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 Post subject: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 7:26 am 
Black Sun Thug
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Hey folks. I am starting to think that swm broke the second greater mobile attack appeared on a ranged character.

It really sorta seems like cheating anyways. With extra attack you need to make a choice. mobility or firepower. I liked this. It seemed balanced. required a certain strategic choice that may be wrong depending on the situation.

But nowadays if a shooter can't pop out and make 4 attacks and jump back behind cover, it's pretty much useless and don't get me started on the ranged vs melee balance issues. I find it somwhat limiting as it forces folks to choose from some very limited options. My swm group attempts to solve this with a house rule that all lightsaber wielding force users have Deflect by default. It does help but not enough vs some of these greater mobile squads out there. So how can one fix this? It seems the primary culprit is not shooters in general but specifically the greater mobile ones. So I would ideally want to make somthing that specifically goes against greater mobile attackers while leaving alone regular shooters.

One possibility I thought up is possibly giving a watered down evade effect to all characters with melee. Perhaps the same thing as evade but does not work vs a character within 6 squares?

Another thought was adding an additional effect to melee attack. Perhaps whenever this character is hit by a non-melee attack, they gain a Stacking +3 defense until the end of the current turn. That way regular shooters aren't affected so bad by it. A shooter with only a single atack wouldn't be affected at all. However the more times you hit, the harder it becomes to land another one.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario:
Cad Bane and a Stormtrooper VS Anakin Champion of Nelvaan who is out in the open.

Cad Bane activates and hits Anakin who has 19 defense. Anakin's defense becomes 22. Cad Bane's second attack also hits. Anakin's defense becomes 25. Cad Bane's third attack hits aswell. Anakin's defense becomes 28. Cad Bane misses his 4th attack runs 6 squares away and ends his turn. Anakin's Defense reverts back to 19. Stormtrooper activates and takes his shot, and beat's 19 and hits then ends his turn.

I am open to suggestions on this. Maybe this should be a house rule? Perhaps I should try and find a fitting fringe character to have this as a commander effect to suggest for the next virtual set? Anyone? Suggestions or comments?

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:31 am 
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Just to let you know, the majority of the first characters with GMA were Ranged characters. Luke LotLS, Han GH, and Boba MC from LotF with Shado Vao from LotF being the first Melee character, yet he does appear after the 2 previously mentioned characters. And we only have 4 Melee characters with GMA against 10 Ranged characters.


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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:40 am 
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Well ya duh cad bane would kill your melee characters if they don't have cover.

All the double twin gma shooters have less then 80 hp. The only gma shooter with over that is mando boba. Melee characters can still beat shooters bur melee needs movement help. Luckily there are plenty of ways to help with movement.

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Shooters aren't that hard to take out cause their low hp makes them incredibly squishy.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 11:36 am 
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SenateCommando wrote:
Hey folks. I am starting to think that swm broke the second greater mobile attack appeared on a ranged character.

It really sorta seems like cheating anyways. With extra attack you need to make a choice. mobility or firepower. I liked this. It seemed balanced. required a certain strategic choice that may be wrong depending on the situation.

But nowadays if a shooter can't pop out and make 4 attacks and jump back behind cover, it's pretty much useless and don't get me started on the ranged vs melee balance issues. I find it somwhat limiting as it forces folks to choose from some very limited options. My swm group attempts to solve this with a house rule that all lightsaber wielding force users have Deflect by default. It does help but not enough vs some of these greater mobile squads out there. So how can one fix this? It seems the primary culprit is not shooters in general but specifically the greater mobile ones. So I would ideally want to make somthing that specifically goes against greater mobile attackers while leaving alone regular shooters.

One possibility I thought up is possibly giving a watered down evade effect to all characters with melee. Perhaps the same thing as evade but does not work vs a character within 6 squares?

Another thought was adding an additional effect to melee attack. Perhaps whenever this character is hit by a non-melee attack, they gain a Stacking +3 defense until the end of the current turn. That way regular shooters aren't affected so bad by it. A shooter with only a single atack wouldn't be affected at all. However the more times you hit, the harder it becomes to land another one.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario:
Cad Bane and a Stormtrooper VS Anakin Champion of Nelvaan who is out in the open.

