13 hours ago, druchii7 said:

I'm considering to start using 2x1 carrion lancer units: that would prevent the waste of impact result on dice and makes them a better option to place your upgrade cards.

I think one of the problems is the dependence on surges to do damage on solo carrion lancers, but with threat 2 and a single improvement they should be more flexible and face enemies better even without blights.

The moment of inspiration will be key for damage dealing. Archers will be able to shoot + regroup (letting them refresh the card every turn) and therefore tey'll do it ok in close combat without close quarters targetting. Combat ingenuity would be probably be not so important if you have an extra die to produce extra sourge.

In fact moment of inspiration looks quite suitable for reanimates as well. As they have no damage modifier, they could be quite powerful if regroup to refresh the card every turn.

Moment of Inspiration only applies to melee attacks, so the archers get very little use out of it. Rank discipline is a pretty good damage upgrade, and Combat Ingenuity is great for maximizing blight.

Re: Carrion Lancers, I think you'll generally be better off with two individual lancers than a unit of 2. Costs more points obviously, but spits out more blight and mortal strikes.

Also, Inspiration tokens can only be spent when a unit activates, so if you apply the blight and attack with Carrion Lancers both at initiative 5, your target generally won't have an opportunity to use the Inspiration to clear the Blight.

I didn't notice that! Then that card is quite useless except for reanimates. I'm really looking forward to see the new waiqar unit and see how good their combos are.

2 hours ago, druchii7 said:

I didn't notice that! Then that card is quite useless except for reanimates. I'm really looking forward to see the new waiqar unit and see how good their combos are.

I played a guy who put it on his Worms. He used rally+3 march to get a couple of inspiration tokens as he moved them into melee range. It seemed fairly effective.

51 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I played a guy who put it on his Worms. He used rally+3 march to get a couple of inspiration tokens as he moved them into melee range. It seemed fairly effective.

That can be a big pain, but I think rank discipline suits them better, as lots of dice without repetition can work pretty bad if the dice aren't good in the first roll. Moment of inspiration would excel on reanimates, who have almost always rerolls and may have even threat 4.

I point that regarding that reanimates needn't do much appart from slowly advancing until they are engaged. Shift in stead of march 2 could be suitable.

On April 24, 2017 at 7:33 AM, drkpnthr said:

1x1 Carrion Lancers with melee attack: Rolls 1 red + 2 blue dice, threat 1, 0 rerolls

• Base Attack: 1x 0.75 +2x0.5= 1.75 hits x 1 = 1.75 damage

• No Rerolls

3x2 Carrion Lancers with melee attack: Rolls 1 red + 2 blue dice, threat 3, 1 rerolls

• Base Attack: 1x 0.75 +2x0.5 = 1.75 hits x 3 = 5.25 damage

• 1st Reroll: 1x 1.03 + 2x0.75 = 2.53 hits x 3 = 7.59 damage

Thanks for doing the math on this! Rank Discipline could give the 1x1 re rolls, so that might be worth working out too.

Interestingly the 1x1 and 3x2 are about identical in points efficiency. Both do about .11 damage per point value of the unit. The real value of larger units then is access to upgrades. But that comes at the cost of flexibility and the opportunity for multiple blights.

I think I'm sold on multiple 1x1 worms, unless I'm doing the math completely wrong... And it wouldn't be the first time that happened.

@drkpnthr How do you do those damage calculations?

IMO 2x1 with rank discipline or 2x2 is quite better than 1x1 (absolutely blight dependant and wastes those good damage faces) or 3x2 (seriously powerful, but carrion lancers are not optimal close combat units)

7 hours ago, druchii7 said:

@drkpnthr How do you do those damage calculations?

IMO 2x1 with rank discipline or 2x2 is quite better than 1x1 (absolutely blight dependant and wastes those good damage faces) or 3x2 (seriously powerful, but carrion lancers are not optimal close combat units)

Depends, I think. If ALL you're doing is hunting for golems and Kari to hit with mortal strikes, RD could make sense on a 1x1.

It definitely has more gener utility on something with two threat, though.

To get those calculations, I averaged the hit probabilities of the results of each of the dice. Blue dice have four sides with one hit on them, so they generate an average of 0.5 hits. Red dice have four sides with a hit and one side with two hits, for an average of six hits for eight sides, so they have an average of 0.75 hits per roll.

38 minutes ago, Tvayumat said:

Depends, I think. If ALL you're doing is hunting for golems and Kari to hit with mortal strikes, RD could make sense on a 1x1.

It definitely has more gener utility on something with two threat, though.

But if you think of it it's not optimal. Ok golems might die with 2 surges (only if blighted), but kari generates a lot of inspiration (she has white modifier regroup). A sharp player won't let you do it that easily.

Until combat ingenuity is released I won't use 2x2 archer units. They're tougher than 2x1+rank discipline, but those 10 saved points will be a lot better elsewhere.

Of course for a damage dealer unit 3x2 is the best, but that's not the best way to use archers ATM.

2x1 carrion lancers are flexible, can do a reasonable ammount of damage on their own and take profit on their skill if available, 1x1 are cheap but not flexible and need an archer unit support or will do nothing. Without blight they are unable to overrun anything on their own.

