Hey everyone, Episode 8 is now available - now with better audio! To celebrate Store Champs, we bought ourselves some new gear to make Initiative One a little easier on the ears.

We catch up on a few more Store Championships since our last episode, and do a recap of ours from February 24th. The easiest way to schedule the winner to be on as a guest is to have one of the hosts win it. Good job us! Uthuk have moved in to first place for wins that we know of, followed closely by Latari, and Daqan finally breaks out of their slump and earns a couple wins!

What can stop the Uthuk? We talk about what we have seen from them so far and speculate about strategies to deal with them, and how accurate our predictions from our Uthuk review were (Spined Threshers: nailed it).

With Store Championships wrapping up soon, we look ahead a little bit to what's next. We also have a Discord server now, and the link is on our Facebook page, so come chat with us!

Episode: http://initiativeone.libsyn.com/episode-8-panic-at-the-daqan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InitiativeOnePodcast/

I listened to a bit of this getting ready this morning. The 2x1 Fire Rune Berserker unit was a product of lack of trays. I wanted a 3x2 for Aggresive Shrieker and Warsprinter. So I only had two trays of berserker left. I then tried Bannerscamp, tempered steel, etc. and just ended up finding Fire Rune the most useful. It helped in a seven dial army that wants to go on offensive to have at least one unit that can hang back. So I only had 6 units trying to cross the map and one hanging back.

If I had had even one more berserker model I probably would have practiced a wildly different list

Hey, I can finally log in to the forums again! Thanks for the rationale on the Fire Rune. Did you like them as an ersatz ranged unit?

They were a great whopping meh. A true archer unit would have been more generally useful. Only in one game out of three did they really deliver.

The specifics were:

-Game 1:Daqan would armor up before shooting, so Fire Rune usually killed 1 or 2 figures. Archers would have done similar

-Game 2: I have bad memories of Maegan tearing entire low armor armies apart by herself or as a figure. So I was using my Bloodfire Witch to flip Unstable Runes down and keep her from being useful. This shut down my Fire Rune. Archers would have been far superior here.

-Game 3: First 3 or 4 turns were 4 unstable and the Fire Rune was amazing. Archers wouldn’t have been quite as good

There is a difficult to quantify benefit. Because of a white skill modifier, I can have fire rune trigger from Init3 to init7.This allowed me a bunch of opportunities to delay the Rippers’ activations. There are a surprising number of circumstances where being able to delay the Rippers’ forced march + melee attack caused my opponents to whiff on their own melee attack (having expected me to activate first and walk into melee).

That's neat to hear on the Ripper combo shenanigans. Something I wouldn't have necessarily thought to do explicitly.

Yeah, it was most distinctly useful in matches vs Waianae or Uthuk where the base melee initiatives are all the same. Lateri don’t have a base melee infantry unit and Daquan can go 3or 7

Regarding the point of Ravos power level, I don't think that his upgrade "Fear incarnate" was mentioned, but when I've faced it it has done a lot of damage since there is at least 2 morale test per round most of the rounds (and he is usually smack down in the center). EASILY underpriced at 5 if you ask me.

He just feels way too good, especially since he's not exactly compensating for an otherwise weak roster (Spined threshers are mentioned in the podcast as the best unit available).

I just can't see how one could come up with pricing him pretty much the same as Ardus (with Ancient technique). They just play in totally different leagues.

Also, it would seem more appropriate to me, in the mentioned uneven duel with death knights, if Ravos surge effect (give a wound) was ignored by the death knights as if it were a mortal strike. Why would they have an advantage against Aliana but not Ravos? Aren't they struggling with his "low" armor / high health as it is?

Sorry for ranting, just had to get it out.

We didn't talk about Fear Incarnate, since we haven't really seen it being used, at least not in the tournament results we have. Any Ravos we've seen has had Insatiable Hunger, and that's what I use on him. We initially thought that Fear Incarnate was very strong (and yes, it can certainly do some damage), but the speed boost of Insatiable Hunger is so useful.

