mattmcd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 521
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Post by mattmcd on Jan 5, 2018 18:22:14 GMT
Just thought I would pop in for a quick report.
I put Madrak 1 into a convergence list last night (those poor guys need some new themes btw), and realized that guided hand is not an upkeep.
I saw gdnerd mention this earlier in this very thread I believe, but I didn’t catch it then for some reason. The Runebearer can spell slave guided hand. It is not an upkeep, so he can put it on a unit of champs, Bears, the GK or whatever.
I don’t have a GK yet, so I went with a Rok, Axer & Pyre battlegroup and really liked it. GK will be better I believe.
The other item of note was that I placed my snow drift on a hill that was in a zone and camped a unit of fire Eaters there the whole game. They were base def 13, +2 even ground, +2 concealment and +2 elevation. My opponent didn’t want to trade his high point models for a 7pt unit so they contested the zone he heavily stacked deployment towards the entire game at def 19 to shooting. Very effective.
When my scenario victory become apparent my opponent did the math on a ranged assassination of Madrak, but he was in a bunker at def 20. He landed one shot, I used the scroll and he conceded.
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jan 9, 2018 17:19:40 GMT
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Post by trout on Jan 9, 2018 19:29:15 GMT
Nice write up!!
Earlier you had mentioned that you had dropped Kolgrimma over Madrak four out of four games and were concerned about which matchups you WOULD prefer him as a drop. Still true?
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bundeez
Junior Strategist
Posts: 325
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Post by bundeez on Jan 9, 2018 19:45:08 GMT
Agreed, very nice article And good points you have - I agree with pretty much all of it. Big fan of the Glacier King with Madrak1 and the bears as well. Which by the way not a lot of people seem to bring to ATC, which surprised me a little. Guess people did not buy/paint/playtest them (bears) enough yet to bring them to a big tournament. Now an article for Kolgrima! ;D
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mattmcd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 521
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Post by mattmcd on Jan 9, 2018 19:46:00 GMT
I was excited to see your list with two units of fire Eaters, two bears and full champs. Very difficult to chew through for anyone!
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jan 9, 2018 23:52:12 GMT
Thanks everyone for the praise!
I'll try and get to these more in detail later but I'll give quick answers:
On Kolgrima vs Madrak in the pair - this might just be the local meta we have going but there isn't any truly extreme armor builds running around locally, and more importantly no Shield Guard / Sac Pawn spam (some Cephalyx but they don't love heavies they can't easily TK / Rampager between Mulg and Owl's Wisdom). I prefer Kolgrima into anything that is mass infantry / seems easy to assassinate and locally that's kinda been everyone.
As for the Kolgrima article - I'm hoping to make a second one for Jay to go out next week / whenever he deems it a good time. I just need to sit down, pen it, and find out where it is on the schedule.
Looking forward to seeing ATC results this weekend to see if I was right/wrong about BoH vs SotN Madrak. Just barely enough time to swap my Madrak over and get some good reps for LVO if I was wrong.
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Post by anomanderrake on Jan 10, 2018 3:09:05 GMT
Awesome job - this lurking reader is impressed! Keep them coming.
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Post by deviantcad on Jan 10, 2018 5:22:59 GMT
Damn and just when I thought I was happy with my band of heros list. Great article and a really well constructed argument for SotN. The GK does really seems to cover a lot of the potential problems with SotN.
I really hope this comes off as constructive rather then criticism, but it seems like you have a bit of a habit of picking best case scenarios for units over more average case ones.
Do you think your SotN list misses out on blood boon?
Again great article and looking forward to the Kolgrima article.
