Archery theory

[gull2112]

I stated on another post in the "thing I like least about BG:FW" vein that I thought archery was too weak, but I prefaced that comment with the statement that I am still relatively new to the game.

So i went and built a 2000 point wood elf archery heavy army and ran it against an earlier Orc army of the same size. It was a standard scenario with no terrain. this is the TO&E and the result:
Wood Elves had a set up like this             ArchersBowmastersBowmastersArchers
                                      Wolfpack      Swordsmen     Swordsmen    Swordsmen        Brownies

So the Swordsmen were just screens for the Bowmen. All units had H orders


The Orcs Looked like this    WolfridersWolfRidersSpearmenMaraudersTrollsSpearmen
                                                                Goblin Bowmen       Goblin Bowmen
They had C or S orders

The Archers wiped out the wolf riders in two turns (very lucky rolls).  Melee troops were pressing the swordsmen sorely, but the swordsmen held long enough for the bowfire to whittle down the assailants. Ultimately Brownie and Wolfpack pinching turned the tide and although 2 of the bowmen were gone and the last was in the red, the elvish archers had almost no damage. At one point the Brownies caused five wounds on the trolls they were pinching! Ultimately, I have decided that archery is just fine. At this point, any tourney I'm in with money on the line is going to see wood Elf archer armies!

[Kenntak]

I just want to offer the caveat that while you can draw some conclusions from a few of games, I think more extensive play against different opponents is necessary to fully appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of certain units and combinations of units.

[Hamanu]

How would you deal with this orcish army?

Wolf Riders-Goblin Raiders-Orc Swordsmen-Orc Swordsmen-Orc Swordsmen-Wolf Riders
---------------Bowmen------Bomb Chucker-----Bomb Chukker-----------------------

I never take an orcish army without a bomb chucker, and with their superior range (and barring unlucky snake eyes) they could blast your archers before you've had a chance to fire.

If you wish to concentrate on elves you have to be prepared for humans, dwarves or orcs who have 21" range.

In this case it would be prudent to have at least 1 (and perhaps 2) stag cavalry to be able to rush the enemy archers and flank them.

[RushAss]

Personally, I feel that the Orcs and Dwarves can create the best stand and shoot armies for 2 reasons:

1 - Elite ranged 21 artillary units (even though I'm still not 100% sold on the Dwarven Balista)
2 - Crossbowmen

While expensive, I think crossbowmen are great on the front lines of a S&S army.  It's what they where designed to do.  While their ranged fire is weak, they are very good infantry units causing the opponent to make 1 of 2 painful choices - does he let his units get bombed or does he rush into the face of missle fire only to face strong infantry?

[andrewgr]

I never take an orcish army without a bomb chucker, and with their superior range (and barring unlucky snake eyes) they could blast your archers before you've had a chance to fire.

Note that Bomb Chuckers do one damage to themselves on any roll of doubles, not just on snake eyes.  That's 1/6 of the time.

The average roll on 2 dice is 7.  1/6 of the time you will get 0 dice (since you roll doubles and hit yourself), which means your expected number of attack dice is 35/6, or slightly less than 6.

You are not allowed to play a red card when using the Goblin Bomb Chucker.  So, rolling 6 attack dice on average, hitting yourself for 1/6 of a point per turn, and not being able to use a red card while your opponent is free to use a blue card, makes the Bomb Chucker fairly problematic.  It's a high variance unit-- I don't think there's any realistic way you could win every round of a tournament with a Bomb Chucker based army, for example.

[andrewgr]

Personally, I feel that the Orcs and Dwarves can create the best stand and shoot armies for 2 reasons:

1 - Elite ranged 21 artillary units (even though I'm still not 100% sold on the Dwarven Balista)
2 - Crossbowmen

I'm pretty certain the Undead make the best Stand and Shoot armies, because of the ability of the Giant Catapult to act as a front line fighting unit, and its ability to be reanimated.

It may very well be the case that Dwarves and Orcs make better Stand and Shoot armies *if* they are matched against a melee army.  That may be true.  But you need to prepare for the possibility that your opponent will bring a Stand and Shoot army as well.  (For example, in a 3 or 4 round tournament, you can pretty much assume you'll be facing at least one other Stand and Shoot army.)  And when paired off against each other, the Giant Catapults will kill the Ballista or the Bomb Chuckers, both of which have poor defense values and can't reanimate.  Then your supposed Stand and Shoot army is forced to advance and become a melee army, with predictable results.

