Kevin comes to visit YMG Headquarters: Ravenwood vs. Umenzi

[Chad_YMG]

Mutual annihilation.



















What, you want details?  OK, but they'll have to wait.  Kevin has the photos and right now I have a huge headache.

A few tidbits:
To make Corey smile (and because I actually think it's often good) I took one unit of archers and one of Stag Cavalry.
When setup was over I thought there was a pretty significant chance that I was completely dead.
I came up with a maneuver that turned it back into a battle.
Kevin is really good at rout checks.
I'm really good at nets.

[Kevin]

Yeah, it was an epic battle!  And my first mutual-annihilation game ever.


You all call can expect a full report probably Sunday.

[GoIndy]

This might be the worst write up ever!!

[Chad_YMG]

I'm going to do this as best I can from memory, without the pictures, so bear with me.  Kevin will no doubt correct some of my specifics.

By background, I invited Kevin to come play some games in order to make his case that we should disallow Umenzi healing of engaged units.  For our first matchup I chose Elves of Ravenwood.  My 2000 point army:

4x Ravenwood Spearmen
2x Ravenwood Swordsmen
2x Brownies
1x Ravenwood Archers
1x Stag Cavalry

This is probably not the best build, but let me explain my general thinking.  First, Ravenwood has one significant advantage over the Umenzi; my basic guys are significantly better than theirs.  Even Javelineers (with their extra ranged attack) have a very hard time against Wood Elves.  The extra point of defensive skill means 50% fewer hits for the Umenzi and nets is roughly equivalent to an extra attack die.  Shamans are really good at helping out in one bad fight (or accelerating one good one) but not so much when you're talking an entire line of potentially bad fights.  The Umenzi can go up in quality to "close to a draw" with Worthy or pay a lot for Chosen (who kick my butt), but that's not a whole line.  Most fights are going to be favorable, giving him a line that can break in a number of places.

It's quite possible that I should have gone all-in on this approach and basically come at Kevin with nothing but guys with nets and sharp objects.  If I field 8 of them I can even keep the archer.

Now, about that archer.  Corey has made a decent case that the current rules of Battleground make "combined arms" bad -- and in particular that you either go for stand-and-shoot with LOTS of archers (suicide vs. the Umenzi, in most cases) or you don't bring any.  I don't agree with this, and while I recognize that I play more for fun than for victory I do have a counter-argument.

Perhaps the most important single thing to do in a game of Battleground is to win the first fight.  That means getting your favorable fights started first and putting as much power as you can on to them.  Archers are useful at this in two ways.  Most obviously, they can add extra damage to the target you most hope to break through on.  Second, they can shift their damage around immediately in response to the inevitable "lucky" combat.  In a battle like this, where instead of having one or two power-units that I'm counting on to punch through I have a bunch of favorable fights (any one of which could go well) that's a nice thing to have.

A second critical thing in Battleground is being able to respond to changes in battle.  A lone unit of archers (particularly Ravenwood, with six skill and Spirit Guidance) can be very effective at this, as we'll see as the battle continues.

Of course, all this comes at a cost -- my line isn't as strong as it could be.  But I think the balance isn't bad at all.

More sketchy is the Stag Cavalry.  There are two good things about him -- he's going to be the fastest thing on the board and he can punch through pretty well against Umenzi stats, even when hexed.  The main problems are that the Umenzi generally don't have any trouble fielding a line with some spears (and getting the spears placed where I'd rather they weren't) and also the Umenzi are really really good at "cheats" by which I mean non-dice ways of doing a point of damage.  High Priest zots and Devotion of Karma make high-value, low-hit-point units very risky.  On balance I think the Cavalry wasn't a great choice, and doing without in order to upgrade my Brownies would have been wise.

On to the game.  My cavalry concerns were confirmed.  Kevin's army was a mix of Warriors, Javelineers and Spearmen, anchored by one unit of Chosen and supported by Shamans and a High Priest, with a spare unit of Possessed to back up a weak point.  Naturally he set up his line so that both flanks were covered by spears, and since the Umenzi are in no hurry to have the lines engage (he gets more from his Shamans than I do from my archer) he can maneuver the spears to wherever nearby I send my cavalry.

Bleah.