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jan 10, 2018 7:07:47 GMT
Damn and just when I thought I was happy with my band of heros list. Great article and a really well constructed argument for SotN. The GK does really seems to cover a lot of the potential problems with SotN. I really hope this comes off as constructive rather then criticism, but it seems like you have a bit of a habit of picking best case scenarios for units over more average case ones. Do you think your SotN list misses out on blood boon? Again great article and looking forward to the Kolgrima article. Well, I think that comes down to a number of factors. 1) I definitely treated this like a hype article and was extolling virtues of every component more than I was critiquing their problems. Champions are a bit slow for my taste, Fire Eaters can have order of activation issues where you want to light them on fire when the stone is on them but not Madrak who needs to fuel the stone, etc. They just have REALLY potent upsides and it's the player's job to curb the downsides in this scenario IMO. 2) I roll above average. Back in my old 40k days I was somewhat known for buying a new brick of dice in the middle of a game after an opponent complained about how good my dice are. Even if it is actual average and confirmation bias is exaggerating it, I definitely have a sense of things go my way when I want/need them to. This leads into #3: 3) I firmly believe all agency in this game is 100% with the active player. They can kill ANYTHING they really want to, it's just a matter of how many resources they want to put into things. It's the reason I'm lukewarm on Doom3/Ragnor - just because it makes things harder to die doesn't mean it's impossible for them to one round a King with optimal play and a bit of help from the dice (and then it's over). It's the reason I love Doom2 - he hits first so I get to choose what to kill and (hopefully) remove the pieces I'm afraid of. In the article you notice I don't call anything but Madrak "unkillable", everything else I refer to their defensive stats as "hard to remove efficiently". Any single piece here can die trivially to the right tech or a bit of good luck, but I'm arguing very few armies have volume, accuracy, and damage at the right volume to trade up or even at parity. Offensively Madrak's SotN forces, between the feat, Even Ground and easy access to concealment, they reliably get to get off the first solid hit. They hit at mat 7+ for the most part which is above average, and have Guided Hand if you really need to hit the upper echelons of accuracy. Then when they do hit, the models are harder hitting than most stuff in the game - Bears have 2 18s and a 17, Champions have 2 pow 14 Weaponmasters EACH, Fire Eaters have boosted 12s with their spray if you light them on fire. So just to recap, I feel that I reliably get to hit first, I feel that I have above average accuracy, and I feel that I have above average damage. At best, the only element you can disagree with out of those opinions is the ability to hit first. That may/may not be true, I really wouldn't want to play this into something like Caine3 Charger spam but thankfully that doesn't really exist at the moment. Is that looking at best case? I'm not sure how much can go wrong other than my opponent being able to "remove efficiently" my forces, at which point my thesis falls apart. Also, yes you pretty much never Blood Boon. However, the GK runs so hot typically I stay empty or near empty to try and not have the GK frenzy. Since the stone gets full real quick he either pays for Even Ground or just drops for the most part. Basically in this getup you treat him as a support bubble who can be really nasty in melee if he has to. Sorry for the rambling, but I figured I'd open up my thought process as an answer/rebutt to your observation/constructive criticism. Hopefully the Kolgrima article can meet your expectations as well!
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Post by Trollock on Jan 10, 2018 8:11:27 GMT
2) I roll above average. Back in my old 40k days I was somewhat known for buying a new brick of dice in the middle of a game after an opponent complained about how good my dice are. Even if it is actual average and confirmation bias is exaggerating it, I definitely have a sense of things go my way when I want/need them to. This leads into #3: Im gonna come off as a bit dramatic here, but do you honestly believe that you have some sort of ability that lets you get around the laws of physics and probabilities? I find it fascinating that gamers, who usually talk about dice math and expected values can still say "ill use this die for tough rolls, cause it is my lucky die!" Thanks for the article. Was an interesting read for sure What do you think of replacing one of the shamans for Saxon (he can score and contest even better imo, as well as giving out pathfinder in a pinch) or with Valka (who can be a beast to kill, as well as having a potentially high damage output)?
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jan 10, 2018 8:38:20 GMT
2) I roll above average. Back in my old 40k days I was somewhat known for buying a new brick of dice in the middle of a game after an opponent complained about how good my dice are. Even if it is actual average and confirmation bias is exaggerating it, I definitely have a sense of things go my way when I want/need them to. This leads into #3: Im gonna come off as a bit dramatic here, but do you honestly believe that you have some sort of ability that lets you get around the laws of physics and probabilities? I find it fascinating that gamers, who usually talk about dice math and expected values can still say "ill use this die for tough rolls, cause it is my lucky die!" Thanks for the article. Was an interesting read for sure What do you think of replacing one of the shamans for Saxon (he can score and contest even better imo, as well as giving out pathfinder in a pinch) or with Valka (who can be a beast to kill, as well as having a potentially high damage output)? Honestly, I believe that it's all confirmation bias. It might just be that I play really aggressively fishing for spikes so my spikes stand out in people's minds. I do lean on it to try and prevent people from being too salty - acknowledging "luck" goes a long way towards sating people's indignant rage. And if you find yourself consistently having dice go your way when it matters, confirmation bias or no, a bit of cockiness definitely slips in. I don't believe in lucky dice or anything like that, but I do love to meme about how if you find yourself losing all you need to do is to "try rolling better". Saxon is interesting, I think I'd choose a Fel Caller over the Shaman if I were to go that route as he has a spray option and benefits from the stone auras. In fact, I might just do that and thanks for the suggestion!
