Weekend Battle Report

[FMC]

Thanks for the response Mr Black. It's an encouraging read!

Resilience 2 already nails the Deadly Flourish ability

Does that mean that Deadly Flourish makes only a rate 1 attack and not a rate 2 Caressing Blades attack?

[Curtis]

No, Deadly Flourish is a 2 dice attack. But as it is a special action, you can't combine dice pools from multiple models also performing Deadly Flourish. As such, you would be required to generate either 2 strikes or an over in order to cause damage, which can be quite difficult to do with only 2 dice.

[Swan]

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in responding to this. It's been a busy week full of shiny new things ^_^. So, in regards to this battle, it looks like the war dancers performed quite well. Also this does seem to be a bit of a worst case scenario for that specific Teknes list. However, an army consisting of 18 dancers, while having an admittedly high amount of damage output is still incredibly fragile. Taking into account their 50% hit rate before any special abilities kick in and only 1 wound, it wouldn't take much to snowball this in the other direction. And even though the Ironward may have given you a slight edge against this particular list I still don't really see him as a counter to the dancers. Yes you get to make an attack against whoever just killed one of your units, but you still had to lose a guy in the first place which means at best you're trading even at that point.

Here is where you are mistaken. The Ironward lets you make an attack against an active model. So if you have 6 War Dancers Attacking 6 Teknes, with each Dancer bouncing over 2 Teknes models, what would happen is:
Dancer 1 Flourishes, Kills Teknes Model A, Teknes C kills Dancer 2. Dancer 1 Finishes by Flourishing and killing Teknes B, and again Teknes C strikes and kills Dancer 3. Now, the exchange is still even, with 2 dead on each side, but the important part is that two dancers who had not taken their flourish yet have also died. At this rate, the dancers will only get 2 models taking their flourish, killing 4 models, but they lost 4 models before they ever got their attack in. This leaves Teknes with 2 models to attack the 2 surviving Dancers. Without the Ironward, all 6 Teknes would have been killed, while all 6 Dancers are still alive. This makes teh Ironward a fantastic and effective counter to the War Dancers.

[Swan]

Oh War Dancers, how fun you are.

War Dancers have the highest raw damage output of any Rank 1 Infantry, this is the trade-off for being, by far, the weakest. People want to say the Nasier are glass cannon and cannot survive a charge... I'll point them in the direction of the War Dancers, who will die 50% of the time, and that is before any Defense Chart modifiers are added into the mix. If we're going to compare scenarios that make it so the War Dancers always get the change, always win initiative, always get the positioning they need... Then yes, they are absolutely going to dominate anything they come across... So will every other unit in the game.

The comments about them being powerful with the Herald of Blood: Sure, they're powerful, as would be expected with a Rank 2 Leader's effects- which to note is a six inch area around the entire board- An area that, if you really don't to deal with then you can avoid. Blindly moving to engage a unit just because it's there will lead to a loss in any game, and when we're talking about a game like Wrath of Kings, one that is grounded in scenario play, then that becomes even more apparent. Again, there is nothing wrong with two players just wanting to clash their models on the field and ignore scenarios all together, but you're also removing a huge strategic element that is incorporated into the very base of the game, more so, you're creating a scenario where the more offensive based armies- Nasier, Goritsi (and of course offensive-focused Hadross, Shael-Han, and Teknes armies) are going to have a bigger advantage.

But back on the topic of War Dancers. One thing I want to point out here, before I get heavier into it, is a lot of the feedback seems to specifically target their ability to negate [Reaction][X] Abilities. This was a hot-topic all through playtesting, and came very near to being removed. In the end we kept it, but as with everything else, I continue to play around with numbers and debate with myself the strengths and weaknesses of this part of their rule. So, while I will say this now- the basics of the Zeti are not going to change, this specific point may be redone. Throughout testing they have gone through several renditions- anyone who remembers what they used to be knows this; they went from a unit which, I will in my full opinion, say didn't serve a huge purpose in the army. Sure, they could move units around, but in the end that didn't really help anything... Sure, they're dislocated and disrupted now... But when your army is super fragile what does it matter that they've become dislocated when each guy can just move up and kill you? So we had a unit that had no offensive power, no large threat, and a dislocation ability that, while neat, didn't really create a massive amount of turmoil for your opponent... Great. So they needed to be fixed. Once we where going through the faction revamps we wanted to heavily focus them on offensive and movement shenanigans, hence how we arrived at what they currently are.

