[SPOILERS] Wargroove 4 (PY88YF) - Hesmyrr Grooves into Heart of the Matter

[Hesmyrr]

Urgh I just played my turn and realized my planned move could have been optimized better.

Archer kills bottom 1HP mage, block with 1HP soldier, then opened up forest would have allowed my mage to 1HKO the spear. This would have allowed me to either: capture the east village with 2HP spear, or kill top mage with 2HP spear and weaken the barracks with stolen Archer.

Realized this due to forest being freed up after soldier move, but naturally it had been after the archer attacked (since the purpose of soldier is to protect archer that has moved), so it was too late.

[Hesmyrr]

Scooter uses Tenri's power and moves my only effective anti-air out of the way. I was expecting Tenri to move herself next to the barracks, but this is really good move as well that I have not foreseen. Fortunately I have two archers and can pelt the Aeronaut to irrelevancy, so I don't have to retreat too hard. 

Also visible on this photograph is my Ace against scooter: the dragon. Only effective defense scooter can mount against it is a mage, and I can use the beast's superior mobility to chip away his infrastructure.

[Hesmyrr]

State of the map right before I end my turn:



I love how much mileage I am getting out of weakened units. For example, that 2HP spear is an impenetrable wall that will protect my archer from scooter's spear. Tenri looks super vulnerable, but she can simply move 1S of the tower and heal in super defensive tile that can only be attacked by 2 units... so I expect my air units to simply help take the village next to the tower next turn. Slow and steady rather than unnecessary Hail Mary.

Superdeath is setting up his spear forces in order to take advantage of scooter's fall. They are super slow units, but I do want to act fast so that I do not lose more spoils of war than necessary. If I don't manage to take both barracks and tower from current position, my tactic seriously went wrong somewhere. 

I also finished setting up my Trebuchet. Is it perhaps too close to the front? I'm pretty sure I can protect it if Old Harry moves aggressively next turn though. Spears are OP units, but their mobility become significant liability over treacherous terrain like here (in fact, I wonder if nerfing their movement to 2 tiles would help them make balanced?).

[Hesmyrr]

Before:


After:

[Hesmyrr]

You can see Old Harry and superdeath is now focusing their attention towards south now. Their border has become too secure that it's just much profitable to go down where stuff are much more vulnerable.

Déjà vu. Aggressive Trebuchet positioning may have been a miscalculation. Old Harry built a dragon and I realized my Trebuchet can actually be attacked by it, notwithstanding the fact that my spears are forced to fight in disadvantageous terrain. So I made a full retreat, fully abandoning 7HP village to create better secure perimeter. I hope this new line is strong enough to hold ground while I stabilize bottom of the map.

Unfortunately scooter is pretty good at being prickly. You can see from my unit positioning that I am trying to minimize possible damage, using damaged units and Elodie as a tank (which consistently has been my strategy). Is this perhaps too conservative? My fliers can nibble scooter to death so it feels bad to justify making inefficient trades. At least next turn I am sure I can capture the bottom barrack that my dragon can OHKO (god bless road-crit); if scooter builds mage at the top, it's too far away to counter-attack the dragon, and if it's built at bottom, I can weaken it to irrelevancy.

Two turns and superdeath will have sufficient force to contest the scooter gains...

[Hesmyrr]

Also scooter actually hadn't healed his commander and left her at 66%, meaning there was possibility to outright kill her with Dragon/Aeronaut/Archers*2: the damage range was 45 ~ 73%. The temptation was there but 75% (21/28) chance of YOLO failing was way too much. Scooter counter-offensive after it failed would have wrecked me.

Now I only have to worry about his spearwall next turn. 

[Hesmyrr]

Scooter just played... and this has to be over, right? Tenri once again is on great defensive position, but I think the fact that his command center is on full HP gave him false sense of security. However, archer deals surprising amount of damage to buildings.

Dragon, aeronaut, archer, and 9HP Elodie (heal) should be more than enough to eliminate scooter barring some extreme RNG fail.

[Hesmyrr]

Pressed end turn accidentally while trying to check overview to see my income. Fortunately I already moved my units, so produced unit opportunity cost is all that I'm missing, but I really should enable end turn confirmation in the options.

[Hesmyrr]

After my turn, the post-scooter world:

[Hesmyrr]

So how did I end up winning so decisively against scooter?

There was obvious mistake with archer positioning that allowed me to steal it and skew the power balance near the barrack in my favour. Another important point I think was here where scooter used most of his attackers against Elodie. While weakening the strongest unit sounds good in theory, commander is also the unit that's least impaired by damage (natural healing and low reinforcement cost). Moreover commander is just one unit, who can weaken only one unit in a turn. Exposing his nearest units to my efficient counter-attack snowballed the front out of control, as scooter was constantly faced with lack of healthy units nearby that could deal legitimate damage thereafter.

In regards to the macro... When in doubt, Trebuchet. There's a reason why I expressed fear about Trebuchet days back, because Trebuchet established in defensive position is nightmare for attackers to push through. It's guaranteed efficient trade and would have significantly slowed my advance until I could get my own advanced units in position.