He is certainly in the top tier, and probably the strongest hero overall. The scary thing is, I don't think I even remembered to use his surge ability, if it ever came up, against the Death Knights in that game. Cavalry does really struggle against Ravos, as does any high armor unit - they just don't have the wounds to stand up to him.

My hope is that we'll see some adapting to the Uthuk coming along, as people get more games against them. It will be interesting to see if you can answer them while not hurting your other matchups.

I expect a 3x2 Reanimates with Executioner and Blighted Vexillum Banner to become pretty standard for Waiqar players. Reasonably cheap, solid performance against any target, shuts down heroes and siege units.

I actually ran 3x2 RA with Executioner one match. Though I didn't use the BVBearer, so the executioner got sniped turn 2 by his 2x2 Flesh rippers. They roll 2 blue for the accuracy and the BVB only has 1 health and 1 armor, so BVB is no guarantee.

2 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I just can't see how one could come up with pricing him pretty much the same as Ardus (with Ancient technique). They just play in totally different leagues.

Well, compare the two:

Army buff: Ardus comes with potentially the most powerful army buff in the game save for Hawthorne. It might even beat Hawthorne eventually. It will only get more powerful as the game continues. Ravos comes with the single most useless army buff. A single panic token in your enemy on turn one is functionally useless if you are running Threshers. They do what his army buff is, but every turn.

Damage output : Auto wound and a solid chance at applying a wound through unique surge, plus an average around 9 Damage for Ravos if you dial the hit. Ardus is hard to quantify, around 7 on average without surge abilities (dialing a hit). With him near certain friendly units, he can do a lot more.

-Near a Duskblade/CI Inight unit: Diak in the surge, drop armor by one and suddenly do an extra 5 damage from the reduced armor. So up to 10 average. If you get lucky and get a second surge, you can look at adding potentially 10 damage to average at 15. But that is much more corcumstantial.

-Near Lancers and enemy has blight (not unreasonable), you hunt for surges and can average 2.5 wounds or so around armor. Not staggering, but nothing to laugh at when he’s slaughtering Death Knights or Golems

-Near archers: oh good. Now it isn’t a damage buff, but an effective blighter that essentially shuts any single unit down for good until a second enemy can pry him off.

He still doesn’t match Ravos, but he shouldn’t. He provides an army buff that matters and Ravos does not. I won’t get into it at length, but other heroes spike higher than Ravos for peak damage and still have an army buff that isn’t useless. ALL Ravos does is fight, so he is damned good at fighting.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Ravos comes with the single most useless army buff. A single panic token in your enemy on turn one is functionally useless if you are running Threshers.

???????

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Ravos comes with the single most useless army buff. A single panic token in your enemy on turn one is functionally useless if you are running Threshers. They do what his army buff is, but every turn.

The initial panic does prevent grabbing a token round one, so can potentially hamper the use of upgrades that need to refresh — especially with how quickly the Uthuk can get engaged and make Rally a painful choice. An extra turn without Shield Wall, Fortuna's Dice, Tempered Steel, etc — some of the best upgrades in the game — can have a big impact. I actually think that Maegan's might be the most useless right now, just because the current Sorceress upgrades aren't outstanding.

EDIT: Also, Ardus' average damage without surge abilities, dialing in the hit, is 4.66. Ravos is 8.14 without his surge wound or end of round wound.

50 minutes ago, Bhelliom said:

???????

His army buff is to provide a panic token to all enemies. Spined Threshers put a panic token on all enemy units distance 1-Unstable that don’t already have one. So as soon as your Threshers have moved into range, Ravos ability is being duplicated constantly.

37 minutes ago, FranquesEnbiens said:

The initial panic does prevent grabbing a token round one, so can potentially hamper the use of upgrades that need to refresh — especially with how quickly the Uthuk can get engaged and make Rally a painful choice. An extra turn without Shield Wall, Fortuna's Dice, Tempered Steel, etc — some of the best upgrades in the game — can have a big impact. I actually think that Maegan's might be the most useless right now, just because the current Sorceress upgrades aren't outstanding.