Thankfully, speed is good for something.  One of the reasons I've always been skeptical that Foresight "abuse" was a major problem is that I've played so many games where the initial setup looked bad and I've been able to maneuver to a better one.  Thus, the notion of someone spending close to 10% of their points to get a great setup seems like a threat I'm OK with.  In this case on my first turn I used a close location to send one of my line units on an angle to the left and another to pull my Stags over.  The line unit "pushed" the rest of the line over so that I had spears and swords against his spears and my stags came up through the gap to meet one of his regular units.  Along with this I slowed my right flank so the Brownies would engage a bit late and, of course, did a bit of stalling on the Chosen battle.  Two of Kevin's units had to take rout checks before mine, and two checks on 11 has only a 40% chance of passing both.  He did.

Then things got tougher.  Kevin passed his next batch of rout checks but I failed two of mine.  I had to let a unit of Brownies get smooshed in order to play Aspect of Wolf on the elves being beaten up by the Chosen.  His High Priest was zotting my Stags and with the first unit of Brownies dying that flank was set to collapse.  I was winning the other flank, but it didn't look like it would be quick enough.  I was particularly sad when his Umenzi passed another check against my Stags and then he got the "1" he needed to kill them off.

Then Kevin made an error.  The Chosen won its fight and decided to pinch the elves on their flank, exposing their rear if I had another Aspect of Wolf.  At first he'd planned to mitigate the danger by having his High Priest in place to pinch any unit bold enough to attack their betters, but he forgot that plan and instead moved them out of the way so his victorious units from the other flank would have room to move over.

I drew...and drew...and drew...and a 5" unit with pointed sticks hit the Chosen from behind.  They took some damage but were ultimately victorious, finishing them off just before Kevin's other units could come round for the pinch.

By this time I'd won one flank and the forces were vaguely balanced.  I think we each had three "real" line units left, with my archers vs. his priests and a nearly-dead Possessed.  The archer removed the words "nearly" from that description and we began maneuvering for advantage with what was left.  I got a favorable fight in one area (healthy vs. wounded) but in the other one I had some problems, despite my archers finishing off his High Priests.  I couldn't keep my archers from having to fight one of his Spearmen units, which didn't go well.

Finally we ended up with one unit of Ravenwood Spearmen facing his Spearmen and a unit of Shamans.  I had a reasonable shot of killing off his spearmen before the Shamans could pinch but didn't.  I then routed, which was actually quite good for me because I had Aspect of Wolf and got away.  Then I made what was probably a poor choice and went after the Spearmen, again hoping to one-shot them.  I failed, with a miserable roll, and got another pinch.  Happily I routed again and Wolfed again.  This time I took out the Shamans which left his spears on my flank.  With both units near death I had to choose how to respond to him having three dice needing 5s and 5s (and me having three hits).  I could guarantee one more turn with Hardened or Parry or I could play Mettle which gave him around a one in ten chance of killing me outright (three dice with no sixes and then all three need to do damage with a 50% chance each) but had a better chance of me only taking one point.  I went for Mettle and he killed me, but my return shot was also a bit lucky and finished him off for a mutual wipeout.

We played this game with the "no healing while engaged" modifier as well as the "-1MC = no move-and-shoot penalty" and -1 die rather than skill for firing into melee.  I love both of the new archer rules, but wasn't sold on limiting healing.  It's not a bad change at all, and I think the Umenzi would remain a top-tier faction with it, but I don't think it's a specific problem.  One of the things we were very deliberate about was limiting healing to once-per-round and making it incompatible with Faith Armor, so essentially the Umenzi player can add one hit per turn to a unit but never two.  Thus, this isn't about abuse but about Kevin's view (reasonable, but not clearly established) that the Umenzi are a bit too good.

If we do decide to nerf the Umenzi, I'd be inclined to look elsewhere.  With "backup" moving from a really rare thing to something fairly common we decided that it made sense to use the Follow command in order to tell a unit to become another unit's backup.  This improves the speedbump value of Shamans, since if an Umenzi line unit routs on the Umenzi turn a Shaman can deny a pinch by replacing it.  The Umenzi are also the most likely faction (by far!) to use standing-order tricks in order to be on close but to delay doing so in order to stock up on blesses and hexes.  Kevin did this in our game, starting off by telling his front line to turn back, move a bit, and then turn around again and charge.  This could be addressed by putting a cap on the number of location modifiers, or just a cap on the number of modifiers you can place in your own deployment zone.

