Brigade comparisons

[Strongwill]

Free Traders:
These guys do not want to fight, they want to sell you a used car, um, chariot. Imagine used car salesmen drafted into a military unit. This is them. The one thing they likely practice is shooting. From as far away as possible. Climb a ladder while getting shot at? Are you kidding me? We really did not change much of anything.

Posted, Actual, Proposed
LR:Average, Average, Average
SR:Above Average, Average, Good
CH:Not A Factor, Poor, Poor
M1:Below Average, Poor, Poor
M2:Below Average, Poor, Poor
CO:Below Average, Very Poor, Poor
DE:Above Average, Average, Below Average
ST:Below Average, Poor, Not A Factor

---

Ents… They decimated Saruman’s orcs and goblins with boulders in the two towers? Just saying

Not by the books. They ripped them apart in hand to hand, and then ripped down all the walls and towers except for the main tower where they could get no purchase on the enchanted walls.

Been a loooooong time since I read the books, movies all the time lol

[Olorin]

Heh. Read the books for years. My mom had a correspondence with him for years as well. That stuff sticks. A wall of forest arrives at the tower overnight. A horde of orcs and goblins charge into it. Silence falls. None return. Another enters. A few gasping, running remnants emerge screaming. And the Ents follow.

---

Gargoyles [5]:
And back to the Monster Summons. the actual ratings for these are great. Biggest problem is the first 4 Summons have low defense. Gargoyles would have come in low to the original average (not below average, just on the low side of average). With the current set-up they are bad.
So, our thinking, Gargoyles do not shoot much. Maybe drop rocks. Kind of inaccurate, but hey. Swooping charge, nice. Nothing special fighting, but they endure like stone. Also defend like stone. ST is average, but gets the flyer bonus.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Awesome, Awesome --- Absent
SR:Very good, Excellent --- Below Average
CH:Above Average, Average --- Very Good
M1:Above Average, Average --- Average
M2:Above Average, Average --- Above Average
CO:Above Average, Good --- Above Average
DE:Above Average, Below Average --- Excellent
ST:Above Average, Above Average --- Average

[Olorin]

Gelatinous Cubes [3]:
Off to the high end of the Summons, This is a pow-8 Monster. And one of my reasons for thinking they were placeholders, Some of the ratings are changed from the Elves. Not all, but some. So he started working on them. Probably from the top down, though.

So, our thinking. Since when do cubes shoot or throw anything? They are a wall of stomach acid. They have a horrendous charge because they swallow yours if they encounter it. Ugly things to fight, 10 foot cubes that dissolve anything organic that touches them. With no vital parts. Unrelenting stomachs, that simply crawl up stone walls to get to the tasty treats inside.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Awesome, Awesome --- Absent
SR:Very good, Excellent, --- Absent
CH:Above Average, Average --- Excellent
M1:Above Average, Ultimate --- Ultimate
M2:Above Average, Ultimate --- Ultimate
CO:Above Average, Ultimate --- Awesome
DE:Above Average, Renowned --- Renowned
ST:Above Average, Awesome --- Ultimate

---

Giant Eagles [10]:
I still do not buy that these can shoot. Again, as the gargoyles, they may be dropping a few inaccurate rocks on heads. And that swooping charge. But we really changed very little here.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Average, Average --- Absent
SR:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
CH:Good, Good --- Good
M1:Above Average, Average --- Average
M2:Above Average, Good --- Average
CO:Above Average, Average --- Average
DE:Above Average, Average --- Average
ST:Above Average, Good --- Above Average

---

Griffons [10]:
Pretty much the same as went on with Giant Eagles. These have a bit more defense in actual. So, again, not a lot of changes here.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Average, Average --- Absent
SR:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
CH:Good, Good --- Good
M1:Above Average, Average --- Average
M2:Above Average, Good --- Average
CO:Above Average, Average --- Average
DE:Above Average, Good --- Average
ST:Above Average, Good --- Above Average

---

Ghouls [5]:
A pow-6 Summons. Should be right up there with Rock Golems and Pit Fiends. Hmm, the posted really does not match that, maybe the actual will? Nope, still worse. Special is a 10% Fear. Sorry, to me that sounds like a wasted pow-6 spell.