Maegan’s isn’t great. I won’t argue that. I do feel like the Sorceresses are better than people treat them. Verdant Sorceress actually seems like a good tech card for Latari mirror matches. Really, possibly against any faction but Daqan.

Most armies that are going to rely on exhaustable cards should have a mechanic to ready them above and beyond a rally action. Either Hawthorne or a Rallying XXXXX. An army bringing exhaust cards without something like that is already settling for getting only one, maybe two uses from them. So I guess I don’t feel like they get hampered that much. Even in armies I have that run exhaust cards, I would much rather get moving and have some board control against Uthuk than stack tokens turn 1.

Though I will admit I reread the rules for Rally right now and finally realized part of what you guys were talking about. I had always thought taking inspiration was an option regardless of existing banes.

58 minutes ago, Church14 said:

His army buff is to provide a panic token to all enemies. Spined Threshers put a panic token on all enemy units distance 1-Unstable that don’t already have one. So as soon as your Threshers have moved into range, Ravos ability is being duplicated constantly.

I think you both underestimate the annoyance of a panic turn one and overestimate the coverage that Spined Threshers offer. I'm a Daqan player so it maybe hits me hardest, but I will frequently want to rally first turn to have an Inspiration token handy, especially with ranged units. Costing me one of 8 turns with even a couple units is VERY powerful.

Do you find that your opponents are leaving the panic tokens on their units because they know Threshers will be on them soon anyway? I'd be interested to see the impact in game.

I would happily have Ardus' getting every enemy to start with one blight. I agree with @FranquesEnbiens and @Bhelliom that Ravos' starting panic is very good for Uthuk as it buys them the first turn to close in. And for Waiqar it would really help them start off, as getting blight on targets is not that easy due to Lancers inability to target engaged units and archers triggering morale tests on friendlies when shooting at engaged enemies

Ardus' army building ability is neat, but I don't find it as important (with the current units). The archers already get combat ingenuity at 2 trays, the death knights already get blade or gloves at 2 trays etc. And if they didn't, Waiqar would be even more challenging. I would have liked to see a second training slot (for Ranked Discipline) on the archers if Ardus was in or something like that. It is nice to get heavy and training on the reanimates at 6 tray, but the cost of 15 to get the 9 tray is not that steep considering you get 3 more trays of health and an extra reroll. If Ardus (and especially his infantry upgrade) were cheaper I would (of course) find him more appealing.

Edit:

Lastly, @Church14 the situations you mention with Ardus borrowing surge abilities is actually quite hard to pull off within the 3 range limit. Support units die or move out of range, and even Ardus can be one-shotted (for instance by Ravos). Ravos has his surge- and eat (total of 2+ wounds) abilities built in, and I've found that to be a world of difference. If it were 5 range it would (of course) be way easier.

6 hours ago, Maktorius said:

Lastly, @Church14 the situations you mention with Ardus borrowing surge abilities is actually quite hard to pull off within the 3 range limit. Support units die or move out of range, and even Ardus can be one-shotted (for instance by Ravos). Ravos has his surge- and eat (total of 2+ wounds) abilities built in, and I've found that to be a world of difference. If it were 5 range it would (of course) be way easier.

I’ve never found it hard to pull off, but I’m open to the idea that I may deploy and move my army with odd choices. Keeping the archers in range is really the hardest one for me. That requires a level of risk acceptance that can quickly end with dead archers. It did just this last game.

I also think my opinion of Ardus is influenced by how often I run Slurm Team 6. That takes the average damage of a white die from .75 before rerolls to 1.167. Rerolls take it a little higher (I’m sure someone has done the math). Also, to be frank, 6 Lancers in a block just takes time to chew through, so I can rely on that unit being around a few turns.