[ApokalypseTest]

I would assume that the huge amount of dice the chuckers get can be easiely the undoing of the catapults. Their extra turn of firing combined with the amount of dice will pose a problem unless the Orc rolls really unlucky he will get more then 6 attack dice in more then 50% of the turns and only fail once in 6. Plus the fact that getting in the yellow/red does not cripple them half as bad as it does with your units. And healing on the giant catapults is one damage on one catapult per turn max.

I was thinking what army I would play to counter your famous army - and one of the most obvious that came to mind was an Ork ranged army.

[Hamanu]

Note that Bomb Chuckers do one damage to themselves on any roll of doubles, not just on snake eyes.  That's 1/6 of the time.

The average roll on 2 dice is 7.  1/6 of the time you will get 0 dice (since you roll doubles and hit yourself), which means your expected number of attack dice is 35/6, or slightly less than 6.

You are not allowed to play a red card when using the Goblin Bomb Chucker.  So, rolling 6 attack dice on average, hitting yourself for 1/6 of a point per turn, and not being able to use a red card while your opponent is free to use a blue card, makes the Bomb Chucker fairly problematic.  It's a high variance unit-- I don't think there's any realistic way you could win every round of a tournament with a Bomb Chucker based army, for example.

Sorry, I meant doubles. Too many movies with casinos in them

A chucker is not a "dependable" unit but its potential is unrivaled. 3 chuckers vs two giant catapults can end disastrously or they can inflict impressive amounts of damage. That's the fun of it, at least for those that don't play in tournaments. The potential to rain down 20-30 hits on a single giant catapult is simply amazing and there's a good chance that the catapult will end up in red or dead in one strike.

[Niko White]

I would assume that the huge amount of dice the chuckers get can be easiely the undoing of the catapults. Their extra turn of firing combined with the amount of dice will pose a problem unless the Orc rolls really unlucky he will get more then 6 attack dice in more then 50% of the turns and only fail once in 6. Plus the fact that getting in the yellow/red does not cripple them half as bad as it does with your units. And healing on the giant catapults is one damage on one catapult per turn max.

I was thinking what army I would play to counter your famous army - and one of the most obvious that came to mind was an Ork ranged army.

They're really not going to win that fight, sadly.

Let's say you're even a bit lucky: you never roll doubles and your bomb chucker averages 7 dice.  You're probably shooting at long range (if not extreme) but the GC is large, so you're hitting on the pretty comfortable 4's.  You're injuring it on 2's, and there's nothing you can do about either of these.

So: 7 dice at 4's (2/3 succeed) and 2's (1/3 succeed) is 14/9 damage...substantially under two. You can lash the chucker to average 16/9, but still under two, so you're unlikely to make much gain over the reanimation, and you can still misfire.  Meanwhile the Undead player can use command cards, while you can't.  The Giant Catapault at long range is hitting you on 3's, and injuring on 5's with four dice, causing an average of about as much damage...only you can't heal it, you can't play cards to mitigate it, and you might rout.  Also you can't move and shoot if you want to close the range, whereas the GC can.

In fact, even if you roll 11 on your dice every time, and lash it, you're going to average 24/9 damage per turn (2.7ish), whereas the GC does 8/5 (1.6) to you.  If you knock off one point from the bomb chucker damage for reanimation, you're doing essentially the same amount, and even if you don't, the bomb chucker has terrible courage and might well rout before it takes out the catapault.

This isn't to say Undead stand and shoot armies will always beat Orc armies involving a bomb chucker, but if you're left going one on one with a GC, you're not winning that one.

[andrewgr]

It's hard to overstate just how painful it is for the Bomb Chuckers that they can't play red cards.  This can make a *huge* difference in the amount of damage they do, way more than 1 per turn.