I'd specially remind, that they have +1 damage modifier in the dial (unlike reanimates or reanimate archers). And that makes them quite killy if properly sized.

1 minute ago, druchii7 said:

But if you think of it it's not optimal. Ok golems might die with 2 surges (only if blighted), but kari generates a lot of inspiration (she has white modifier regroup). A sharp player won't let you do it that easily.

Until combat ingenuity is released I won't use 2x2 archer units. They're tougher than 2x1+rank discipline, but those 10 saved points will be a lot better elsewhere.

Of course for a damage dealer unit 3x2 is the best, but that's not the best way to use archers ATM.

2x1 carrion lancers are flexible, can do a reasonable ammount of damage on their own and take profit on their skill if available, 1x1 are cheap but not flexible and need an archer unit support or will do nothing. Without blight they are unable to overrun anything on their own.

I'd specially remind, that they have +1 damage modifier in the dial (unlike reanimates or reanimate archers). And that makes them quite killy if properly sized.

You're not wrong.

Still, there is something to be said for the potential threat that a 1x1 Lancer with RD represents to a character or unit figure upgrade.

With Archers firing and Lancers striking at init 5, it's not hard at all to ensure a targeted unit has blight, no matter how they rally or inspire.

An opponent simply has to recognize that, and play accordingly, and overall it's not THAT expensive a unit to take.

That's true, but even though, 2x1 archers fail to blight sometimes and even having 2 blue dice there's no total grant to have even a single surge. If you score lots of damage on the carrion lancer's non repeateable dice, the enemy will probably not let you do it again.

The second part of the problem is that daqan hit quite hard indeed. A 20 point cavalry unit on a charge is a serious threat for a carrion lancer, as they have certain maneuvrability advantage.

Don't forget that oathsworn cavalry may engage archers on turn 1 in certain deployments. They can just perform a distance 6 movement if they deployed the cavalry in some deployments.

Yesterday evening i used a list with 2 units of 2x2 lancer with reroll and a single lancer. And yes, I've used the double lancer as a replacement for knights in this list in a very aggressive way. The lancers in these bigger units have done a great job.

One round they killed 6 knights instantly from a blighted unit of 2X2 knights in combat, after Ardus killed 2 knights before. And the lancer survived unharmed.

In another other combat the lancers fought another 2X2 unit of knights, this time without blight token, they received some wounds, but did constantly 2-3 wounds on the knights.

In my opinion you get a further option for the bigger worm unit, you can blight and/or act as aggressive close combat unit.

The use of the single lancer is reduced meanwhile, as my comrade knows its tricks. At the moment I use the single lancer as a re-director unit with the option to blight.

As far as they have no crossbowmen our carrion lancers are quite a threat for them

So, I've begun running blocks of lancers, now that I have four of them.

2x2 worms with combat ingenuity and master crafted weapons is absolutely brutal. These guys were regularly dropping 10 damage on an average hit, and given their maneuverability they aren't hard to flank with.

I can't wait to get my lancer expansion to round the unit out to six trays.

These guys are going to be hammer to the reanimate formation's anvil.

4 worms is ridiculous, I love it!

17 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

So, I've begun running blocks of lancers, now that I have four of them.

2x2 worms with combat ingenuity and master crafted weapon s is absolutely brutal. These guys were regularly dropping 10 damage on an average hit, and given their maneuverability they aren't hard to flank with.

I can't wait to get my lancer expansion to round the unit out to six trays.

These guys are going to be hammer to the reanimate formation's anvil.

That's crushing!! I also considered that unit. The only thing that prevents me from buying a lot of worms is to think that we'll have death knights soon.

7 hours ago, druchii7 said:

That's crushing!! I also considered that unit. The only thing that prevents me from buying a lot of worms is to think that we'll have death knights soon.

I don't think the Death Knights will be an analog to the worms at all.

Their upgrade bar is totally different, they can't get threat 3 without an upgrade, and they have a maximum of six damage per tray vs nine.

Without them in hand and having not done too much theory on them, I'm still fairly confident in saying that the two will fill very different roles.

The point is that so far I can't imagine myself playing a 3x2 carrion lancers deathstar frequently. They're very good but so much points on a unit that cannot have champion or banner. With master crafted weapons and combat ingenuity I think that they can perfectly work, but combat ingenuity es a rather "expensive" card. As far as I know you have to buy 1 reanimate archers pack to get a single combat ingenuity card.

OMG! duskblade + combat ingenuity! That will hurt those tough flank units. So sweet to charge and crush a defense 2 golem or a defense 1 kari if a bit lucky and score 2 surges. (again combat ingenuity demand problem). And you can even add the fron line hero to make burguers with any counterstriking unit

Death knights have de best maneuvrability (letting you move early or late), hits earlier on close combat, have white special. Agressive coricen, reapping blade, dispatch runner, file leader, raven tabads...

They won't prevent people from playing carrion worms, as they're very tough and flexible, but death knits have an impressive dial, great upgrade cards choices and very cool miniatures