1 minute ago, Maktorius said:

Maybe compared to Latari, but you can't say that after playing Daqan and Waiqar! Tell me instead what they do worse than any faction!

I am on the side that Uthuk are on the strong end of the spectrum. And honestly, I can't really think of any glaring thing any other faction has on them except versatility and range, which don't really count. Except for Kethra and Fire Rune, Uthuk have absolutely zero range options, which hurts sometimes. The other thing I noticed about them is that 96% of their upgrades are all based on attacking/charging/doing damage, meaning there's not a ton of ways to build them. But again, I agree with you that these are not true 'weaknesses'

37 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.

Honestly, I strenuously disagree. Sure, they don't have wheels on their dials, but Dead Sprint, Insatiable Hunger, and terrain shenanigans with their pre-activation moves make an three quite reasonably able to react to their target trying to dodge their charge to the side. If what you were saying about their base weakness weren't so completely counteracted and turned into strengths with cheap upgrades, I would be much happier with their balance.

5 hours ago, Jukey said:

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.

This is an interesting thought, and I don't know why I've written it off. At first I didn't like the idea of one faction having a really expensive surge unit, but it's probably fair. I think we're all in agreement that 2x1 Spined Threshers is stronger than 2x1 Rune Golems. So why should they be priced the same? I like the point increase you've proposed. I just wonder if the 2x2 and 3x2 need to be adjusted. Did you realize that there is a 22 point difference between 2x1 and 2x2 Rune Golems?

Anyway, I'm not a game designer/developer, so I can't make informed opinions on point costs. And once you change their points, you start to think, "Hey, Rune Golems could sure use some help..."

7 hours ago, Maktorius said:

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.

There will always be a "best unit in the game", that will never change, there always has to be one best, thats how best works. The difference in your opinion vs mine is that I don't think "best unit in the game" necessarily means "so strong it needs a nerf". At worlds there was three players using Latari, they took 1st, 2nd, 3rd in swiss. Where are the people complaining about Latari being OP? At gen con Uthuk took 1st and 2nd, but there was 4 Uthuk that didn't even make top 6 out of 16. They all had threshers. I will say it again, a unit being strong and good for it's points does not automatically mean it needs a nerf. TGall is a great player no matter what faction he is running, took second at gen con, and yet our last league game I pulled out a pretty good victory against his Uthuk. He had threshers then too. Church won gencon and the FFG regional, I have not seen him play other factions, but I'm betting he isn't garbage with them You put a strong unit/faction into the hands of a great player, they will seem OP and unbeatable some times, doesn't mean its the unit.

One other thing I've noticed with threshers, it is fairly easy to get them hung up on themselves, so only one unit of them can get through to you at once if you use the terrain to your advantage and get good positioning. Every time I have had success against them, that's why. Then you burn them done fast with a couple units at once. Thats what I mean by focused fire. The first time I played against threshers I was super worried about them, then I was amazed by how fast they could burn down to a couple of crossbow groups.

1 minute ago, TallTonyB said:

Then you burn them done fast with a couple units at once. Thats what I mean by focused fire. The first time I played against threshers I was super worried about them, then I was amazed by how fast they could burn down to a couple of crossbow groups.

It's worth pointing out that suggesting the answer to a unit is to take two ranged units at threat 3 isn't viable advice for all players. Daqan are the only faction able to follow this advice using less than 40% of their points. Other big offensive threats are either fragile glass cannons that can be destroyed without focusing multiple units (enabling favorable matchups with some melee units, too) or have large enough footprints to make engaging with multiple melee units feasible. Threshers have a two tray footprint casting their offensive power, and Scuttle makes countercharging a flank to engage with multiple units either difficult or impossible even if you can maneuver in close quarters around that small unit to get the second unit's charge to land.

One thing I’m noticing with Uthuk is that I can only really effectively get 8 trays wide worth of melee units on target in the same time period. In the case of my Gencon list, Ravos (1), 2X Zoidberg (4) and 9 tray Berserkers (3). The Rippers didn’t often dive into combat or if they did it was turns later/earlier. I looked at other lists I’ve run that work and it’s always around 8. So without tricks, that seems to be about the upper limit on effective melee to me.

