Umenzi - Dwarves 2000 (Shaman & Deployment playtest)

[Kevin]

I wanted to do one more playtest of the Umenzi healing only working on unengaged units rule.  Figured it might work well to take on some Dwarves.  At Council in 2009 I narrowly won a very tight, very grindy game vs. GoIndy's Dwarves, where I had 3 Shamans on the line casting heal after heal.  So it seems worth it to see if healing would make a difference.

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In order to avoid glare from the overhead lights, all photos were taken from Jaime's point of view.  So those "enemy" Umenzi are mine.  Welcome to Jaime's world.  






Set Up and Strategy

Dwarves left to right:  Militia, Militia, Longbeards, Axemen, Axemen, Spearmen, Antonian Horsemen behind Hammermen.

A pretty straightforward closer-and-hose army.  The Militia were there to sacrifice themselves in order to buy time for his heavier units to grind their way through my line, while the Antonians were there for a quick breakthrough.


Umenzi left to right:

Worthy behind Spearmen, Shamans behind Chosen, High Priests behind Chosen, Warriors, Warriors, Shamans, Spearmen.

My plan here was to pulverize one flank while curling the other flank back--taking advantage of my units' superior speed.  The Chosen-High Priest combo was designed to beat his best unit.

In part because of the new deployment rule (being tested), my deployment was not optimal.  I figured he would put Antonians down on the left, so planned to slide the Spearmen to the side while the Chosen moved backward to link up with the Worthy and then move forward together.  However, the Antonians ended up on the right.

Also, since I had to deploy two units first, I put down my Shamans, one of which ended up behind Chosen who were facing Militia--a very less-than-optimal place.  





Forming the Arc

The Umenzi forms a defensive arc here.  The d20s represent blesses/hexes.

Behind the Umenzi Line, the Shamans have been sent to back up the Warriors who are next to the Chosen; they'll get there on time.  Worthy are similarly being sent to this area, in the hope that an inevitable breakthrough can be contained.  Since Jaime hadn't deployed any cavalry on the left, I had no use for the Worthy where they were.

The Warriors next to the Chosen have been direct-controlled to be just slightly out of final rush range while still protecting the Chosen's flank.

Shamans are put in the second-to-rightmost spot in the line.  I find it better to have a chump here than at the very end--this way, if the Antonians nail the Shamans my Spearmen will catch them in the flank while other Dwarf units will still be on their front.


The three rightmost Dwarf units are on Hold.  Others are on close; the Spearmen & Hammermen are being sprinted.





Engagement!

Left to right...

Militia are actually not routing..Jaime direct controlled them & flipped them around in order to avoid my spearmen.  (I considered this fancy footwork a bit of a waste--Militia are almost an even match for Umenzi Spearmen, and they'll probably hold on a while either way...Delaying the fight isn't worth the Command Action when one command card probably puts you at parity for the fight.)  My Spearmen end up slightly back because the Chosen's final rush forced them to slide sideways before moving forward.

Chosen plow into Militia.  The Militia get lucky and do a point of damage...then I play Devotion of Karma to do an extra point of damage and force a rout check.  

Chosen & High Priests own Longbeards.  With some sprints and direct controls Jaime had fewer cards, but I was still surprised not to see a response when I played "Force" and had 6 dice (due to bless) at 5s and 5s...then I did 6 damage, plus one from a Death Curse.  And Jaime rolls an 18 on the rout check and they turn tail!     Because "When-your-best-unit-gets-an-18-on-courage-and-is-one-shotted-you-lose." is a rather underwhelming conclusion for a playtest, I let the unit pass the check.

Shamans are close enough that after one Dwarf turn they'll be in backup position, protecting the Chosen's flank.

Warriors next to the Shamans are pulled back a bit in order to avoid a twos-company while still being close enough to protect the other Warriors' flank.




Next (and last) Turn...

One Dwarf turn later--Umenzi move next.

Left to right...

Militia flip back around.  Perhaps there was a way they could've been positioned earlier to pinch my Chosen--there's room there--but facing backward the previous turn = no final rush.  (I likely would  not have let my Chosen be pinched, rather I would've spent a CA to hold it back, but that still would've cost me a CA and delayed the engagement.)

