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Post by sand20go on Jul 8, 2018 3:05:32 GMT
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Post by sand20go on Jul 8, 2018 3:12:05 GMT
I do think they lose the issue that our casters are the special sauce that makes things go.
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Post by Netherby on Jul 8, 2018 5:07:44 GMT
Well, like many factions the introduction of themes hindered more than they helped us... And in the post themes meta a factions strength really comes down to how good or bad its themes are...
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Jul 8, 2018 5:19:01 GMT
I can't really give their opinion of Khador too much weight.
It basically boils down to what we already knew: Khador players need to have better basics because our faction doesn't break the rules and our themes won't hand you a back breaking question.
They are welcome to their opinion though. I just don't share it or see any evidence that it is as dire as they say.
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jul 8, 2018 6:22:06 GMT
You should have heard the episode before it went through editing I think the numbers speak for themselves as to Khadors situation, really. Since the beginning of the year they have 4 DGI finishes (and two of them are from team tournaments where things can get wacky). Cryx has >6 times that, Cygnar 4 times that, and virtually every other faction has ~2x the number of DGI finishes - all have AT LEAST 7. There is something wrong here. Sure maybe it's compounded by people not feeling great about Khador at the moment and therefore playing it less, and maybe some of it is meta pushing Khador out but it's pretty undeniable that they need some love. Admittedly I'm the only one on that episode who doesn't have a ton of Khador experience (roflstomped people with MKI Sorscha then quit the game until the end of MKII and have played very little of them since) but I think Khador isn't that far off. If there IS a good MoW list that emerges now that the full line is out (ideally 2 - Bombardiers and a meat brick are the most likely if I had to guess), I think Khador will be in a quite healthy place. Especially once Sorscha0 comes out. At that point there should be at least 1 valid tournament list for each given theme.
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Post by hocestbellum on Jul 8, 2018 8:02:42 GMT
You should have heard the episode before it went through editing I think the numbers speak for themselves as to Khadors situation, really. Since the beginning of the year they have 4 DGI finishes (and two of them are from team tournaments where things can get wacky). Cryx has >6 times that, Cygnar 4 times that, and virtually every other faction has ~2x the number of DGI finishes - all have AT LEAST 7. There is something wrong here. Sure maybe it's compounded by people not feeling great about Khador at the moment and therefore playing it less, and maybe some of it is meta pushing Khador out but it's pretty undeniable that they need some love. Admittedly I'm the only one on that episode who doesn't have a ton of Khador experience (roflstomped people with MKI Sorscha then quit the game until the end of MKII and have played very little of them since) but I think Khador isn't that far off. If there IS a good MoW list that emerges now that the full line is out (ideally 2 - Bombardiers and a meat brick are the most likely if I had to guess), I think Khador will be in a quite healthy place. Especially once Sorscha0 comes out. At that point there should be at least 1 valid tournament list for each given theme. In the entirety of last year, Trollbloods managed 3 placements. Then they had a CID go live in October, and a few months later they started winning tournaments. They're doing amazingly well this year. A similar thing can be seen with Cryx; they were nothing until Ghost Fleet was released, and then they were winning everything. Skorne are having a much better time of it recently... In fact, you can track it precisely to the release date of the Battle Engines CID. Since then, there is not a single list pairing that hasn't included the Animantarax. The 15 placements they've had since then have included a total of 36 Animantarax. Their entire faction is propped up by an overcorrected battle engine. Most factions have things like that. It pretty much all boils down to 'Khador's themes are subpar'; as you point out, our themes have weird restrictions and limitations inherent to the faction which makes it very difficult to build a decent pairing. However, Armoured Corps is, in my opinion, actually well designed. Sure, it doesn't have insane benefits like mass stealth or carapace, but it's the first theme where we can build a balanced list. I reckon our main future pairing is going to be Armoured Corps + Winter Guard Kommand, with the WGK built with A&H&V. The other themes are just not up to par.
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Post by Netherby on Jul 8, 2018 8:24:02 GMT
Another thing to consider with tourney results is: When Cryx are strong (and well represented) Khador is going to have trouble placing at major (non-team) tournaments.