They have been tested immensely since they were revamped in such a larger way than a lot of the other units in the game. Do I think there is anything wrong with them? No, honestly I don't. I feel that having 1 game against them, sans scenarios, playing against an army that is defensive in nature (going back to the killing-field-favoring-offense point) then Teknes went into the game with a disadvantage. Also, saying that Teknes needed the Ironward to stand against them is a comment that I have to call out. Would his abilities help? Yes, but having 1 unit is not going to assure victory or defeat against any specific army- no single unit in the game is that powerful, regardless of Inspires or Training or whatnot.

Overall I agree with much of what you are saying, and have said pretty much the same. The real issue the Teknes have is the loss of their Counter Attack abilities when faced by the Dancers. Still, even with that ability, it was a close game. I do disagree with your statement that one unit in the game is that powerful. The Herald, as was seen, was that Powerful, The Ironward would have been just as effective, just in a different way. Instead of losing 9 models with no return strikes in one activation, the Teknes would have had a decent chance to eliminate some of the War Dancers, and still have a chance that a few of the Teknes would have survived the Onslaught.

What do I personally think Teknes can do against the War Dancers to beat them? Well let's go through each of the units in the army and see, just for comparison sake:


Galvanic Defender
The buffer of the army, and while he does not carry a specific counter to the War Dancers themselves he has two effects that are going to hurt them: Giving Strong Will to those around him (which is going to seriously dampen the Come Hither and Compel abilities of both the Herald of Blood and Dancing Master) and having a 15" threat range Magic attack, meaning he can almost freely move and snipe whatever War Dancer (or leader) he doesn't like. Given the ease in which the Zeti are hit this is going to add up quickly. Yes, he could get Backlashed, but his Will is high enough to mitigate this.

The Defender has good uses, mostly as a sniper that will be difficult to pin down. As for the Strong Will, while it may come in handy, it is unlikely that Dance Masters and Heralds will care about its affects, since most of the time they will be using their Melee attacks.

The Zaalak
Straight up faster than the Zeti unless clever positioning is used (he has an 8" threat range, while they can Flourish up to 9" (remember the 2" his base takes up, meaning they'd have to come at him at an angle), and with two attacks he is going to kill a Zeti on offense.

The problem is, that while they will get the first attack in, they will be killed in teh return volley with 0 chance that their Unleashed will trigger. So basically you are trading a Rank 1 Specialist for a Rank 1 Infantry, this trade favors the Infantry all day long.

Sorik the Unfinished
Rank 2 Specialist, this guy has a 12" threat range with his Galvanic Lightning attack, and each attack is near guaranteed to kill a War Dancer as they have a built in 50% hit ratio which is now being lowered even further (being increased to a staggering 70%), not only that but his Ward ability means they're going to be hitting your guys even less of the time (with the Linemen, for example, now only being hit 20% of the time per attack, and the Piggies moving to a, while not impressive, 40%, but factoring in 2 wounds each and they stand a good chance of not being killed).

No disagreement there

CAGE
This guy will absolutely decimate the War Dancers with his 2" AoE that kills a War Dancer 60% of the time on each attack. Honestly just fearlessly march this guy into their ranks and let them deal with him- Resilience 2 already nails the Deadly Flourish ability as this effect is a Special Action, not an attack, thus each is resolving by itself, not combining like the standard Combined Attacks. Even if you don't engage them right away, and just sprint up into combat, they'll have to focus their forces on dealing with him by normal attacks (meaning he's going to counter each one of them and probably kill a lot more) or he'll just blow up next turn anyway. Honestly the Zeti player should fear the CAGE immensely as they don't have a solid answer for him and should rely more on mobility to counter him.

This makes a huge difference. We Combined the attack, which made taking down the C.A.G.E. easy. This makes the C.A.G.E. a Dancer Killing Machine.