Chosen chop through most of the Militia's yellow boxes.

Chosen and Longbeards each do a point to each other (Command Cards canceling each other out.)  This puts the Longbeards in the red, and once again they blow their rout check!

Axemen, who like the Longbeards have Rune of Uruz, engage my Warriors; doing a very respectable 2 damage after peeling off the Faith Armor.

Axemen on the right could have final-rushed my other Warriors, but that would've resulted in his Spearmen getting totally cock-blocked and the Axemen pinched (by Shamans, but still...), so he had to hold the Axemen back from a fight they could win.

Antonian Horsemen on the far right are similarly held back from final-rushing my blessed, faith-armored holding Spearmen.

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At this point, Jaime conceded the game.  Even if I'd again allowed the Longbeards not to rout, they almost certainly would've gone down in the next 2 rounds of combat.  Then the Axemen would be pinched in the flank by my victorious Chosen.    Meanwhile, on the right I could pull back my Spearmen one more round to keep the Antonians at bay.  By the time the Dwarves crush the Umenzi right flank, the Dwarven left will be gone, and the Dwarven left represented a much larger share of their army's strength.

Niko, who was there, says the main lesson of the game is that Dwarves suck.


Comments on the Rule Proposals

Deployment:  again, with only a 2-unit difference, the rule we tested functioned the same as other options.  Having to deploy two units did feel more balanced, as is borne out by the fact that  both of us had units which were not optimally placed.

Umenzi not healing engaged.  This game was finished so quickly that the rule was irrelevant--Jaime conceded before I had started my turn with any unit engaged.

However, we can project into the future as to what would happen.

Would healing engaged units have helped?  Of course!  Both the Chosen and the adjacent warriors were god candidates for a Heal, though I'm not sure if either was going to get Faith Armored, perhaps the Chosen because the one way the game could unravel would be to have a lucky shot put my Chosen into the yellow and they they rout.  But using a Umenzi spell is obviously preferable to having to spend a command action

Was healing engaged units needed?  Absolutely not!  My army was winning this game solidly, as described above.

This is consistent with my belief that healing engaged units puts the Umenzi at a distinct advantage in most battles.

A general comment about the rule proposal is that it makes me a lot more likely to spend the extra 30 points at least once on a High Priest.  Previously the extra  points seemed a little steep, especially since, when units of roughly equal power are fighting (e.g. Chosen vs. Longbeards), a heal on one is as good as a Death Curse on the other.  But now the High Priests really are considerably more useful than the Shamans...the same way that a Javelineer (184) is considerably more useful than Warriors (153), or Worthy (256) are better than Berserkers (226).

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That's it for now!

[Hannibal]

Niko, who was there, says the main lesson of the game is that Dwarves suck.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I think the Dwarves are overcosted by 10%.  I'd bet if you just let a Dwarf player take 10% more points you'd be pretty close to the right spot for balanced.

[Kevin]

I'd bet if you just let a Dwarf player take 10% more points you'd be pretty close to the right spot for balanced.

 

An extra 10% would only be balanced if you force feed the Dwarf commander enough hallucinagenic drugs that the Longbeards are ordered to attack that singing pink squid in the corner (or if the opponent has Dark Elf Stand & Shoot, which is like a bad trip).  But I agree that the Dwarves could use a little something.

[Hannibal]

It sounds crazy I'll admit, but awhile back I ran through Dwarves at 3.5" and 2.5" through the formula, that's pretty close to what I got.  nDwarf Axemen cost 240 pts.  A Dwarf Axemen unit with 3.5" cost ~250.  At 2.5" the same stats cost ~220.  I don't think the 'Hills don't slow down' is a big bonus (because 1) you can't reliably get hills, 2) at most you'll usually have 2-3 units able to take advantage of them, and 3) the cost of the benefit for those 2-3 units has to be spread out between all 7-8 units you'll take) and I don't think Sprint should really be worth much because it costs a CA.  And CA abilities are supposed to be more or less uncosted (or at least I haven't seen any costs built in). 

