SFR, Inc.

[Darth Macho]

Okay, I know this has been discussed on another thread, but I really want to hear people's logic on how they decide how large the armies should be and why.

I've always used the "Kicker Pack" or "15 hp" formula for building armies. In other words, I would build a 45hp army made up of three 15hp regiments, each consisting of 1 monster, 1 rare, 2 uncommon, and 4 common, or the contents that one would get in a standard kicker pack. Most often, the armies would be evenly distributed.

Eventually this was expanded to a 60hp army, the extra 15hp I would start in reserves (not realizing it was against the rules.) I mainly did this to solve the problems of where to place my magic users, but now I can see why that was not fair.

I've also played games with 90hp and even 105hp, but these games became long and tedious, especially when trying to use up all of the magic points.

After being on these boards for a while, I am now convinced that 36hp is an excellent number for a standard game. While most seem to distribute mainly between two terrains, I think that three 12hp armies wouldn't be bad. I like the idea of 36 because it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, and 4, allowing virtually any combination of the four dice sizes, and thus giving the freedom of using any type exclusively. I can't wait to play a 36hp game now with my nephew and report it in the themed summaries. I'd also make my one terrain mini-games 12hp games instead of 24hp, which might be good for a two terrain scenario!

Are there any other preferred army sizes out there and why?

[cliffwiggs]

I play 24, 36, 60 because that is what is recommended in the rulebook and also because those are the sizes played at conventions.

I think most people stick with those standards.

[Darth Macho]

[ddicerc]

We play 36h in the CWC, and most of my home games are also 36h because we don't play that often and need to test out armies. I actually prefer 24h games (maybe because that was the size used in the Monday Night Fights, where I learned to play!), since the smaller games seem to move a little more quickly. I've played 60h Battlefest, but never well. Right now we're fooling around with 12h mini-games, but I wouldn't count anything that isn't played by regular DD rules in this thread.
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Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[deputyfife]

I haven't played above 50 hp, which did take a while. It seems like games with very large amounts of dice would play pretty evenly until someone got a very lucky roll, since the more dice you're throwing, the more likely they are to roll "average."

[grammyman]

We will usually play 50. We seem to find that anything below is two fast and its tough to use real good strategy in those shorter games. Personally I start off with half of my army Mostly maneuever units) and win that face. I just love to use my coral elves against his lava elves and have that 2nd coast land face .
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[slcobbs]

I personally like 36 health the best. Having played from the days of originally 24 health armies there is a huge difference. In 24 health, it is very difficult to field 3 point units since it is very difficult to bring them back from the dead. The all common army seems to be the best in the 24pt format. At 36 health you can use any size health that you want. This seems to be the most balanced of the three health sizes. I used 8 4-point units in my worlds army. It just gives you much more flexability. 60pt games are really just for fun, see what you can do with them.

Scott C

[MikeD]

I agree with Scott, the 36 pt army size for tournaments is about the right size so a reasonable number of games can be played within the 4 hour time slot. If one wants to encourage the use of monsters (or other 4 point dice) the 60 point army is the way to go, but a 48 point army might be OK as well. The biggest problem with the 4 pointers is when they die, they might as well be buried since it's awfully tough to roll enough magic to bring them back.

Later,
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Michael DeZearn
BUY MORE DICE!

[ddicerc]

I learned to play DD using 24h armies. I'm still partial to small games, despite the noted fact that large units become heavy targets. For one, a dragin in a 24h game becomes a real threat. These games also tend to finish a little more quickly. Canadian play is still a threat, but even a whole 24h army isn't quite the devastating force that even a 36h army is. That said, I mostly now play 36h tournament-sized games or 60h Battlefest since my son's into that right now.

I always thought it would be fun to play weird sized armies. Why not 25h? 31h? 43h? 19h? Hey, the sky's the limit...
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Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[Deeghter]

Hmmmm..........Nobody mentioned that it was suggested to play with 23, 35 or 50 hp in the very first rules booklets!! Dragons were brought to the game for every 25 hp!
That's how I learned to play DD in the first place!
You also summoned Dragons automatically with a 7 magic roll or more!! Players had no influence on that, it just happened!! You just had to choose the terrain where to place the Drakes!!
Yep, it were weird times those days!!
But 24, 36 and 60 are much better sizes since you are unlimited regarding the combination of rarities!! Everything is divideable by 1,2,3 or 4! Well, at least when the new racial Champions are released (5hp ea), then we have to think that over again!
Just kidding!
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SFR's German electro-punk-bluegrass artist Deeghter @@ My S&JW Memorial Space! Tanx, Steve!

