One of the best point-for-point units in the game did not need a three point regen upgrade...oh well...

So....

are Uthuk broken?

(discussion part 47...)

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

Ah good point. I momentarily forgot that Dispatch Runner also exhausted. Scary? Yes. Unbeatable? No. The Uthuk player has to be careful when employing such a tactic that they don't start throwing good points after bad.

Mind you, I’m worried about balance and the Threshers, but this is more sprinkles on the power cake than another layer.

Dispatch Runner is just good and makes hard hitting units go from scary to terrifying. But I’m not seeing much difference in power between using DR on the Thresher with or without Devourng Maw.

17 minutes ago, Suhawk75 said:

So....

are Uthuk broken?

(discussion part 47...)

Would anyone take bets against 3 Uthuk and 1 Latari in the Nationals top 4?

(This is not a serious and therefore illegal proposition, just a speculative question

I don't know if Dispatch is the way to go either, but it sure can be effective. Let's say a two tray Thresher, without flanking, activates and then gets a Dispatch attack after their activation (assuming the defender already had a panic token). Average 9 damage on the first swing, heal one, don't spend the panic token. Swing again with Dispatch, have a reroll, average six damage, heal another.

It may be too many points for what you get out of it, but it's worth trying out at least. You can also potentially have Ravos or a Berserkerstar attacking twice as well, either of which could be good.

41 minutes ago, FranquesEnbiens said:

I don't know if Dispatch is the way to go either, but it sure can be effective. Let's say a two tray Thresher, without flanking, activates and then gets a Dispatch attack after their activation (assuming the defender already had a panic token). Average 9 damage on the first swing, heal one, don't spend the panic token. Swing again with Dispatch, have a reroll, average six damage, heal another.

It may be too many points for what you get out of it, but it's worth trying out at least. You can also potentially have Ravos or a Berserkerstar attacking twice as well, either of which could be good.

I stick a Dispatch Runner in my 6 tray Death Knight CavStar for that reason. I typically use it once a game or so and it seems nearly always worth it.

1 hour ago, Maktorius said:

Would anyone take bets against 3 Uthuk and 1 Latari in the Nationals top 4?

(This is not a serious and therefore illegal proposition, just a speculative question

Seriously though, compare Rune Golems (17pts) to Spined Threshers at 18. How did the designers decide that these two units are even remotely comparable in terms of efficiency? This is not a case of power creep happening over 10 waves (see X-wing 1st ed), the base game has barely been out 18 months.

10 damage vs 8 damage to kill one (with a the RG suffering weakness to mortal strikes)

A useful, PASSIVE (ie cost free) AOE ability which synergises with their attack to give free rerolls vs nothing at all

A white secondary move, turning charge and initiative 4 attack vs the worst dial in the game.

For one point!

I know people say that Rune Golems are arguably the worst unit in the game and shouldn’t be used as a comparison but you cannot excuse poor planning or design by saying “well this bit of design is slightly less crap”

Daqan players don’t have access to another siege unit. Waqar players don’t have access to any heroes even as remotely as strong as Ravos (well no one does).

If either a Daqan or Waqar make the Top 4 of a National I’ll eat a nice cake in celebration

A deathstar with spinethreshers with windrune and devovuring maw seems like it would be one of the strongest stars in the game i guess. More easy to use dispatch runner then i guess...

2 hours ago, Suhawk75 said:

So....

are Uthuk broken?

(discussion part 47...)

But **** i know this is done to death,but i thought that runegolems would be the sige-batteringram. Slow and hard hitting but compared too these guys... and at a similar cost lower for one same for two and for four and up runegolems are more exspensive? I guess what i'm trying to say is it seems theese are just the same just betther in every way?

Uthuk just seems oppressive right now...

The price drop from 1 - 2x1 is what makes the card seem extra powerful. It seems that brutal siege units get a higher discount for larger formations. But why the thresher gets a discount of 8 points is a mystery to me. That’s almost 50% off the second tray. Respectively, scions save 3 points, lancers save 3, golems save 6. Still hoping they errata the cost of the 2x1.

6 hours ago, Jukey said:

The price drop from 1 - 2x1 is what makes the card seem extra powerful. It seems that brutal siege units get a higher discount for larger formations. But why the thresher gets a discount of 8 points is a mystery to me. That’s almost 50% off the second tray. Respectively, scions save 3 points, lancers save 3, golems save 6. Still hoping they errata the cost of the 2x1.

