SFR, Inc.

[Blindfury]

Hi,
I’m working on a concept frostwing missile army and was looking for composition feedback:
4 Wolf pack (monster)
1 Heart seeker (rare missile item)
2 Devastator (rare heavy missile)
3 Assaulter (uncommon light missile)
6 Attacker (common light missile)
Home terrain is a Coastland tower.
Frontier terrain is a wasteland vortex.
Objective is to put the wolf pack and heart seeker at my opponent’s home. Everybody else except one common goes to my home. The final common goes to the frontier.
Wolf pack try for first turn.
After end of my first turn, wolf pack, single common, and heart seeker retreat.
Next turn they reinforce at my home.
Coastland has the most missile faces, so I have a good chance of being able to pummel 2/3 of the terrains until I get the eighth face.
The wolf pack have done a great job of winning first turn. Howell works on missile attacks, leading to a surprisingly large number of casualties. They also stand in for melee if someone goes toe-to-toe.?

Some questions:
1. Are the missile troops built to get the best mix of results? I’m looking for maximum numerical results with a few SAIs to pick off annoying units.
2. Should I be going for one rare missile item, 2 uncommon missile items, or a mix to win first turn?
3. Bullseye or Volley? Bullseye seems to inflict the most casualties but the light missile rare has volley. I don’t like picking SAIs that get the most use when I’m getting pounded, but I’m interested in what more experienced players have to say.


Thanks

[TheLazyhase]

First, 4 Wolf Pack is too much in my opinion. 1 or 2 maximum ; a cryohydra may be good too, but don't go above 2 monsters. Especially since the Frostwing melee rare are pretty good ; a Vindicator and one Advocate will have the number of maneuver on average, and you will be less sensible to Lightning bolt and have a lot more save.

For your questions ...
1 - for pure number, the mix is pretty good. The Devastator is a bit less good at missile result, but nothing aggravating.
2 - I am not sure what you want to know.
3 - the special effect of Volley is negligible. But, it's save and missile rolled in one single face, which is very good. My belief is that the Devastator is a bit better, because he have more missile icons and do not "waste" space for melee. But the other rare have more maneuver and more save. You can alway take one Assailler.

Small question : what do you intent to do against an opponent that stay at its home and cast damage spell until your entire army is dead ? You may have an unholy lot of casualty before you got the 8's face, and a lot of spell can divide your missile per two.

[Blindfury]

At TheLazyhase:
1. The devastator has the same chance of generating missile results as the assailer (67%) but generates .3% more results on average (2.3 vs. 2.0). He saves a bit worse, but kills more. That’s why I picked him.
2. I’m asking if there’s a better distribution of magic item health and focus, other than the single rare missile item.
3. I‘ll retreat, grab as many dead back as I can on my reserve roll, and attack them directly at their home. That’s one of the reasons I wanted the wolf pack. Hydra can’t contribute to a missile roll, but wolf pack can. Their group monster id means that they have a good chance of disproportionately winning first turn and helping regardless of what situation they find themselves in. The idea is to get that eighth face tower and then rain death down on the enemy.

[TheLazyhase]

[Urfaes]

Personally, I'm still not sold on the tower idea; that's what the frontier is for. That's purely my personal bias.

As to magic items, I would rather have 2 uncommon missiles instead of the one rare. They'd inflict more pain on average and be less interactive than Impale. If the defender doesn't roll an ID, that's a wasted face that phase. I don't like wasted faces.

Bullseye vs. Volley: Volley surprises me more because it works universally. At first blush, Volley seems reactive; it isn't. It can generate missile results and saves in addition to its special returned shots that limit saves. Bullseye looks great on paper, but you allow your opponent a save. Which is the same thing as rolling four points of Volley during your missile attack. Of course, you can't single targets out with Volley, but I think the increased saves and special attack make up for it.

My take on your list would just swap the Devastators for Assailers and drop an Attacker and Heartseeker for 2 Eyebiters. I see the tactic with the Tower, but I'd swap that for a Temple to have opponents bury things.