6 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I would happily have Ardus' getting every enemy to start with one blight. I agree with @FranquesEnbiens and @Bhelliom that Ravos' starting panic is very good for Uthuk as it buys them the first turn to close in. And for Waiqar it would really help them start off, as getting blight on targets is not that easy due to Lancers inability to target engaged units and archers triggering morale tests on friendlies when shooting at engaged enemies

A Waiqar hero who gives blight to everyone would be a lot more powerful to me than Ravos’ buff. The number of abilities Waiqar have that trigger off of a blight token makes that a big liability. That’s not even considering the lost dice on the opening charges/attacks if they don’t waste a turn clearing it.

I am aware that I value Ravos’ buff less than most, but I’m still not convinced by what others present that it is that good. Any army that spends turn 1 rallying against Uthuk (regardless of Ravos) has pissed away any pretense at controlling the board or going for some of the objectives (except maybe on careful approach). Again, any army that relies on exhaust cards and doesn’t have Rallying XXXXX or Hawthorne is asking for serious efficiency issues anyway.

I am also aware I could just be wrong. I have a solid but distinctly finite amount of experience with RWM.

10 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I would happily have Ardus' getting every enemy to start with one blight. I agree with @FranquesEnbiens and @Bhelliom that Ravos' starting panic is very good for Uthuk as it buys them the first turn to close in. And for Waiqar it would really help them start off, as getting blight on targets is not that easy due to Lancers inability to target engaged units and archers triggering morale tests on friendlies when shooting at engaged enemies

Ardus' army building ability is neat, but I don't find it as important (with the current units). The archers already get combat ingenuity at 2 trays, the death knights already get blade or gloves at 2 trays etc. And if they didn't, Waiqar would be even more challenging. I would have liked to see a second training slot (for Ranked Discipline) on the archers if Ardus was in or something like that. It is nice to get heavy and training on the reanimates at 6 tray, but the cost of 15 to get the 9 tray is not that steep considering you get 3 more trays of health and an extra reroll. If Ardus (and especially his infantry upgrade) were cheaper I would (of course) find him more appealing.

Edit:

Lastly, @Church14 the situations you mention with Ardus borrowing surge abilities is actually quite hard to pull off within the 3 range limit. Support units die or move out of range, and even Ardus can be one-shotted (for instance by Ravos). Ravos has his surge- and eat (total of 2+ wounds) abilities built in, and I've found that to be a world of difference. If it were 5 range it would (of course) be way easier.

Have you found the morale test for shooting into combat has much impact? A chance at a couple panic, or a stun or immobilize token has never done all that much in the games I've seen, and in fact "lock the enemy in combat and use archers to blight them" is one of the Waiqar victory conditions.

I completely agree re: Ardus. Host of Crows IS undeniably good, but he pays sooooo much for it and undead bodies come cheap. It's very cool for enabling different Reanimate builds, but most lists I've seen would be improved by dropping Ardus and bringing the extra trays. Mostly I think the problem comes down to his very mediocre dial, which doesn't particularly project him as a threat or let him respond to his surroundings. I hope he improves in the future.

13 hours ago, Bhelliom said:

Have you found the morale test for shooting into combat has much impact? A chance at a couple panic, or a stun or immobilize token has never done all that much in the games I've seen, and in fact "lock the enemy in combat and use archers to blight them" is one of the Waiqar victory conditions.

You are right, It has not been much of an issue. And I do like it as a thematic feature.

But to bash Ravos (again): when he has Fear incarnate it becomes an issue as more tests and more panic tokens (when the morale card instructs to add) usually means damage as well.

20 hours ago, Bhelliom said:

Have you found the morale test for shooting into combat has much impact? A chance at a couple panic, or a stun or immobilize token has never done all that much in the games I've seen

In most games I have seen or played, it hasn't been extremely impactful as long as the friendly unit did not already have a panic token. When the test could be a severity two or three, then I think you have to weigh whether the potential downside is worth it. Of course, that's largely dependent upon game state and what your ranged unit is going to do (apply a blight or two but no damage, or potentially do enough to destroy the unit).