You either have to dodge Cryx until the last round (less and less likely when they are well represented) or some how pull off a win against them. We can't currently build a list to 'answer Cryx' because they simply have too much depth of good themes and models. Any list you write to drop in Ghost Fleet and Dark Host gets countered hard by Slayer spam and generally your other list doesn't have great game into Slayer spam either (especially if the Slayer list wins roll and goes first).
Any pairing that includes Slayer spam forces you into a list chicken. Losing the list chicken puts you at like a 30% win chance and winning the list chicken only gets you up to a 50-60% win chance. Then you roll off and if they are playing Slayers and win the roll, even with the right list you just went back to a 30% win. With the wrong list you pretty much just dropped to a 1% win.
So you have a 50/50 of losing at list select followed by another 50/50 of losing at roll off. Even if you win both list select and the roll off you're still only pushing around a 50% win chance...
I have a feeling that in a tournament without Cryx you would see Khador in the top 3 at a more equal rate with Cygnar...
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Post by hocestbellum on Jul 8, 2018 9:20:33 GMT
Slayer Spam really does mess things up; if it wasn't for the Carapace benefit, I think that WGK could beat it. Even if the brought the whole Carapace rule down to a more sensible +2 (to be in line with things like Unyielding) you'd at least have a shot. But it is what it is; I'm really not sure why PP thought huge numerical bonuses to a key stat was okay as a theme benefit.
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wendan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 785
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Post by wendan on Jul 8, 2018 9:53:09 GMT
I feel bad for sayung this, but I turned it off after about 15 minutes! It was pretty silly. Most of the numbers tossed out were ridiculous. I think I made it about as far as incorporeal being an issue for khador to deal with.
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Post by hocestbellum on Jul 8, 2018 10:06:45 GMT
I feel bad for sayung this, but I turned it off after about 15 minutes! It was pretty silly. Most of the numbers tossed out were ridiculous. I think I made it about as far as incorporeal being an issue for khador to deal with. Mm. I did listen to the whole thing, as it was background whilst doing something else, but there really wasn't any substance to it. You didn't miss anything. They identify that Khador themes are bad, we don't have great magic options, and the Armoured Corps gained a lot of good shooting options from the CID. Certainly not 72 minutes of material there.
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Post by welshhoppo on Jul 8, 2018 11:31:41 GMT
Yeah. I wasn't fussed at all.
Khador doesn't have tricks. We don't. Outside of Strakhov1 shoving a warjack down your throat at 300 yards we don't have movement shenanigans, we don't have mass debuffs, we don't have recursion and we don't do Anything else.
Now, this doesn't appeal to people who win tournaments.
People who go to win tournaments want to win and want to use every trick in the book to make it easier. So Khador can get left in the dust. You can't walk up to a tournament with Khador Like you can with Gaspy3 slayers. Or Dreamer in Grymkin with your tricks.
Why do they want this? Because it makes the early rounds easier. You get stressed to perform and you will fall for those tricks much easier.
Khador players, good ones, have to be good at the actual game. Things like positioning, how to piece swap, when to jam, when to engage, when to fall back. Because its what we rely on. I've better far better players playing "far better factions" with my khador because that's all I play. When you have a selection of tricks, you don't have to work on other things and can let them slide. I've seen plenty of players running Slayers who suck at positioning and lose so many more jacks than they have too.
Also, we literally have a theme with magic weapons, 4 of our themes can take Aiyana and Holt, and 3 of our themes can take a Jack Marshall that gives it Jack blessed.
They just don't understand Khador. And they don't want to either.
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Post by onijet01 on Jul 8, 2018 12:14:54 GMT
+1 to the above. Im working on a karcheve and butcher 1 pairing to see just how far i can push khador.
