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antisocialmunky Wrote:Well considering that you can almost guarantee a kill on anything potentially, it is quite useful sometimes.
I guess I don't really see ulfserkers this way. Against tough enough opponents, even if you had a near-infinite mob of ulfserkers to throw at them, they could gain XP fast enough for the level-up heal (or the health boost + heal if they are max level) to keep them alive and slaughtering more ulfserkers. You might eventually wear them down by getting a run of decent combat luck, but is that really more effective than spending the same amount of gold on dwarf fighters or guardsmen and swarming the same enemy?
And don't even think about trying ulfserkers against draining enemies...some of them could literally kill an infinite amount of ulfserkers, barring terrible combat luck.
I think ulfserkers have more potential value in situations where you have a very limited front, such as tunnel fighting. Sometimes you really need to punch through a specific tile or two in order to get more units into the battle, and ulfserkers can be helpful for that. Still very expensive for what you get, and if the enemy on that tile is a strong level 2 or 3 melee type you are going to need huge numbers of ulfserkers to have even a modest chance of success. Especially if the defensive terrain favors the defender.  Better to throw in a promoted non-beserk unit, if you have one.
And I will second fire&ice: where is the save at the moment?
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haphazard1 Wrote:And I will second fire&ice: where is the save at the moment?
Ranamar e-mailed it to me late last night. I'm playing now.
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T7 - advance a bit in the east, but move the bulk of our forces north. I'm going to have to back Li'sar out of the east soon, I think, so she can follow the scouts, but we might as well pick up a few XP while they're easy.
T8 - Well...that's an easy excuse to back of Li'sar - she took a lot of damage standing on the front line. Also dealt a lot of damage, but she's got some healing to do for now.
Our ulfserker picks up another kill, of an orcish archer  . He's parked on a village, so may even survive the interturn, if I can kill enough orcs. And...yep, looks like he'll live this turn too.
I decide to pull the Shyde back to escort Li'sar north; she needs to keep moving, but also to heal. And we find another branch, splitting our forces yet again. Hopefully orcs die soon and we can rejoin.
T9 - We're winning in the east, and spot all sorts of news. Worst is a lvl 3 troll coming from the north. There's also a goblin rouser (leader of the blues) and what looks like the purple keep. Hopefully the next player can work on clearing these out while staying alive. There's no convenient reinforcements over here, but we've been winning so far.
T10 - Dang it - I left only one Guardman in range of the troll, in decent terrain. Of course he's smushed without even dealing significant damage to the troll. Um...we may need to back off here a bit and bring in reinforcements. Although perhaps I'm overly pessimistic.
The Save
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haphazard1 Wrote:I guess I don't really see ulfserkers this way. Against tough enough opponents, even if you had a near-infinite mob of ulfserkers to throw at them, they could gain XP fast enough for the level-up heal (or the health boost + heal if they are max level) to keep them alive and slaughtering more ulfserkers. You might eventually wear them down by getting a run of decent combat luck, but is that really more effective than spending the same amount of gold on dwarf fighters or guardsmen and swarming the same enemy?
And don't even think about trying ulfserkers against draining enemies...some of them could literally kill an infinite amount of ulfserkers, barring terrible combat luck.
I think ulfserkers have more potential value in situations where you have a very limited front, such as tunnel fighting. Sometimes you really need to punch through a specific tile or two in order to get more units into the battle, and ulfserkers can be helpful for that. Still very expensive for what you get, and if the enemy on that tile is a strong level 2 or 3 melee type you are going to need huge numbers of ulfserkers to have even a modest chance of success. Especially if the defensive terrain favors the defender. Better to throw in a promoted non-beserk unit, if you have one.
And I will second fire&ice: where is the save at the moment?
They are there to murder mages which are possibly the only thing that Dwarves are weak to. In MP, you rarely get many second level ups because things die quite quickly. Therefore having a L1 unit that can counter mages for cost is useful. That being said, you may recruit like 1 or 2 against 1 or 2 mages.
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Sounds like a good turnset, Mardoc. 
Level 3 trolls are nasty, especially if all our spellcasters and ranged types are elsewhere.  Maybe we can get Konrad to a keep and recruit a wave of units to send as reinforcements? Or retreat our troops back to a choke point, if there is such available? If these enemies are to the east and not blocking our way north, we could mostly just bypass them.
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Dealt with the L3 troll with no losses, and even got our ulfserker promoted against a bunch of archers. We now have another L3 troll in the north to deal with instead!
![[Image: fire%20t13.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24016610/Wesnoth/fire%20t13.jpg)
![[Image: fire%20t13%20south.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24016610/Wesnoth/fire%20t13%20south.jpg)
The Save
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Nice work, Jkaen!
A promoted ulfserker...wow. I am surprised.  Now we need to get him away from the lava before he gets killed in the next quake...wouldn't that be a bizarre way for him to die?
(If that is not the promoted ulfserker next to the lava...well, I have never seen a promoted one. So how was I to know? )
Plenty of cash in the treasury, and good positive income rolling in.  Always like to see that.
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Ulfs really aren't that bad, the fact that they die on a failed attack is often a good thing since their hex is open for another unit to attack from. If you're forced to play lvl1 vs lvl2 units in a scenario they're very useful.
Thunderers are terrible attacking units because killing anything is so unreliable, but decent on defence against other ranged units since you can see what got hit after the enemy turn and mop up.
If you're running around with a bunch of Sylphs and Archmages, they're both pretty much obsolete.
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In related news I am playing through the hammer of Thursagan right now, and omg mission 5 is tough
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Jkaen Wrote:In related news I am playing through the hammer of Thursagan right now, and omg mission 5 is tough
!!??
I love ulf zerks
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