So, our thoughts, Still not much of LR, and SR are thinking of ripping flesh, so not much throwing. The stories reputed them to be surprisingly quick to close distance, so a good CH is probable. And they paralyze and rip guts out. Probably good at melee. If you hit one, you can hurt it. And short walls keep them in graveyards, so they are not good at ST. Hopefully a better pow-6 Monster.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Very Poor, Poor --- Below Average
SR:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CH:Below Average, Below Average --- Very Good
M1:Average, Below Average --- Excellent
M2:Average, Below Average --- Superior
CO:Average, Below Average --- Excellent
DE:Above Average, Average --- Average
ST:Average, Below Average --- Poor

[Strongwill]

Heh. Read the books for years. My mom had a correspondence with him for years as well. That stuff sticks. A wall of forest arrives at the tower overnight. A horde of orcs and goblins charge into it. Silence falls. None return. Another enters. A few gasping, running remnants emerge screaming. And the Ents follow.

---

Hahaha, yes… As you described it my mind went to GOT and the Dothraki riding into the knight king slaughter…. Well played!!!

[Olorin]

Giants:
A top tier fighting Kingdom. I mean it is one of two that cost extra for a Brigade so it should be worth it. And those Actual ratings are genuinely worth every gold piece spent.

Our thoughts: Yeah, if you take out that Actual Rating part it looks like we just gave more to the Giants overall. Once you include that you can see we were trying to balance Giants vs Red Dragons as our top military [without specials]. We had to drop the SR a little to keep from going over. Still I think it is a good set-up.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Good, Good --- Good
SR:Excellent, Superior --- Good
CH:Ultimate, Superior --- Excellent
M1:Good, Awesome --- Superior
M2:Good, Ultimate --- Renowned
CO:Excellent, Ultimate --- Renowned
DE:Superior, Renowned --- Renowned
ST:Renowned, Ultimate --- Ultimate

---

Gnolls [10]:
The pow-2 Monster summons. Has one of the worst defense in the game. Beholder and a couple of others have worse but it is not many. It is also one of the few brigades you can raise immediately [most Kingdoms have a pow-2 wizard at start]. The question is would you want to? Definitely a glass hammer. If you have a spare group you can throw these in there and pillage some villages.

Our thoughts was it was way too powerful for a pow-2 spell. So it got reduced to the equivalent of a minor Companion type, maybe a bit better than goblins.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Awesome, Awesome --- Average
SR:Very good, Excellent --- Very Poor
CH:Above Average, Average --- Below Average
M1:Above Average, Average --- Below Average
M2:Above Average, Average --- Below Average
CO:Above Average, Good --- Below Average
DE:Above Average, Poor --- Poor
ST:Above Average, Above Average --- Average

---

Gnomes:
We did very little here, besides catching the rankings up. We increased the ST since we figured they would be good at digging.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Average, Average --- Average
SR:Average, Average --- Average
CH:Very Poor, Poor --- Poor
M1:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
M2:Average, Poor --- Poor
CO:Average, Poor --- Poor
DE:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
ST:Average, Below Average --- Above Average

---

Goblins [20]:
Almost scraping the bottom of the barrel for defense, right down there with Beholders. You can get plenty of them, but do you want them? They lower your defense for a group. Maybe pack them in a spare group for raiding villages?

We reversed the LR and SR, figuring that fit better. Did not do much else again. They still have an ST, it just slipped because others rose.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Good, Good --- Average
SR:Above Average, Average --- Good
CH:Very Poor, Poor --- Poor
M1:Average, Poor --- Below Average
M2:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CO:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
DE:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
ST:Below Average, Poor --- Not A Factor

[davekuyk]

I believe most of these changes are good and well considered; good job!

A few items to consider:

Fairy Folk seem they should have a higher Storm value, mostly due to the fact that they can fly over walls and avoid traditional defenses. Air Elementals fall into this as well.

I don't agree that Gelatinous Cube should have such a high Charge value, as I don't see them charging. Yes, you might run into them, which could be bad...

I am surprised you went with a high charge for Ghouls. My first thought was poor ranged and charge, but excellent melee and very high defense. My thinking is the Ghouls are slow but hard to kill and you don't want to get within bite range.

Is it "ok" for the Free Traders to have an absent Storm value - would this cause any issues? Would a group of only Free Trader troops just not be able to attack a pop center?

[Xerro]

When I said we discovered that defense was very important, it has a lot of implications for the groups.  It is not just the individual brigades that are affected.  Your group has a defense rating based on adding each Brigades defense to all the others and then averaging them.  This gets important when you add Brigades.  A Superior Brigade with two of Average will raise the Average ones a bit more than the Superior will lose.  10 Poor will drag the single Superior down to Below Average.  If you have an Average defense Kingdom Brigade, having Below Average or lower Companions mixed in will drop the defense rating for the group.  Adding higher rated brigades will raise it.  This gets even more important to keep in mind as the groups get bigger.

