The Komnenian Empire

[gull2112]

Quote from: gull2112 on February 17, 2012, 11:39:16 am
Looking at them closer my only "Ahem" is the seemingly universal 2/2 defense. Are these guys dwarves? Gives me pause and makes me think power creep.


I'm confused about power creep comment.  2/2 is a standard defense for humans in chainmail, which is what these guys are.  I mean, the description of the Spathaerioi is: Equipped with the finest of equipment, thema units are still of dubious value.  Could you explain more?

The idea here is that the Komnenian Empire is wealthy enough that even its levy troops can obtain a good sword, a stout shield, and battle ready chainmail.  Its just that their training is sub-standard.  They are loyal to the emperor and proud of their heritage (hence the army ability and Cge 12), but that inspiration wears off pretty quick when the going gets tough (hence the 4/2/4 damage boxes).

Oh, I didn't catch that flavor part. I was just looking at them and seeing that there were no lightly armored guys. It looked to me like you were just arbitrarily making everyone 2/2 so your faction had no cream puffs.

[Hannibal]

I don't want to put words in Gull's mouth, but it occurs to me that a 2/2 defense on a 142 point unit is pretty excellent tank value when you can re-roll rout checks, which is pretty scary when you see the units which cry out for those saved points.

Well, they are supposed to be tanks.  As it stands, they're actually not great because they have too many similarities to Monsters & Mercs:  in order for them to do well you almost have to spend an army ability.  I going to make them Courage 12, which will increase their cost by ~10-15 pts, and make it so you don't absolutely have to use their army ability.  The limitation that I wanted to include is that they didn't have cheap infantry tanks as Core.  And I have found that this changes how you build the army because when you have to take one of the pricier units, you can opt to g with just your Core and the breakthrough Elite units, as the Akritoi make very serviceable tanks (even if they are a bit flimsy).

Oh, I didn't catch that flavor part. I was just looking at them and seeing that there were no lightly armored guys. It looked to me like you were just arbitrarily making everyone 2/2 so your faction had no cream puffs.

Yeah my whole desire with this faction was to make a unique, interesting faction using as few special rules as possible.  And so one of the things that I avoided was the standard 2/1 crappy speedbump unit. Instead, I wanted to build in weaknesses elsewhere, namely that their low Offensive Skill means that a person could put that crappy 2/1 speedbump on these guys (or 2 Peasants/Brownies) and either be up points on the engagement that will take forever to resolve or at the very least not be down points.  I'm all for units that require people to think differently about their matchups, to realize that they have to adapt to the new challenges before them.

[Hannibal]

I've been kicking around the idea of the Glory of Ancient days checkbox ability, and what is interesting is how the rerolling Courage works out.  By the numbers rerolling a failed rout check is about the same as having a +1 Cge on the die roll:

If you have a Cge 12 unit and are rolling for a Yellow check, with a reroll you have a 77% chance of passing that check.  If you have a +1 Cge, you have a 74% chance of passing the check.

Let's say the Cge 12 unit didn't need the reroll on the Yellow check, but has to use it on the Red check.  The chances of passing the Red check is 75%, but when you factor in both checks, the odds of passing both a Yellow and then a Red (using the Reroll here) is 47%.  If you have a checkbox that grants +1 Cge to all Rout checks, the odds of passing both the Yellow and the Red check is. . . 46%.

Now this is not to say that you wouldn't rather have the reroll, because while the sequential numbers comes out to about the same, on any given roll the reroll is more effective (and on the Red check its much more effective).  But the point isn't that its massively lopsided, and that a checkbox that grants +2 Cge all the time would in fact be better:  the Cge 12 unit would have 84% chance of passing that Yellow check (better than a reroll) and 74% chance of passing a Red check (about the same).  The sequential roll (passing a Yellow and then 1 Red check) is 62%, which is far and away better than a reroll.

Which says to me that if the reroll is not seen as fun there are better abilities out there.  Having it be "while the box is checked gain +2 Cge.  You may erase the box to get (insert minor combat cookie here)."  That would frankly be more powerful than a reroll, but if the reroll feels too powerful/less fun, it's doable.  Another option is to include some insane Courage boost that is an "erase before you Cge check."

Just thinking out loud here.