Cad Bane activates and hits Anakin who has 19 defense. Anakin's defense becomes 22. Cad Bane's second attack also hits. Anakin's defense becomes 25. Cad Bane's third attack hits aswell. Anakin's defense becomes 28. Cad Bane misses his 4th attack runs 6 squares away and ends his turn. Anakin's Defense reverts back to 19. Stormtrooper activates and takes his shot, and beat's 19 and hits then ends his turn.

I am open to suggestions on this. Maybe this should be a house rule? Perhaps I should try and find a fitting fringe character to have this as a commander effect to suggest for the next virtual set? Anyone? Suggestions or comments?


Remember that you're paying for GMA, though. Cad Bane without it would probably be a mid-40s point piece, Captain Rex would be 28 or so, Dash would be like 22 points. That's how the game balances; yes there are some really strong abilities, but that's the purpose of point costs.

Also, like David said, most of the GMA shooters are pretty weak. To be completely honest, I don't think Cad Bane is a very good piece at all. That's a lot of points for something that can get killed really easily, and only has a lousy +10 base without even Accurate Shot. Have fun needing 14s to shoot my mouse droids Mr. Bane!

In the National Championship game this year there were no GMA shooters (the only character with GMA was my Luke Commando), nor were there any the year before that. If GMA shooters "broke the game", they would be featured in all of the best squads, but they aren't. Dash and Rex show up from time to time, but that's about it.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:07 pm 
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It should come as no real surprise that the strongest figures and combos in the game involve combining ways of consistently dealing big damage with ways of moving characters faster/at the same time. The ubiquity of deep-strike style armies is proof of that.

GMA gives you the potential to combine firepower and speed without having to drag along commander effects, but Echo's point about pricing is pretty much spot-on. Your figures pay in points-cost for lots of things including GMA, double/triple/twin, high attack rating. I'm pretty sure you'll find that once you hit 40+ points, characters with GMA either have very good attack ratings or the capability to deal a lot of damage but rarely both.

Without getting too much off-topic, I think the real issue is that newer figures with access to GMA are appropriately costed when you compare them to each other while most older figures without so many tricks will feel overcosted in comparison.


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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:38 am 
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My problem is mostly with the ridiculous amount of damage they can dish out. I mean lets compare cad Bane with some similarly costed melee pieces. They have maybe 1/3 more hp and yet while moving they deal what? 1/4 of the same damage on average? This is especially a problem with light sided characters. They lack a lot of offense but other than the two Obi-wans who's Soresu Matery is nerfed, they have no real defensive moves to compensate. And on top of this is the fact that ranged characters are dealing more damage from across the map while the melee characters are stuck trying to figure out how not to be totally destroyed whithout ever getting to make an attack and once you actually do manage to base a ranged character, they can still deal more damage than the melee character probably can assuming it's not Cad or Boba who can simply fly away. So next turn the ranged character can probably just finish em off anyways despite higher amounts of hp simply due to the fact it tends to deal more than half a melee character's hp worth of damage while moving. So even if the melee has the ranged character at their mercy, it's still coming down to initiative as to who wins.

One would hope some sort of melee vs ranged balance would present itself in the virtual sets. But then we got Handmaidens + Atris. Sorta like little Cad Banes but a lot of them instead of just one.

Starwars is supposed to be about Lightsabers and Jedi/sith who are actually hard to take down. But in practice this game is pretty much a bunch of ranged pieces with stacked defensive abilities who laugh before gunning down anything with melee attack.

Maybe if we saw more melee pieces with evade or some fringe commander that says "Allies with melee attack gain evade" it may be more balanced. But not till then as I see it.

GMA imo was simply a dumb idea. Twin attack was iffy. Extra attck was balanced. But gma is just too dumb as I see it.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:19 am 
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SenateCommando - you might find this excerpt from a post on Bloomilk encouraging :)
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...VSet 3, in my estimation, will be about moving the game forward as a whole. I look for VSet 3 to focus more on the Jedi/Force users, to bring them into the game in their rightful place.

http://www.bloomilk.com/Forums/default. ... =8530&p=12


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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:32 am 
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I find that extremely encouraging, maybe it will be a jedi trainer that grants jedi with just 1 attack(ala clone strike/revenge jedi) with extra or twin attack to make them atleast a little playable again.


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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:38 pm 
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Raylinthegreat wrote:
I find that extremely encouraging, maybe it will be a jedi trainer that grants jedi with just 1 attack(ala clone strike/revenge jedi) with extra or twin attack to make them atleast a little playable again.