Union Workers
They're hit 50% of the time and have two wounds, to securely kill these guys you're going to need to focus 2+ War Dancers on each one, and with the ability to space them out in a 6" bubble around their leader its going to take a lot of War Dancers to take them down. If you don't its going to hurt a lot- even without Pain Fueled we're still looking at the basic 50% hit on the Dancers. Did you wound one once and trigger Pain Fueled? Well now he has two attacks and Unstoppable(1), meaning he can engage 2 Dancers and have a 60% chance to kill each of them- 2 for 1 tradeoff there, or almost certain success at killing one if they just wanted to focus.

Yeah, this doesn't work. With Dancers Adjusting Pig positions, and each pig taking at least 2 Dancer attacks. A single Dancer Attack has 35% chance to kill a Worker, with 2 the Worker's fate is a foregone conclusion. Again, if you remove the Herald, and consider proper placement of the Workers and Terrain this really hampers the War Dancers abilities, but if you are focusing on War Dancers, why wouldn't you bring a Herald?

Union Boss
Of course with the Union Workers there could always be a Union Boss there (when wouldn't there be?) who can also Whip Them Into Frenzy and cause the above scenario without them being wounded to begin with. His Inspire is nice, but almost unneeded in this situation given the already high chance of a Union Worker killing a War Dancer in a straight up fight. More so, clustering isn't what we're going for in countering the Zeti, so why risk stacking unneeded buffs when the plain option of hitting them in the head will do?

So, no real counter here. Union Boss really shines when bringing troops against the the Big guys, his skills are not really a bonus against the Zeti.

The Ironward
So this makes things interesting as with his Primal Surge ability the Union Workers can advance up 7" inches, get Surged, moving another 2" and then perform their attack action- giving them just as much threat range as a full War Dancer flourish. Ignoring that, we have his ability to remove any Overs from the Union Workers, thus further bolstering the above comments about their counter-charge/need to be ganged up on. Spotting once more what I said about the CAGE we also have another Resilience 2 model here, something the Zeti hate, but with the added benefit of having three attacks, each killing a Zeti 60% of the time.

Going to need your to explain this one for me, how do the workers Advance 7", then get Surged 2 more inches? With a base move of 5" or a Pain Fueled move of 6" how are they moving the 9" you state here?

The Aura bonus though is significant since it reduces a single Dancers chance to kill an Undamaged Worker to 25%

Defender Linemen
So here we get to the first unit in the Teknes army that doesn't have an easy counter to the War Dancers. This comes back to the earlier comment in the War Dancers negating Reaction(x) abilities. Here they'll need to reinforce the Pigs, making use of their Rescue maneuver or acting as a secondary counter-charge unit for when the front lines are crushed... Or just move about and focus on objectives while someone else is dealing with the War Dancers. In a vacuum yes, these guys are going to get hurt, a lot, buy the War Dancers, but games aren't played in vacuums or 1 unit vs. 1 unit, or at least you shouldn't be trying to do so knowing the strengths of the opposing force and the weaknesses of your own.

Again, not sure how the Rescue ability factors in. War Dancers never want to engage, and since they aren't engaged, rescue will never have a target to be used on. Dancers and Pigs without something to bolster them are both usints without easy counters to the War Dancers. With Support of either Rank 2 Leader though, they do have ways to make the War Dancers abilities much harder to use.

Lineman Controller
This guy suffers from the above listed but has a few counters himself, namely the extra survivability imparted on him by Defensive Expertise(1) and the fact he has a Knockback attack, which can target up to 2 Zeti and force them back into others- once again calling to the low survivability of the Dancers, this pinball maneuver is something they should actually fear.

Yes, again though he has to survive the initial onslaught of the War Dancers to use these abilities. Without Defender Raeth, War Dancers actually have a 10" Threat Range, since they will pull troops 10" away 2" towards them and flourish them. Yes, if the Controller lives, he can definitely damage the Dancers that eliminated his brethren.

Raeth Sevisk
His Toggle straight up locks down War Dancers, leaving them to deal with you on your terms (and subjecting them to Counter Attack(x) while we're at it). In addition his Hold the Line effect outright stops Come Hither and the Inspire of the Herald of Blood, outright shutting them down. So while the Linemen themselves have no easy answer for the War Dancers, when combined with their leaders they absolutely do.