All in all, it was a really fun and interesting battle.  Kevin gained a clear edge in army build and deployment, although I managed to reduce it with a cool maneuver that got my stags a good matchup.  My combat dice were better but his rout dice were better.  He made the only major play error we identified, but each of us had some good maneuvers.  In the end, the fight could easily have gone either way...and went both.

[Hannibal]

Now, about that archer.  Corey has made a decent case that the current rules of Battleground make "combined arms" bad -- and in particular that you either go for stand-and-shoot with LOTS of archers (suicide vs. the Umenzi, in most cases) or you don't bring any.  I don't agree with this, and while I recognize that I play more for fun than for victory I do have a counter-argument.

Well, in fairness, this is basically paraphrasing Niko.  He stated that if a person has more shootyness than the other, then he should stand shoot to maximize the effectiveness of those archers.  I took the idea to the logical conclusion that I don't see that holding up 1800 pts to maximize the effectiveness of 200 pts is a good thing (and I don't think he was saying that you should always sit back and shoot in that case either).  Simply put, in almost every game, spamming is the most effective build.  Combined arms is something that is rarely rewarded, because it is so hard for a game to encourage having one scoop of ice cream but not three scoops.

Perhaps the most important single thing to do in a game of Battleground is to win the first fight.  That means getting your favorable fights started first and putting as much power as you can on to them.  Archers are useful at this in two ways.  Most obviously, they can add extra damage to the target you most hope to break through on.  Second, they can shift their damage around immediately in response to the inevitable "lucky" combat...A second critical thing in Battleground is being able to respond to changes in battle.  A lone unit of archers (particularly Ravenwood, with six skill and Spirit Guidance) can be very effective at this, as we'll see as the battle continues.

All of that is true.  However, having a penalty for engaged combat is literally creating dead points.  Even the -1 die is reducing its effectiveness by 25% and while there are costs involved in the unit, it still would probably amount to the unit being worth 20% fewer points than is being charged.  Your analysis for the uses of archer I agree with, however, the rules make it so that those uses are simply not very good expenditures of points.  It obviously becomes minimized by taking 1 Archer unit, but if, say, a person wanted to take 2 Hawkshold Bowmen units that's close to 70 pts just dead for crucial portions of the game where supporting fire is supposed to be doing the things you mentioned above. 

(This is why we play with the Disrupted house rule. )

[Chad_YMG]

Now, about that archer.  Corey has made a decent case that the current rules of Battleground make "combined arms" bad -- and in particular that you either go for stand-and-shoot with LOTS of archers (suicide vs. the Umenzi, in most cases) or you don't bring any.  I don't agree with this, and while I recognize that I play more for fun than for victory I do have a counter-argument.

Well, in fairness, this is basically paraphrasing Niko.  He stated that if a person has more shootyness than the other, then he should stand shoot to maximize the effectiveness of those archers.  I took the idea to the logical conclusion that I don't see that holding up 1800 pts to maximize the effectiveness of 200 pts is a good thing (and I don't think he was saying that you should always sit back and shoot in that case either).  Simply put, in almost every game, spamming is the most effective build.  Combined arms is something that is rarely rewarded, because it is so hard for a game to encourage having one scoop of ice cream but not three scoops.

Well, I basically don't agree.  I think Niko's argument in correct form is that in any given battle one side likely benefits more than the other from a delayed engagement and that that side has an incentive to delay the engagement.  This incentive may be outweighed by other factors (e.g. terrain) or it may be too small to dominate the decision.

What I absolutely don't agree with is that spam is the most effective build.  For one thing, a true stand-and-shoot army will obliterate most spam builds, but more generally spam armies have their own tactical weaknesses.  I guess this is an ongoing debate, though...and not one that will get resolved here. 

Perhaps the most important single thing to do in a game of Battleground is to win the first fight.  That means getting your favorable fights started first and putting as much power as you can on to them.  Archers are useful at this in two ways.  Most obviously, they can add extra damage to the target you most hope to break through on.  Second, they can shift their damage around immediately in response to the inevitable "lucky" combat...A second critical thing in Battleground is being able to respond to changes in battle.  A lone unit of archers (particularly Ravenwood, with six skill and Spirit Guidance) can be very effective at this, as we'll see as the battle continues.

