9 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

I just did the math on ST, and their basic attack averages to 1.78 hits, including the one reroll. 

I'm not a math person (or native english speaker), so my question might be stupid, but does this account for the dialed in hit?

23 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

I just did the math on ST, and their basic attack averages to 1.78 hits, including the one reroll. Everyone who has played Uthuk knows that you don't always get that reroll, but you often get it especially after the first turn because you'll end your activation and set up for the next round by handing out a panic token. For X-bows, incidentally, that also averages to 1.78 hits. 

Interesting!

EDIT: So if math is looking balanced, what's the issue? Is it the command tool options?

22 minutes ago, Maktorius said:

I'm not a math person (or native english speaker), so my question might be stupid, but does this account for the dialed in hit?

Someone has to charge and connect first. That charge won’t have the hit modifier. This is where comparisons break down. If two units swing at each other over multiple turns, that hit modifier comes into play. But then we are talking abstractly away from board state. There is some benefit in this, but not for saying a unit is better or worse absolutely. Rather we can say a unit is better or worse relatively, in what case we now know it is strategically bad to pair those units against each other.

The spines thresher is a masher in a way that no other siege unit is. It may hit with the same damage, but the health gives it staying power. The stun from scuttling horror helps it overpower whatever it is paired against.

Brutal means even when it loses a tray it’s combat effectiveness doesn’t diminish much.

what this generally means is you want to shoot out a tray on approach. That’s the best. The second best is hitting it with a unit that can do more than ten damage reliably.

what you don’t want to do is try to matchup evenly (you can’t), or try to block it (it will kill your blocker too fast).

i think much of the effectiveness is how all the units fit together. When five units are in your face all at once, what do you shoot? High health means you can’t bring it all down fast enough.

In my experience, taking a tray of Spined Threshers off before they engage is a tall order. To take that tray, a 3-threat unit will have to roll 4 hits or find a way to get lethal 1 on top of 3 hits. It's not impossible, but it's also nothing you can count on.

After seeing Corruption Rune in action, I think that will be a decent way to slow Spined Threshers, but it will need to be spammed. 3x Reanimate Archers with Rank Discipline and Corruption Rune? You'll need Ardus to make it cost effective, unless you want to take 2x2's with Combat Ingenuity instead of Rank Discipline. I can't quite get the list how I like it.

But back to the topic, I think it's the 5 wound threshold that pushes them over the top. That's my opinion.

Just trying to think this through a bit more.

I looked a bit at the other siege units. Rune Golems are brutal blue, which puts their initial charge average damage at 5.25 in a 28 point unit, close to that 5.34 (which was based on an initial reroll that may not yet have a panic token to trigger). Yet I've seen Golems maligned on the forums. Much of that is the limitations on their dial. Carrion Lancers get blight utility. The basic damage is less (3.5), and they have a hit on their dial for when the brawl happens (5.5), but much of their effectiveness is determined by how effective they end up being at blight. It doesn't take many lost dice before the battle turns significantly in their favor. The Scion is also in an odd place. It is the cheapest and weakest of the three siege units. It has the same 3.5/5.5 split that the Carrion Lancer gets, but how effective Scions are depends upon how effective you are at using your ranged attack (no other siege unit has one), whether you can hand out a critical stun, and how effective you are with the stuns. All of these units can be tough to handle in the right circumstances.

I think Parakitor has a fair point on rolling enough hits to knock a tray off. Since I play a lot of elves, it might happen for me with fire from multiple units. Getting 4-6 damage is pretty reasonable.

I also like the idea of corruption rune.

I feel the comparison to crossbows is too difficult to make because of the ranged/melee split. I can generally only expect to get two, maybe three shots off with crossbows each game because of the task of screening them from threats. That said, their damage output probably IS above the curve for their cost, so I don’t think you’d be crazy to say they’re too powerful.

Edit: the 3x1 that is

9 hours ago, Parakitor said:

In my experience, taking a tray of Spined Threshers off before they engage is a tall order. To take that tray, a 3-threat unit will have to roll 4 hits or find a way to get lethal 1 on top of 3 hits. It's not impossible, but it's also nothing you can count on.

