Quick Tips and Using the Drakes Effectively

[dalk]

if the drake player is using plenty of skirmishers he's probably not a newbie

lol
the first ten times i played mp i recruited nothing but skirmishers and rushed for the opponents leader
i won half the time without even knowing the basics of day/night
now i also recruit mostly skirmishers
it's still a good strategy if the opponent isnt suspecting you're going for his leader

[dalk]

I think i have made a mistake in my strategy.
I overlooked the power of the Drake Fighter.

He is by far the best scout you get.

Ever heard about saurian skirmisher

[Noy]

if the drake player is using plenty of skirmishers he's probably not a newbie

lol
the first ten times i played mp i recruited nothing but skirmishers and rushed for the opponents leader
i won half the time without even knowing the basics of day/night
now i also recruit mostly skirmishers
it's still a good strategy if the opponent isnt suspecting you're going for his leader

Thats probably because you're playing against les experienced opponents. Against veteran players, using Skirmishers to attack was a quick and easy way to lose the bulk of one's forces. Essentially you're concentrating all your combat strength in one point, very close to a player's center of gravity where he can likely concentrate more firepower than a drake player can. A bit of luck and essentially you could decimate a saurian force. The best strategy was to undertake swarming attacks against isloated units, dispersing quickly to prevent retaliation. Quickly a force could be worn down. These strategies in particular would win most of the time on certain maps. However with the recent changes to the Saurian we've attempted to decrease the saurian's ability to do this.

[dalk]

lol
the first ten times i played mp i recruited nothing but skirmishers and rushed for the opponents leader
i won half the time without even knowing the basics of day/night
now i also recruit mostly skirmishers
it's still a good strategy if the opponent isnt suspecting you're going for his leader

Thats probably because you're playing against les experienced opponents. Against veteran players, using Skirmishers to attack was a quick and easy way to lose the bulk of one's forces. Essentially you're concentrating all your combat strength in one point, very close to a player's center of gravity where he can likely concentrate more firepower than a drake player can. A bit of luck and essentially you could decimate a saurian force. The best strategy was to undertake swarming attacks against isloated units, dispersing quickly to prevent retaliation. Quickly a force could be worn down. These strategies in particular would win most of the time on certain maps. However with the recent changes to the Saurian we've attempted to decrease the saurian's ability to do this.

i know this and i won only vs unexperienced players, but they were more experienced than me caus i didnt know anything about resistances or day night cycle
but sometimes, if your force is close to your opponents leader and you have like 3 or 4 skirmishers and the opponents leader is weak(like a mage or an archer) and its night, you can still go in and win
but it shouldnt be the purpose of yr attack to do so, but your opponent sometimes just doesnt notice you can get to his leader quicklyand kill him

[SaintDust]

Ever heard about saurian skirmisher

I have.

But in when you compare the Fighter and the Skirmisher you get fairly different results.

The Fighter gets the same move as the skirmisher from start. But the skirmisher has skirmish ability while the Fighter has flight.

The Fighter also has more HP and a higher day attack.
Fighter are extremely effective against Trolls, Grunts, Wolf Riders, and most anything else evil in day.

While the skirmisher is harder to hit so you can put them in front of your dragons and allow superior protection.

[dalk]

I just dont think the fighter is the best scout

But i started playing today again after a month and i must say: the skirmishers really suck now(lost 2 out of 4), i'll be playing another faction from now on, caus the skirmisher was the only reason the drakes ruled.
Maybe thats not entirely true, the tribalists are quite good too, but the drakes themselves arent that good
anyone knows how to deal with mages when playing undead?

[SaintDust]

yes..

Put tribalist in front of 1-2 clashers.
Even though your whole factions suffers from cold.. your tribalist will manage to do damage if attacked..
Then move out your clashers and attack the adepts.

You can use skirmishers in front line to, but most of the time tribalist are better.

When it comes down to a good undead player v a good drake player, it comes down to who can position their units right, and who is the luckiest.

If i was undead i would use cheap zombies in front of the adepts at night

[Doc Paterson]

yes..

Put tribalist in front of 1-2 clashers.
Even though your whole factions suffers from cold.. your tribalist will manage to do damage if attacked..
Then move out your clashers and attack the adepts.

I don't think that's so good of an idea. The Adept resists cold, would take minimal damage, and would kill a quick Tribalist in one hit during night. There goes 16 gold. The Tribalist is useless against almost every Undead unit. They're good at killing bats; but then again, what Drake unit isn't? If you're thinking about trading damage, as you seem to be, consider that the Fighter strikes back with damage nearly as high as the Tribalist. The important difference being it's mobility, high HP, and high melee damage. These are also reasons to use Fighters instead of Clashers when facing Undead. Clashers are sub-par against skeletons, and don't have the fire option that Fighters do, which is always a plus in that matchup.