FFG took forever to errata the card for Jumpmasters in X-wing despite it being clearly broken. I suspect we’ll see a Rune Golem “fix” (which will be half a fix) in a future expansion.

I wanted to contribute to the debate about their low cost even with these fantastic Uniques but I'm still stuck giggling at the fact that the last paragraph in the article is titled "Demonic Crabs".

Might as well have called one of the upgrade cards Handibles.

For the only purpose of winning a match, are there any reason not to play 5 2x1 Spined threshers with Devouring Maws and Ravos with Insatiable hunger, totalling 198p? Or Ravos with Fear incarnate at 200p?

The excellent attack skills of these units need no introduction, and with the ST's white move modifier you can get through or by most terrain and immobilize tokens quite readily, and making the 7 init shift forward + move, followed by 3 + 1 speed should get you engaged with archers without being fired upon. Turning corners is also quite ok since you can reform then move 1.

3 hours ago, Maktorius said:

For the only purpose of winning a match, are there any reason not to play 5 2x1 Spined threshers with Devouring Maws and Ravos with Insatiable hunger, totalling 198p? Or Ravos with Fear incarnate at 200p?

The excellent attack skills of these units need no introduction, and with the ST's white move modifier you can get through or by most terrain and immobilize tokens quite readily, and making the 7 init shift forward + move, followed by 3 + 1 speed should get you engaged with archers without being fired upon. Turning corners is also quite ok since you can reform then move 1.

Hm. Lots to unpack here. I’m going to ignore Ravos for the moment as he’s been talked to Death about

Short answer: This is a big dumb “smash smash” list. If you play an opponent with a spread out army too clumsy to dodge, then you probably smash it flat. This is basically Uthuk’s version of KariThorne.

Long answer:

You are going to try to maneuver 5 different, 2 tray units (and 1 single tray) that are clumsy into melee. Sure, your overall damage output is insane on paper, but you are probably only going to bring 3 of the Threshers to bear at any one time in most cases. I have tried this, and the effective limit for getting units into melee against a packed army is around 6-7 trays wide (though they concede objectives to you in this scenario). If they spread out you can get a lot more to bear but risk....

Mobile armies will be flanking you all day. I’ve run Threshers on my flanks plenty of times and they are not maneuverable enough. I face a lot of 6 tray Leonx and they tend to do 9-12 damage head on and reliably 12+ damage on a flank. This means they win the charge war, kill a thresher, refuse to close in, and then win the charge war again next turn to kill that second tray.

Meagan will excel against this. Threshers are too slow on the turn and too linear to spread out effectively. You can’t counter-modify the runes, so say hello to nearly your entire army getting spraypainted every turn by her. You have no ranged attacks to hit her before you get through blockers.

Spearstars (god help you if they brought embedded Hawthorne) will one shot your units and you can only go “zug zug” as you charge them. Dispatch Runner makes it silly.

File leader makes infantry blocks able to kill a tray of any of your units when you charge and reduce your threat.

Executioner in a Reanimate Star will put that star in the realm of nearly always killing an entire unit in a swing.

But sure, bring that. You will totally never get your *** handed to you for running super specialized army incapable of easily responding to the wierd and the couple of hard counters.

36 minutes ago, Church14 said:

But sure, bring that. You will totally never get your *** handed to you for running super specialized army incapable of easily responding to the wierd and the couple of hard counters.

This. The three counters you mentioned are hardly ever run in my area, so I guess the Threshing Floor army is poised to strike. Of course, once it makes an appearance, you can bet that Maegan, Spearstars, and Executioner will come out to play.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Hm. Lots to unpack here. I’m going to ignore Ravos for the moment as he’s been talked to Death about

Short answer: This is a big dumb “smash smash” list. If you play an opponent with a spread out army too clumsy to dodge, then you probably smash it flat. This is basically Uthuk’s version of KariThorne.

Long answer:

You are going to try to maneuver 5 different, 2 tray units (and 1 single tray) that are clumsy into melee. Sure, your overall damage output is insane on paper, but you are probably only going to bring 3 of the Threshers to bear at any one time in most cases. I have tried this, and the effective limit for getting units into melee against a packed army is around 6-7 trays wide (though they concede objectives to you in this scenario). If they spread out you can get a lot more to bear but risk....

