Tirean's tactic thread

[Tirean]

So someone mentioned I should bring this stuff back to life. So here we go


Answer the following questions to this picture:

Who is at an advantage in this position? Team Blue or Team Red.

Why are they at an advantage?

What are the key moves to keep that advantage?

Enjoy

Don't read the text below if you haven't done this yourself yet


At first glance you might think to yourself that Red team is in a good position here. They have a full strength WH and TS as well as a full strength SA. Coals are on the floor as a deterrent from the SM and the BM is very far away from her supporting units. Every single one of these factors are actually false and the red team is actually in a lot of trouble.

The Blue team BM being so far away actually allows this to be a sure win for Blue team, especially since she has 4 WP and soon to be including more horn for her long range BoP. The raiders are also fresh on WP, 3 and 2 respectively and the only units which can deal with them will soon be picked apart (The TS and WH). The safety coals actually mean very little to the SM. He is a dead unit right now and will be moving on all 3 of the tiles to make sure the TS can not move towards the BM. This leaves the TS with 2 moves, both of them do very little. Even if he manages to hit all str hits on a rank 2 BlF it will still keep the BB alive with 2 str, more than enough needed to fullfil a future 5 AB needed for the BM to destroy anything she likes.

The WH also suffers from the fired tiles as the BM will be moving over to BoP the broken WH into making him a tame red headed mess. If he engages the BM he instantly loses 2 str, 2 wp and can only tickle her. The enemy BM dies from the TS and it leaves nothing left to deal with the TS and BM combo. This ensures that both of these units will survive until pillage where they either gank up on the WH or SA. Depending on which one was left standing.

[netnazgul]

Team Blue is at tiny advantage cause it has a good puncture position (archer at full health and is protected from any kind of immediate threat). At the same time Team Red has one heavy attacker (WH at full STR) and one good character to mitigate that archer threat (thrasher with full WP), but they are both at suboptimal positions for that.

For Team Blue I'd probably kill the archer with thrasher on his next move and then just try to block WH/TH from coming to archer, at the same time archer using BoP as a primary attack option.

For Team Red, if SM moves on that shown spot and breaks WH's armor, I'd attack BB from SE to prevent thrasher killing BM and having her one more go on anyone's armor.

Also, for Team Blue I'd even step on all the three coals (he is dead both ways) and break armor just to prevent red thrasher from preventing blue thrasher from killing BM (and we need to go deeper -_-).

[Aleonymous]

Interesting situation... I admit that those three coals are very well placed!

At first glance, I would say that the red have a slight advantage due to the two high-STR units. However, the blues have several advantages:
(a) a full BM in-range of BoP
(b) turn-advantage, assuming that Rysia (blue SM) will be the next unit to die
(c) Tirean steering the blues, and no RoA in the opp's side to thwart him

Without putting much thought to it (because the timer does matter)... I'd move Rysia over the three coals (to block enemy TH from breaking loose) and light-up BtP on WH...

[KamikazeDurrrp]

Blue is obviously at a huge advantage. Red has archers with no wp, armor harassment on every one of his melee units, and Tirean still has 2 near full health units that he can use to buy himself time in order to do more ab harassment and kill 1-2 more units before relying on his BM to clean up. If I was Tirean, I would break the WH, kill the BM with my TS and then focus on breaking the enemy TS and killing 1-2 more units while bringing in my BM clean up.

BTW if this isn't indication on how broken the BM is I don't know what is lol

[LoliSauce]

Too easy, Tirean.

If I were Blue though, I would move shieldmaster onto all 3 coals and use that last will to armor break the warhawk. This only gives the red thrasher 2 options, kill the shieldmaster (bad, since the coals will impede the warhawk's ability to walk through anyway) or go hit the backbiter (good, since 2 adjacent allies = big damage ability). Then blue's thrasher can go kill the enemy bowmaster, shifting turn order up for the warhawks. Not sure which of them is going first, but either way the blue bowmaster isn't in any danger from the leftmost one (it'll prob just attack the backbiter as well), and the shieldmaster will die from the rightmost one's attack. Depending on how leftmost warhawk moves, the backbiter can burn some more meter either running the siege and thrasher through, or just armor hitting depending on his break.

