1st independent play-test

[gull2112]

The full report can be read here: http://gullsbattleground.blogspot.com/

I will mention that there were some asterisks on some of the units that I didn't know what they were for, but other than that I think the proxies did fine. I should also point out that once the lines were engaged the rocket arrows were silent as they did not want to fire on their own troops, not until the end game did they start arcing across the battlefield again.

[Kevin]

Nice report, and glad you enjoyed the faction!

A few rule-based comments/questions.  More later.

- Yes you can final rush an opponent unit's side even it its center point is out of its front arc.  The rule is ambiguously worded in the 3.0 rules, but it's been clarified in the google document:  the line between center points may pass through your own unit, but not the opponent unit.

- Too bad James forgot about Blood Frenzy--that gives the Lizzies a real edge vs. Wuxing where most Terracotta units only have 3 green boxes.  Though I found when playing Lizardmen that they suffer from no cheap power 6 units, and the 4-power Swarmlings are complete trash.


- One question.  It looks like (prior to your excellent suggested rewording), there was some confusion as to what the as to how the monks' upgrades worked. In this game, were you giving the monks both upgrades in a stance for free and/or allowing multiple stances to be purchased?  If played that way, they most certainly would be underpriced at 299. 

Jaime and I have found their cost to be pretty spot on.  At one point I bumped it up, then brought it back down after playing.  Let's look at the Monks vs. another 299-point unit:  the Dark Elf Highblood Dusblades.


Defensive:  Identical defensive skill, toughnes, and courage, though the Monks can go up to 3/2 or deflect an incoming arrow (though if they do they're worse attacking).  But the Highblood Duskblades have 1 more red box, are fearsome (which sometimes totally nerfs the opponent's attack, and have reroll-a-blow-rout-check cards in their deck.  I'd say it's pretty even:  Duskblades are more vulnerable to ranged attacks, while Monks are probably slightly worse in a regular engagement vs. an opponent who's about their size.

Offensive:  (6) 5/5 (or (6) 6/5 if in Fire stance) vs. (5) 6/6.  Moderate Advantage:  Duskblades.

Maneuvrability:  Monks can move 5", but lose other upgrades if they do.  Duskblades are regular 3.5", but do have two copies of a card in their deck which let them speed up to 5" (Seize the Moment).  Moderate Advantage:  Monks.

Overall, I'd say Monks & Duskblades are 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.


- One little suggestion about the Rocket Arrow Battery:  next time you use it, try the "middle" setting.  It's still generally worth shooting an an engaged opponent if that's the only shot you get (and it isn't engaged  by more than one of your units), as you'll still doing more attacks at the enemy unit than at the friendly.

[gull2112]

One question.  It looks like (prior to your excellent suggested rewording), there was some confusion as to what the as to how the monks' upgrades worked. In this game, were you giving the monks both upgrades in a stance for free and/or allowing multiple stances to be purchased?  If played that way, they most certainly would be underpriced at 299. 

I think I gave you the wrong impression. I was erasing the previous turn's selection and marking afresh for the immediate turn. I only ever marked one upgrade, except on one occasion where I marked both firestance upgrades for the attack bonus, and I payed the CA. James' complaint was that it was essentially a free command card every turn AND you could also play a command card on the attack. I didn't agree with him, but it was my opinion v his and maybe he'll feel differently when he plays Wuxing next time. One thing I intend to do differently vs, Wuxing is that I'll take a more agile maneuverable force that he will hopefully have to waste CAs trying to deal with, CAs that will be in short supply. I also think that James wouldn't be so convinced they were too good if he had remembered his blood frenzy and had aced them out sooner. I think it is one of the secret advantages that the Lizardmen have in a grindfest like we were engaged in, with blood frenzy they just consume the enemy.

I thought the whole firing into an engagement would come back to haunt me as my units were seemingly on the verge of being wiped out, the addition of another random variable, even if it was weighted slightly in my favor, seemed to court disaster. But outside the heat of the moment it doesn't seem so bad.

As for the FR issue, are you saying that, on a void and featureless plane that contained only my unit and an enemy unit, that as long as my front center point is within FR range it doesn't matter what the orientation of my unit is, I can FR? So if he was approaching to my rear but stopped short of actually reaching it, on my turn I could just pick up my unit and spin it around and place it front to front contact? For some reason I thought the defender had to be in the attacker's front arc.

[gull2112]

One further tactical note. James had one less unit than I, but I kept one guy back (the Rocket Arrow Artillery) so he would have had line parity with me, but he double up his swarmlings so I still had a one unit advantage. This is where it came to matchups thouhg, because he had to back up his swarmilings since they were facing the Heavy Cav. It was good that he did because otherwise there would have been a hole in his line the following turn and after the charge my cav underperformed. So he had to dop what he did, based on the match ups, but if the match ups had been different the extra guy on the flank could have been invaluable.

