So, upon seeing the new Column Tactics upgrade, I immediately began to think about how this beauty could affect a Waiqar unit, and decided to try to the full Reanimates unit. The comparable big damage boost upgrades for that unit are Ardus himself and the Moment of Inspiration upgrade (which shares a slot with Column Tactics, making them rivals for the slot). So I decided to Runemath my way into understanding how good this might be for our Reanimates using these assumptions. Here is what I found.

Red Dice: (2 Hits, 1 Hit-Surge, 1 Hit-Morale, 1 Hit-Hit) = Average 0.75 Hits per dice

White Dice: (3 Hits, 2 Hit-Surge, 1 Hit-Morale, 1 Hit-Accur, 1 Hit-Hit, 1 Mortal) = 0.75 Hits + 0.08 MS per dice.

The numbers below assume you aren’t rerolling a Hit result for Hit-Hit, Hit-Morale, or Hit-Surges, and rerolling MS for crits (a good idea against most units with 1 defense like Spearmen, bad idea against Rune Golems)

4x3 Reanimates with melee attack: Rolls 2 red dice, threat 4, 2 rerolls

• Base Attack: 2x 0.75 = 1.5 hits x 4 = 6 damage

• 1st Reroll: 2x 1.03 = 2.06 hits x 4 = 8.24 damage

• 2nd Reroll: 2x 1.42 = 2.84 hits x 4 = 11.36 damage

4x3 Reanimates + Column Tactics with melee attack: Rolls 2 red dice, threat 3, 3 rerolls

• Base Attack: 2x 0.75 = 1.5 hits x 3 = 4.5 damage

• 1st Reroll: 2x 1.03 = 2.06 hits x 3 = 6.18 damage

• 2nd Reroll: 2x 1.42 = 2.84 hits x 3 = 8.52 damage

• 3rd Reroll: 2x 1.95 = 3.90 hits x 3 = 11.70 damage

4x3 Reanimates + Ardus + Moment of Inspiration: Rolls 2 red + 2 white dice, threat 4, 2 rerolls

• Base Attack: 2x 0.75 + 2x 0.75= 3 hits x 4 = 12 damage + 0.16 MS

• 1st Reroll: 2x 1.03 + 2x 1 = 4.06 hits x 4 = 16.24 damage + 0.05 MS

• 2nd Reroll: 2x 1.42 + 2x 1.33 = 5.5 hits x 4 = 22 damage + 0.02 MS

4x3 Reanimates + Ardus + Column Tactics with melee attack: Rolls 2 red + 1 white dice, threat 3, 3 rerolls

• Base Attack: 2x 0.75 + 1x 0.75 = 2.25 hits x 3 = 6.75 damage + 0.08 MS

• 1st Reroll: 2x 1.03 + 1x 1= 3.06 hits x 3 = 9.18 damage

• 2nd Reroll: 2x 1.42 +1x 1.33 = 4.17 hits x 3 = 12.51 damage

• 3rd Reroll: 2x 1.95 + 1x1.78 = 5.67 hits x 3 = 17.02 damage

Also, note that with Ardus, MoI, and threat 4, you actually have the highest -potential- maximum damage of 32 damage !

TLDR : Looking only at Damage, you are slightly better taking Column tactics if you don’t include Ardus in the formation, and better off choosing Moment of Inspiration if you do include Ardus!

Does the first case model the base unit, or does it include moment of inspiration? It looks to be just the base unit, so column tactics is only slightly better than no upgrade at all? And moment of inspiration will be the clear winner?

7 hours ago, Bhelliom said:

Does the first case model the base unit, or does it include moment of inspiration? It looks to be just the base unit, so column tactics is only slightly better than no upgrade at all? And moment of inspiration will be the clear winner?

It is just the base unit. Maybe @drkpnthr can fix this when he has time?

Yeah, the first case has no upgrades at all. You can see rerolls make a huge difference, but it looks like the loss of threat usually is not an effective tradeoff in this case. The 1 to 3 and 3 to 1 with leonx should be a better upgrade tradeoff.