But yeah, at that point the blue bowmaster will be able to just rain death on everyone for free.

[Tirean]

New one!!!



Red team is losing in this situation and needs to hope for a mistake from blue team. Red team must therefore make sure he plays the best moves available to him at all times so when the mistake comes from blue he can capitalize.

So in this situation who should the TS (he can't move) hit and why?

[Aleonymous]

Why did the green TS move in puncture range? We'll never know...

So, things look grim for the Reds... I'd go for a 8STR hit on the BB because he's the main threat to the last remaining Red-archer. I wanna leave the BB at 1STR, so that he dies to HI/SI, if adjacent to the Blue-WH when Red-WM#2 smacks him. Red-BM pulls down and right, and does 4AB on WH. The Red-WM#1 tries to pull right too, or smacks a raider, if any comes at him.

The Blues have the advantage of the RoA, to protect the WH. He might also try to combo-hit the WM#2, with r3 Ram & high-rank RoA, if the formation permits it.

Note to self -- WMs are the real glass cannons...

[K_B]

Hello,
Situation is still unclear, two teams can win.
Doing damage to raiders is encouraging but almost worthless due to the fact that WM is already able to kill them with one hit. I would do rank 2 Bloody Flail on WH, hoping for all armor hits because team red lacks of armor break units. I am not scared about RM because if he attacks BM, WM will kill him in next turn and this exchange will favour red team. Then BM should go out of BB range and armor break WH for 4 or 5(if RM engaged). After that, situation becomes too complicated because we don't know what SS will do.

[StandSure]

This is a tough one. There's no point hitting the RM because he can't kill him, and RM will most likely go to AB the BM or maybe the WM. Either way WM #1 kills the RM right after. BB is probably the biggest threat, since once the RM moves, he can dance around the TS and run through the BM. It's tempting to flail at the WH to gain some traction for a future puncture, but he moves so late, I figure red uses WM #2 to block the WH from attacking Ms. BM.

So, hit the BB, and kill BB on red's next turn with BM.

[netnazgul]

OK, first things first - current position.
Blue: BM is full-health and in a quite safe position which is itself an advantage. Secondly there is a full-health SS who can protect BM both by placing RoAs and by positioning. Adding almost full and heavy armored WH and two units who can do at least one break - Blue is in very strong position to just outbreak the opponent.
Still, enemy warriors are at full health and have willpower to move, so Blue should be careful to not give away too many units and not allow them to reach archers.
Red: here are a lot of problems. First, warriors are at very wide positions and need a lot of movement to get into the fight even with some turn advantage. Thrasher is in a quite bad spot, being in puncture range for both blue archers. Enemy archers are too far away to be dealt with.
Main task is to conserve as much armor as possible while trying to reach archers. Enemy WH is far away in initiative, but still needs to be dealt with.

Now our red moves. We have 3 possible targets for thrasher here, being RM, BB and WH.
1. RM - he can't be killed, nor can't he be blocked in any way (Thrasher can't move, but couldn't do much even if he could). He still does 5ab to either left WM or BM (preferrably WM, as he is a bigger threat to archers).
2. BB - tempting to maim him and then kill with BM, while RM will die to left warrior. This way thrasher just dies to archers (instead of BB and one archer) and WH is left untouched almost till his next turn. Giving that we need more armor break on WH (simple hit with warrior will still leave him a very big threat), it leads us to a final and probably most useful move with Thrasher in this position -
3. WH. We do r2 flail, hoping at least that all thrasher attacks hit.

Now Blue attacks left warrior for 5ab, his position in this move is almost irrelevant. I'd prefer attacking from northeast to prevent warrior movement to the front.

Red BM now has two moves - either hit BB for break WH (even if flails landed a 5arm hit, BM still can't do any sufficient damage). Hitting BB for 4..6 str is not viable cause he moves next and does break anyway (allowing SS to kill thrasher). So it's WH break, with only one question - where to put archer for that. I'd have chosen a place 5 tiles away from WH right between BM and WM, as it also allows covering any possible SRM move in this area.

Blue then has only one possible option of breaking thrasher for 5ab to kill him later (and he needs to kill him due to an imminent threat for archers otherwise - if not broken, Blue simply doesn't have tempo to kill thrasher before his move). Again, position is a variable. We have NE (current), NW and SW positions. Probably current position is among the best as it is now away from red BM range (she's moved) and close enough to archers to allow them puncture on any opponent approach.