After seeing Corruption Rune in action, I think that will be a decent way to slow Spined Threshers, but it will need to be spammed. 3x Reanimate Archers with Rank Discipline and Corruption Rune? You'll need Ardus to make it cost effective, unless you want to take 2x2's with Combat Ingenuity instead of Rank Discipline. I can't quite get the list how I like it.

But back to the topic, I think it's the 5 wound threshold that pushes them over the top. That's my opinion.

That's why the 5-threat reanimates is appealing. Now every 2 hits is a dead thresher. Much easier

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 1:33 PM, Maktorius said:

You are probably familiar with the abundant discussions on this topic. But I'm interested to hear, when you so decisivly state that "they are not even close to too strong", what your thoughts are on the power level of Spined threshers is compared to what the other factions have for an equal cost? To me more precise, let's say the 2x1 with scuttling horror?

My thought is that the threshers are probably the best unit you can get for those points. That does not make them too strong and in need of a nerf. If you look at straight points every faction will have a unit that is best in their class at those points, but luckily those units don't do anything in a vacuum (unless you are going one on one with threshers vs equal points of archers in which case you deserve to get smoked). If you are having a lot of trouble with scuttling horror, I have to ask, have you tried using terrain with 0 capacity. It sounds like a "no duh" statement, but I've seen a lot of people get rolled by scuttling threshers because of the ability to jump in and out of terrain so fast. I know when I've had trouble with them, that was one of the big problems. Once I get them into blocking terrain and my blockers, my crossbow men can put down some serious damage on them fast. Only two armor means very little wasted damage. Focused fire is super useful against them.

1 hour ago, TallTonyB said:

If you are having a lot of trouble with scuttling horror, I have to ask, have you tried using terrain with 0 capacity. It sounds like a "no duh" statement, but I've seen a lot of people get rolled by scuttling threshers because of the ability to jump in and out of terrain so fast. I know when I've had trouble with them, that was one of the big problems. Once I get them into blocking terrain and my blockers, my crossbow men can put down some serious damage on them fast.

My problem with this statement is that it inherently supports a tournament mindset. A tournament player will gladly alter the terrain deck by removing terrain with any capacity above 0. However, thematic, for-fun players will be sad to lose all the interesting terrain. So then the response is for casuals to just not use Scuttling Horror. Well, that's fair enough, but in my experience, Spined Threshers suck the fun out of casual games whether they have Scuttling Horror ir not.

8 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

My problem with this statement is that it inherently supports a tournament mindset. A tournament player will gladly alter the terrain deck by removing terrain with any capacity above 0. However, thematic, for-fun players will be sad to lose all the interesting terrain. So then the response is for casuals to just not use Scuttling Horror. Well, that's fair enough, but in my experience, Spined Threshers suck the fun out of casual games whether they have Scuttling Horror ir not.

I was just looking at it from a tournament perspective, because usually when conversations revolve around balance thats what is being discussed, but you are not wrong, for casual games that isn't much of a viable counter, especially for people that like to just pull from the whole deck. Unfortunately I don't really have a good idea for a fix for casual games. I usually play my casual games using tourney rules also just for uniformity.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Uthuk at the moment. They feel so powerful that they aren't any fun to play with in casual games.

2 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Uthuk at the moment. They feel so powerful that they aren't any fun to play with in casual games.

Our casual games around here don’t give that vibe at all. We bring the best we can think of and enjoy always trying to find a way to make it better. If a faction is too powerful, we put it on the table and break it. If the match goes really lopsided then we do a postmortem and figure out how to stop it from happening again.

sure, we have silly games, but a strong friendly competitive vibe most of the time.

That is why I was jabbering (not very eloquently) to Parakitor at NA champs about Leonx vs Threshers. We initially found Leonx just got smoked by threshers. It looked bad. But, eventually, we worked out some basics on when to commit and not to. You sit at range and move in cautiously. The I6 double shifts help enormously. Especially since reform for Threshers is at I5,so you can react to that and shift out of charge zones. Eventually you finally commit when you can guarantee a flank charge. The extra die gets you in reach of that 10 damage needed to kill a Thresher.

Wait, was that Parakitor there with the Waiqar?