About the only bonus is the 3.5" when Final Rushing, which in most cases simply doesn't matter.  If the enemy unit has Pila/Javelins it matters.  That's a fairly small sampling but, okay its a distinct bonus.

[Edit:  stupid Ipad cursor error collapsed two paragraphs into one]  Basically the point is that in terrain if you have a Dwarf unit flanking the line (i.e. 3.5" from the next unit, you can't get there).

All told, I'd take about 20 pts off each Axemen unit, which is really about 8%.  So in truth perhaps 10% is a little high but 8% is a bit of wonky number (2,000 pts vs 2,160 pts?).  I'd be happy to say 10% and call it a day, but if someone pushed I'd say 8% is a more fair number.  Certainly 8-10% discount isn't as crazy as it sounds at first.


Edit: I'm not actually proposing anything, just chatting.  Certainly changing all the points cost would be a massive errata and it'd probably just be easier at that point to say Dwarves get 8-10% more points than any scenario says.  And even then, Dwarves vs Dark Elf SAFH is just gonna be a long day for the stunties.

[gornhorror]

I think the Dwarves are just fine as is.  I don't play them at all, but I do play against them a lot.  They are Marcus's favorite faction.  Sure, terrain can be a problem for them, but I think the positives of the faction outweigh the negatives.  Dwarves have great statbars(a good variety of their line units have 11 or 12 boxes).  Antonians are one of the best calvalry units in the game(they might even be the best for the points). They have a great faction ability which gives them more attack dice and it's permanant unless they rout.  They also have many, many command cards that give a courage boost and an ability boost. 

Not sure about everybody else, but when I play against the dwarves I always hope and pray that I make some holes in my opponents line so I have a chance once we engage.  Also, Marcus took like 4th place(5th?) in the big tourney this past April even with all of the terrain problems he had.  So, that is a testament to his ability and the toughness of the faction.  They have a lot of flavor and I wouldn't change a thing.   

[RushAss]

About the only bonus is the 3.5" when Final Rushing, which in most cases simply doesn't matter. 

Actually, I think it matters quite a lot.  Whenever I play Hawk Greatswordsmen or Heavy Infantry (which is admittedly not much) I always say to myself "God, I wish they could at least final rush or route like the Dwarves do!"

However, being 2.5" sets you up big time to be penalized in terrain.  A -1 MC means that pinching becomes impossible for adjacent units without spending a CA.  Say a unit of Hawk Swordsmen & Spearmen are fighting Dwarf Axemen and Hammermen, with each unit pair more or less adjacent.  If the Spearmen rout the Hammermen, the Spearmen can FR 2.5" which is enough to flank the Axemen.  However, if the Hammermen rout, the -1 MC means that even if they're touching the Axemen side-by-side they can't FR because the distance is greater than 1.75".  Being able to burn a CA to Sprint to be able to FR in that case does not in my mind = balancing out the negative cost of not being able to FR in the first place.

Wait, I'm confused here.  Why would you need to burn a CA on Sprint to FR in these situations?  The Dwarven FR speed is like a free built-in Sprint.  Am I missing something here?

[Hannibal]

Wait, I'm confused here.  Why would you need to burn a CA on Sprint to FR in these situations?  The Dwarven FR speed is like a free built-in Sprint.  Am I missing something here?

*&^$*&^$ing Ipad.  Cursor error literally collapsed two paragraphs into one.  I had a much longer tweak but I've forgotten it.  I fixed it with a quick summary.  Basically in those situations where Dwarves do get a pinch but both units are in terrain:  the flanking unit (one likely to not be destroyed), can't FR the flank of the next unit in my line because its move is 2.5" and while the unit FRs 3.5" the Sprint ability isn't a flat +1MC (I goofed in the original and forgot that its a flat increase to 3.5" and not a +1 MC).

So if we've both got equal units, I'll often let the Dwarf player flank me on my left if its in terrain if I can flank on the right.  I do it by move capping my right so that it appears I'm actually curling the right side back and then once he's basically committed, lift the caps.


Edit:  I'm amazed at how understandable those paragraphs came out when they got interspersed. 

I think the Dwarves are just fine as is.

Pretty much everyone disagrees with you.     Dwarves consistently rank on the bottom of just about anyone's power rankings.