As your defense drops for the group as a whole, they get damaged more easily and retreat faster than you were likely expecting.  Remember, the damage your opponent inflicts is divided by your group's defense rating.

---

This comment got me thinking about my red dragons. Once you get to a certain point great bats are all you can recruit. I have noticed my groups do poorly when bats are there. Since there defense is so much lower and their attack aint very high it seems to me that adding bats might hurt a groups overall strength. I dont have the numbers to check this out. But when looking at how to balance troop types with dragons in the (near) future take a look at how it works out. They need a plentiful troop type to get to where they have a possibility to take legendary castles.

[Olorin]

I believe most of these changes are good and well considered; good job!

A few items to consider:

Fairy Folk seem they should have a higher Storm value, mostly due to the fact that they can fly over walls and avoid traditional defenses. Air Elementals fall into this as well.

I don't agree that Gelatinous Cube should have such a high Charge value, as I don't see them charging. Yes, you might run into them, which could be bad...

I am surprised you went with a high charge for Ghouls. My first thought was poor ranged and charge, but excellent melee and very high defense. My thinking is the Ghouls are slow but hard to kill and you don't want to get within bite range.

Is it "ok" for the Free Traders to have an absent Storm value - would this cause any issues? Would a group of only Free Trader troops just not be able to attack a pop center?

Thanks, we are trying.

Fairy Folk, and other flyers, get a hard-coded +20% vs PC. If I give them a bonus for flying, they still get the coded bonus for flying also. So the rating is based as if they did not fly, and they get the +20%.

Gelatinous Cubes is where the balancing of the game come in. They are a pow-8 spell so they need to be worth casting. Too high a brigade rating in an area would force re-evaluating the spells upwards. Which is coding, so a no-go. So between essentially a upper limit on strength of a rating and needing to give enough to make the use of the Summons worthwhile, we needed to put the points somewhere. There is no argument that Cubes have no ranged attack, which kind of forced our hand. And , to be fair, I still remember our first encounter with a Gelatinous Cube. Think it was Arneson's dungeon. We had a character go charging down a corridor to get to something before the rest of us, DM said he plowed into the thing at full speed, burying himself some two feet or so into it. Had a really gruesome description of face and body melting away hanging in space that we could not reach without hurting our selves.

Ghouls. Guess it depends on the stories you read. Ones I remember had them running fast on all fours, but not any armor really.

Free Traders. They are rated at 'Not A factor', so they have a rating. It is just so low compared to the average that it is hardly there. Which is still above Absent or 0. And I would strongly suggest having other Brigades along to attack a PC, anyway.

---

When I said we discovered that defense was very important, it has a lot of implications for the groups.  It is not just the individual brigades that are affected.  Your group has a defense rating based on adding each Brigades defense to all the others and then averaging them.  This gets important when you add Brigades.  A Superior Brigade with two of Average will raise the Average ones a bit more than the Superior will lose.  10 Poor will drag the single Superior down to Below Average.  If you have an Average defense Kingdom Brigade, having Below Average or lower Companions mixed in will drop the defense rating for the group.  Adding higher rated brigades will raise it.  This gets even more important to keep in mind as the groups get bigger.

As your defense drops for the group as a whole, they get damaged more easily and retreat faster than you were likely expecting.  Remember, the damage your opponent inflicts is divided by your group's defense rating.

---

This comment got me thinking about my red dragons. Once you get to a certain point great bats are all you can recruit. I have noticed my groups do poorly when bats are there. Since there defense is so much lower and their attack aint very high it seems to me that adding bats might hurt a groups overall strength. I dont have the numbers to check this out. But when looking at how to balance troop types with dragons in the (near) future take a look at how it works out. They need a plentiful troop type to get to where they have a possibility to take legendary castles.

Which is a nice lead in.

Great Bats [10]:
They get the flying bonus. I think this is one that really suffered from the average creep. Every thing essentially shifted down. Their defense, for instance, started a little bit better than the average but now is definitely worse.

Our Thoughts: Seriously, they just do not have the hands to shoot anything, so no LR. Dropping rocks is pretty much it for SR. We upped its fighting a bit. Gave them a better than average defense to bring it more in line with what it was. Left the ST pretty much alone [it fell relative to others doing better]. Dragons will probably still need something else to help them.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Very Poor, Poor --- Absent
SR:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CH:Average, Average --- Average
M1:Below Average, Poor --- Average
M2:Average, Poor --- Below Average
CO:Average, Poor --- Below Average
DE:Average, Below Average --- Above Average
ST:Average, Below Average --- Poor

---

Halflings:
These pretty much match Free Traders ratings. Not because they want to trade, they just want to stop fighting for lunch, and tea time. And maybe a short pause for a mid-afternoon snack?