All of that is true.  However, having a penalty for engaged combat is literally creating dead points.  Even the -1 die is reducing its effectiveness by 25% and while there are costs involved in the unit, it still would probably amount to the unit being worth 20% fewer points than is being charged.  Your analysis for the uses of archer I agree with, however, the rules make it so that those uses are simply not very good expenditures of points.  It obviously becomes minimized by taking 1 Archer unit, but if, say, a person wanted to take 2 Hawkshold Bowmen units that's close to 70 pts just dead for crucial portions of the game where supporting fire is supposed to be doing the things you mentioned above.[/quote]

This "point value/efficiency" approach reminds me a bit of Andrew Gross's early article on the correct usage of command cards.  Andrew's assumption was that the goal was damage maximization so he wrote about things like using Might when your "to hit" roll was better than your "to damage" roll and "strike" on the inverse and about what situations got you the most "expected points" out of a card.  It was all correct but because it was about maximizing in the abstract it missed the far more important point of accelerating your winning fights and slowing down your losses.  For example, it's much better to prevent a point of damage in the fight you're most likely to lose than to prevent two in a fight where you're in no danger.

If I have 200 or 300 points that are devalued by 25% but are targeting their fire on the spot in my opponent's line that I'm hoping to cause a break then their theoretical inefficiency may be outweighed by the fact that they're contributing to the most important part of the battle.

(This is why we play with the Disrupted house rule. )

And I'm glad you are.  Look, originally there was no penalty at all for firing into engaged targets and that's what ranged units were priced on.  Then stand-and-shoot armies were found to dominate so we made a number of tweaks which included a penalty for firing at engaged units.  It might well be that those weren't the optimal tweaks and that your approach with no penalty and Disrupted is better.

[Hannibal]

For one thing, a true stand-and-shoot army will obliterate most spam builds, but more generally spam armies have their own tactical weaknesses.

I'm confused... Stand and shoot is a form of spamming.  All spamming is when you identify something that is worth its points, you go hard in that direction for your army build.  You don't take nothing but that unit (for example, an army of nothing but archers), but you are definitely spending the vast majority of your points that way.

This is not to say spam = bad.  A pure close-and-hose army can be fun to play, as can a stand and shoot.  My point is that most games don't encourage people to take combined arms, because usually it's better to simply go hard one way (shooty or fighty for example) than take a more even mix.

Look, originally there was no penalty at all for firing into engaged targets and that's what ranged units were priced on.  Then stand-and-shoot armies were found to dominate so we made a number of tweaks which included a penalty for firing at engaged units.

Oh I remember those days.  You probably don't remember (because I wasn't too heavily involved in BGFW then), but I was one of those people who wanted something done.  I remember getting thumped pretty hard by Longbowmen who considered 10.5" to be short range.

It might well be that those weren't the optimal tweaks and that your approach with no penalty and Disrupted is better.

I wasn't per se trying to convince you.  It may be that you're right that if you're contributing two archer units to a single point of the line that it may not be a concern that that 300 pts of units is only worth 230 pts, that contributing 230 pts is enough.  That's a decision for you to make.  We've just made that decision for ourselves, is all I was trying to say.   

[Chad_YMG]

For one thing, a true stand-and-shoot army will obliterate most spam builds, but more generally spam armies have their own tactical weaknesses.

I'm confused... Stand and shoot is a form of spamming.  All spamming is when you identify something that is worth its points, you go hard in that direction for your army build.  You don't take nothing but that unit (for example, an army of nothing but archers), but you are definitely spending the vast majority of your points that way.

Ah, my bad.  I'm used to spamming referring specifically to large numbers of low-cost units, not to taking something to an extreme.  That helps me understand some other posts that didn't quite click for me.

This is not to say spam = bad.  A pure close-and-hose army can be fun to play, as can a stand and shoot.  My point is that most games don't encourage people to take combined arms, because usually it's better to simply go hard one way (shooty or fighty for example) than take a more even mix.

Interesting.  I may just be mistaken, but I often find that I get very good value out of a single archer and/or a single cavalry unit.  I agree that there are bad mid-points (e.g. and army that can neither close and hose nor do enough damage before the other engages) but I still like combined arms quite often.