[Kevin]

Are you saying that, on a void and featureless plane that contained only my unit and an enemy unit, that as long as my front center point is within FR range it doesn't matter what the orientation of my unit is, I can FR?

Not quite.  I'm saying that, on a featureless plain, if your center point is within FR range of the center points of the side you're trying to FR, and if any part of the opponent card is in your hand you can FR. 

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

Last point on the monks.  They're priced as though they have 3/2 defense (which costs an upgrade, and in the Formula is more expensive than any other attack or defense option) and are MC 5"--even though you can't do both on the same turn. 

[gull2112]

and if any part of the opponent card is in your hand you can FR.

- typo?

OOO XXX
OOO XXX

So, if these two units are facing opposite directions, on unit O's turn it can FR X with its front to X's side (assuming it is within FR range)?

Wow, that's so not how I've ever played.

But, Cool!

[lazyj]

Mike's got it pretty much spot on, but I'll give you a run down now that the pizza and wine and shame of forgetfulness has passed.

Let me start with the big picture: me likey!

From there, I just want to toss out the "feel" of what I went through as a medium-to-high experience BG player who hadn't seen anything about this faction development in at least six months. I went in pretty blind outside of the basic concept of "Chinese terra cotta warriors come to life".

The absolute most annoying thing to me was those monks. It just felt like they were getting all kinds of special treatment. First you get a free customization every turn. Then you get the option to add a second customization for a single CA. Then you ALSO get to add a Command Card. So again, first impression, it felt like these guys got the equivalent of three command cards whenever they wanted. They also just didn't feel like they fit in perfectly with the faction necessarily, but that could be just me. They feel like "China" but not necessarily like "automaton army in China" you know? I felt like they should have been fighting on MY side AGAINST those things - but I watch too many Jackie Chan movies.

Another feel thing was the amount of text on the special command cards. I have no doubt that the big block of words are necessary to prevent shenanigans. But it did start making me giggle when Mike threw down the "Great Wall of Text" cards. They didn't feel broken, but I stopped listening about half way through each one and just asked at the end "so what did that do now?" The fact that Mike's wonderful wife had left me the whole freakin bottle of wine might have had something to do with this amusement. Just saying.

And we discussed in the middle that the perception of "how am I doing" seems bleak while you're playing against Wuxing. After a couple of rounds of wailing on each other, your typical BattleGround senses start thinking "who's likely to break" as you attempt to read the flow of things. So when you realize in almost every matchup the answer to that question is probably "me" against the Wu Bling Clan you start feeling hopeless.

Now that might or might not be a false read on the situation. I felt that way just after Mike started rolling up my flank. He'd pinched my raptors (shame on me) and then moved in to pinch the next guy, etc. But then I managed to get through in a critical spot and got my own pinch to at least even it out. But Mike is right that if I had failed the Triceratop check when they hit the Yellow, I would have thrown in the towel right then as the pinches from two directions would have started.

I came away from the grindfest at the end of it thinking "cool, but those things are too tough." Perhaps its just one play, and I am a bit rusty after all. But I didn't like how it felt in the middle of the battle when you see all those */3 defensive profiles that have plenty of boxes and will not break. Frankly Mike could have ignored fixing several of them and just let me poke away, getting up more cards elsewhere. It just seemed like there was nothing else I could do but slog away at them. Yes, I forgot about Bloodlust or whatever, but in the final analysis that was only on like 5 rolls. Some might have made a difference, most likely a point here or there which means nothing if there's no chance at breaking. And if anything I felt like I was getting more luck on my rolls than Mike, so it furthered my sense of "these guys are too much".

Then you throw in those monks, horse archers and artillery and I was kind of demoralized at the end of it all despite a virtual draw.

So after all that after only one play, let me state again that I did like them! If this wasn't a playtest, I wouldn't even post these things and would assume that I had more work in front of me to figure them out. I only bring it up to provide another set of datapoints for you to examine. And most importantly, it felt like playing a BattleGround faction.

Good job to the dev team! Great job to Mike for handing me a beating!! Nice assist to Mike's wife for bringing out an excellent vintage to make the medicine go down easier!!!

[gull2112]

That's right. I had forgotten about the comparison of the Great Wall of China with Kevin's Great Wall of Text!  

And I do think that this faction beautifuly captures the feel of a golden age Chinese army combined with Terracotta elements. The "feel" is great!

[Kevin]

and if any part of the opponent card is in your hand you can FR.

typo?

EPIC typo.

that should read:

I'm saying that, on a featureless plain, if your center point is within FR range of the center points of the side you're trying to FR, and if any part of the opponent card is in your unit's front arc you can FR.

That's right. I had forgotten about the comparison of the Great Wall of China with Kevin's Great Wall of Text!