Mobile armies will be flanking you all day. I’ve run Threshers on my flanks plenty of times and they are not maneuverable enough. I face a lot of 6 tray Leonx and they tend to do 9-12 damage head on and reliably 12+ damage on a flank. This means they win the charge war, kill a thresher, refuse to close in, and then win the charge war again next turn to kill that second tray.

Meagan will excel against this. Threshers are too slow on the turn and too linear to spread out effectively. You can’t counter-modify the runes, so say hello to nearly your entire army getting spraypainted every turn by her. You have no ranged attacks to hit her before you get through blockers.

Spearstars (god help you if they brought embedded Hawthorne) will one shot your units and you can only go “zug zug” as you charge them. Dispatch Runner makes it silly.

File leader makes infantry blocks able to kill a tray of any of your units when you charge and reduce your threat.

Executioner in a Reanimate Star will put that star in the realm of nearly always killing an entire unit in a swing.

But sure, bring that. You will totally never get your *** handed to you for running super specialized army incapable of easily responding to the wierd and the couple of hard counters.

Firstly, as you concede youself, you are disregarding Ravos. A pretty big disregard in my experience.

Secondly, I'm pretty sure a 6 unit wide army, with the mobility I describe in the original post, will cover plenty of ground. And you mention that mobile armies will flank it all day, well, 6 units is as mentioned pretty wide, and most armies gets flanked by very mobile armies. Does Berserkers or Fleshrippers do a significantly better job of protecting the flanks?

Thirdly, I'm pretty sure Maegan can't splash a 6 unit wide army within a 4 range "globe", and I think you'll see her catched before long. Since every unit has 2 armor, and Meagan will have 3 surges in average, you have quite a different situation than against infantry and archers. Is it fair to call it 2 wounds (1 each on 2 units) per attack? How many of those will she trigger when hunted by this army?

Fourthly, spearstars limits the amount of units your enemy can bring. You will be outflanking them, and with this list you'll see those infantry trays melt for sure.

Fiftly, what Uthuk unit is not exposed of file leader. Even so, don't charge them then! Move in late and hit, probably even first if you have the initiative!

Executioner is problematic, I'll acknowledge that. But that upgrade is not good against any other faction! Even so, as long as you don't meet 4 executioners, those reanimates will not hold up long against these guys.

I still feel pretty confident you'll get a pretty convincing win rate with this list.

19 minutes ago, Maktorius said:

Firstly  , as you conced  e you  self, you are disregarding Ravos.   

Yeah. There has just been a lot said on him already.

19 minutes ago, Maktorius said:

armies  .  Does Berserkers or F  leshri  ppers  do  a signif  icantly better job of protecting the flanks?       

Berserkers?? Eh... Flesh Rippers, yes. Threshers have to be reactive when dealing with fast or super mobile units. The early movement is nice for winning short charges but it makes them vulnerable to late charges. This puts them at a disadvantage. If you play it right, it pays off, but the burden is on the Threshers. With Flesh Rippers (and Jukey will attest to this) I am on offense regardless of circumstance and forcing reactions. This lets me win the flanks more often. This applies even when I have a naked two tray Flesh Ripper going against a 6 tray LeonxStar.

19 minutes ago, Maktorius said:

I  st  ill feel pretty confident you'll get a pretty conv  incing win rate with this  list  .

Ignoring all player skill, I’d put this as a reliable 3rd to 4th place finish list at a big tourney. It is favorable to extremely favorable in a lot of matchups, but the bad matchups for it are really, really bad.

I have more thoughts later but I’m running out of time at lunch.

20 hours ago, Maktorius said:

Would anyone take bets against 3 Uthu  k and 1 Latari in the Nationals top 4?

(This is not a serious and therefore illegal proposition, just a speculative qu  e  stion

I'll see you and raise you an uthuk

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Berserkers?? Eh... Flesh Rippers, yes. Threshers have to be reactive when dealing with fast or super mobile units. The early movement is nice for winning short charges but it makes them vulnerable to late charges. This puts them at a disadvantage. If you play it right, it pays off, but the burden is on the Threshers. With Flesh Rippers (and Jukey will attest to this) I am on offense regardless of circumstance and forcing reactions. This lets me win the flanks more often. This applies even when I have a naked two tray Flesh Ripper going against a 6 tray LeonxStar.