Definitely something we've been looking at. The issue is always how to benefit the oldies without breaking the newbies from WotC. But it's definately an issue we've considered, and continue to look at.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:05 pm 
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SenateCommando wrote:
My problem is mostly with the ridiculous amount of damage they can dish out. I mean lets compare cad Bane with some similarly costed melee pieces. They have maybe 1/3 more hp and yet while moving they deal what? 1/4 of the same damage on average? This is especially a problem with light sided characters.


Sure. And since we're talking about one of the absolute best ranged characters, lets do the comparison with one of the absolute best light side melee characters.

I'll go with Yoda on Kybuck.

Yoda is a few points cheaper and has double the HP. From a hiding spot 16 squares away, he'll do 40 damage to Cad basically every time needing anything but a 1 to hit and having an FP to reroll. Assuming best case Cad gets to move after Yoda, he'll average 70 damage in return. Now, assuming best case again, Cad will fly away and do another 70ish. If he's super lucky in the best case scenario he's beaten Kybuck. But 90% of the time it's not the best case scenario and Kybuck finishes him off by doing another 40 damage on another Gallop.

With General Obi-Wan Kenobi and a few FP saved up for Soresu and Mettle the results are going to be very similar and lean toward GOWK even though he'll only average 20 damage a round.

So nothing you've said proves accurate.

The problem is not GMA. It's comparing the premier ranged characters to something other than the corresponding premier melee character, and further doing it in isolation rather than in the context of squads. (As soon as you throw 2-3 mouse droids into a squad Cad's damage output suffers immensely.)

If you do the reverse comparison of a bunch of average shooters to Kybuck or GOWK, then the game looks biased in the opposite direction.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:42 pm 
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This sounds very similar to the argument against disintegration a few years back. This too shall pass.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 11:16 pm 
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Anybody ever try to make a gotal disintegrate army work? lol


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:14 am 
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I've put a couple into a swap squad before, but got no disintegrations in that match and didn't fare too well, so I stopped doing it. It's too gimmicky.


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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:13 am 
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NickName wrote:
SenateCommando wrote:
My problem is mostly with the ridiculous amount of damage they can dish out. I mean lets compare cad Bane with some similarly costed melee pieces. They have maybe 1/3 more hp and yet while moving they deal what? 1/4 of the same damage on average? This is especially a problem with light sided characters.


Sure. And since we're talking about one of the absolute best ranged characters, lets do the comparison with one of the absolute best light side melee characters.

I'll go with Yoda on Kybuck.

Yoda is a few points cheaper and has double the HP. From a hiding spot 16 squares away, he'll do 40 damage to Cad basically every time needing anything but a 1 to hit and having an FP to reroll. Assuming best case Cad gets to move after Yoda, he'll average 70 damage in return. Now, assuming best case again, Cad will fly away and do another 70ish. If he's super lucky in the best case scenario he's beaten Kybuck. But 90% of the time it's not the best case scenario and Kybuck finishes him off by doing another 40 damage on another Gallop.

With General Obi-Wan Kenobi and a few FP saved up for Soresu and Mettle the results are going to be very similar and lean toward GOWK even though he'll only average 20 damage a round.

So nothing you've said proves accurate.

The problem is not GMA. It's comparing the premier ranged characters to something other than the corresponding premier melee character, and further doing it in isolation rather than in the context of squads. (As soon as you throw 2-3 mouse droids into a squad Cad's damage output suffers immensely.)

If you do the reverse comparison of a bunch of average shooters to Kybuck or GOWK, then the game looks biased in the opposite direction.


I'm not too fond of yobuck either. But keep in mind, there's plenty of GMA shooters while Yobuck is a one of a kind piece. There's multiple pieces you could replace Cad with and get the same results. There's nothing you can replace Yobuck with. General Obi-wan is kind of the same situation I believe. Anything that doesn't have soresu and some force is dead without a chance.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:32 am 
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SenateCommando wrote:
There's multiple pieces you could replace Cad with and get the same results. There's nothing you can replace Yobuck with. General Obi-wan is kind of the same situation I believe. Anything that doesn't have soresu and some force is dead without a chance.