Similar comments to the response for Linemen Controllers can go here. You have to engage the War Dancers to pin them. Dancers will never willingly engae, since they don't have to, and it is a detriment. Which means you only pin things down that survive the first onslaught.

The most important thing that was pointed out thou is that Dancers have a hard time dealing with Resilience 2 models. With only a 19% chance to wound a Model with a Resilience of 2, these models are the best way to face down the Dancer Menace. Just this factor on its own gives every faction a solution to mitigate Dancer Damage. In a case like this, leading with the Rank 2 Leaders / Specialists becomes the strategy, with sniper support backing them up.

And finally, as has been pointed out, playing without a scenario really does not give the game system a fair test. If we could see the new rules for Scenarios / motivations it would truly help in determining the balance of the game.

I do want to thank you and Curtis for your input here, it does help to clear up things, and let me know where I am mis-interpreting the rules.

[Teleologica]

Just a brief comment on this. Many thanks to Mr Black and Curtis for your input. It's clear though that some of our problems with the cards actually arise from the fact that we don't have a current version of the rules you've been playtesting the current cards to. I know you've said we'll be getting them in due course and it's on the list, so fair enough. I do though think we'd all be hugely grateful to get the new rules sooner than later. It will really help us get a grip on those odd interactions that actually define the strengths of units, like not combining dice in a special action.

Anyway, thanks again guys.

[Xavarir]

Yes, thanks a bunch Curtis and Mr. Black. Your posts cleared up some issues which were causing a lot of confusion (for me at least). Rolls being made separately for each unit affected by an area attack and 'Special Actions' having to be resolved separately are both pieces of welcome information.

Well now he has two attacks and Unstoppable(1), meaning he can engage 2 Dancers and have a 60% chance to kill each of them- 2 for 1 tradeoff there, or almost certain success at killing one if they just wanted to focus.

I had completely forgotten that a unit with multiple melee attack dice could split them among any legal targets. Giving a Pain Fueled Union Worker the ability to kill 2 War Dancers is nice but chances are with all the hopping around there either won't be two Dancers close enough, or no Union Workers left to hit remaining Dancers.

I understand that the War Dancers trade immense damage output for being especially fragile. As a Teknes playing against Goritsi, you'll just to be extra vigilant of your spacing and make sure you bring the proper specialists/leaders to deal with them. It seems C.A.G.E. will prove to be MUCH more effective against them than originally showcased.

[AngelicOne]

Hey all,

I'll chime in here as well as the Goritsi are one of my favs (right behind the Shael Han)!

First I'd like to say thank you for engaging with each other and communicating your POV's, it helps us see where wording clarifications are needed and of course external perceptions. I encourage you all to get your WoK gaming group involved! Not just in the discussion but rolling the dice with some proxy models.

One of the things I want to comment on as I've played a very large amount of games with the War Dancers and I see being continually brought up and that is spacing. Spacing is a double edged sword in this game, most times you won't have a choice with how you place your models due to the nature of the board, the other models and the distance between things. I've never seen a true mathematically perfect situation come up to where I could take the extreme advantage of my position, movement and attacks. There's always something in the way (literally and figuratively) to screw things up.

@Xavarir - I have found over the course of many games that the Union Workers are able to engage with 2 War Dancers quite often, when it comes to making sure your models are spaced properly for survival you run the risk of leaving one or two out of AOI and solo activating a War Dancer is one of their major weaknesses. In engagement situations you will find that your threat range while impressive is also a problem, not to mention the fact that there are simple things you will often overlook, forget or just plain not think about in 'the heat of the moment' - you'd be surprised at how distracting rolling double 1's is when making a deadly flourish on a target...it can screw up an entire plan of action. :P

We're working on getting a revised set of rules up as well as the new scenarios for you guys, and I know you're chomping at the bit for them, however there's only a few of us here in development and we do have timetables on a few other projects as well, so we do want you to know that we are working on it as quickly as our scheduling allows and we continue to be grateful for your support and your patience!


On a side note, if any of you are in the Atlanta area we'd be more than happy to host you during our Friday night playtest sessions, if you want to come down just PM me and I'll fill you in!

Thanks!