Welsh Open 2020

Never fear, Arnaud, sooner or later someone else will field the Tamil Pachyderm Doomstack army of doom. There are lots of reasons why players have not done so to date.


Colin

The Tamil monstrosity could be prevented by ruling that an army with an allied contingent cannot have more than a combined total of 3 Elephant elements between the main army and the ally.

Not sure what else could be done about fast Blades without adding more exceptions to the rules. Maybe they should only be a factor of 3 when shot at. I also think that abolishing the extra sideways slide of to BW would help to tone down movement.

Peter

I agree that 3Bd appear too strong but why stop at 4Kn? Why not rule that only 4Bd QK Knights on a draw? That would further nerf 3Bd. However, is the problem just lack of options in the troop types? Is 3Bd used for troops that were basically elite 3Ax.

The Tamil pachyderm doom stack is 3 elephants and 2 allied elephants isn’t it? So you need to roll 4 or more PIPs to move the stack forward else risk exposing a flank.....and I can’t even roll sufficient PIPs for my 3 Classy Indian elephants.

Final thought - the problem with 3Bd being overpowered is dwarfed by the problem of LH being underpowered. I can put up with a few overpowered units in a few armies and even a handful of monotype overpowered armies but about 80 or 15% of the Army lists in the book are LH heavy (have 4 or more LH) and they never get a look in. In fact there were almost as many 3Bd in Martin’s army as there were LH in all the 16 armies combined. This despite LH being one of the dominant troop types of the period. So why not nerf 3Bd by making LH properly mobile? They aren’t so mobile when TZed in their flanks and rear by troops that just flee when confronted. Also properly mobile LH would deal beautifully with those pachyderms.

Hi there.
My tuppenceworth. I took a very shooty army to the comp. Southern Dynasty Chinese 1x4Kn Gen, 1x4Kn, 2x3Bd, 2x3Ax, 4x3Cb, and 2xWWg. I took the view that a Wwg shooting foot at factor 3 with two supporting Bw might cause damage and disruption to an advancing wave of Blade. They would break up and slow down a single wave assault - which would give me more time to try to effect a kill or two. Then, when the Bd did hit I could try to contain the damage with my own 3Bd and score some kills with the supporting Kn.
This worked very well for me. I played massed 4Bd blade in a Polybian army and also in a Pre-Islamic Army and came (nervously) through. However, in the the semi final, I was mullered by Martin's 11 blade Vikings. Even then I had chances and the game was, perhaps, not quite so one sided as the final score.
In the context of the discussion about the power of BdF I would worry about reducing their factors against shooting - if only because it might make Bow armies really too powerful against their nemesis. I think I would argue that 3Bw are too strong already.
Arguably the Blades' quick kill on Kn on an even total gives them a bit too much power. Would it be too fiddly to restrict the quick kill to the combats where they exceed the Kn score by 1? This would reduce their odds a bit while still giving the Kn player a small nervous knot in the tummy when he commits.

Martin,

Why do you think rolling even is a 1 in 36 chance? If the factors are 4 against 3 then by my calculation it is 5 in 36 (dice rolls of 1 v 2, 2 v 3,  etc), and against ordinary knights it is 6 in 36, so 1 in 6. Or do I misunderstand your post?

Scott

But here's the rub - the Bd quick kill on Kn is 1 in 6 with the odds lowering if either side gets a change (ie overlap, general, double based mounted).

Meanwhile the Kn gets to quick kill the Bd if they win (42%) and so every advantage they can stack (being double based, being a general, getting an overlap) improves the odds.

Given this imbalance running your Bd into the Kn and planning to get a tie does not sound like a workable tactic.

On the other hand a Kn general should hardly feel the need to hold back from the wild and crazy charge at a "Wall'o'Bd" especially if they can pick the weak point to begin the fight.

Now I have crunched the numbers on all the various element types to come up with my handicap rating and the core of it was working out the chance in 36 that each element type had of destroying each other element type then weighting that against the maximum frequency of that element type appearing in an army. The end result of this crunching was to put Kn and Ellies at the top of the tree. if you lower the odds of a Bd killing a Kn by 6/36 you make Kn substantially stronger.

So where does this idea of Bd being too powerful come from.

Years ago I had a mate in my volleyball team who was convinced that his strategy of passing the serve back on the first hit was a winning tactic because it caught the opposition off guard and the ball would hit the floor before they were in position. As evidence he cited the number of times we won the point off that hit, soon enough in his mind it became something that "Always Happened". My response was to start keeping score, and any time he tried the trick and we didn't get the point as soon as the ball crossed the net I put a point against him, this included times he did the fast return and the opposition returned it to us and then we won the point after a rally. Once I could present him with a score of how well his tactic really worked he fell into line.

As a DBA player we all have the odds burned into the back of our brain so generally we think nothing of charging a line of Kn into a wall of Bd and expect to punch a series of holes in it. When the expected occurs we take no notice, but when the dice gods betray us it sticks in our memory. Before long our memory is of a long string of Kn dying on a tie with the Bd and then the Bd are "too powerful".

My advice - next time count the mumber of times across an entire tournament that your Kn quick kill the Bd, and compare it with the number of times you lost a Kn to said Bd. Perspective is everything.

Cheers