage lowly grunts anyway. They should be used for taking out other leaders and elites. Warlord is a game of balance, and anticipating how to exploit your enemies weaknesses. If I play the same army too many times, the guys at my shop are going to figure out a combination that will beat it on a regular basis. In response to that, I'm going to revise my army to counter them. You gotta love a game like that!

 

Don't fear the swarm, learn from it and destroy it next time!

 

Castlebuilder

[Crusoe the Painter]

The problem with "X Autodamages" on a die is that swarms will almost always be better than single figures. These discontinuities in die rolls lead to cheap units being overpowered. It makes relative pt costing of units tricky.

 

My Pharon Slaves in VOR were brutal. Sure, they only hit on a 1,2,3, but a 1 was a CRIT! So my horrible slaves rarely hit, but when they did, had a 30% chance of ignoring armor. And for 6 or so pts a piece, I could easily have 50 on the field. That's 50 shots a turn, with nearly 3 guaranteed kills against the way more expensive enemies I was facing (Who were lucky to have 10 figures on the field sometimes). Meanwhile, opponents are wasting time mowing down the herd. Mix that in with Soul Web, and the pharon became brutal. That had some fun uber-expensive toys as well, but they were usually too crunchy.

 

Nevermind the sickness of Neo-Sov trooper Pharon slaves armed with SMGs. Sure, the power of the weapon is even weaker, but they generated 3 ranged attacks per turn.

 

So you get into these problems when certain die-rolls are auto-dmg/hit regardless of the skill of the attacking figure. Non-contested rolls make it worse as well.

 

If my Pharon Slave only hits on a 1,2,3, and is so horrible, why is it then that 1/3 of those hits are criticals? And we see this same effect in Warlord.

 

One way to prevent the Cheap Herd Swarm of Death is to allow for more template based attacks, which will kill more of them quicker. Another option is tool up solos or other powerful combat figures up with moves that can handle masses of uber-cheap infantry. This will offset the effect of cheap units fielded merely to exploit criticals.

[ecs05norway]

Hrm. There's a thought.

 

Firebombs. 10 points each, effectively a Fireball with a 1.5-inch radius and a 2 CP? Range of, say, 6-8 inches...

[Castlebuilder]

Hrm. There's a thought.

 

Firebombs. 10 points each, effectively a Fireball with a 1.5-inch radius and a 2 CP? Range of, say, 6-8 inches...

And if you roll a 1, he dropped the slippery pot and it explodes on the thrower......

 

Castlebuilder

[SaintRigger]

I have to admit I'm a big fan of the "Never Start A Land War in Asia" (Or "Crunch all you want, we'll make more") approach to army building.

 

There is something satisfying knowing that even if your opponant makes every possible hit on his turn, there will still be enough left over to drag him screaming to the ground.

 

I used to think that a 200 point hero should equal 200 points of grunts, for sake of game balance - however this just isn't logical. I think on a one for one level, a 200 point her should pretty much slap every grunt around with a large trout, but as soon as hes dogpiled, it doesn't matter how good he is, hes going to go down under sheer weight of numbers.

 

Warhamster compensates for this a touch with their wounds structure, in that a model retains full combat effectiveness untill he's dead - but this leads to overly powerful character models who just cut bloody swathes through entire armies. One of the things I really like about CAV and Warlord is how units lose their effectiveness as they become damaged. I don't care who you are, if you got a bunch of arrows stuck in your chest and back, you aren't going to be as tough as you would be without them.

 

I also like Ranz idea that if a unit's leader model is taken down - there should be some form of psychological effect. If your sgt. says "Come on, follow me!" and is immediately cut down - there is a pretty decent chance that the troops following him may falter. Even worse if it's a captain or warlord. The downside is, if there are psychological penalities for taking out leaders - you end up playing games where everyone tries to snipe your leader models in the hope that your army will route. Where there is some sense to this, I think it makes for a dull game - although for giggles, why not play a house rule that if a unit's sgt is killed then that unit must make a dis check to see if it can fight on. If it fails, they are shaken and can't charge an enemy, and must "fall back" towards the next available leader, or cover until a dis check is passed. (This can be represented by a grunt standing up and taking charge)

 

Or - perhaps have them make a dis check each turn. If they pass, they can fight as normal, if they fail - then they move as normal and defend as normal, but can't advance towards an enemy unit.

 

See how it plays out - if it's good, maybe make a suggestion for the game, if not, scrap the idea.

 

 

One of the downsides of a swarm army is that when you do dogpile a unit, and wipe it out - particularly if it's a character model - this often leaves you in a tight formation which is just begging for an area affect spell of some sort. Think of it as calling in artillery or an airstrike. It can be a perfectly vaid technique to "Bait and nuke" swarm armies.

[Storminator]

In my opinion, heavy hitters are wasted if you use them to engage lowly grunts anyway. They should be used for taking out other leaders and elites.

 

Castlebuilder

 

This is actually my biggest problem with swarm armies. If I bring a hero there is no one for him to kill! Your leaders don't matter and you brought no elites. All the hero does is chop down grunts, because that's the whole army.

 

That's why I play 1501+ now. You must bring the Warlord, and there's at least one model for me to kill.

 

PS

[SaintRigger]

Storminator -

 

Try flanking your hero with a few grunts, to act as body-guards and meatshields. This way he can get stuck in and use his multiple attacks to cut down a number of grunts - but with a few bodies in the way, it is tougher for him to be swamped by enemy grunts.

 

Or use terrain. I often like to defend with my back (and one side, if I can) against a wall, since it makes it harder to get surrounded - and denies those extra +1s.

[Storminator]

Storminator -

 

Try flanking your hero with a few grunts, to act as body-guards and meatshields. This way he can get stuck in and use his multiple attacks to cut down a number of grunts - but with a few bodies in the way, it is tougher for him to be swamped by enemy grunts.

 

Or use terrain. I often like to defend with my back (and one side, if I can) against a wall, since it makes it harder to get surrounded - and denies those extra +1s.

 

Thanks Saint. I know how to protect Ym.

 

PS