[Kevin]

My current thought (with a significan assist from Marcus) on Dwarves, which I'm toying with doing at Championship, is to let Dwarven sprint function until the unit is engaged.  So if your unit needs to huff it a long distance you spend one CA rather than many.

Basically in those situations where Dwarves do get a pinch but both units are in terrain:  the flanking unit (one likely to not be destroyed), can't FR the flank of the next unit in my line because its move is 2.5" and while the unit FRs 3.5" the Sprint ability isn't a flat +1MC (I goofed in the original and forgot that its a flat increase to 3.5" and not a +1 MC).

Don't see what difference this makes, apart from the fact that you can't sprint Dwarves uphill at 5".  Terrain modifies a unit's MC, and while the rulebook doesn't explicitly say which is applied first, it's reasonable to assume that Sprint is applied first, followed by other modifiers.  So Sprint puts the dwarf up to 3.5"  (If you do the Sprint last you get plain silly results like dwarves outrunning Wolfkin in a swamp.), then terrain brings that down to whatever.
 
Also, 2.5" of actual movement is enough to final rush the opponent on your ally's flank, so long as your units are reasonably close together and neither is too far forward or backward.  Pythagorean theorem:  if your units are side by side and flush with each other, the distance to the enemy front center point is the square root of (1.75^2 + 1.25^2), or about 2.15 inches, so you have about a third of an inch of play.  In other words, if your'e in the woods, keep your line tight and you can support each other just fine.

Jaime and I played url=http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,1003.0.html]a game in 2009 where the entire map was considered forest[/url].  My army was mostly Trogs & Tyrants, with a few faster Swarmlings & Hatchlings, so I kept a tight line and relied on superior weight to win a 4-2 over his Ravenwood Elves. (We were playing Last Stand.)

(If your MC ever drops to 1.75, such as if your'e in a swamp, then you're screwed.)

Also, Marcus took like 4th place(5th?) in the big tourney this past April even with all of the terrain problems he had.  So, that is a testament to his ability and the toughness of the faction.

Marcus played solidly, and that final game was one hell of a fight, but just for historical accuracy his Dwarves were knocked out in the quarterfinals.  I suppose that makes it a 2-way tie for 5th place.  Dave Cheng did even better than that (taking 4th place) with Lizardmen.  Which proves that player skill usually trumps faction.

[Hannibal]

Don't see what difference this makes

My example is garbled enough to be almost useless at this point, so I'll drop it.   

But, without trying ruffle feathers, I think my original point is still valid:  "Dwarf Axemen cost 240 pts.  A Dwarf Axemen unit with 3.5" cost ~250.  At 2.5" the same stats cost ~220."  I simply don't think that Sprint + 3.5" FR/rout + Ignore MC penalty on Hills = +20 pts.  At most I'd be willing to give +5 pts.

In fact, I may have high-balled the previous estimate and 2.5" Mv w/Axemen stats may be worth 210 pts.  Because the last time I did this, when I had unfettered access to the formula, my guesstimate was that Dwarf Axemen would be just about right at 220 pts (210 + 10 pts for the FR bonus).

[Kevin]

I think you're right about 3.5" Axemen being around 250.  From what I can tell, green/yellow/red are priced at a ratio of 3/2/1.  So upgrading a yellow to a green is about the same price as adding a red.  Carthaginian Spearmen --> Hawkshold spearmen = 6 points.  x2 = 12.  3.5" Dwarf Axemen = Orc Swordsmen with 2 more red boxes.  Since the cost is a %, not a flat amount, and orc swords are a bit pricier than Carthaginian SPearmen, each red box should cost around 6.5 or 7.  So yeah, that puts dwaves up around 250 or 251.  

Though for holistic reasons it's a "bad" 250.  Specifically, those red boxes aren't really as good as they appear, because someone's likely to break somewhere first.  Also, as Niko has pointed out, toughness is less good than defense skill, though they're priced the same.  And Dwarven command cards are pretty weak (less for what they have than for what they don't have:  no "Pulverize the opponent into oblivion" cards; no "Pass that rout check you just blew" cards; and  no "worth 2+ command actions" cards.).