[Martinus]

yes..

Put tribalist in front of 1-2 clashers.
Even though your whole factions suffers from cold.. your tribalist will manage to do damage if attacked..
Then move out your clashers and attack the adepts.

I don't think that's so good of an idea. The Adept resists cold, would take minimal damage, and would kill a quick Tribalist in one hit during night. There goes 16 gold. The Tribalist is useless against almost every Undead unit. They're good at killing bats; but then again, what Drake unit isn't? If you're thinking about trading damage, as you seem to be, consider that the Fighter strikes back with damage nearly as high as the Tribalist. The important difference being it's mobility, high HP, and high melee damage. These are also reasons to use Fighters instead of Clashers when facing Undead. Clashers are sub-par against skeletons, and don't have the fire option that Fighters do, which is always a plus in that matchup.

I agree, Drake Fighter is a best unit to deal with dark adepts (i think so) cause they're faster so in the day it's worthy to attack while in the night you can still retaliate and dark adepts can't run after you.

[Noy]

I don't think that's so good of an idea. The Adept resists cold, would take minimal damage, and would kill a quick Tribalist in one hit during night. There goes 16 gold. The Tribalist is useless against almost every Undead unit. They're good at killing bats; but then again, what Drake unit isn't? If you're thinking about trading damage, as you seem to be, consider that the Fighter strikes back with damage nearly as high as the Tribalist. The important difference being it's mobility, high HP, and high melee damage. These are also reasons to use Fighters instead of Clashers when facing Undead. Clashers are sub-par against skeletons, and don't have the fire option that Fighters do, which is always a plus in that matchup.

I agree, Drake Fighter is a best unit to deal with dark adepts (i think so) cause they're faster so in the day it's worthy to attack while in the night you can still retaliate and dark adepts can't run after you.

I don't think its the "best unit." The best unit is the Skirmisher plain and simple. It nearly as mobile as the fighter, has better resistance to cold, does more damage in melee(depending on time of day->but being chaotic is preferable), and is cheaper.

[Doc Paterson]

I agree, Drake Fighter is a best unit to deal with dark adepts (i think so) cause they're faster so in the day it's worthy to attack while in the night you can still retaliate and dark adepts can't run after you.

I don't think its the "best unit." The best unit is the Skirmisher plain and simple. It nearly as mobile as the fighter, has better resistance to cold, does more damage in melee(depending on time of day->but being chaotic is preferable), and is cheaper.

Let's not forget though that it takes an average of 3 adept hits to kill a Fighter, while the Skirmisher is basically always 2 hits (regardless of the cold resistance). The fact that they have to use multiple adepts on the Fighter is significant. Consider also that if all three hits of a fighter land during its "prime time" (day), the adept dies, even if it had full health. A Skirmisher that lands all hits during night (more unlikely to land all 4 of course), can not kill a full-health adept. These are small points, but they do come into play with surprising frequency, and I think they account for my observations that Drakes make their biggest gains in the match during the daylight. I only ever really find myself fighting for my life during the night, in spite of the fact that I have an army of skirmishers. If it wasn't for the fact that one adept can kill a full skirmisher, one to one, things would be different. Remember also that if you average together the damages that both units will do over a six turn time period, the Fighter does significantly more, ranging from 5-3 to 10-3, as opposed to the Skirmisher, ranging from 3-4 to 6-4.

Regardless though, there's little point in thinking about what the "best unit" is, because it's not as though you're going to recruit the Fighters during night, or Skirmishers during day.



Good thoughts all, this is an interesting discussion.

[Martinus]

I agree, Drake Fighter is a best unit to deal with dark adepts (i think so) cause they're faster so in the day it's worthy to attack while in the night you can still retaliate and dark adepts can't run after you.

I don't think its the "best unit." The best unit is the Skirmisher plain and simple. It nearly as mobile as the fighter, has better resistance to cold, does more damage in melee(depending on time of day->but being chaotic is preferable), and is cheaper.

I don't think so. Undead are chaotic as skirmisher's are and they can (usually) easily kill the skirmisher who has less hit points than Drake Fighter whilst using Drake Fighter in the day protects him from undead attack in retaliate (if not usually the rest of Drake lawful forces destroy undead easily)

[Martinus]

I don't think its the "best unit." The best unit is the Skirmisher plain and simple. It nearly as mobile as the fighter, has better resistance to cold, does more damage in melee(depending on time of day->but being chaotic is preferable), and is cheaper.