[gull2112]

I was with Chad on this, I thought spamming was taking a ton of cheap units. Your comments now make more sense.

[Torrg]

By background, I invited Kevin to come play some games in order to make his case that we should disallow Umenzi healing of engaged units. 

Has there been some discussion about this on the forums that I can view?
If you modify the Umenzi Shamans/High Priest would you not need to modify the rules for the Healer Mages in M&M also?

[Hannibal]

Ah, my bad.  I'm used to spamming referring specifically to large numbers of low-cost units, not to taking something to an extreme.  That helps me understand some other posts that didn't quite click for me.

Yeah around here (and in private) I've been using Unit Spam as short hand for twerp unit spam, which I guess could also be the Zerg Rush, but I come from 40K where spam was as understood a term as I-Go U-Go.  Sorry.

GW games were notorious for allowing (borderline encouraging) people to take lots of one really effective thing (aka "spamming").  Rhino Rush, SAFH, Las-Plas spam, Whirlwind Spam, Bike Rush, Drop Pod spam, just to name a few that I can remember off the top of my head.

Interesting.  I may just be mistaken, but I often find that I get very good value out of a single archer and/or a single cavalry unit.  I agree that there are bad mid-points (e.g. and army that can neither close and hose nor do enough damage before the other engages) but I still like combined arms quite often.

Up until recently (the M+S and removing the engaged penalty), I rarely found value in an archer unit.  Because the unit would always be at (-0)-1/-0 (either because of moving or an engaged enemy), it was like wasting points.  To me, actually, the engaged penalty is a bigger thing, because when I take a combined arms my assumption is part of my line will delay and part will try to win quick (a standard BGFW strategy).  So usually I'll be moving towards the enemy and engaging pretty quick, and I'll probably want to put my shooting on one of those fights.  Meaning the majority of my shots will be at enemies that are engaged, which gets hit with that penalty.

That's why I'm not bothered by the concept of dropping the M+S and replacing the move penalty with a (-1)-0/-0, (something I advocated awhile back) and dropping the engaged penalty.  In the end, I wasn't passionate about it and while I think the M+S modifier functionally takes the move penalty out of the game but in a real clunky way, I don't care enough frankly.

Anyway, didn't mean to digress into the M+S thing when I started, was more trying to explain why I think the engaged penalty is such a big deal to me:  that I think the majority of time a combined arms archer unit is going to be shooting at an engaged unit.

[Kevin]

Has there been some discussion about this on the forums that I can view?

If you look at the Session Reports section you'll see that my 3 most recently posted game reports are all testing a Umenzi-heal-engaged-only rule.  The rule as proposed (though it did not get ratified), would not have affected Healer Mages.  As Chad correctly points out, it was designed as a way to tone down the Umenzi, not to correct any perceived inherent problem with healing.

[Kevin]

Chad and I threw down in an epic game this past week.   We played with my suggested rule of Umenzi not healing engaged units.


OK here are the photos.  I'm not going to do a full report here, since Chad summarized the game quite well up above.  Read his summary first, and things will make sense here.  I'll add my comments below.





Ravenwood left to right:
Brownies behind Brownies, Swordsmen, Spearmen, Spearmen, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Stag Cav. behind Archers behind Spearmen.

Umenzi left to right:

front row:  Spearmen, Spearmen, Warriors, Chosen, Javelineers, Javelineers, Spearmen
back row:  Spearmen, Shamans, Possessed, High Priests, (gap), Shamans, Javelineers


Neither of us was very happy with the set up.  Chad was unhappy that his Stag Cav were likely to face Spearmen.  Meanwhile, I felt like I'd misguessed what his army would look like--had I known he was going 9-wide I'd have tried to curl back my line and pulverize him with 2 Chosen and maybe Berserkers on one side.

I also regretted pulling Atlatlmen out of my army at the last moment, as now I had to dedicate Spearmen to swatting those annoying Brownies.  

In general, Chad's army was very well thought out--and scary to face!  Ravenwood is very good vs. Umenzi--it should win vs. the 2/1 Core Umenzi units.  The Umenzi units in the 200s are all skill 5 so only hit on 2s--the only unit which can hit their 3/1 infantry on 3s is the 381-point Chosen.



