[Spoilers / Team Thread] Fenn, CH & Bob take on AWBW

[Bobchillingworth]

Here's the map we'll be playing on, for future reference:





Settings to decide before we pick our COs:


* Fog? (no preference)
* Weather? (strong preference to keep weather off outside of CO powers)
* Tags? (strong preference to keep them disabled)
* CO bans? (aside from the "broken 5", I'm open to banning all of the luck COs and possible any that deal damage with their powers).

[Fenn]

My preferences would be
-COs: Ban broken 5 + Luck COs; I'd prefer to ban Olaf and Hawke too
-Tags: Off (apparently Tag Powers aren't a thing in AWBW, but Tags are very buggy in general)
-Fog: No preference, though I expect we'll go without since this is doubling as a test match
-Weather: Off

My reasoning for banning Olaf and Hawke is that even if you ban duplicate COs among a team, you could still run Olaf+Hawke+Drake for potentially 6HP damage in a single turn. Even without a team like that, the damage-all COs would be extremely powerful on a map with so many units like this one. I think Drake is fine to leave unbanned, since his Air unit malus is so significant and Rain is much less debilitating than Snow.

Another thing to consider is what Lab units should be; Xmo suggested Md.Tanks and Rockets, and while I don't think those units are especially valuable there's not much else that would be useful to the non-lab countries but not crippling to go without. Battleships and Mechs are a possibility, I suppose.

[Bobchillingworth]

We might want to ban Drake as well- BM / GE won't be deploying any air units anyway, so Drake won't suffer any weaknesses if captaining either. The fuel loss from his power is fairly significant too.


Good point RE: lab units, I had forgotten to ask about them. Perhaps make them Rockets + Battleships + Neos? Neotanks instead of MD means that the countries with airports will have to use only mid-range land units (unless they save up a fortune for a Mega), making the factory-heavy player unique.


Also to decide: funding & unit bans.


I'd prefer we just run with default funding rules- no starting cash and 1,000 points per property. For units, I'd like to ban Stealths entirely- without an airport, BM / GE can't counter them. Can't remember if Xmo already suggested this.


I'm assuming we'll be banning Rachel as well, as she's qualifies as both a mass damage and a luck CO.

[Fenn]

Banning Drake along with the other MD COs is cleaner - and good point about BM/GE.

Neotanks are a very niche unit. I suppose that without airports (and thus Bombers) BM/GE might have better cause to deploy them, but Mid-Tanks will have a much greater effect on the battle, and they serve a similar purpose to Neos in countering hordes of Tanks.

Agreed on default funding, and the Stealth ban. Ought Black Bombs be banned too? they're similarly difficult for BM/GE to destroy, and on a large map like this being able to damage many units without building meter is quite strong.

I don't think Rachel warrants a ban. Her COP is underwhelming for the 3-bar cost, being only a moderate damage boost on average and delaying her much more useful SCOP. Covering Fire is powerful, but it doesn't affect every enemy unit on the field and it's not difficult for the enemy to bait the missiles by clumping Infantry together and moving their most expensive units near to yours so the missiles hit them too. Compared to eg Andy or Eagle's SCOPs I don't think she's a big deal, especially on a large map where her missiles will do proportionally less damage.

[Fenn]

...Which reminds me, do we want to argue for a Sasha ban? She can drain the meters of all three enemies at once, and with how many cities are on the map she'll get lots of extra funding and be able to COP very frequently.

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay, I'm fine with having the Lab units be Rockets, Battleships, and MD Tanks.


Banning Black Bombs makes sense, sure.


I was kind of hoping to play as Sasha, but yeah, let's suggest banning her too. Won't be fun if both teams have her and are locked out of their powers.


What about Sturm? It's a large map, sure, but his SCOP will still seriously mess up one of the fronts, and the terrain is favorable. If we don't ban him, I advocate one of us pick him.

[Fenn]

I'm neutral on Sturm; the terrain isn't very rough, so except for Recons and Rockets he wouldn't benefit too much from his free terrain movement, which could still be enough to harass Infantry well early on. The presence of airports is a bit of a nerf to him; Sturm wants heavy terrain to move across and sit on, but air units don't benefit from terrain defence and his B-Copters are still OHKO'd by AA Guns even with the defence boost.

I'd probably use him in the center slot, since Sturm really wants Comm Towers and the center has the widest front, but I could see deploying him for the Lab country - Sturm MD Tanks are very very resilient.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, I was thinking Sturm for the lab nation. Three of the factories there have good road networks, but one is almost surrounded by rough terrain.


There's quite a few appealing leaders though; let's table that discussion until CH weighs in on bans, and then we can talk about picks assuming Xmo doesn't raise any objections.

[Cheater Hater]

I don't have any real preference on bans; just go with whatever you think is balanced and leads to a wide variety of COs. I'd prefer no fog and no weather (and tagged should be assumed off), but no real preference either way.

Speaking of that, are we allowing duplicates on the team? I don't know if that's optimal, but it's another setting

[Fenn]

If we're going to ban Olaf+Hawke anyway, a 'no duplicates' rule is probably not necessary. It's really only the mass damage COs (and perhaps 2 Sashas + Eagle) that get more powerful the more of them are on the field.

Do these proposed settings sound good to the rest of you?

Fog: Off
Weather: Off
Tags: Off
Funds: 0 + 1000 per property
CO Bans: Kanbei, Colin, Grit, Hachi, Sensei, Olaf, Hawke, Drake, Sasha, Nell, Jugger, Flak
Unit Bans: Stealth, Black Bomb
Lab Units: MD Tank, Rocket, Battleship

I'm still not 100% on Drake's ban-worthiness, but better safe than sorry. Another thing to consider is that with Sasha banned, Eagle becomes a pretty safe pick, and a map like this is pretty favourable to him.

Whoops, missed your post in the main thread. Glad to see we were on the same page!