A flat 2.5" move is essentially a 10% discount.  (Orc Axemen 300; Hawkshold Great Swordsmen 271).  So that would make flat 2.5" move Dwarves 225.  OK, so it looks like the Dwarves got a 4% discount rather than 10%.

3.5" movement has 2 main uses relative to 2.5" movement:  strategic and tactical.  Tactical = supporting units on either side, final rushing an opponent who gets to just within javelin range, etc.  Strategic = Twisting your line around to deal with an opponent who is coming at you hard on one side while the other bends back, as seen in this game.   Also closing in on a stand-and-shoot army. Currently, Dwarves get all the benefits of tactical 3.5", but don't get the strategic benefits.


A problem is that it's very hard to weigh the relative merits of strategic vs. tactical movement.  Player skill, terrain, an scenario can make the value of strategic movement vary between zero and huge.  If I had to pick a number, I'd probably go with the 4% discount, maybe 5%.  But any number I pick would feel wrong.

That's why I think making Sprint last until the Dwarf is engaged would put things on an even keel.  This will let Dwaves get the benefit of strategic movement for a reasonable price.  If you have to sprint 2-3 of your units over the course of the game you're broken even.

[Hannibal]

Though for holistic reasons it's a "bad" 250.  Specifically, those red boxes aren't really as good as they appear, because someone's likely to break somewhere first.   Also, as Niko has pointed out, toughness is less good than defense skill, though they're priced the same.

Yup.  I give the YMG team a break on that, because even they didn't know the full ins and outs of their system when they got started.  So its very excusable not to break down the cost of things like front loaded damage (e.g. Pila type things) being more valuable and the situation with Red boxes.  Red boxes on most units are almost binary: there's a cost for 1 box and 2, but the cost of each Red box after that plummets because its rare most units will pass a Yellow check and then 2 Red checks.  I'll cut them slack on those situations because even if you foresaw it (and they may have) trying to accurately capture the cost in a formula that is leagues better than any tabletop game I've ever seen.  It is probably approaching video game engines in term of deriving cost from game play performance.

The toughness cost = Def skill cost, I just don't get how that one got through.  My only theory is that Orcs and Dwarves were early factions and so they didn't realize how tough those guys would have it.  I wish that there was some game-wide rule that could be implemented to help out high toughness units, as every permutation short of Toughness 4 seems to have it rough.  I dunno, maybe some wonky rule where if you suffer fewer pts of damage than the other guy you get +1 Cge.  We tried a mirror image of that for other purposes but it felt fiddly.  Also I don't know if this would achieve the desired result because most high toughness guys are at best mediocre stats.

And Dwarven command cards are pretty weak (less for what they have than for what they don't have:

Actually the Dwarf cards are pretty strong if the goal is to grind it out.  Think of it this way:  the average Courage reroll is at +1 Cge.  A Cge 12 unit with a card has a 90% chance of not routing on a Yellow check. 

A Dwarf red Rune card which provides +2 Cge and some combat cookie (which is the right way to look at Dwarf rune cards), a Cge 12 Dwarf has and 84% chance of not routing on a Yellow check. 

A Blue rune card provides +3 Cge, which means the Cge 12 Dwarf has a 91% chance of passing that Yellow check, which is comparable to a reroll at +1.

That makes 4 blue rune cards which perform as good as rerolls, twice as many as most factions, and 6 Red cards that perform almost as well. And you can stack Red runes with Blue runes giving a Cge 12 unit a 98% of passing a Yellow check and 95% chance of passing a Red check (of course you have to burn 2 CCs to do this, but sometimes its what you've got to do). 

The rune cards just feel weak because they're courage cards but don't have the safety blanket of being a post-roll card, so you may find yourself using it when you didn't need it.  But also, since they are Cge + cookie, the faction does lack that "breakthrough" card like you said in favor of grinding out a win.  This sets up the Dwarves to play a Deep Front style of play, which isn't the optimal build for this game, but on top of that they're incorrectly priced.  I think if Dwarves player with an extra 8-10% pts, they'd be much more able to grind out a win.

A flat 2.5" move is essentially a 10% discount.