I'll try doing this one faction at a time. All of these are vs. Cad Bane (against other Double/Twin/GMA Shooters it's actually always easier for the non-shooter to win), and are on a Restricted-list map (should be able to pull this off on any of them).

OR: Revanchist. A couple options here. Take a few rounds building up Force Points, then just get in 2 Pushes. Or win initiative (Tactician +8 makes your chances of this pretty high), make Cad Bane go first, run Revanchist out to within 6 squares of Cad. Win init again, move adjacent and do 40 damage with Ambush. Cad can take 4 shots and fly 6 squares away, try Lightsaber Defense if you have anything other than 3 FP. Win init again, either use a Push to kill Cad or move adjacent and use Ambush to swing twice and kill him. And Revanchist is 12 points less.

Sith: Darth Revan, Sith Lord. This one's easy. Run 12 squares and hit Cad twice for 40 total damage. Win init with Master Tactician, Double Attack for a dead Cad. Revan's just 8 more points, but he kills Cad at a net loss of absolutely nothing.

Separatists: This one is actually pretty tough. Series II Destroyer Droid would be interesting for it, because you just need to make the Shields saves and you take no damage, and Wheeled Form would get you adjacent easily for 40 damage on a won init. And that piece is 17 points less. Asajj Ventress, Strike Leader could probably do it, though: Move 12 squares and twin for 40 damage. On a won init, Twin to kill him. On a lost init, take 80 damage, then go kill him. If the Cad player is better you might have to run 18 squares first (after Cad has activated, of course) to base him, then hope for the won init. If you win, Double/Twin to kill him, if you lose, take the 80 damage and chase him down for 40 damage and try again for init (if you lose both inits you'll lose this one, but you can't win everything). Asajj is 3 points more then Cad, and some other Sep can probably do it better. Also note that in an actual skirmish game, a much more likely scenario against Cad Bane with the Seps is that Darth Sidious Pawns a Lancer, who flies over Cad and does 40 damage to him with Twin Attack, then the Lancer takes its turn and does the same for 40 more, and Cad is dead before he knows what's going on.

Republic: Yobuck and GOWK have already been mentioned, so I'll try something else. General Skywalker has better than even odds of taking Cad. If you can get within 10 squares of Cad (who has activated), use Knight Speed to base him and hit twice for 60 total damage. On a won init, kill him. On a lost init, Cad shoots Anakin some (use Lightsaber Defense if you want), and then Anakin kills him with 20-40 HP remaining. If Cad had not activated yet when you based him you have to win init to kill him. Anakin is 7 points less than Cad. There are plenty of other Republic characters that can take Cad also, but I think 3 examples is enough.

Imperials: This one's really tough, because Imperials don't have many melee pieces, and even less in Cad's cost range. Lord Vader can handily beat Cad, but he's 17 more points. Vader Unleashed can do it with 2 Grips if you wait for enough Force Points, or Vader SotJ can do it with 2 Lightsaber Throws (although you'll want to base Cad first so he can't Evade them). One thing these guys do have going for them is Dark Armor, which means they'll only take 50-60 damage from Cad per round instead of 80, so they can usually get a third round in if the have to while most characters only survive 2 rounds.

Rebels: Ah, another tough one to work with the melee constraint. The Apprentice Redeemed can kill him with 2 Force Pushes, and Cad needs 11s to hit him in cover, so it would take about 4 rounds for Cad to finally cut him down. Luke Champion of the Force can do it by running 16 squares with Knight Speed to get adjacent (after Cad has activated). On a won init, Use The Force to do 80 damage to kill him. On a lost init Cad does 80 (Deflect if you have the FP) and moves, Luke moves and does 60 with Use The Force + flurry. On a won init then Luke kills him, on a lost init Luke dies. Of course, a more realistic Rebel squad would have something like the Snowspeeder or Landspeeder who go base Cad, do 40 damage, kill him on a won init, on a lost init take some damage then kill him. Or Luke Rebel Commando + Madine just kills Cad on a won init from 8 squares away.

New Republic: Mara Jade, Jedi. Uses Stealth to get close enough pretty easily. If you can get the Lightsaber Assault at any time you kill him. Easiest way is just run up adjacent to him (after he's activated), and on a won init you kill him. On a lost init you take damage, then move and kill him. If you want to be a stickler about her not having melee, do it with Jaina, as described below.