Let's not forget though that it takes an average of 3 adept hits to kill a Fighter, while the Skirmisher is basically always 2 hits (regardless of the cold resistance). The fact that they have to use multiple adepts on the Fighter is significant. Consider also that if all three hits of a fighter land during its "prime time" (day), the adept dies, even if it had full health. A Skirmisher that lands all hits during night (more unlikely to land all 4 of course), can not kill a full-health adept. These are small points, but they do come into play with surprising frequency, and I think they account for my observations that Drakes make their biggest gains in the match during the daylight. I only ever really find myself fighting for my life during the night, in spite of the fact that I have an army of skirmishers. If it wasn't for the fact that one adept can kill a full skirmisher, one to one, things would be different. Remember also that if you average together the damages that both units will do over a six turn time period, the Fighter does significantly more, ranging from 5-3 to 10-3, as opposed to the Skirmisher, ranging from 3-4 to 6-4.

Regardless though, there's little point in thinking about what the "best unit" is, because it's not as though you're going to recruit the Fighters during night, or Skirmishers during day.


Good thoughts all, this is an interesting discussion.

Indeed,saurians aren't as powerful in the night as most of drakes in the day

[Noy]

I should state my premises, which are kinda important before people jump on me. My main point is that the opposition undead using the WC/DA strategy. Secondary to this is that the player is experienced and will withdraw them from view during the day, or surround them with corpses on good terrain. You know exactly the type of strategy I'm thinking of Doc. So the player isn't going to be leaving his DAs out in plain view during the day to kill. That means a lot of corpses usually on good defensive terrain.

If this is the case I'd run with a Burner/Saurian strategy. Essentially the burners, with their superior ranged attack are used during the day to clear out corpses. Skirmishers are used instead as dark adept assassins in order to eliminate the unit at night. Given that a undead player can only get 3, maybe 4 adepts from a standard starting gold (usually split up into two groups for 4 DAs or one group of 3 DAs), and 36~45 gold for a bat and Walking corpses 2~3 skirmishers as dark adept killers will be plenty. Its even possible to throw a ghoul in there to really skew the mix up, which would further put the fighter strategy to a disadvantage in the daytime essentially throwing up a roadblock for any daytime attack. Three Burners and several skirmishers on the other hand will be able to quicky mow dow any attack. Skirmishers effectiveness during the night vis-a-vis that of the fighter allows for a more flexible drake strategy, rather than one where a drake player is praying for the day to come. Playing against an Undead player using WCs its a race against time. Giving him three turns to run around doing as he pleases when he's not playing upkeep for 40% of his forces is tantamount to giving him the game. Sure you might wipe out a lot of his corpses during the day, but their insigificant cost allows for quick replenishment, so an undead player can sacrafice those units to buy time and position.

Its far more tactically sound to have a mix of night and day units to enable a full body strategy rather than one that gives you all or nothing during the day. Having burners at night isn't a bad thing either, as they can be used to attack the WCs safely and effectively while the Skirmishers are sent in to attack the DAs.

[Doc Paterson]

Very well said, Noy. When I posted, I hoped you didn't think I was directly disagreeing; rather, I was comparing the Fighter and the Skirmisher against the adept alone, because while it's my personal opinion that the Adept/Corpse strategy is the best, not all people agree, so it's actually the minority of Undead games that I end up facing it. When I have though, I've actually found it more difficult using Burners than Fighters, because the corpses will tend to attack the Burner, unlike the Fighter, which can kill them easily or inflict massive damage if attacked. Have you noticed this tendancy of Corpse/Adept players, that they're willing to take heavy corpse damage to eliminate a Burner? I have, but perhaps that's just the players I've happened to face. I must say, though, it did work fairly well....the Burners would end up so weakened that they'd be barely useable. The other thing to consider, I think, is the simple statistical matter of using the only attack that a 21 G unit gets, to kill a 6 G unit with no ZOC. The one-at a time killing seems to slow too overcome the melee that is heaped on you from all angles during the undead turn. The undead player can very often get the Burner low enough on HP so that a single massive cold shot will kill it; all of this of course happening all at once, during their turn, when your ranged is useless.
I've not found there to be many holes in a good corpse shield that a skirmisher can really punish. Usually, there's one hole that you can breach, and you can get a skirmisher in there, but because you know that a single skirmisher can't do the job (and he'd die next turn because he's next to an adept), you tend to not go for it. This is not to say that I don't use Skirmishers (they're all I recruit for the night hours), I only mean it to explain why I make more gains during the day.
That being said, it seems like you're talking more about doing massive damage on your turns, while I'm talking about greater security on their turns. It's entirely possible that I've had less success with your style because I didn't use enough Burners; you know I'm always hesitant to use those guys. The stigma of the Burner.