Why not just take Rank Discipline instead? It's the same slot and the same cost and provides an extra reroll until the unit is destroyed letting your 4x3 block of Reanimates start out with 4 threat and 3 rerolls. With Column Tactics, a unit's threat will deplete as it loses trays. Do you really want a 1 threat unit with 3 rerolls? The only reason I'd think you'd want higher rerolls and lower threat is if you needed the unit to put out a lot of surges.

Column Tactics doesn't strike me as a way to boost a unit's rerolls, but more as a way to boost threat for narrow formations.

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

Why not just take Rank Discipline instead? It's the same slot and the same cost and provides an extra reroll until the unit is destroyed letting your 4x3 block of Reanimates start out with 4 threat and 3 rerolls. With Column Tactics, a unit's threat will deplete as it loses trays. Do you really want a 1 threat unit with 3 rerolls? The only reason I'd think you'd want higher rerolls and lower threat is if you needed the unit to put out a lot of surges.

Column Tactics doesn't strike me as a way to boost a unit's rerolls, but more as a way to boost threat for narrow formations.

this would be my go to also before putting column tactics on a reanimate block, because you can either get the 3 threat 3 reroll results @drkpnthr mentioned for cheaper, or you can get 4 threat 3 reroll...Column Tactics...oh that card is causing so much fun...I wish they had previewed a different card for the riders...

Yeah, I think column tactics is going to be a very rarely used when you can get Rank Discipline, unless you already have Precise. Do Precise 1 from more than one source stack to give you two rerolls?

I would think they stack...unless there is a rule I didn't see saying they don't

anything with a number stacks as the number is additive. (if i recall)

Boom! @Klaxas correct!

45.7 If an upgrade or other game effect causes a unit to have one or more instances of a keyword that has an “X” value, treat the unit as having a single instance of that keyword with an “X” value equal to the sum of the “X” value of all of that unit’s other instances of that keyword

20 hours ago, jek said:

Boom! @Klaxas correct!

45.7 If an upgrade or other game effect causes a unit to have one or more instances of a keyword that has an “X” value, treat the unit as having a single instance of that keyword with an “X” value equal to the sum of the “X” value of all of that unit’s other instances of that keyword

Woo hoo! What do I win

nothing

5 hours ago, jek said:

nothing

awwwww

ok ok @Klaxas , you win...my...everlasting love and devotion? or cake which may or may not be a lie...probably a lie, I didn't just eat the cake...I ate the cake...

I think your math are wrong you are considering the red dice with 3 rerolls to have an average of almost 2 when that is the max. and you arent even aiming for hit -hit but for sigle hit so no way you can reach 2

I took the time to make the math for the red dice only rerrolling no hit dices

Following the " keep any kind of hit " you get the first table,
Following the " keep only the double hits if I have at least other reroll " you get the second that is better.

But note that the diference is close, you sould select your path depending on what you need in the atack, if 1 hit is good enougth you might not take the risk of rerolling blank multiple times

On 4/24/2017 at 8:39 AM, WWHSD said:

With Column Tactics, a unit's threat will deplete as it loses trays.

only if you want it to. Column Tactics says "you may apply the following"

3 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

only if you want it to. Column Tactics says "you may apply the following"

I wonder if you can decide to use Column Tactics after seeing what you rolled? There's a step to modify dice, but Column tactics isn't really performing a modification.

I think we may see some use of it on the Daqan side with a mounted Lord Hawthorne army now that we've seen his army tactics passive ability. He could transform a 2x2 cavalry unit into a 1x4, allowing you to put many side by side to slam into a wider enemy formation, creating a pretty devastating charge from multiple cavalry units (and stacking on multiple panic tokens from Impact). It would create a very fast-turning cavalry that can punch together against an enemy, and the multiple units side by side could sacrifice a unit on the flank to protect the others from a side charge.