There are a couple of cards which can probably be simplified.  As I said earlier to Seth, the amount of text of the Beyond Defeat card can be cut nearly in half if we're allowed to borrow the term "temporary hit points."  I've been waiting for the chance to pow-wow with Jaime on a couple of these. 

I came away from the grindfest at the end of it thinking "cool, but those things are too tough."

Thanks James for posting your thoughts!  And I'm glad that overall they get a qualified thumbs up---esp. that they feel like a Battleground faction.

Pricing the constructs is a real challenge.  At the moment they are priced under the assumption that the opponent fixes the breakdown when they go into the yellow, but doesn't when they go into the red.  They get a discount of 16.666 points for the command action they'll have to spend on that one repair.  This is less than the 25 points which command cards cost, though most folks acknowledge that command cards are a bit overpriced.  I've thought about cutting the discount to 15 (which would add about 2 points to their costs), but want to get in 1-2 more games before switching their costs around. 

It's also possible that the Formula is simply off when dealing with fearless units, and I need to made some artificial surcharges to get it to where it needs to be. 

As noted above, Lizardmen have a surprisingly tough time since they lack cheap power 6 units.  If you can fill your army with (5) 5/6 units such as Ravenwood Bearkin or Umenzi Berserkers the opponent starts to feel very sorry for himself.

As to the Monks, I've seen them go both ways in effectiveness.  There have been battles where they have been totally awesome--moving up fast and then shifting to Fire Stance to quickly kill a smaller unit.  But there have also been battles where they underperform.  In the last one I played some 193-point Hawkshold Pikemen were completely owning the Monks, who only won because he directed a nearly cavalry unit to pinch (which bought me time to reform my main line.) 

The Monks are Jaime's favorite unit, and they're going to stay, but their exact abiltiies and prices can always be modified. 

I'll have to read more about how the Horse Archers did.  That's the one unit I've never actually played.  I figured that the special rule which prevents the Endgame of Doom would make them less annoying, though maybe not.  I'll have to take them sometime soon.

Hopefully you'll play another Wuxing game in the near future...indeally one in which you're playing Wuxing.  It's possible that your opinions of some units may change, or maybe not.

Again, thanks for your thoughts, and keep me posted!

[gull2112]

I'm saying that, on a featureless plain, if your center point is within FR range of the center points of the side you're trying to FR, and if any part of the opponent card is in your unit's front arc you can FR.

Yeah, see that's what isn't in the Expanded Final Rush determination rules in version 3.0. I was looking for the front arc specification and it is not there. Fortunately, in the game we were playing my unit was about a 1/4" shy off being aligned side to side, so it was in the front arc. The eligible side centerpoint was not in the front arc and that was what caused the initial question to arise.


Jun Horse Archers
These guys rock! I'd say they won the game for me, had I actually won, but we called a draw and shook hands. Due to my opponent's lack of missile units and the early game destruction of his Raptor Pack, they were able to float around with relative impunity. Other than pinching the raptors in the early game, they didn't do much damage the rest of the game, but their prescence counted for everything, and the end game avoided the special rule because I still had the Rocket Arrow Battery untouched as well. He could have charged them, being shot at by both units the whole way, and then when he engaged the Artillery he would have been pinched and he would have most likely been in the red by then so...

[Kevin]

I was looking for the front arc specification and it is not there.

Look again.   First read 1.4.6.3.2 (page 31), then read 1.4.1.2 (page 21-22).

Thanks for your 2 cents on the Horse Archers.   I was nervous that they'd totally suck, so it's good to see a different opinion!

[gull2112]

I was looking for the front arc specification and it is not there.

Look again.    First read 1.4.6.3.2 (pager 31), then read 1.4.1.2 (page 21-22).

Thanks for your 2 cents on the Horse Archers.   I was nervous that they'd totally suck, so it's good to see a different opinion!

Ah, I had suspected it might be there, in the clearly visible rules, but then I thought "LOS can be traced through friendly just not enemy units." and pursued the matter no further.


As far as the Jun Horse Archers go, I wouldn't have ordinarily taken them, except I was going for the full palette of units. Boy am I glad I did! I too, learned their mettle.

[gull2112]

I'm intruiged to be playing DE angainst Wuxing because I have a tough time adjusting my mindset from Orcs to DE as the trick with orcs is to capitalize on toughness, and that is so NOT the way to use DE!

[Kevin]

Good luck!  Keep in mind that in a straight-up infantry grindfest, Wuxing should win.  Jade Nobles are a bit better than any Highblood unit; non-salvaged TerraCotta are better than the Halfbloods; Salvaged & Fu Dogs are at least even vs. Lowblood Leavies and will shred Slaves.  The question is whether you can take advantage of your unusual units, and your really good ones, to make up for that.

[gull2112]

Good to note. My current build (the generic one that I would deviate from as per the scenario) has 3 slave warriors, I will at least need to be aware that they probebly won't last more than 2 or 3 turns.