I will eventually have 4 khador list perfected to break metas. God i love list building
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Post by ozvelpoon on Jul 8, 2018 12:22:04 GMT
First off thanks for doing a Khador "Themed" episode it was interesting to see what people think of the faction in other metas. I am a diehard mono faction Khador player for nearly 9 years so I am not going to abandon the Motherland quite yet . While I don't agree with all the points presented I do generally think along some of the same lines. Themes hurt us not only for the rigid model selection that is inherent to them but even more so that Khador used to be a faction that dug heavily into mercenaries to fix issues and change up their play style. When was the last time you saw the full sniper boat? Before themes that is for sure. I miss those guys. I also agree that Khador is a answer based faction in a question dominated game; and we are lacking good pieces/rules to answer the current questions dominating in tournaments. Armored Korps gives me hope though. It is the only theme we have had go through CID, and it is by far the healthiest. Here's hoping Wolves of Winter comes out just as good or better, and some of our older themes get addressed at some point. WGK is our best currently IMHO; Jaws needs new benefits; Iron Legion needs some love to Iron Fangs.
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Growl
Junior Strategist
Posts: 496
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Post by Growl on Jul 8, 2018 12:44:58 GMT
Ummm, at the risk of getting some hate... I’ve been playing Khador since I started Warmachine a few years ago in MK2 and while I am not a top player, I always felt like welshhoppo that I’ve always had a chance to beat whomever I was playing even without an optimized list, by playing better. The games I lose might be tougher based on models, themes, etc, but my loses really come down to me playing poorly or the other guy playing well. For the potential hate part, I’ve been playing Cryx for the past few months, changing it up for multiple reasons and still with the intention of playing Khador too, but I do find my games with the undead to be much more forgiving. If I have bad placement or forget something etc, I can usually make up for it and do something pretty cool later. Do think Khador demands more precision play. I don’t think Slayer spam is really that good at all btw.
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Post by blindfury on Jul 8, 2018 14:44:21 GMT
I think the idea that Khador is dead is nonsense. It is however totally fair to say that the current meta is not favorable to the game big red wants to play. IMHO Khador suffers from several issues none of which put them down the curve but that collectively pose serious challenges. 1. Khador, like RET, was designed as a combined arms faction. Our themes (with the exception of Wolves) are based around specific unit types such as iron fangs. This means that the faction’s best strength can’t be realized in an environment where MOW and winter guard have to be played as mutually exclusive list elements. How much stronger would RET be if the houses could all be played together? A more permissive theme would aid Khador’s competitive status a lot. 2. PP has a list of lines Khador is not allowed to cross such as arc nodes, focus 8 casters, light jacks, recursion, accurate jack shooting…etc. Other factions have been allowed to break their historic limitations such as Cryx getting access to gun mages in-faction while Khador’s design limitations have not really changed since MK I. With the switch to MKIII we lost access to our high defense options especially as concerns pikemen and several other models. Instead of seeing a commensurate jump in armor, clam jacks went down 2 armor, Behemoth went down a point, and the relative lethality of most factions has gone up on a model-to-model basis. Free focus each turn and a larger jack/beast requirement means there are more tools on the table that will deal with high armor. Since Khador’s defense is so low, that extra focus and lethality not to mention threat range, makes our heavies far less durable than they first look as well as far less scenario relevant. Other factions have comparable or better base stats supplemented by special rules (see the CG medium based infantry as an example.) Khador is supposed to get by on its durability and self-sufficiency which are often not all that they are cracked up to be. 3. We do not have themes that allow for mixed mercenary and faction play such as disciples of agony. In fact, the one theme that could really benefit from unrestricted mercenary access, legion of steel, can’t take character units. This limits our ability to answer multiple questions with a balanced list pairing. 4. Finally, the current scenario pack is not ideal for Khador’s shtick. We do not have sacrificial solos as most of them are integral to list function. Our scoring elements are slow as balls (MOW and Jacks) or fast and easily removed (winter guard and doom reavers.) There are some exceptions (Drakhun, gun carriage) but most of the elements that solve for ‘X’ don’t see play because of how they restrict the list around them.
I think it’s worth mentioning that most of the really good lists in Cygnar, Cryx, and other factions are only really a problem if played at a truly expert level. H3 in grave diggers has every tool imaginable and suffers on clock and decision paralysis accordingly. G3 9 slayers easily over-extends and requires precise positioning—which is harder than it sounds with that many large bases with that much range of movement. So, it isn’t like Khador auto-loses to every top-tier list out there. Our tool box just isn’t as big as it used to be and those tools aren’t as polished as those in other factions. I wish PP had as much vision for big red and was as willing to go out on a limb for us as with some other factions but that’s not the world we play in.
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