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Klaw
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 4
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Post by Klaw on Jan 10, 2018 10:13:22 GMT
Hey, Just landed here after reading gdnerd's post on the Discount Games blog. I started out with a Glacier King, but ... I'm just too derpy to get value out of that big lug. I swapped him out for a Bomber/Mauler battlegroup, and then even Bomber/Bouncer, and haven't looked back. I'm playing Madrak1 in BoH (Cryx heavy meta), and actually haven't moved on from the list I stole from a Norwegian guy at Clogcon - see it here: museonminis.com/klaw-plays-some-trolls-again-pt-1-madrak-ironhide-thornwood-temptress/I'm just thinking about removing the Sorcerer for a max stone - I assume I will at some point. I'm pairing it with Kolgrima PoD, which seems ... suboptimal. I want to drop her into matchups Madrak1 doesn't like, which can generally be described as "high value shooting". I'm thinking Ossrum with all the bunnies, for example. Another thing I'm not looking forward to would be Haley3 Gravediggers. Problem is - I can't play a beast brick. I tend to make plays like: "let's send my Mauler out there to contest yonder flag. Seems a good idea". Suffice to say my opponent rather trivially removed said Mauler, leaving me to play 15 points down. Luckily he was struggling with his list as much as I was, which allowed Kolgrima to spray his caster to death. Therefore - I'm just going to take this SotN Madrak1 list, kick the Glacier King out for a Bomber and something, and put Kolgrima at the helm. Sure, that makes two infantry lists, but ... I'm a Cryx player, I'm allowed. Just one question tho - what do you guys play in the mirror? As a bit of a backstory to that question - I think I've won exactly one Troll mirror match in my life. Using Cryx, my losses against Trolls are few and far between (apart from a dark time when good players used Grissel1), but ... as soon as I use Trolls myself, I can't seem to get anywhere. Klaw
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Post by greenjello on Jan 10, 2018 14:41:16 GMT
Not sure why "lucky" dice are all that surprising. Even with casino dice it's very possible to have a die that's been physically biased in some manner, and is more likely to produce a certain result. Outside of casino dice it gets even worse, since the die manufacturers seem to focus on looks over quality and even randomness distribution.
Confirmation bias is definitely a thing, but biased dice are too.
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Arcaux
Junior Strategist
Posts: 724
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Post by Arcaux on Jan 10, 2018 15:13:37 GMT
Not sure why "lucky" dice are all that surprising. Even with casino dice it's very possible to have a die that's been physically biased in some manner, and is more likely to produce a certain result. Outside of casino dice it gets even worse, since the die manufacturers seem to focus on looks over quality and even randomness distribution. Confirmation bias is definitely a thing, but biased dice are too. If you think a certain dice rolls in a non average way and you still use it then you are cheating.
It's plain and simple.
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Arcaux
Junior Strategist
Posts: 724
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Post by Arcaux on Jan 10, 2018 15:14:53 GMT
Hey, Just landed here after reading gdnerd's post on the Discount Games blog. I started out with a Glacier King, but ... I'm just too derpy to get value out of that big lug. I swapped him out for a Bomber/Mauler battlegroup, and then even Bomber/Bouncer, and haven't looked back. I'm playing Madrak1 in BoH (Cryx heavy meta), and actually haven't moved on from the list I stole from a Norwegian guy at Clogcon - see it here: museonminis.com/klaw-plays-some-trolls-again-pt-1-madrak-ironhide-thornwood-temptress/I'm just thinking about removing the Sorcerer for a max stone - I assume I will at some point. I'm pairing it with Kolgrima PoD, which seems ... suboptimal. I want to drop her into matchups Madrak1 doesn't like, which can generally be described as "high value shooting". I'm thinking Ossrum with all the bunnies, for example. Another thing I'm not looking forward to would be Haley3 Gravediggers. Problem is - I can't play a beast brick. I tend to make plays like: "let's send my Mauler out there to contest yonder flag. Seems a good idea". Suffice to say my opponent rather trivially removed said Mauler, leaving me to play 15 points down. Luckily he was struggling with his list as much as I was, which allowed Kolgrima to spray his caster to death. Therefore - I'm just going to take this SotN Madrak1 list, kick the Glacier King out for a Bomber and something, and put Kolgrima at the helm. Sure, that makes two infantry lists, but ... I'm a Cryx player, I'm allowed. Just one question tho - what do you guys play in the mirror? As a bit of a backstory to that question - I think I've won exactly one Troll mirror match in my life. Using Cryx, my losses against Trolls are few and far between (apart from a dark time when good players used Grissel1), but ... as soon as I use Trolls myself, I can't seem to get anywhere. Klaw Hi Klaw. First of all, welcome! it's great to grow our little community.
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