Hello Rune Warriors!

We are back! Just our luck Fantasy Flight dropped a huge article on the Uthuk right after we recorded our last episode, but we have you covered this time! Tom walks us through and you can get our thoughts on Beastmaster Th’Uk Tar, Viper Legions and the Obscenes. Then Gabe gives us a rundown of his local store’s tournament, and you’ll never guess the winning list! Lastly we talk new tournament rules, and Tom extends a special invite to everyone out there.

https://runecasters.net/2018/07/24/episode-26-thuk-tar/

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Great podcast as usual!

Regarding the tournament report with the 6 2x1 Spined threshers with scuttling horror and 14p bid; I was off a little bit, predicting Devouring maw would do it and that you would have to put Ravos in as well

Hm. Fun sprediction after these podcasts about Beastmaster and Gorgemaw:

Their left dial will have a late (I6 or so) Gold melee with a matching gold melee on the right. A bit of a reach, but I also think they’ll have an I5 or so golden shift-1 on the left dial as well.

I think they’ll still have an early (I3-ish) Red melee with some matching non-damage modifier. Maybe a morale. That makes them really bad at hurting armor but good against infantry. Seems appropriate for a dude using something’s Spine as a whip.

4 hours ago, Church14 said:

Their left dial wil  l have a late  (I6 or so)  Gold melee with a matchin  g gold melee on th  e right. A bi   t of a re  ach  , but I also thin  k th  ey’ll have an  I5 o  r so gold  en shift-1 on th  e left dial as well.

A double attack from that dude would be scary! Also seems like every (or almost every) hero gets an I5 or 6 shift. I actually hope he is an armor breaker giving the struggles Uthuk have beating armor. It seems like Uthuk non-heroes = bad vs armor, so heroes need to be good against armor to balance that out.

7 hours ago, Maktorius said:

Great podcast as usual!

Regardi  ng the tournament  report with t  he 6 2x1 Spined thresher  s with scuttling horror and 14p bid;  I was off a little bit, predicting De  vouring maw would do it and  that you would  have to put Ravos in as well

Thanks, I appreciate the support!
My list for the vassal tournament is actually 5 2x1 ST with Scuttling and Ravos with IH. Also the terrain is really important, so I took 3 pieces of terrain the hold 2 trays. I think terrain is going to be important for extending your movement and maximizing the potential of Scuttling Horror.

58 minutes ago, flightmaster101 said:

A  double    attack from that dude would be scary! Also seems like every (or almost every) hero gets an I5 or 6 shift. I actually hope he is an armor breaker giving the struggles Uthuk have beating armor. It seems like Uthuk non-hero  es = bad vs armor, so heroes need to be good a   gainst armor to balance that out.  

Not really that scary. Everything below is assuming no damage related modifier dialed in.

Beastmaster averages something like 2.1-2.2 damage before you look at the mortal strike on the white die. He peaks at 4. AFAIK, that is the worst average for a hero in the game. A double attack puts him at 4-4.5 ish average. That is closer to expected for a <40 Hero.

Gorgemaw is all the same except add 1 Damage for Lethal per attack. Averaging 6-6.5 damage during a double attack is a good way to kill infantry and not as terrible as Beastmaster at busting armor.

4 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Beastmaster averag  es somethin  g like 2.1-2.2 d  amage befo  re you loo  k at the mortal strike on the white die. H   e  peaks at  4   . 

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a unique that adds lethal or brutal now that you bring this up. Or maybe that's an idea for the double unique card that can only go on Gorgemaw.

Man all this speculation is driving me crazy! I want my toys now!

How is Uthuk worse at armorbreaking then Latari or Daquan?

16 minutes ago, Datskor said:

How is Uthuk worse at armorbreaking then Latari or Daquan?

Great question. I use flesh rippers as a great example of this problem. Flesh rippers have a surge plus for damage and then the hits they roll on the dice. Because of how combat is seqenced the surge damage does not sum with your damage pool. So you get to use your armor twice, once to defend the surge damage, and then again to defend against the damage pool.

ex. A Lancer at 3/3 gets charged by a 2x1 flesh ripper. FR rolls Red hit, Blue double surge and blue hit. So 2 damage from your surge ability... plinks off armor. Then 2 threat x 2 hits does 4 damage = 1 wound. Now if they summed you would have 2 damage plus 4 damage = 6 damage = 2 wounds. So your flesh rippers literally left a wound on the table.

