Faction Power Groupings

[BubblePig]

the solution to every school principal's and politician's dream of having every single student be "above average":  factor in the neural activity of the classroom plants and the gerbil. 

Alternate solution: Move to Lake Wobegon where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."  

[Zelc]

I used it as a colloquial way of saying "so-so" .

[BubblePig]

Generally in non-quantifiable data (such as rankings), "average" per se is meaningless and therefore is a colloquial way of saying "median."

I postulate that relative faction strength is quantized and hence quantifiable. I will henceforth refer to this as QFH or Quantum Faction Hypothesis. If enough experimental confirmation of QFH and peer review of said experiments is forthcoming, I will thereafter refer to this as QFT.
Also, I did warn everyone that I was going to be "a d&^#bag."  

[RushAss]

I like turtles

[Chad_YMG]

Kevin is correct about the Undead domination.  It was done away with through rules changes.  Prior to those changes, extreme range units were good enough that stand-and-shoot dominated other strategies.  The reason the Undead dominated was that Giant Catapult won any range fight with another extreme range unit, due to its defensive stats and the ability to regenerate it.  We addressed this by nerfing extreme range somewhat and in particular by making it so extreme range units had to target each other's front lines rather than each other.

Granting impact hits to cavalry was a separate step taken to bring cavalry up to what their points merited and also how we wanted them to play.

Sticking with the tangent, the thing that's hit me hardest in this thread is the somewhat off-hand comment that the best defense to impact hits is to have a high defensive skill.  I've generally thought of impact hits as being a problem for 3/1 units, but I think Zelc is absolutely right.  Impact hit units tend to be very high power (especially on the charge) so having a 3 toughness doesn't help as much as you might think and then once the charge turn is done a lot of those units have higher power than skill so the 3/1 matches up well against them.

Maybe it's time to work on my Kobold Horde faction so we get some impact hits with modest power...

[rog5]

With Fury not counting as a command card, what do people now think about the ranking of Lizardmen?

In tournament play, I suppose one way to help the "weaker" factions is to let them buy their checkbox faction ability like Dark Elves with their Premeditation (i.e. 15 points each, max 60 points).  Since the Undead don't have a checkbox ability, just let them have a pool of Reanimate points with the same limitation as above.

To help with the Dwarves weaknesses (slow, need 6 skill), could say that the High Elf Scorpions are actually theirs but blame it on...a horrible misprint due to data corruption and the printer's employees not fully recovered from a wild party the night before...      (For the humor impaired, not serious with this one...wouldn't mind it though   )

[Kevin]

With Fury not counting as a command card, what do people now think about the ranking of Lizardmen?

I'd say they move from "clearly weakest" to "a bit below average."  Assuming some variant of Special Control becomes official, they'll be right where they should be balace-wise, IMHO.

In tournament play, I suppose one way to help the "weaker" factions is to let them buy their checkbox faction ability like Dark Elves with their Premeditation (i.e. 15 points each, max 60 points).

Not a bad idea!  Though opinions vary a good amount on what makes something weaker.  I could see using this for Monsters & Mercs, if for no other reason than "Loot" is seriously weak.  (It's literally 2/3 of Hawkshold Bravery.)

[Zelc]

With Fury not counting as a command card, what do people now think about the ranking of Lizardmen?

I think they move up a bit since now their Tyrants are more reliable heavy units.  I'm not sure how much though since this still costs them CA's.

A more interesting question would be where Lizardmen would be if they got points/500 free Furies.  I think that would probably put them into the "Strong" category, although I'm not certain it's enough.

Actually, I also wonder where they'd be if all of their units got free Fury .

To help with the Dwarves weaknesses

Actually, I'm not sure the lack of 6-skill units is too big of a deal anymore.  Dwarf Hammermen do almost as much damage to a 3/2 with their (7) 5/5 attack line as a (5) 6/5 attack unit does, and Rune of Uruz puts them almost dead-even.

I still feel their biggest problem is their slowness, especially vs. stand-and-shoot builds.