Mandos: This one's weird. Jaina can do it fairly well, though. After Cad's activated, run 12 and do 60 damage. On a won init kill him, on a lost init take damage then kill him. If you can't get the 12 square hit you'll have to move 18 and hope to win the second initiative roll.

Vong: There are actually no characters right in Cad's price range. 3 Jedi Hunters would easily kill him, though, and only cost 6 points more total. Tsavong Lah can do it with some average VCA saves. Lah moves up adjacent (say he moved 12 so he didn't get an attack), wins init, does 30 damage. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and does 20. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and does 20. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and kills Cad, and has 50 HP left.


So there you go. Note that these were all off the top of my head and there are probably more options for each faction, but all of the above should give you better than even odds of beating Cad one on one. Of course, the game isn't played one on one, and it gets even easier to beat Cad in a full game in my opinion. Also, if you just set Cad Bane up on one end of a blank map and the melee character on the other end, Cad will probably always win. But that's dumb, and is true of most shooters even without GMA. The biggest trick is placement and moving from out of LoS to attack, which is why most of my choices have some kind of movement breaker to do it. I'll just sit in Gambit until you decide to engage, because if you're close enough that we're both in Gambit, you're close enough for me to get you.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 8:17 am 
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That's a very helpful summary, Echo. However, as you said, these comparisons need to be made in the context of a squad.

Right to the point:
-In order for Cad to put damage on his opponents, he can be sitting safely on his own side of the map. He shoots, moves back into hiding, and then he's safe (barring massive movement breakers).
-In order for Jaina/GenSky/etc to put damage on Cad, they have to enter Cad's kitchen, where they are sure to get burned. Sure, Jaina can charge in at Cad for 60dmg...but then the rest of Cad's squad will take her down, whether Cad dies or not.

That's the unbalancing issue. GMA-shooters are safe while doing damage...melee figs are not.


Truly, as I see it, the only way to beat these crazy quad-shooters is via good movement breakers: Revan swaps, Skybuck, Luke's SS, Lancer, etc. If you don't have a good movement breaker and you come up against Cad, you're in deep trouble.

However, if you do have a way to get an 80-dmg-dealer to Cad, then he's the one in deep trouble. It's for this reason that it's very risky to build a squad around Cad. His 80 hp are plenty if his opponent doesn't have a movement breaker...but if the opponent does have a way to reach Cad, then his 80 hp are woefully inadequate. It all depends on the movement breaker.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 8:44 am 
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thereisnotry wrote:
That's a very helpful summary, Echo. However, as you said, these comparisons need to be made in the context of a squad.

Right to the point:
-In order for Cad to put damage on his opponents, he can be sitting safely on his own side of the map. He shoots, moves back into hiding, and then he's safe (barring massive movement breakers).
-In order for Jaina/GenSky/etc to put damage on Cad, they have to enter Cad's kitchen, where they are sure to get burned. Sure, Jaina can charge in at Cad for 60dmg...but then the rest of Cad's squad will take her down, whether Cad dies or not.

That's the unbalancing issue. GMA-shooters are safe while doing damage...melee figs are not.


Truly, as I see it, the only way to beat these crazy quad-shooters is via good movement breakers: Revan swaps, Skybuck, Luke's SS, Lancer, etc. If you don't have a good movement breaker and you come up against Cad, you're in deep trouble.

However, if you do have a way to get an 80-dmg-dealer to Cad, then he's the one in deep trouble. It's for this reason that it's very risky to build a squad around Cad. His 80 hp are plenty if his opponent doesn't have a movement breaker...but if the opponent does have a way to reach Cad, then his 80 hp are woefully inadequate. It all depends on the movement breaker.


All good points. One-on-one comparisons aren't really worth much since this is a squad-based game, but I just wanted to make the point that if one WERE so inclined as to make one-on-one comparisons between Cad and some melée pieces, Cad can be beaten by a number of different pieces. Melée definitely does make a piece weaker, and an all-melée squad without a very good movement breaker or two is definitely going to be at a bug disadvantage against more shooty squads. But in my experience it's not that hard to catch Cad and take him out, and he generally isn't worth his point cost, and his very far from being overpowered.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:33 pm 
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Echo wrote:
I'll try doing this one faction at a time. All of these are vs. Cad Bane (against other Double/Twin/GMA Shooters it's actually always easier for the non-shooter to win), and are on a Restricted-list map (should be able to pull this off on any of them).