37 minutes ago, Datskor said:

How is Uthuk worse at armorbreaking then Latari or Daquan?

Flight master just summed it up well, but a more generic way to see it:

Good for busting armor:

-Surges/text that add mortal strikes

-Surges/text that adds hits to the damage pool before it gets multiplied by threat

-Surge/text that add lethal. Not *** good as hits, but something

-Any ability that general keeps adding to a single lump sum damage total.

Uthuk berserkers sort of get this, but they lose HP to do it. Threshers don’t get anything. Rippers’ surge is a separate damage pool than the dice roll. Ravos gets his surge and his hunger. Kethra gets a surge modifier on the dial, 2 white dice to fish for mortals, and that’s it.

Another example is Kari vs Kethra for their surge. Kari has Surge+, so it lumps into a big damage pool that can exceed armor. Kethra resolves many instances of 2 damage. Kari can hurt anything in the game with surges. Kethra cannot Burt anything that has 3+ armor.

I see that it can be frustrating to get blocked dammage but same rolls with oathsworn and you get the same result.

I get that fleshrippers is bad vs armor but thats a far cry from the entire faction beeing weak vs armor. Berserkers get a hit-modifyer and can get exstra leathal to do a wound, threshers are brutal.

Berserkers are the strongest infantery vs armor IMO. Khetra has mortal on her dile, im not convinced that Uthuk is phunished more by armor than other factions.

I haven't been dismayed by playing against armor so far. In quite a few games now against Lancers, I have not had much trouble with them. Threshers kill a worm each swing on average, with a full wound left over if you can flank. I have had success also with the 4 tray Rippers with Dead Sprint and Rank - get them in to position so that their activation march collides, take the panic, then swing with the surge/panic mod, and you can usually do two wounds, possibly even three if you are flanking. Rank makes a huge difference - if you are short a surge, you can hunt for it, or reroll for hits if necessary. Yes, sometimes you leave excess damage on the table, but I haven't noticed it feeling problematic so far - maybe due to the strength of the faction overall (as @Datskor ) mentions.

It would be interesting to see, across all factions, how much damage they leave on the table due to high armor units. I'm curious what the results would look like, so I might try tracking my games if I can for a while to see what I come up with.

And they cause potentially serious morale checks, which can be pretty devastating for a Wormstar.

49 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Threshers don’t get anyth  ing.

In fairness they do get brutal, which is pretty good at dealing out damage.

14 minutes ago, FranquesEnbiens said:

And they cause potentially serious morale checks, which can be pretty devastating for a Wormstar.   

Also this is a good thing to do as well. And when a Wormstar attacks itself you literally see the player making his own morale check :P

1 minute ago, flightmaster101 said:

In fairness they do get brutal, which is pretty good at dealing out damage.

Also this is a good thing to do as well. And when a Wormstar attacks itself you literally see the player making his own morale check

Yeah. The good vs armor or not really applies to small units. At a certain point, you do enough damage to not worry about it.

Nobody complains that Spearmen don’t have an armor busting ability when the spearstar rolls 15-20 damage and just flattens the target.

5 minutes ago, flightmaster101 said:

In fairness they do get brutal, which is pretty good at dealing out damage.

Also this is a good thing to do as well. And when a Wormstar attacks itself you literally see the player making his own morale check 

The Wormstar is also real sad about turning around and fleeing

In case anyone is curious, based on average damage rolls, with damage modifiers when possible, and not including special abilities or upgrades, I wanted to see how much damage would be wasted against Armor 3 targets according to the numbers. I'd be very interested to see how this compared to actual in-game action.

I looked at the basic Infantry (melee), Cavalry, and Siege units at all their tray sizes, and categorized it into three groups: wasting less than 1 damage, wasting at least 1 but less than 2, and wasting more than 2. Here's what I came up with:

And a few other items of note:

-Adding Rank Discipline to the 4 and 6 tray Rippers bumps them from wasting 2 or more to less than 1.

-Daqan Spearstar with CWM and FLRG takes them to the "wastes at least 1 but less than 2" category, but obviously it does more damage.

-Six tray Oathsworn reformed to 3 wide, and four tray reformed to 4 wide, both with Rank Discipline, go from wasting 2 or more to less than 1.