Brutal and Column Tactics can sort of inflate this 8’s effectiveness. So my list was 8 wide but acted like 12. Brutal was rather effective for me in this case.

This isn’t a fleshed out theory with potential ways to apply it for others. Just a bit of pattern recognition.

For reference, the melee width of the top 5 lists after Swiss were:

Me: 10 (14) - but 2 trays rarely were focused on melee

TGall: 10 (13 w/Dispatch) - I’m guessing TGall had a similar experience of 2 trays worth of width usually had trouble getting on target

Justin C : 7 (10-11)

Alain: 7 (lots of ranged)

Dustin: Sort of 5 (all capable of ranged)

26 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

There   will always be a "best unit in the game", that will never change, there always has to be one best, thats how best works   .      

Naturally this is true, but it does not mean that one unit must be superior / play in another legue / have a ton of posts (relative to the size of the community) where people feel it's out of whack etc.

26 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

You  put  a  strong    unit/faction into the hands of a great player, they will seem OP and unbeatable some times, doesn't mean its  the  unit  .      

This naturally true as well, and I'm certain both finalists are stellar players, I am not commenting on them or their performance. My opinion was formed and have been expressed (on this forum) for a "long" time, they are based mainly on my own experience, but of course also on tournament results.

28 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

One  other   thing I've noticed with threshers, it is fairly easy to get them hung up on themselves, so only one unit of them can get through to you at once if you use the terrain to your advantage and get good positioning. Every time I have had success against them, that's  why.  Then you burn them done fast with a couple units at once. Thats what I mean by focused fire. The first time I  played against threshers I was super worried about   them, then I was amazed by how fast they could   burn down to a couple of crossbow groups.

I don't see how this is different than most other units? If something, Scuttling horror should make them superior in handling this!

Sorry for handling this like a debate

34 minutes ago, kaffis said:

It's worth pointing out that suggesting the answer to a unit is to take two ranged units at threat 3 isn't viable advice for all players. Daqan are the only faction able to follow this advice using less than 40% of their points. Other big offensive threats are either fragile glass cannons that can be destroyed without focusing multiple units (enabling favorable matchups with some melee units, too) or have large enough footprints to make engaging with multiple melee units feasible. Threshers have a two tray footprint casting their offensive power, and Scuttle makes countercharging a flank to engage with multiple units either difficult or impossible even if you can maneuver in close quarters around that small unit to get the second unit's charge to land.

It's worth pointing out that I never suggested that that was the only answer. I was saying thats how I have had success against them.

31 minutes ago, Maktorius said:

Naturally this is true, but it does not mean that one unit must be superior / play in another legue / have a ton of posts (relative to the size of the community) where people feel it's out of whack etc.

This naturally true as well, and I'm certain both finalists are stellar players, I am not commenting on them or their performance. My opinion was formed and have been expressed (on this forum) for a "long" time, they are based mainly on my own experience, but of course also on tournament results.

I don't see how this is different than most other units? If something, Scuttling horror should make them superior in handling this!

Sorry for handling this like a debate

Oh, no, don't apologize for that. I like a good spirited debate. Sorry if I come across as as an ******* sometimes (it's because I am an ******* ). Really all I am saying is that I hear a lot of crying for nerf already and I don't get that. Strong is one thing, Too strong is something else. But know that I'm not dismissing your opinions at all. You make good points.

Haha, fair. But it does seem to be the best answer, and it's one that requires a lot of resources to counter a ~thirty point unit for many armies. If you're using focused ranged, it's likely the Threshers aren't killing the points being used to counter them, but when it's three times as many as they represent themselves (2x 3x2 Reanimate Archers), there's a serious problem with opportunity cost as the Uthuk player can direct the other 3/4s+ of their army against half of what remains of their opponent until the Threshers are dead...

13 hours ago, kaffis said:

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

So I'm not the only one who noticed this?