OR: Revanchist. A couple options here. Take a few rounds building up Force Points, then just get in 2 Pushes. Or win initiative (Tactician +8 makes your chances of this pretty high), make Cad Bane go first, run Revanchist out to within 6 squares of Cad. Win init again, move adjacent and do 40 damage with Ambush. Cad can take 4 shots and fly 6 squares away, try Lightsaber Defense if you have anything other than 3 FP. Win init again, either use a Push to kill Cad or move adjacent and use Ambush to swing twice and kill him. And Revanchist is 12 points less.

Sith: Darth Revan, Sith Lord. This one's easy. Run 12 squares and hit Cad twice for 40 total damage. Win init with Master Tactician, Double Attack for a dead Cad. Revan's just 8 more points, but he kills Cad at a net loss of absolutely nothing.

Separatists: This one is actually pretty tough. Series II Destroyer Droid would be interesting for it, because you just need to make the Shields saves and you take no damage, and Wheeled Form would get you adjacent easily for 40 damage on a won init. And that piece is 17 points less. Asajj Ventress, Strike Leader could probably do it, though: Move 12 squares and twin for 40 damage. On a won init, Twin to kill him. On a lost init, take 80 damage, then go kill him. If the Cad player is better you might have to run 18 squares first (after Cad has activated, of course) to base him, then hope for the won init. If you win, Double/Twin to kill him, if you lose, take the 80 damage and chase him down for 40 damage and try again for init (if you lose both inits you'll lose this one, but you can't win everything). Asajj is 3 points more then Cad, and some other Sep can probably do it better. Also note that in an actual skirmish game, a much more likely scenario against Cad Bane with the Seps is that Darth Sidious Pawns a Lancer, who flies over Cad and does 40 damage to him with Twin Attack, then the Lancer takes its turn and does the same for 40 more, and Cad is dead before he knows what's going on.

Republic: Yobuck and GOWK have already been mentioned, so I'll try something else. General Skywalker has better than even odds of taking Cad. If you can get within 10 squares of Cad (who has activated), use Knight Speed to base him and hit twice for 60 total damage. On a won init, kill him. On a lost init, Cad shoots Anakin some (use Lightsaber Defense if you want), and then Anakin kills him with 20-40 HP remaining. If Cad had not activated yet when you based him you have to win init to kill him. Anakin is 7 points less than Cad. There are plenty of other Republic characters that can take Cad also, but I think 3 examples is enough.

Imperials: This one's really tough, because Imperials don't have many melee pieces, and even less in Cad's cost range. Lord Vader can handily beat Cad, but he's 17 more points. Vader Unleashed can do it with 2 Grips if you wait for enough Force Points, or Vader SotJ can do it with 2 Lightsaber Throws (although you'll want to base Cad first so he can't Evade them). One thing these guys do have going for them is Dark Armor, which means they'll only take 50-60 damage from Cad per round instead of 80, so they can usually get a third round in if the have to while most characters only survive 2 rounds.

Rebels: Ah, another tough one to work with the melee constraint. The Apprentice Redeemed can kill him with 2 Force Pushes, and Cad needs 11s to hit him in cover, so it would take about 4 rounds for Cad to finally cut him down. Luke Champion of the Force can do it by running 16 squares with Knight Speed to get adjacent (after Cad has activated). On a won init, Use The Force to do 80 damage to kill him. On a lost init Cad does 80 (Deflect if you have the FP) and moves, Luke moves and does 60 with Use The Force + flurry. On a won init then Luke kills him, on a lost init Luke dies. Of course, a more realistic Rebel squad would have something like the Snowspeeder or Landspeeder who go base Cad, do 40 damage, kill him on a won init, on a lost init take some damage then kill him. Or Luke Rebel Commando + Madine just kills Cad on a won init from 8 squares away.

New Republic: Mara Jade, Jedi. Uses Stealth to get close enough pretty easily. If you can get the Lightsaber Assault at any time you kill him. Easiest way is just run up adjacent to him (after he's activated), and on a won init you kill him. On a lost init you take damage, then move and kill him. If you want to be a stickler about her not having melee, do it with Jaina, as described below.