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

That is why I was jabbering (not very eloquently) to Parakitor at NA champs about Leonx vs Threshers. We initially found Leonx just got smoked by threshers. It looked bad. But, eventually, we worked out some basics on when to commit and not to. You sit at range and move in cautiously. The I6 double shifts help enormously. Especially since reform for Threshers is at I5,so you can react to that and shift out of charge zones. Eventually you finally commit when you can guarantee a flank charge. The extra die gets you in reach of that 10 damage needed to kill a Thresher.

What have you guys found with Metered March? That would seem to help immensely with the process you describe.

25 minutes ago, kaffis said:

Wait, was that Parakitor there with the Waiqar?

No, I think he got confused. Who was it? I can't remember.

2 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

No, I think he got confused. Who was it? I can't remember.

I think it was a Justin. Like half the field was a Justin.

1 hour ago, Vergilius said:

What have you guys found with Metered March? That would seem to help immensely with the process you describe.

I enjoy the **** out of it on leonx. In my experience it makes leonx the ultimate unit at choosing when it starts fighting, which is very feline fluff.

The trouble with leonx is they are just so excited to scurry across the battlefield, as they are one of the fastest initiative charging units in the game, especially with raven taberds. This gets the cats into trouble sometimes as they find themselves surrounded by enemies and no allies nearby due to underestimating the length of a march.

Metered march is a great fix for over-eager cats. It makes inching towards an opponent very easy, and the white reform becomes quite useful. Again, very thematic to a cat, stalking its prey, until at the optimal moment, it strikes.

I haven't been using it lately as I got frustrated by Ravos and rippers catching them anyway. Its been a while though, and I understand uthuk much better, so it might be time to bring back metered march.

1 hour ago, kaffis said:

I think it was a Justin. Like half the field was a Justin.

Dustin

50 minutes ago, Jukey said:

I enjoy the **** out of it on leonx. In my experience it makes leonx the ultimate unit at choosing when it starts fighting, which is very feline fluff.

The trouble with leonx is they are just so excited to scurry across the battlefield, as they are one of the fastest initiative charging units in the game, especially with raven taberds. This gets the cats into trouble sometimes as they find themselves surrounded by enemies and no allies nearby due to underestimating the length of a march.

Metered march is a great fix for over-eager cats. It makes inching towards an opponent very easy, and the white reform becomes quite useful. Again, very thematic to a cat, stalking its prey, until at the optimal moment, it strikes.

I haven't been using it lately as I got frustrated by Ravos and rippers catching them anyway. Its been a while though, and I understand uthuk much better, so it might be time to bring back metered march.

I just put a new list on the table tonight after the Darnati got here. Although I think basically every Latari list I've fielded has had some cats, I wouldn't say I'd mastered them. I've had long-standing discussion with a friend of mine in which we noted that Metered March seems to be an upgrade of choice that opens tons of possibilities with them. I hadn't quite considered the ramifications of it. There was one point in the game where my opponent really had a jump on me with Death Knights, and I thought, but didn't quite choose at the table, of putting a initiative 3 march, use metered march to creep up fractionally, and then shift back. He'd have missed the charge, and I'd have won it the next round.

All in all, a lot of fun.

13 hours ago, TallTonyB said:

My thought is that the threshers are probably the best unit you can get for those points. That does not make them too strong and in need of a nerf. If you look at straight points every faction will have a unit that is best in their class at those points, but luckily those units don't do anything in a vacuum (unless you are going one on one with threshers vs equal points of archers in which case you deserve to get smoked). If you are having a lot of trouble with scuttling horror, I have to ask, have you tried using terrain with 0 capacity. It sounds like a "no duh" statement, but I've seen a lot of people get rolled by scuttling threshers because of the ability to jump in and out of terrain so fast. I know when I've had trouble with them, that was one of the big problems. Once I get them into blocking terrain and my blockers, my crossbow men can put down some serious damage on them fast. Only two armor means very little wasted damage. Focused fire is super useful against them.