Yeah, Wade on the OP team was super confused looking at the pairings, three Justins and a Dustin out of 16 people.

1 minute ago, TallTonyB said:

Yeah, Wade on the OP team was super confused looking at the pairings, three Justins and a Dustin out of 16 people.

Seems to me like the correct fix to all of this is to nerf Justins.

25 minutes ago, Glucose98 said:

Seems to me like the correct fix to all of this is to nerf Justins.

THIS

34 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

One other thing I've noticed with threshers, it is fairly easy to get them hung up on themselves, so only one unit of them can get through to you at once if you use the terrain to your advantage and get good positioning. Every time I have had success against them, that's why. Then you burn them done fast with a couple units at once. Thats what I mean by focused fire. The first time I played against threshers I was super worried about them, then I was amazed by how fast they could burn down to a couple of crossbow groups.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but it seems like the crux of this argument is "play better than your opponent." And I mean, yeah, sure, that's a good plan, but I always try to come at a situation assuming my opponent is at least as good as me, so "just be better" isn't useful advice, especially in the context of a unit that is vastly better able to take advantage of terrain than most. Further, "outmaneuver and bring overwhelming force to bear" is effective against literally every unit in the game: my position, and I believe the position of many others here, is that Threshers present too strong and versatile a threat for their cost . If my opponent has to expend considerable, disproportionate effort to deal with my 31 point unit, I've gained an advantage in board control and positioning.

Like, can we at least agree that Scuttling Horror gives WAY too much value for 3 points? To be clear, I don't expect FFG to errata a nerf, but we can still acknowledge when things are above the curve (Crossbows and Kari, for example).

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

One thing I’m noticing with Uthuk is that I can only really effectively get 8 trays wide worth of melee units on target in the same time period. In the case of my Gencon list, Ravos (1), 2X Zoidberg (4) and 9 tray Berserkers (3). The Rippers didn’t often dive into combat or if they did it was turns later/earlier. I looked at other lists I’ve run that work and it’s always around 8. So without tricks, that seems to be about the upper limit on effective melee to me.

Brutal and Column Tactics can sort of inflate this 8’s effectiveness. So my list was 8 wide but acted like 12. Brutal was rather effective for me in this case.

This isn’t a fleshed out theory with potential ways to apply it for others. Just a bit of pattern recognition.

For reference, the melee width of the top 5 lists after Swiss were:

Me: 10 (14) - but 2 trays rarely were focused on melee

TGall: 10 (13 w/Dispatch) - I’m guessing TGall had a similar experience of 2 trays worth of width usually had trouble getting on target

Justin C : 7 (10-11) 

Alain: 7 (lots of ranged)

Dustin: Sort of 5 (all capable of ranged) 

Really interesting findings. Justin C is a personal friend, and we've talked lists for almost a year. Using your calculation of width, he should be at 8, 10 if you count anything Brutal, going to 13 with Dispatch.

I think the Wildcard is the Latari, who don't have a lot of Brutal, and without Darnati, not a lot of melee width options, but have all sorts of flexibility with ranged.

We could probably however deduce some kind of formula for expected damage during the ideal rounds when all or almost all of the units are still on the table. Say an expected damage on the charge and an expected damage on the follow-up. Beyond that, whether it maintains itself or falls apart is going to depend upon how the players played it, who won the initiative charges, and so forth.

59 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

Really interesting findings. Justin C is a personal friend, and we've talked lists for almost a year. Using your calculation of width, he should be at 8, 10 if you count anything Brutal, going to 13 with Dispatch.

I think the Wildcard is the Latari, who don't have a lot of Brutal, and without Darnati, not a lot of melee width options, but have all sorts of flexibility with ranged.

We could probably however deduce some kind of formula for expected damage during the ideal rounds when all or almost all of the units are still on the table. Say an expected damage on the charge and an expected damage on the follow-up. Beyond that, whether it maintains itself or falls apart is going to depend upon how the players played it, who won the initiative charges, and so forth.

I just viewed it more as clutter, though you could turn it into a bit of diminmishing returns logic/math.