Mandos: This one's weird. Jaina can do it fairly well, though. After Cad's activated, run 12 and do 60 damage. On a won init kill him, on a lost init take damage then kill him. If you can't get the 12 square hit you'll have to move 18 and hope to win the second initiative roll.

Vong: There are actually no characters right in Cad's price range. 3 Jedi Hunters would easily kill him, though, and only cost 6 points more total. Tsavong Lah can do it with some average VCA saves. Lah moves up adjacent (say he moved 12 so he didn't get an attack), wins init, does 30 damage. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and does 20. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and does 20. Cad does 50 back and moves. Lah wins init, moves and kills Cad, and has 50 HP left.


So there you go. Note that these were all off the top of my head and there are probably more options for each faction, but all of the above should give you better than even odds of beating Cad one on one. Of course, the game isn't played one on one, and it gets even easier to beat Cad in a full game in my opinion. Also, if you just set Cad Bane up on one end of a blank map and the melee character on the other end, Cad will probably always win. But that's dumb, and is true of most shooters even without GMA. The biggest trick is placement and moving from out of LoS to attack, which is why most of my choices have some kind of movement breaker to do it. I'll just sit in Gambit until you decide to engage, because if you're close enough that we're both in Gambit, you're close enough for me to get you.


You make a number of good points, but I'm with thereisnotry on it. The real trick is getting within 6-12 squares of Cad bane. Most times I have to fight him, he's got a Thrawn in the back swapping him around and giving him Opportunist. So no matter where you go, Cad is always going to have the drop on you. I've played Jedi squads vs him and you lose half your team trying to base him, and when you finally manage to get close, he swaps out across the map and asks if you can do it twice. Using my Senate Commandos, it's often worse. I can usually afford maybe 3 commandos and an elite guard for 200 points and the stealth really makes it tough since cad is teleporting all over the map hitting two commandos for 60 damage each turn without any chance of me getting a counter attack since he's mobiling back behind a wall or simply sitting in cover.

My primary goal in SWM is actually to defeat Cad Bane with my Senate Commandos to make up for "Hostage Crisis" but sofar I havn't gotten close. Darn evade....

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:29 pm 
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SenateCommando wrote:
You make a number of good points, but I'm with thereisnotry on it. The real trick is getting within 6-12 squares of Cad bane. Most times I have to fight him, he's got a Thrawn in the back swapping him around and giving him Opportunist. So no matter where you go, Cad is always going to have the drop on you. I've played Jedi squads vs him and you lose half your team trying to base him, and when you finally manage to get close, he swaps out across the map and asks if you can do it twice. Using my Senate Commandos, it's often worse. I can usually afford maybe 3 commandos and an elite guard for 200 points and the stealth really makes it tough since cad is teleporting all over the map hitting two commandos for 60 damage each turn without any chance of me getting a counter attack since he's mobiling back behind a wall or simply sitting in cover.

My primary goal in SWM is actually to defeat Cad Bane with my Senate Commandos to make up for "Hostage Crisis" but sofar I havn't gotten close. Darn evade....


To do it with Republic, you pretty much have to use your own movement breakers (Panaka or R2). With those, though, you should be able to do it, especially since all it takes is basing him with a single Senate Commando to kill him generally. Careful placement is key. And if you aren't getting shots on him he absolutely shouldn't be getting shots on your guys. Move up slowly and carefully, trying to keep out of LoS and having blockers like Mouse Droids protecting you when you can't, and you should eventually be able to tow a Commando close enough to Cad that you can base him and do 60 damage, or the full 80 if you're playing General Skywalker (one of the better versions of the Senate Commando squads in my opinion).

If he's swapping in deep, killing his swap fodder is very important. When against a swap squad it's important to remember that any Medium base figure is a threat, so if they move a Rodian Brute up near your guys, go ahead and shoot it, or it's going to become Cad Bane. You could play Queen Amidala to give your Commandos Mobile Attack so you can do the move-shoot-move trick, too, and use that to clear out his swappers as they advance. Once he's out of those it will be a bit harder for him to get Cad where he wants him.

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 Post subject: Re: Greater Mobile attack on a ranged character.
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:36 pm 
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Gungan Shieldbearer. Trust me, he is not going to be attacking your guys when half the time he will be taking damage from his own shots.

Cad Bane doesn't bother me. He has enough weaknesses that he isn't game breaking. Non-unique Jedi Swarm should cause some problems.

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