Notice how on the right Chad is sending his infantry over so that the Stags can come though the middle and avoid my Spearmen.  I think this cost him a total of 2 command actions, maybe only 1.  Very nice maneuvering there.

This is a hidden liability of the Umenzi-move-backward trick.  Another army would've bum rushed forward and probably either cock-block the Stags or pinched someone before his line could form, but by buying myself more time to bless and hex I forfeit a bit of strategic initiative--which a good player takes advantage of!




The lines have met!  Chad did an absolutely terrifying amount of damage with his units, while mine underperformed in damage.  But as he points out, it was pretty much the opposite when it came to morale.  He used Aspect of Wolf (play #1) to save his unit which my Chosen was beating on.  Had my Javelineers to the immediate right routed from his Stag Cav, I'd have been in big, big trouble.




Stag Cav has been destroyed with some help from the High Priests, but on the right one of my units finally routs.  I decide that the right flank is hopeless and focus on winning on the left.

Observe that on the far left my Spearmen have done 1 point to the Brownies and have taken 2 back.    I think it took them 6 rounds to win that one.




As my right collapses, I get a couple of pinches.  The Javelineers who had defeated the Stag Cav help out the Chosen, but are killed in the process.     On the left, other pinched elves hold and continue to sting.  

Next is where I got greedy/stupid:  my Chosen are in position to pinch the Elves on their left, but they can get nailed in the rear by Spearmen if Chad has his second Aspect of Wolf card.  The safe play was to keep my High Priests positioned to flank anyone who hits the Chosen in the rear, but I figured Chad had about a 30% chance of drawing the card, and if I could get the High Priests into a better position I'd win a pretty commanding victory.  So I sent them off on my next turn.



Yup, sure enough, Chad draws the card and my Chosen get nailed in the rear, which I frankly deserved.  They routed when put into the red and died.  Suddenly, what was looking like a victory became an uphill fight!




A bit later.  His archers, which weren't worth much early on, are really paying off in the endgame, as they picked off a wounded unit of mine, and soon would kill a High Priests.  Without those archers, my larger number of wounded units could've used pinches to easily crush his smaller number of fresher units.  Slowly, I run them down.



And here was the nutty endgame.  Chad's unit wiped out my Spearmen, then my other Spearmen hit them in the flank.  Both held, then his was pinched and victory was mi...nope--Aspect of Wolf (play #3).  The unit survives intact, then rams into my Spearmen one-on-one.  By a miracle, my Spearmen stay in the yellow.  Again they're pinched and I wi...nope.  Another rout and another Aspect of Wolf (#4).  This time the elves kill my Shamans, my Spearmen get back on their flank, and, as Chad points out, mutual annilhilation.


-------------------------

My first mutual-annihilation game ever.  Sweet!  

Anyway, it was a great game!  

Regarding the rules, I think Chad and I are in agreement regarding the Umenzi being a top-tier army.  (It felt like in this game we really went tit-for-tat.  True, I made two early rout checks, where failing either would've been a disaster, but I only had to make rout checks that soon due to some nasty attacks...and was feeling sorry for myself for not having drawn any Devotion of Courage cards.)  Chad had his own moments of bad luck as well--two holes in his line allowed my units to do with pinches what they couldn't have done in a straight-up fight.  And of course I had that moment of greed/stupidity while he had no such moment.  So the fact that, with a "nerf" built in, we fought to a (literal) standstill suggests to me that the Umenzi are currently more powerful than many factions

The only question is what, if anything, to do about it.

Chad is correct that some limit on location targets in the deployment zone (or perhaps even just a limit on DZ targets when your unit is on Close) would probably downgrade the Umenzi, making them forfeit those two turns of blesses and hexes.  That feels a bit artificial on this end, but perhaps the entire backward movement thing is a bit artificial, so perhaps that is a better way to go.  I guess my personal preference is still to limit the healing, as I use backward movement to tilt my line (not just in Umenzi games), and it's kind of fun to see just how weird I can go..I've made units switch places, for example...  And it would be a bit sad to see that go.  Anyway, it's a topic which merits further discussion.

More importantly, it was a kick-ass time, and I look forward to another chance to play Chad.  He's an awesome opponent!