Red kills RM with left warrior. Independently of RM's position we need to move WM as close as possible to the front.

Blue wants to cover WH from possible warrior attack, but broken thrasher in puncture range leaves no other move than to kill him.

Red now has two moves - killing SRM or attacking WH (WH is at 13+15 - 4..5 (flail) - 2..4 (archer break) = 22..19 total sp). Bad thing is - from the right attacking position our warrior can be rammed forward to archers puncture range (dealing 3 or even 5 break depending on his rank). SW position is better this way, but then warrior can be rammed left, blocking other warrior on the left flank.
So maybe killing SRM here will be a better choice - WH will be attacked with BM on the next turn. For a position I'd choose the most forward one here - everything to the front!

From now on I'm too tired to hold every stat change in my head and calculate further moves for both sides, so I hope it's enough for analysis

[K_B]

I will do it the same way as netnazgul and try to explain why killing a BB is bad option.

Red: Trasher attaks BB
Blue: Raidmaster breaks TS for 5 to 12/1
Red: BM kills BB
Blue: When BB dies, turn order becomes completely messed up for reds. SS moves one tile left and 2 tiles forward and protects RM with RoA
Red: WM can't move because RoA blocks his path to RM, he can move 1 forward but then he will be in range of WH so it's not a good option
Blue: SRM moves 2 tiles to the left and uses 2 willpower from horn to push WM for 5
Red: For the second WM only one option is available, he kills SRM
Blue: BM kills TS
After that move, Reds don't have to much options. BM can't do any significant damage and full strength WH only waits for a big strike on WM.

I would like to do something similar with situation when TS hits WH, but randomness of Bloody Flail is too big, to do it right.

[netnazgul]

OK, I've thought something starting from:

Blue wants to cover WH from possible warrior attack, but broken thrasher in puncture range leaves no other move than to kill him.

Skystriker in fact has 2 moves:
a) kill thrasher, obviously. Then WM attacks WH, SRM pushes right WM with 3ab to archers (1 horn went into 5ab for RM; actually Tirean in his game broke for 4ab which left SRM a possibility to do 5ab, which allows blue to kill 5/16 WM in two full-wp puncture archer attacks), BM kills SRM, WH has questionable maiming abilities now (he's got a hit from WM), only to block one of units, left WM kills WH or even kills BB if can reach (leaving Blue an option to maim either of WMs, but right WM still gets an attack on archers). Close game goes then.
b) look into initiative queue. We see that she can cover WH with RoA (and then WM attacks SRM, BM attacks TH). But if we look closer, there is actually 3 independent moves for red to approach blue WH due to WM having 1wp. To cover all those approaches, SS needs to move for 3wp and block a right tile northwest of WM. Assuming that time counter is 30sec, it's quite unlikely for blue to make that move, diagonal south from WH being the most obvious spot to place RoA. So right WM goes left-left-left-up-up and attack WH, and blue SRM can't prevent thrasher from coming to archers, so it looks like GG for Blue in any further scenario.
If SS still covers that only tile, losing all wp in the process, BM attacks WH, WH does some minor str damage to archer (he'll be at 8-10 str depending on flail), WM then should be able to kill WH and it still looks like an advantage for Red from here (5/16 left WM, 9/16 right WM, ~8/6 BM vs almost dead BB, far away BM and SS without wp sure to die to right WM very soon).

[Arnie]

I'm reading every post here in an effort to learn my own game.
I keep expecting Tirean to weigh in and give the "answer".

[Aleonymous]

I keep expecting Tirean to weigh in and give the "answer".

In his own words, Tirean has repeatedly stressed that this is a quiz, not a puzzle. The OP clarified that the former has multiple "correct" answers while the latter only one. The point is to generate a tactics discussion!

[Tirean]

I'm reading every post here in an effort to learn my own game.
I keep expecting Tirean to weigh in and give the "answer".

I will put in my tactic choice soon and explain the reasonings. It will be edited into the post which has the tactic in. I am giving this some more time for people to look at since it gathered a lot of discussion on here and in the main chat.

And yes, this is a tactics discusssion, not a puzzle