For example, let's say I'm the Undead and I have "Fortunes of War" (forces re-roll) in my hand.  I just don't play a blue card every turn.  You roll a low number of attack dice, or you miss a lot, or you don't penetrate, and I'm fine: I've got 3 chances for you to roll poorly.  But let's say all 3 of those rolls go your way.  Well, that last number was rolling needing 2's, so I just make you re-roll.  You *could* roll a lot of 1's and 2's AGAIN after rolling well for # of attack dice and hits and to damage already, but obviously the odds are against it.  Meanwhile, I'm hoarding my other blue cards, so that when you finally do roll well and draw that Fortunes of War out of my hand, I now have a good supply of other blue cards to use on subsequent turns.

There are other problems not covered by the math we've done so far, as well.  The most prominent of these is the fact that the Bomb Chuckers can rout, while the Giant Catapults can't.

The Bomb Chuckers are significantly less expensive, so you need to take into account the extra bow units the Orcs are going to buy; the comparison is not completely straightforward.  But I feel very comfortable facing Bomb Chuckers as the Undead, as long as I live long enough to draw some command cards (e.g., as long as my opponent doesn't roll in the upper 1% or less of rolls on his first turn or two).

[Niko White]

And of course the "GCs ruin Bomb Chuckers" issue doesn't mean that they are worthless against the Undead either.  You can make an Orc army that can use them to good effect shooting line units or backup archers, for example, where the fact that they might get tons of dice can really help overcome reanimation.  But if you're getting in a shootout with the GC, you're not going to fare well on it.  In general, it also pays to remember that the Orcs have a mobility-based army unique and some brutal damage, plus quite resilient line units, so making an Orcish stand and shoot list is on some level a waste.  One reason the Undead can do it so well is that Zombies/Aboms are pure, cheap tanks so you don't lose much if they don't get to fight for a while, which isn't true of Orc units; even if backed up by some missiles, a lot of Orc lists want to close in general, or have some flexibility about whether they do or not; the undead stand and hold list doesn't have that flexibility.

[Chad_YMG]

It's hard to overstate just how painful it is for the Bomb Chuckers that they can't play red cards.  This can make a *huge* difference in the amount of damage they do, way more than 1 per turn.

Yeah, this is something we really struggled with.  The unit was already so swingy that we really weren't comfortable with allowing command cards, even if on average it should be fine.  There's just too much danger (from a player unhappiness standpoint) of that Strike hitting an 11-die attack and the game feeling dumb.  People already have love-hate relationships with the Bomb Chucker...

For example, let's say I'm the Undead and I have "Fortunes of War" (forces re-roll) in my hand.  I just don't play a blue card every turn.  You roll a low number of attack dice, or you miss a lot, or you don't penetrate, and I'm fine: I've got 3 chances for you to roll poorly.  But let's say all 3 of those rolls go your way.  Well, that last number was rolling needing 2's, so I just make you re-roll.  You *could* roll a lot of 1's and 2's AGAIN after rolling well for # of attack dice and hits and to damage already, but obviously the odds are against it.  Meanwhile, I'm hoarding my other blue cards, so that when you finally do roll well and draw that Fortunes of War out of my hand, I now have a good supply of other blue cards to use on subsequent turns.

I'm not sure how much this is a point about the Bomb-Chucker as it is about how good Fortunes of War (and Roll with the Blow) are when a unit has one really good defensive stat.  Either way, it's clear that a Bomb-Chucker is statistically in for a world of hurt in a throwing match against a Giant Catapult.

There are other problems not covered by the math we've done so far, as well.  The most prominent of these is the fact that the Bomb Chuckers can rout, while the Giant Catapults can't.

Well, at least (like all Goblin units) they have a really high courage!   

[Chad_YMG]

I'm pretty sure that Andrew's list, or something close to it, is the optimal stand-and-shoot list, for reasons Andrew has pointed out.  In simplest form, it forces all other stand-and-shoot builds to advance, which is a recipe for disaster.

Before we made some tweaks, it wasn't just the best stand-and-shoot archetype...it was the best Battleground archetype, period, and it's still really good.

[Niko White]

Yeah, agreed -- it can still be quite frightening if you don't have it in the back of your mind as a possibility.

That said I'm just as glad it is the only stand and shoot list that is very good.  It is cool to have to think about it, but the games aren't as interesting so I'm glad it doesn't come up often (and isn't clearly the best tournament choice anymore.)

[RushAss]

Wait a minute, isn't the Giant Catapult a large unit, making it easier for missile fire to hit?  So wouldn't a Chucker or Dwarven Balista have a decent chance to hurt them?