SFR, Inc.

[loligarchy]

Technically all treefolk heavies are 83% favorable melee results with a single save face. The common and uncommon stay within the mean of heavy melee attack results however if I'm not mistaken. Still certainly considered balanced in either case.
I am working on (yet another) large post for the missile thread adding some more light to some of these things as well and actually going to start putting in my opinions on the tweaks that should take place in order to positively affect missile army, and other 'alternative' composition's viability.

One minor thing: You do have a temple so you wouldn't have had to've cast the third ashes to ashes as my evoker would have been buried in initial effects.

Save Versus missile
Blue Dragonzealot: 4 ID
Blue Dragonfoal: 1 Maneuver
Cryohydra: 4 Melee
Herald: 3 Melee
Herald: 3 Maneuver
Knight: 2 Maneuver

4-3 = 1 +1 = 2 saves, 6 dead.
Foal, Knight and Herald take a nap in the dirt.


First March
Reserve Magic
Conjurer: 3 Magic
Conjurer: 3 Magic
Enchanter: 2 Save
Enough to rez a Knight

With the herald burying next turn I've really gotta give in at this point. I'm about to have 16 buried, don't have any terrains I've got anything resembling control of and just have to throw in the towel.

[AC]

1) Hence my qualification "unless I am forgetting someone." Senility is a brutal rider. Still, within the consideration that only Heavy, Melee, and Magic could feature a context-neutral 83% favorability rate (and we are of course excluding Eldarim), those Oaks are consistent with the pattern that Heavies are balanced and Missiles are not. Of course, we are dealing with a small sample.

2) Burial, indeed. I tend to forget about Temple burial. And City promotions. I'm still trying to pass it off as having not played in years.

3) Fair enough. It would have taken some lucky rolls to dig out of that hole, but it wasn't out of the question. Things didn't break that way over the last couple turns so now it's pretty much a done deal. When things fall into place, these missile armies can be nasty. Granted, we've played just two games, but (or and) in both cases one of us managed to take the frontier and immediately thereafter the upper hand that was not surrendered. Some miserable rolling here and there certainly helped.

With favorable terrain, Coral Elf or Amazon missile armies should theoretically be well-equipped to pull that off with decent frequency. Given their respective terrains, both have 67% Missile, 33% Maneuver, and 33% Save across all Missile units. Coral Elves naturally have superior magic, with extra defense, extra maneuvers, and the capacity to bury.

This suggests that Frostwings are, as one could expect, ideally constructed for the task, particularly in the form of their Light Missile units, with Save and Maneuver that cannot be reduced by magic. Their own magic rather bites, but with a good supporting race, they'd be golden.

I suppose this raises two questions. 1) Is the only real tactic with a missile army that of sitting one's forces at a Missile or 8th face and firing away, and if so does this lack of flexibility compared to a melee & cavalry army create a disinclination to play missile for its being "no fun"? 2) Can one field a consistently successful missile army without magic support, or is missile even more reliant on assistance than melee/cavalry?

[TheLazyhase]