The formula isn't exactly flat, remember.  So there's no guarantee that it'd come out to the same.  The only reason I remember is because I know that the final cost we came out to when chatting about the Dwarves was ~220 pts.  And I remember that because I slapped a 10 pt charge on the unit for the ability to FR 3.5" over the strong objections of my playertesting group at the time, saying they were all vastly undercosting the ability to FR 3.5".

But yeah, I think 10% is pretty much in the ballpark of what the Dwarves should get.  If a Dwarf Axemen was 225 pts, I'd be cool with that.  Its more than they'd be at if they were a straight 2.5" but that's because, as you say, they don't lose out tactically but they do lose out strategically.

If I had to pick a number, I'd probably go with the 4% discount, maybe 5%.  But any number I pick would feel wrong.

I would be much more inclined to pick either 8% or 10%.  Those are good even numbers that will produce decently scalable bonus points for the Dwarf player.  I think 8% is probably the more accurate number but if someone just wanted to round to 10% to give the Dwarves some love, I wouldn't scream.

That's why I think making Sprint last until the Dwarf is engaged would put things on an even keel.  This will let Dwaves get the benefit of strategic movement for a reasonable price.  If you have to sprint 2-3 of your units over the course of the game you're broken even.

If you're talking for house rules or a tournament house rule, it becomes personal preference.  I tend not to like round-about fixes like that because I'm assuming that this neat rule will address the specific problem with no side effects or unintended consequences.  Not being omniscient, I don't feel 100% confident that there'd be no unintended consequences.

If it were me, I'd just fess up and say "look, they're just costed wrong.  It's basically 8% across the board, with only 1 unit not being Dwarven.  So rather than recost almost everything, the Dwarf player gets +160pts at 2,000 and +120pts at 1500.

[RushAss]

Getting back to the game itself, why did the Hammermen never engage?  From looking at the pics it appears that they could have engaged and let the Spearmen engage the Warriors next to them and hence, the Axemen could also get into the fight.  Or was the battle already pretty much decided even before they became engaged?

And yeah, the use of those Militia on the far left was a bit funky IMO.

[RushAss]

And Dwarven command cards are pretty weak (less for what they have than for what they don't have:

Actually the Dwarf cards are pretty strong if the goal is to grind it out....

I'm with Corey on this.  I love the Dwarven command deck for the reasons he states.  I view their command cards as courage boosters with a little bit of offensive or defensive help.  Knowing that 1 out of every 3 command cards I'm going to draw is going to help with courage is one heckuva security blanket for me when playing Dwarves.

[Kevin]

Getting back to the game itself, why did the Hammermen never engage?  From looking at the pics it appears that they could have engaged and let the Spearmen engage the Warriors next to them and hence, the Axemen could also get into the fight.  Or was the battle already pretty much decided even before they became engaged?

Are you mixing up units?  The Hammermen are the rightmost Dwarven Unit (not counting the Antonian Horsemen).  The last photo is taken at the end of Jaime's turn, meaning after his units all moved.  So there's no way they could've final rushed my units.

...and Jaime sprinted the Hammermen at least twice, maybe 3 times.

Had we played on, I would've backed my spearmen up to outside their final rush range.   He'd have engaged a few turns after that.  Of course, by then at least a third of the Dwarf army would've been annihilated.

Jaime also had bad luck not to have drawn a single morale-booster card in the entire game!  Part of this was all the CAs he was burning to sprint, but still, he drew at least 8 cards.

[RushAss]

Getting back to the game itself, why did the Hammermen never engage?  From looking at the pics it appears that they could have engaged and let the Spearmen engage the Warriors next to them and hence, the Axemen could also get into the fight.  Or was the battle already pretty much decided even before they became engaged?

Are you mixing up units?  The Hammermen are the rightmost Dwarven Unit (not counting the Antonian Horsemen).  The last photo is taken at the end of Jaime's turn, meaning after his units all moved.  So there's no way they could've final rushed my units.

...and Jaime sprinted the Hammermen at least twice, maybe 3 times.

OK, gotcha.  So this game was shorter than I though it was.  It looks like the Dwarves only had 4-5 turns of movement then.