Our Thoughts: They are supposed to be extremely accurate with slings and thrown weapons. They are short and not good melee fighters, but defend well. really about all we changed was their ranged. They, like the Free Traders, suffer from others doing better at ST, which lowered their rating. They really had a bad rating in Actual and should have other Brigades attack PCs.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Average, Average --- Above Average
SR:Above Average, Average --- Very Good
CH:Not A Factor, Poor --- Poor
M1:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
M2:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CO:Below Average, Very Poor --- Poor
DE:Above Average, Average --- Average
ST:Below Average, Poor --- Not A Factor

[Olorin]

Hellhounds [15]:
Yes we raised the number. Their special is the same no matter how many are there. The rest of what they do is nothing special. IF anything, having more would probably lower the defense rating for the Deathknights. I can be persuaded to increase the CH really. Just eliminate the LR [which is their breath, as they breath fire all the time is the thought] or lower the SR. What makes dogs dangerous is the swift charge as they attack, which confuses and stymies most opponents. Killing a dog is actually easy [don't ask], most people just get flustered by their approach.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Very Poor, Poor --- Below Average
SR:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CH:Below Average, Below Average --- Below Average
M1:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
M2:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
CO:Average, Below Average --- Poor
DE:Above Average, Average --- Average
ST:Average, Below Average --- Poor

---

Hill Giants [5]:
Great big stompers. Have a bit of a problem with fiddly details, like aim. Loft big boulders through the air, they will land on something. Or roll on some thing. Swishing tree trunks like a golf club is kind of a hit and miss thing, though. Luckily walls stay still.

Our Thoughts: This is another one demonstrating that the good got better. The Actual combat ratings got moved 2 steps better or more, no wonder everybody wants them. We did want to keep the ST and DE, and the lofted boulders and stomping charge. They just needed a counterbalance.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Good, Good --- Good
SR:Above Average, Average --- Good
CH:Good, Good --- Good
M1:Good, Renowned --- Average
M2:Very Good, Renowned --- Average
CO:Good, Excellent --- Average
DE:Excellent, Excellent --- Excellent
ST:Very Good, Renowned --- Excellent

---

Iron Golem [1]:
Ultimate fighting machine! Just rolls right over you and breathes! So, no LR or SR. You just do not want it anywhere near you. One of the things I notice is a lot of the ranged attacks are accurate even when the others are not. I figure when he adjusted the ranged that he reworked a lot of them. This is another where a very good Brigade got pushed up.

Our thoughts was the LR and SR were not likely, it seemed like the extras would be due to the breath but that was covered under the specials and were not required. Pulling those, we added to the areas it was not already Ultimate. And then let you know it was severely understated in ratings.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Good, Good --- Absent
SR:Excellent, Excellent --- Absent
CH:Ultimate, Renowned --- Awesome
M1:Good, Awesome --- Ultimate
M2:Good, Ultimate --- Ultimate
CO:Excellent, Ultimate --- Ultimate
DE:Superior, Ultimate --- Ultimate
ST:Renowned, Ultimate --- Ultimate

[Olorin]

Illusionist:
I assume these were supposed to be kind of average troops with a bit of an emphasis on archery. What they are for actual is human archers and not much else. So we brought them up a bit for melee and pretty much left the rest.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Good, Good --- Good
SR:Above Average, Average --- Average
CH:Below Average, Below Average --- Average
M1:Average, Poor --- Average
M2:Average, Poor --- Below Average
CO:Average, Poor --- Below Average
DE:Average, Below Average --- Below Average
ST:Average, Below Average --- Poor

---

Knights of Styx/ Paladins:
The same for both. The knights of eastern Rome used bows so LR is possible. Their Actual varies all over the place. There is not a lot of places to pull to increase their charge. You could argue to reduce LR and increase the CH, I guess.

Posted, Actual --- Proposed
LR:Average, Below Average --- Average
SR:Below Average, Poor --- Poor
CH:Renowned, Superior --- Very Good
M1:Above Average, Good --- Above Average
M2:Above Average, Average --- Average
CO:Good, Very Good --- Average
DE:Excellent, Good --- Good
ST:Good, Good --- Above Average