[koslowj]

[Nas]

I started playing around w/30pt armies after seeing the 'Friday Night Fight page' but was used to the 24pt. I was most used to the 24pt from when the game came out and me and my friend used to play since we only had a few starters each.

Now reading the new rules and seeing more common 36pt armies I've a few general observations:

Magic is much more common. With 10pts I used to get and see around 6-12 magic pts generated from an army. Only at an 8th face terrain did more than 12 generally come into play. This meant that only a few spells would come into play. However, look at it's effect. 2 stoneskins have a really good effect against like 12pts of an enemy. Whereas an 18pt army will generate sometimes 20+ pts of magic. This means many more spells but against larger armies. It'd be like 5-8 stoneskins against a 20pt army. And there's many more spells instead of 1 or 2 lasting thru a turn to keep track of.

An 12 pt army ( split 2 armies at 2 terrains ) would either be very specialized or have sporadic rolls. This lead to a definite strategy that must be used or a slug-fest where either player would be rolling for a time to decide the advantage. A 18pt army get a few more favorable rolls in more often even from generic results it seems to me. If all the units are pooled, a 36pt army rains havoc under the right conditions resulting in landslide results comparative to the same 24pts. Same could be said of a 60pt. There is allways the chance of the roll, but if 1/2 the units were decent melee, the results are much more along the lines of 'cascading results' compared to having 2 'main' units and 3 'support/casualty' dice slowly grinding their opponent. Of course 60 attacks vs 60 saves if the odds run even means much of a steady-state effect, which seems to be observed on other messages I've seen here.

In the original rules ( 1996?) I had thought only magic creatures rolled for a magic action. I checked back and see that's not the case. Although, I don't tend to like games where there's 8 spells in effect I have to keep track of, or a player spend 5 minutes figuring all the combinations and costs of however many spells they need to churn out. I find it defeats the simplicity of the game and I could be playing GURPS or BattleTech after awhile.

But just looking at probabilities, if you double the number of rolls, the odds turn towards more consistency. Which helps then the use of more of the 'goofier' monsters; but means also the whole game becomes more of a certainty of number crunching. A maxim might be stated that at infinite units, you'll get infinite results of whatever's needed; and your opponent will get infinite results to counter the same process.
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[Nas]

Also the original race restriction made it more challenging. It in my opinion was the starting cornerstone for planning on what dice to use. Now it's a free-for-all, which opens up more advantages.
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[Deeghter]

[chuckpint]

One thing that took the rules committee a long time to decide, was the problem with magic taking a long time to resolve. It really slows down the game at times. But while some spells disappeared, and a few new spells appeared (see Amazon spells), the number of spells stayed about the same. So the combination of spells possible when you get 20-some points of magic in 2 or 3 colors is fairly large. Just for fun sometime try playing a format we played once at the Windy Cities Bone Rollers: No Magic. Not No Mages, No Magic. Basically magic icons did nothing, magic on the terrain meant you could only maneuver (no action possible unless you had a minor terrain). It made for some very fast games. Normally we get one or two 4-5 player games in one night. That night we got in 4 games!
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You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[ddicerc]

[Deeghter]

[koslowj]

[chuckpint]

I need to update them, but I have a set of spell cards that can be easily printed. They are designed to print to a sheet of business card stock. Then you can separate them, and put them where needed. Each card has the player's name, and a complete description of the spell. For ease of play, I use a small business card file to store them in. Of course as the game goes on, there is usually a small pile of cards in front of me of the spells I've been casting...

When I get time (about 2 weeks from now), I'm going to post them to the rules page. I also have a handy sheet, that when printed has all the spells on a single double-sided sheet. That also needs some updates.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Nas]

Think nearly everyone missed the notion I was trying to pass on 'bout 'critical mass' when magic get too big. It is fairly obvious to look at the rules and now see that the bulk of them address magic, its effects, affects, and, what it can and cannot do.

I liked this game for the aptness of being able to do a game quickly and not have to lookup or remember a multitude of rules. Just toss some dice and wade through the outcomes. I'm not saying some thought shouldn't be put into what and wherefore it's being rolled; just that if I want to spend time choosing stuff, I'll go play a full RPG.

The original rules also gave pause to the themes by restricting races at setup. My friend and myself had no problem making two single race armies from only two starter sets each. The Horde was just that, it was everything left over that was good looking or wasn't included in a starting army.

As it stands, if it's to be a player can put together whatever they like for a marmalade army; then really starter sets should just be terrains and a dragon so whatever race could be bought separately.
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