Faction Weaknesses...

[fireball_85]

Hey guys, my name's Randall. Been lurking around for quite as while I do in most forums that I do not feel like I'm good enough to contribute to. (and if you've ever seen me play, you know I should not contribute). Coincidently enough, my first post should help remove what I think is that biggest part of that losing thing. lol

What are the weaknesses of various factions? If I'm playing against Lizardmen, how should I play differently then against High Elves? What command card should I play around from the Undead? Against the Hawk men, should I grab an extra spearman or an archer?

I have all of the armies (and terrain and Kingdoms) and I have seen them all played or played them myself, but there's just so much information in each army that it's hard for a fairly new person (6 monthes & ~15 games) to just sit down and analyze them all.

So here's a thread for everyone to talk about strategies for playing against each other. Hope some good info comes from this!

[RushAss]

Wow, that's a pretty broad subject.  I'll list some rudimentary faction weaknesses as I understand them for starters.

Hawkshold - No real weaknesses except that their better infantry units are really slow

Undead - Core units are perhaps the flimsiest in the game

Orcs - Courage is a major issue

Elves of Ravenwood - There is such a wide variety of units (and movement classes) that it can sometimes be tough to make sure all of the parts work together well as a whole

Dwarves - Freaking slow.  But that is not as big of an issue unless facing extreme ranged fire.

Umenzi - 2 issues here.  1 is that the core line troops are fragile despite faith armor.  2 is that faith armor is so addictive and useful that you hardly draw any command cards.  I've had games as the Umenzi where I've drawn like 6 cards all game.  Also, their ranged fire capability is limited.

Lizardmen - Ranged fire is awful for the points

High Elves - Many units are so freaking expensive that it's tough to field a full line.  You usually wind up with a few sexy units and a bunch of Battle Squads.

Monsters & Mercs - The disparity in points is so great that it can be tough to put together a consistent force.

Rome - Skirmishers are gay

Carthage - See Rome above

Dark Elves - By the time the faction is released we'll all be dead

[lazyj]

Thanks for de-lurking! Hope you stick around and contribute, this place is great. (Though you shouldn't use me as an example - I've basically just started back up yesterday after a six month hiatus!  )

The fastest way to learn is to post session reports! Then the experienced members can chime in and offer some specific "this is how I would do it in that situation" advice.

That being said, the answers to your post would take pages and pages to fill. Each Faction has a couple of obvious weaknesses, and some more subtle weaknesses, and usually any of them can be turned into a strength.

As an example: Lizardmen. Really there is not much ranged attack power there - only a couple of minor units, and most of the time you won't find army lists here with any archers in them. You just rush across the field and eat people!    But then every once in a while... someone pulls out the Swarmling Bowmen and goes running around flanking and shooting just because the opponent doesn't expect it. Or you toss in a mercenary like Elementalists behind Tyrant Spearmen and suddenly you have a very real stand and shoot threat.

The beauty of the system is that you have the capability to convert perceived weakness into strength - it's a whole new meta-game once you've mastered the basics.

I would highly recommend reading the in-depth Faction tactics discussions (at least the first few pages) that are stickied here. But more than Faction weaknesses, focus on the general principles of Battleground that are true across the board:

1) Pinching is king!
2) You're trying to win your good matchups before you lose your bad ones
3) Make a hole in the enemy line and pinch him to oblivion!
4) Ranged attacks support your melee guys, they typically don't win on their own

And keep at it! You'll find it suddenly clicks and then it opens up a whole new world of tactics.

[Kevin]

I'll throw in a few more weaknesses on top Marcus's excellent list:

Hawkshold:  No strong core units.  So much as you'd like to construct a Wall-of-Death of Heavy Infantry and/or Great Swordsmen your line will always have at least 4 weak points.

Orcs:  too few defensive cards.  (I recall that none of their special command cards are blue, nor any healing cards.)

Ravenwood:  No cards which help a routing unit hold the line.  Sure, they're more likely to survive when they rout, but they still run away and if they do it on your turn there's a gap in your line and one of your units gets pinched.

Lizardmen:  Relatively vulnerable to ranged attacks.  Their cost includes a benefit from Blood Frenzy, which happens when an opponent is in the yellow or red.  If they get shot up with arrows, or get hit with javelins/pila so that they go into the yellow or red first, they're in trouble.

Umenzi:  The only unit which moves over 3.5" is the ridiculously expensive (530 pts?) Giant War Elephant.

Rome:  Their biggest weakness is no units of power greater than 5, but I've found this weakness to be less bad in practice:  they can usually blow through something, or have more units engaged, and start pinching.  In general, I've found Rome & Carthage to be the strongest factions in the game.

[gull2112]

I really agree with Lazyj when it comes to weaknesses, there really aren't any faction achilles heals per se. That being said, players can usually create their own. If you study most games in the session reports, failure wasn't due to some percieved weakness in the faction, it is usually the player not following one of the guidelines Lazyj set down at the end of his post.

Oh, and the dice.

BTW - I've never known Orc courage to be a problem.
To get this inside joke, review this session report http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,1163.0.html

[Quelmotz]

I'll just add on with the Umenzi.

The Umenzi faction is basically made for a two-unit deep line - line units in front supported by shamans and atlatlmen (and a few possessed and such perhaps?) in the back row. The advantage is that they're less vulnerable to getting pinched since the unit behind a unit in the yellow or red that is likely to rout can invoke the back-up rule and irritate the opponent for a few more turns before collapsing too. So while the Umenzi line units are pathetically weak, they can last quite long by having shamans and atlatmen serving as cannon fodder for a while, while you hope that your strong units elsewhere blast through and start ripping the enemy line apart from there. Make sure you have enough shamans/high priests to cover the remaining units though - you don't want to have a unit without back-up routing (Umenzi courage is crap without being in range to their leadership units).

Generally you should avoid things like Initiates and Worthy IMHO. Initiates can't do any significant damage at attack (5) 4/5, and their 2/1 defense doesn't really matter with their crappy courage of 9 (+2) as compared to the Possessed which are about 30 points cheaper with a whopping 9 (+6) courage. The 1/1 defense and slightly less health and offense doesn't really matter since you're planning to plug gaps with them, not do damage. With that 30 points you can upgrade two warriors to spearmen or two spearmen to javelineers or a warrior to a javelineer. Multiply that a few times, and you see what I mean.

Worthy are better off swapped for Berserkers + 30 points. Their offensive stats are poorer while their defense is better, a slightly beneficial exchange, since dice is less valuable than defensive stats most of the time. They get a bit more health and leadership, and the ability to be able to be given commands. Not very worth it. Health is good, granted, but definitely not worth 30 points along with the slightly better defense/offense, leadership and the ability to be given commands. Most of the time you don't need 3.5" MC units to perform any complex maneuvers, while it can be annoying that the berserkers chase after the wrong units sometimes, it usually doesn't matter. It can only boost the courage of the units directly next to it. Better off getting a shamans unit and all the healing and such that go along with it, and boost 4 front-line units' courage.