[Blindfury]

I see your point with volley.
After our last game I don’t think I can get buy without at least a little magic. I was really hoping to be able to avoid it, but such is apparently not the case.
I’ll try a slightly different configuration using:
1 Blue Magi crown (rare Magic item)
3 Devastator (rare heavy missile)
1 Magi (rare magic)
3 Assaulter (uncommon light missile)
3 Attacker (common light missile)
1 Apprentice (common magic)
2 White dragon lord
1 White dragon crusader
Home terrain is a highland standing stones.
Frontier terrain is a wasteland vortex.
I’ll have to get me a set of black dragon master/hunter/zelot.
Yey for deadlands. Black dragonfolk are looking kinda interesting at this point (don’t know what that says about me.)

[DialFforFunky]

For me, the Devastator beats the Assailer in almost every way. In fact, I think the Devastator offers the most complete package of any rare missile unit. It has everything you want: unmodifiable maneuvers, loads of saves and a solid missle output. An army of Devastators cound function as a very independent army, generating a decent missile threat against almost any target.
The Devastator does gets beaten by the Assailer in raw icon output in general (22 vs 27). However, the Assailer does waste 3 faces to melee, and actually carries less missile icons. The Assailer does beats the Devastator in saves (3) and maneuvers (1), but I don't think the quantitative difference is all that significant here. 5 saves is pretty tough already, and against individual targeting effects (most significantly: lighting strike) both simply save 50% of the time.
The saves and maneuvers already do a great job at making the Devastator a very independent unit, but the Bullseye manages to put the finishing tough to this. Since it is so hard to protect units against Bullseye the missile army always has a decent shot at inflicting casualties. Even when shooting at a full health army sitting at the 8th face the SAI can put units in the DUA. No buffs or debuffs are required. So, unlike most other missile armies, you can take your magic action after your missile action, and bury those juicy targets you just sniped out of the opposing army.
I do agree that the Bullseye effectively gives your opponent a second opportunity to roll. But then again, you can just play the Devastator as a sniper, rather than a 'volume of fire' kind of die. Either way, if you want volume of fire, don't go with the Assailer, as it has a horrible missile average. The Assaulter (2 health light missile) only has 1 less missile icon, and the Scalder 2 health missile unit actually has an equivalent number of icons. The benefit of Volley dealing damage might seem nice, but is reactive (making it easy to avoid) and generally doesn't really come op all that often.


Some quick armies:

Attrition-based Frostwing army

(horde)
random 1health unit

(frontier - vortex or normal coastland)
5x Devastator
1x Heartseeker

(home - feyland something)
1x Gold Medallion (or Dragon Lord)
7x Magus (I assume you don't have any Magi)


Very Aggressive Volume of fire army:

(horde)
3x Wolf Pack
1x Cryohydra
1x Seven league boots

(frontier - Coastland something)
random 1health unit

(home - Coastland Tower)
7 x Assaulter
2 x Eyebiter




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[Blindfury]

Thanks F.
I have one Magi…pulled in my first case.
I’ll see what I can do with these.
They’re not my normal fair, so it’ll be good to try something new.

[TheLazyhase]

Side note : the Firewalker magi tend to work well with frostwing, because of Flashfire, which help tremendously with Wolf Pack and Cryohydra. The elemental blast can also dispel anti-missile spell.

[Urfaes]

I'm a fan of the second list, but I'm usually a fan of themed lists; the first list, however, does have the awesome ability to bury dead units on the second march. As much as I hate to put my own armies to the guillotine, being able to use Bullseye to single out specific units, which also bypasses Leaving, then burying said units to prevent Replanting would greatly annoy my Treefolk.

As pointed out by TheLazyhase, including Firewalkers with Flashfire may also prove beneficial; you get the reroll ability prior to taking the Vortex and can still use it on a different unit in conjunction with said Vortex. Which, I think, means a 30% chance of getting a Bullseye from each unit that's rerolled.