I've had a problem with the ST's since they were released, Scuttling horror and Devouring maw are just gravy

I don't see how you can think that it is without problems when a unit can "easily" be singled out as the best in the game? I mean is there still anyone who does not think ST's are the best unit? There even was a regional where someone won playing just Spined threshers with a whopping 14p bid! I bet you can't do that with crossbows or anything else. I know that some people enjoy that, so as always I'm just pushing my own subjective point. I think it's way better (and fun for me) when it's "murky". Look at infantry, is there a clearly best unit that almost everyone agrees on? In cavalry?

I will admit that I had expected Uthuk to dominate nationals and Gen-con even more. So I might be wrong, but just looking at the threshers (comparing to what else is out there) makes me go "Whaaat!" every time. Yes you should not look at stuff in a vacuum, but these guys are off the top, vacuum or not.

Edit: And you write that "focused fire is great against them". In a game with quite a limited number of activations, having to shoot many times at the same target is only great for one of the players, the one who controlls the target! Each unit should have a real weakness, and that one is not one. I fully agree with, as others have pointed out, that the Spined threshers should have had only 4 health.

Fluffwise, the spined thresher does what its model implies it should do. It's a 4 mouthed, beefy, crab-person. As such, it should cause panic and mayhem wherever it goes.

I just wish the designers had made it cost more. Threshers are cheap enough to squeeze them into any uthuk build and rest easy knowing they'll make their points back. I know there are corner cases where threshers get plowed, but it's not often.

I like the unit all around gameplaywise, and wouldn't ask for any mechanics to change, if it wasn't all so underpriced.

At 22 pts, just to throw it out there, they would still do more damage than rippers do for the same price. Give a healthy 9 point drop and put 2x1 at 35 pts. Still a very useful, playable unit at a fair cost, and has an equal damage pool as a reanimate 3x2.

On 8/6/2018 at 2:39 PM, kaffis said:

What are your thoughts on our maneuvering an opponent who is faster than you and had options available on nearly unit to ignore immobilize, choose whether or not to turn before moving, and otherwise react at time of activation when their opponent has to predict future board states when planning how to out maneuver Uthuk?

I mean, it sounds good on paper until you realize that Uthuk maneuver very well already, and get to make their choices nearer to the time of action than the other contender for "the maneuverable faction".

Ravos, the Flesh Rippers, and the Spined Threshers have a lot of trouble turning. They are very very fast in a straight line, but if you can get on the sides of them with ranged units, they basically have to take a turn off just to turn and face you instead of just charging in and swinging.

On 8/6/2018 at 2:39 PM, kaffis said:

What are your thoughts on our maneuvering an opponent who is faster than you and had options available on nearly unit to ignore immobilize, choose whether or not to turn before moving, and otherwise react at time of activation when their opponent has to predict future board states when planning how to out maneuver Uthuk?

I mean, it sounds good on paper until you realize that Uthuk maneuver very well already, and get to make their choices nearer to the time of action than the other contender for "the maneuverable faction".

Ravos, the Flesh Rippers, and the Spined Threshers have a lot of trouble turning. They are very very fast in a straight line, but if you can get on the sides of them with ranged units, they basically have to take a turn off just to turn and face you instead of just charging in and swinging.

On 8/6/2018 at 2:39 PM, kaffis said:

What are your thoughts on our maneuvering an opponent who is faster than you and had options available on nearly unit to ignore immobilize, choose whether or not to turn before moving, and otherwise react at time of activation when their opponent has to predict future board states when planning how to out maneuver Uthuk?

I mean, it sounds good on paper until you realize that Uthuk maneuver very well already, and get to make their choices nearer to the time of action than the other contender for "the maneuverable faction".

Ravos, the Flesh Rippers, and the Spined Threshers have a lot of trouble turning. They are very very fast in a straight line, but if you can get on the sides of them with ranged units, they basically have to take a turn off just to turn and face you instead of just charging in and swinging.

18 minutes ago, Tarquillaman3285 said:

Ravos, the Flesh Rippers, and the Spined Threshers have a lot of trouble turning. They are very very fast in a straight line, but if you can get on the sides of them with ranged units, they basically have to take a turn off just to turn and face you instead of just charging in and swinging.

Compared to Latari yes, but you can't say that after playing Daqan and Waiqar!

Someone is probably the worst and someone the best in each part of the game. Being second best out of 4 is not a weakness.

So tell me instead what they do worse (or shared worse) than any other faction!