"Fixing" the skeleton horde

[Shadow_Hawk2h]

Greetings!
I read a while back in the "what is your least favourite game mechanic" thread that Chad, the Man, was not happy with the way skeleton infantry, archers aside, played. Or should I have said crumbled? His own suggestion was for to add more hits to the unit, making it a viable choice.
I would like to know more about it from Chad(how many more hits?) and also have a few more suggestions on how to deal with this "problem".
Thank you.

[Chad_YMG]

To be honest, it really isn't something I've spent much time on.  One of the things we've learned since launch is that really fragile units are only good if they are very cheap (e.g. Peasant Mob) or else have something else special going for them (e.g. Umenzi Shamans).  Skeleton Horde and Skeleton Spear have a job to do -- being part of an infantry line -- and they simply can't do it reasonably for their cost.  It isn't as big a problem as it might be because it's just two units.  Skeleton Cavalry are fine (in part because they are powerful but still Lesser Undead) and Skeleton Bowmen are fine, so the Undead Army just has to turn to the Zombie family for line units.

[Niko White]

And the Ghoul Pack.  I used to hate those guys, but my opinion on them has changed radically for the better.

The problem IMO with the skeletons is that the Undead are clearly a force with very dichotomous line units: you have the Zombies, who are slow and unable to hurt anyone, but take hits like a champ, and you have the Skeletons, who are made out of tissue paper but fight like real people.  Unfortunately, it turns out that "made out of tissue paper but fight like real people" isn't something good in a line unit.  (See also: Goblins.)  Being highly prone to being annihilated to a (dead) man by a single reasonable cavalry charge is particularly painful.  So in some sense I'd say Skeletons are "working as intended" as the fragile but damaging Undead line unit -- it just turns out that such units are highly problematic.  Honestly I have a lot of trouble figuring out how to fix them, though, because there is such a fine line for undead units between being fragile and being annoyingly resilient.  If you gave them, say, two more health levels, they'd last a whole lot longer because of reanimates.  So I'm not sure there's much to be done without making them nastier than they maybe should be.

The good news is that Ghoul Packs are great units that do the whole "unreliable but damaging" contrast to Zombies quite well, so you're basically fine regardless.

[RushAss]

I'd add a green box to the Skeli horde and spearmen, but that would mean a reprint for the sake of 2 units.

The undead army is quite dichotomous, but that fits in perfectly with the flavor as the necromancers are making due with the raw material that happens to be available.

I must say that A Zombie T-Rex would be hilarious though!

[wegotjoy]

Isn't the easiest errata to just reduce the points cost for the units in question, so that they fit the "cheap but fragile" mould?  I am considering buying Undead as my next army, but I'd like to know that all the units have a role.  One of the things I love about YMG is that rules get modified as imbalances become clear.  Chad, could you suggest new points values that would make the skelies viable?

[Chad_YMG]

I'd be reluctant to do anything official without a bunch of playtesting (that's one of the reasons we screw up less than some other companies!).  At a guess, I'd say they are overcosted by around 20 points each, but it could be as much as 40.

[wegotjoy]

I'm absolutely with you on that, Chad, and I wouldn't expect any official ruling without suitable playtesting, but thanks for the rough guess.  How about including some points reductions in future YMG playtesting in the normal course of development, so that over time you'd get a feel for which end of that 20-40 point scale is correct?  Maybe the forum-dwellers could do likewise - could be the start of some interesting new army builds...

[Niko White]

My totally gut feeling is that the correct reduction is 35 points for the Horde, 20 for the Spearmen.  Ghouls feel both fair to me and (due largely to movement concerns and tons of hits after that problematic first one) a bit better than the Horde.  Spears are probably rarely going to justify themselves at only 20 off, but they'd still be good against cavalry or large unit armies with few missile troops so they'd have a role to play, and spears tend to be undercosted so I'd start them there.

Those are just gut feelings for where I'd start testing them, though, based on how I feel they compare to the existing guys.

I suspect any point changes to them will mean they still don't show up as actual front line troops, but that's ok -- if they act as cheap, damaging backup, that gives them a place, in my mind.

[gull2112]

How about a simple rules change that says that skeletons are immune to missile fire? Many fantasy systems allow a similar effect. I was playing around with the idea of +1 or something vs. missiles, but that seemed to putsy vs. the immunity rule. I always go for the simplest fix as it does the least damage overall. I have no idea how the point thing gets figured, but a little less for them as brittle vs. a little more for missile immunity comes to same cost (is that dead reckoning?).

Missile immunity would be huge for a stronger unit, but I think it would work for such a wafer-thin troop. I also thought of making it only applicable to arrows and not other missiles, but again, in the interest of least complicated adjustment...

I'm firing from the hip here, I have not played this way at all. I just can't imagine that all of a sudden skeletons are going toe to toe with chosen, I just think it allows them to get into melee with out being peppered beforehand so they reach the enemy at full strength (even if that is a minor consequence). It would make skelly bowman velly skelly, though again, I don't think overwhelmingly so.

[Niko White]

I think flat immunity is a bit unsatisfying, and honestly at 150ish points, I still want a unit that won't fold in 1-2 turns to concerted opposition.  I think the points discount is a lot smarter just because at the end of the day pure immunity is too rock-paper-scissors and also I suspect still won't really make them that smart a buy in the vast majority of games.

[gull2112]

You may be right, but I would like to see it play tested.

I just had another idea. What if they suffered no penalty for being in red or yellow? Not only no courage check, but also no hit dice reduction? If you are saying they suffer no morale loss then it is not such a stretch to say they fight with their all right up to the end, they don't get worn down so much as they just keep coming at you full strength until they run out of guys. They are still brittle, but they get a little extra punch AND it is easy to incorporate, compared to giving them extra damage boxes or changing points, which involves altering the cards.

Again, this would be unreasonable on more powerful units, but on near disposable ones like skellies, not so much.

[Jtolman]

I do not have the Undead pack, but was wondering do skeletons have to make Morale/ route/fear checks. i would think since they are undead and basically unintelligent that they wouldn't have to.

if they don't have that ability perhaps they should and that would justify their cost? If they already have that ability just ignore me :-P

[Niko White]

They already don't make rout checks.

The difficulty they have atm is that they do make "oh wait I have how many health levels?" checks -- that is to say, they have very few and tend to die

[Shadow_Hawk2h]

Interesting.
The main reason why I started this thread was because I have seen both zombie and skeleton infantry die so fast that you would not even have the chance to reanimate them. A couple more hits, maybe even three,  1green/1yellow/1red would solve the problem I guess.
Another suggestion would be for them to be allowed to be reanimated more than once per turn or making each command point heal 1d3 hits, maybe.
What do you think?

[Niko White]

Zombies are fine, atm, honestly.  They'll die in one turn to vastly more expensive units, but with wise command action support they'll tie up normal dudes for huge amounts of time given their bargain basement points cost.  They're very specialized, like most of the undead cores, but they're great at what they do.

Skeletons...yeah.  Honestly I like that they're simple and stuff, especially as cores, and there's nothing wrong with them as backup or against weaker units, except that they're too expensive to really do that well.  I think points costs off is the most simple and straightforward fix.