Now admittedly I'm just theorycrafting here; but to my eyes the Threshers turn better (reform+move), and with the extra meat/armor, higher average damage ouput and panic tests, does not seem significantly worse in protecting flanks than Flesh Rippers.

But as a mainly Waiqar player, I have some experience drawing the short straw in charge duels, and it can suck. Actually lost a 2x1 Death Knight by one in a one-shot from a column tactic 3x1 Leonx the other night

Flesh rippers and Ravos always force the offensive in games church and I play. Typically, these threats can be dealt with within a turn or two with enough focus fire on them.

But then the threshers hit the fray. My army is usually trying to recover a collapsed flank and mostly in shambles when the threshers come in and clean house.

Lone threshers can be difficult to take on for anything under threat 3, even if you flank it, if it doesn’t die, it’s still going to get a reroll on its counter attack if you get panicked.

Uthuk really don’t protect their flanks, they collapse the flanks of their enemies. I still need to try a highly mobile Latari build with wind rune archers and lots of leonx to see if outmaneuvering uthuk is a thing. I’m waiting for my frontline darnati units first though.

Uthuk really do suck at trying to knock out infantry with any kind of armor up options (so far Daqan are the only ones able to really take advantage of this right now). I think wraiths will really **** with Ravos and threshers, and scouts are going to make uthuk feel their own speedy pain (especially when embedded kari starts chucking free damage everywhere). Darnati should hold back the flood long enough for Meagan to decimate the horde.

17 hours ago, Jukey said:

I think wraiths will really **** with Ravos and threshers...

Having actually been using wraiths for the past 5 months, I can tell you that they are in fact a mixed bag against uthuk. The extra wounds help, but they are squishy and Uthuk hit hard. Yeah, you can often get to the flank with them, but you can also easily flub your attack roll. When the threshers clap back it hurts and often is going to remove at least one threat making it difficult to finish the job. Plus, as you noted, they will likely get a re-roll even though you are flanking them, partially neutralizing the Wraith's defensive ability. You basically have to time your flank such that you are going to have initiative the next round, dial in a 4 init attack with a panic, and hope to roll well on both the charge and the follow up attack. If you can clear 10 damage with both attacks you pretty much dominate that engagement.... This requires quite a bit of timing, skill, and no shortage of luck though.

Ironically, we've not seen the Ravos vs Wraiths match up yet in our group because we have been proxying Kethra since December as well and the Uthuk players over here are in love with her (for good reason). I am not optimistic about the match up though. Feeling like a solid flank against him is likely, and could do some real damage if you roll well, but they will melt when he its back at initiative 3 with brutal and hit on the dial. He is reasonably likely to remove 2 trays and leave the unit crippled before it can get off a double attack next round, possibly even force a disengage and make the attack whiff. They very likely will need help to finish him off.

On 5/29/2018 at 10:25 AM, werdnaegni said:

Tabletop Admiral updated with Serrated Spines and Devouring Maw upgrade cards

Hey @werdnaegni thanks a ton for making and upkeeping this site. You have the best RW builder out there. I had a quick request for you however. Is it possible to add the tray size into the list?



This would help me a ton when I'm looking over other people's lists. It's hard to know how big the units are just by the cost.

6 minutes ago, Glucose98 said:

Hey @werdnaegni thanks a ton for making and upkeeping this site. You have the best RW builder out there. I had a quick request for you however. Is it possible to add the tray size into the list?



This would help me a ton when I'm looking over other people's lists. It's hard to know how big the units are just by the cost.

Even just the tray count would work.

3 hours ago, Glucose98 said:

Hey @werdnaegni thanks a ton for making and upkeeping this site. You have the best RW builder out there. I had a quick request for you however. Is it possible to add the tray size into the list?



This would help me a ton when I'm looking over other people's lists. It's hard to know how big the units are just by the cost.

3 hours ago, Aetheriac said:

Even just the tray count would work.

Okay I just did it. You might have to clear your cache for it to take effect. Enjoy!

2 minutes ago, werdnaegni said:

Okay I just did it. You might have to clear your cache for it to take effect. Enjoy!

Thanks a ton! that helps a lot

5 minutes ago, Glucose98 said:

Thanks a ton! that helps a lot

No problem! It was a great suggestion. I don't know why nobody had mentioned it before. Or maybe they did and I just missed it.