A blitz army looking to be in melee on turn 1-2 can only realistically expect to get so much width into combat efficiently. So you have to start looking for brutal, rerolls, more dice, etc. over paying points to just get bigger and wider units. There is a point when too many or too big of units just get in the way of each other.

The opposite lesson is that that if you face a big melee army with too much “width,” you can theoretically pack down tight or use terrain and prevent them from bringing full force to bear.

Cool. So a “Rule of 8?” Kind of like the Motti Rule in Armada. Not hard set, but a sensible guide.

Looking back that first world's event -- weren't people really piling on the spearstar? Wasn't that the 'unit' to counter? Then we had some massive MSU Latari lists just wreak havoc on the star?

Aren't most of these Uthuk lists running the 3x3 berserker setup? Are we back to finding the counter to the big fat stars again?

59 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Cool. So a “Rule of 8?” Kind of like the Motti Rule in Armada. Not hard set, but a sensible guide. 

I was thinking about a damage benchmark, because we need something to reflect the effect of ranged units in the game. But then the math on a damage benchmark might be too complicated for a rule of thumb.

On ‎8‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 4:05 PM, Parakitor said:

That's not even considering the fact that if you're close enough to pass through enemy units, you're close enough to be charged by Uthuk. I'll have to experiment with them a bit more, but I strongly suspect Reanimates and their bow and arrow wielding kin are the stronger answers. Because Heraldry figures.

I just played against @Wraithist and he ran some Wraiths and he did the weirdest thing to me. He moved his unit of wraiths behind a 0 capacity terrain and then used the free reform to face me. He knew my Flesh Rippers were lined up to go straight at his Reanimates, he also knew I'd used a long march to close the gap. I did, the next round he shot through the terrain and would have flank charged me but he got screwed by millimeters probably. However, had he not misjudged that charge we would have had a different game on that side of the board. Things like that will be really powerful with Wraiths.

45 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

I was thinking about a damage benchmark, because we need something to reflect the effect of ranged units in the game. But then the math on a damage benchmark might be too complicated for a rule of thumb.

If you want a bit more detail, call it the 8/12 Rule. Discourage going above 8 wide on melee units due to congestion/cluttering. If you are gong for a melee or blitz focused army, find ways like Dispatch Runner, Column Tactics, and Brutal to make them act like 12 or better. That 12 wouldn’t really apply to more balanced armies.

There should be a reasonable way to set up a rule of thumb for ranged/blockers.

3 hours ago, Bhelliom said:

so "just be better" isn't useful advice

You are right, that isn't good advice, which is why I didn't give that advice

What I was saying is I've seen a ton of games against uthuk now, and one thing I notice is that a lot of people don't really do well with making them go around stuff that's in their way. And while "don't let uthuk run straight at you side by side" may seem like obvious advice, I've seen a lot of people fall into it. Even I did the first couple times.

48 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

You are right, that isn't good advice, which is why I didn't give that advice

What I was saying is I've seen a ton of games against uthuk now, and one thing I notice is that a lot of people don't really do well with making them go around stuff that's in their way. And while "don't let uthuk run straight at you side by side" may seem like obvious advice, I've seen a lot of people fall into it. Even I did the first couple times.

Can you elaborate on this? I still don't have very many games against Uthuk, but my current thinking is that they can take better advantage of terrain than I can, and the board has a whole lot of width (aside from Careful Approach)

2 hours ago, TallTonyB said:

You are right, that isn't good advice, which is why I didn't give that advice

What I was saying is I've seen a ton of games against uthuk now, and one thing I notice is that a lot of people don't really do well with making them go around stuff that's in their way.

I think that's a fair point. I believe they are have a high skill threshold, but their reward threshold is also very high. If you're not experienced with them, it is really easy to get their timing off, and then 5 units arrive piecemeal and get taken out piecemeal.

To Church's comment earlier:

And I think an 8 width rule sounds like a good rule of thumb. There are probably some people who can get buy with less width, but on the whole, you'll be around that mark.