An interesting list ? altough a bit spessific.

3 hours ago, Church14 said:

Threshers  don’t get   any    thing  

Ok...

Edit:

To clarify: One would think that a 28p unit that without help can be expected to dish out 2-3 wounds per attack on armoured targets could be considered a pretty good armour buster, but we all have different standards I guess.

On 7/26/2018 at 11:42 AM, Church14 said:

Kethra gets a surge modifier on the dial, 2 white dice to fish for mortals, and that’s it.

Kethra also has a skill that deals direct wounds and can be used from across the board and a mortal on her dial. She is objectively (behind Ravos) the second best armor buster in the game.

Not sure where the "Uthuk is bad against armor" talk ever got started. Flesh Rippers are bad against armor. Spined threshers deal enough damage that they just don't worry about it. Berserkers ability to take a wound or two and push up their damage to the next wound on an armored unit is really good. A 2x1 can roll blank-blank with hit on the dial and still get to 4 damage...

35 minutes ago, QuickWhit said:

direct wounds

Equal to the roll on a white die. 5/12 to get any hits and 1/12 to get a double (yes i'm defending uthuk, no im not happy about it), and I dont think there's no reroll so not too scary.

White dice are 8/12 hits...

53 minutes ago, QuickWhit said:

Kethra also has a skill that deals direct wounds and can be used from across the board and a mortal on her dial. She is objectively (behind Ravos) the second best armor buster in the game.

Not sure where the "Uthuk is bad against armor" talk ever got started. Flesh Rippers are bad against armor. Spined threshers deal enough damage that they just don't worry about it. Berserkers ability to take a wound or two and push up their damage to the next wound on an armored unit is really good. A 2x1 can roll blank-blank with hit on the dial and still get to 4 damage...

I did forget the mortal on her dial when I typed that. Her skill (as I admittedly haven’t proxied) looks like a huge perception of threat over true threat. It averages .75 wounds over time and only causes a wound 2/3rd of the time. It is potent with a bonkers upper limit on potential, but not super reliable at any single point in time like the dialed in Mortal Strike is. I find it kind of silly that a community that generally values Rank Discipline so highly wants to suggest that rolling a single white die and looking for hits is a good plan.

Reaping Blade Aliana should beat out Kethra for wounds to a single target. A higher max and higher average. Only 3 points more.

Doing enough damage that armor and Wounds just act like HP has always been a caveat. Yes, Threshers can get up there.

The “Uthuk are bad at busting armor” has come from Uthuk players who have realized that high armor armies are their toughest opponents. That is a result of a lot of Uthuk armies running 2x1 Thresher (which easily get dropped to 2 threat) and Rippers (bad at busting armor regardless of unit size). If you survive a swing from Uthuk and can hit back hard even once, you have a good counter. Uthuk armies start losing damage output fast. At the moment I would say faster than any other army.

They aren’t popular now, but a high armor Daqan list counters everything Uthuk have to offer at the moment. They activate earlier, clear panic as easy as anyone can, and then armor up before Uthuk can swing. Large formations of infantry also bog down Ravos so he becomes an inefficient use of points.

I have only tested Kethra once, so my evidence is based on very limited information, but her skill action was quite good. I wanted to see what would happen if she just hung out in a corner - I think she shot once all game (I had Bonecaster on her). Her ability made it very scary for Maegan and Aliana to come near any of my units, and her skill action probably did 8 or 9 wounds over the course of the game. She brought down some Scions, and then put a hurt on Aliana and Maegan when they finally had to come in and start fighting.

I typically don't like abilities without rerolls, but this one still seems pretty good, and is on a unit that looks like she has some other good capabilities aside from the skill action. I don't know how she will pan out once she is released, but I think right now that if you aren't yet scared of her skill action...

24 minutes ago, FranquesEnbiens said:

White dice are 8/12 hits...

Wiki has it listed like this:

• 1 x blank (8.3% chance)
• 1 x mortal strike (8.3% chance)
• 3 x hit (25% chance)
• 1 x hit-hit (8.3% chance)
• 2 x hit-surge (16.7% chance)
• 1 x hit-accuracy (8.3% chance)
• 1 x hit-morale (8.3% chance)
• 1 x surge-surge (8.3% chance)
• 1 x surge-morale (8.3% chance)

So of course i counted by line instead of looking at the multiples... what a dummy ?