Wargroove WG1-WG3 Spoilers: WG3 has spoilers in the fog

[Cheater Hater]

We're finally rolling again, but I don't have much time for reports--I'll do the cop-out of posting the Dropbox folder, as interesting things are happening (notably both superdeath and my commanders at 2 HP, since I was way too aggressive) and I'm taking pictures.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, you may have seen in other threads that I'm out of WG1 since I was too aggressive with my commander. Oh well, on to the second game, which is more interesting. Let's start with a new batch of commanders:

CH (Ragna): The eternal rival of the campaign (think Olaf, if even more comically inept), her power is one of the most interesting: She can leap a decent range, and when she lands she does a lot of damage to enemy units up to three squares away. I'm not sure if I'll use this more offensively or defensively (or if I'll use it much at all, since it charges slowly).

Bob (Tenri): Tenri's Groove lets her move any unit (except a commander) a short distance. I have no idea if this is good or not, especially since there aren't as many chokepoints on the average WG map, but I'd need to see this in practice.

superdeath (Caesar): WG's best boy, the canine's Groove gives each unit next to him an additional action. While a dancer is obviously strong, it seems difficult to get more than one or two actions with him, and you have to give up the turn of what likely is your strongest unit to do so.

scooter (Naru): I've already covered her, and she seems stronger when she can summon air units too.

Other than the different commanders, the other main changes are that this map is bigger than the last and it has an airport equivalent. The air units port by far the most direct ports from AW:

Balloon (T-Copter): Can now carry any two ground units

Aeronaut (B-Copter): Can't be attacked by most ground units now, which is a nice strength increase. It's critical is "attack above a mountain," which pretty much isn't relevant here.

Sky Rider (Fighter): Has an new ability to Hex, where you pay 300 and deal 10% damage to each enemy unit. Its critical is if the target isn't adjacent to its own Sky Rider, which is very strange.

Dragon (Bomber): Critical is if the target is on a road, but otherwise is pretty much the same (maybe slightly weaker?).

I'll cover the map sometime, but we haven't done much (mostly just captured our buildings near the center). Here's the Dropbox folder if you're interested in looking ahead

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the info on the commanders. Does Tenri's groove allow moving an opponent's units, or only her own?

Lurking with interest.

[Quagma Blast]

Sky Rider (Fighter): Has an new ability to Hex, where you pay 300 and deal 10% damage to each enemy unit.  Its critical is if the target isn't adjacent to its own Sky Rider, which is very strange.

I think the idea here is to make fighter escorts into a thing. "Critical" Skyrider attacks oneshot Balloons and Aeronauts, come very close to killing a healthy Aeronaut on counterattack, and do 80 damage to Dragons and other Skyriders. However, their critical multiplier is x2, so if the opponent has their own Skyrider floating around, you either engage in a dogfight or see your guy's output severely nerfed.

[El Grillo]

Thanks for the info on the commanders. Does Tenri's groove allow moving an opponent's units, or only her own?

I can confirm that Tenri's groove can indeed target other players' units. I'm curious to see how it's used in a human MP game, the AI doesn't seem to play around it at all and really suffers as a result.

[Cheater Hater]

I thought Tenri could only target opponents' units.

Sky Rider (Fighter): Has an new ability to Hex, where you pay 300 and deal 10% damage to each enemy unit.  Its critical is if the target isn't adjacent to its own Sky Rider, which is very strange.

I think the idea here is to make fighter escorts into a thing. "Critical" Skyrider attacks oneshot Balloons and Aeronauts, come very close to killing a healthy Aeronaut on counterattack, and do 80 damage to Dragons and other Skyriders. However, their critical multiplier is x2, so if the opponent has their own Skyrider floating around, you either engage in a dogfight or see your guy's output severely nerfed.

That's interesting, though I'm not sure how well it'll work in practice, if only because the counter for Sky Riders is more clearly Alchemists (or Ballistas, though they seem bad, even though Missiles were already a niche unit).

[El Grillo]

Per my single-player experiences, you can target any unit that isn't an enemy commander.

EDIT: She can also target herself, apparently.

[Cheater Hater]

Now that things are happening, I'll recap the last four turns (especially since it looks like only superdeath is updating) and hopefully lay out my plan:

CH: I get the big picture since it's my thread


So far my plans are pretty boring: focusing on Knights more than the other players, mostly at a standstill with the other players.  The one interesting thing I tried to do was move a Knight onto the center island, and I planned to leave it there.  However, it got stuck between Bob's Archer and superdeath's Dragon, and thus I had to retreat and guard it (presumably superdeath doesn't want to trade the Dragon for a Soldier).  I feel like I'm in a decent position to take Bob's northern "island" village, due to his other interests...

Now for the other three, I'll pull out the overview (a tactic shamelessly taken from superdeath's thread, since I didn't realize it was that detailed):


Bob: Bob has done two interesting moves. First, he produced a Wagon on T1, and while I don't think Wagons are nearly as vital as APCs are (you don't need to supply units, and the Wagon isn't that much faster than Soldiers, especially since it's wheel-type movement--though I don't know how much utility you get from transporting Alchemists/Archers/Commanders), it led to him being the only person to get the "island" village last turn. However, what's much more interesting is that his big unit is a Giant, and he's using it to presumably kill scooter's barracks this turn! What's even more shocking is that I don't see much recourse for scooter; Bob will almost certain capture the barracks next turn, and that's not scooter's only problem...

superdeath: The defining characteristics for everyone's favorite canine are the mech Spearman flood and the Dragon, and it seems like he's in a good position--the Spears are good against my Knights and the Dragon could take out scooter's other barracks! This isn't nearly as bad for scooter at least as he can recapture it and he has a lot of defense against the Dragon (I forgot to check if the Witch is in range of the tile 1W of the barracks), but it's not great.

scooter: As you saw, scooter might not have any factories to produce from this turn, which obviously isn't great (note to self: Naru isn't good in RB games ). His main attack was attacking some of Bob's cities with his Soldiers, which isn't doing much, and otherwise he isn't doing anything special. If Bob can hold the factory I'm pretty sure scooter is done for.

[Cheater Hater]

We're going fast now--I've played three turns since the last report, so I'll start by looking at my last turn (Turn 7):


I'm getting bit aggressive again, but unlike last time this feels like my best chance--Bob is distracted killing scooter (more on that near the end) so I'm pushing forward.  I forgot to take a picture at the start of Turn 8, but I obviously lost some units (the far-out Witch, as well as the front-line Knight and Archer).  Bob also used Tenri's Groove, though it seems minor; just to get the Aeronaut out of the way of my Mage.  Now let's see how I responded:


I killed three units too (the damaged Spear, a fresh Spear, and an Archer), but I also managed to kill the Factory thanks to getting the Critical on my Knight.  I'm also punishing Bob for building that Witch, since it can't do anything this turn (except Hex I guess, but I don't think Bob can afford the 300 to do that).  All of a sudden there aren't that many relevant units in the area (just a Spear, an Aeronaut, Tenri, and a possible second Swooper Bob builds).  I'm honestly not sure what I would do as Bob on this front--I think killing/redlining my Alchemist with Tenri is safe, but I'm not sure, and you probably have to recapture the factory even though I should be able to get it back, and maybe I'll be able to kill the tower?)

Pre-Edit: Bob's actually playing right now as I write this: He Hexed and sent everything at Ragna, and she survived at 5%!  I did not expect that to be so close.  Here's how things look now:


I'm honestly not sure what I should do now--another Hex could kill me, so I don't think I can run, and instead I should heal on the Factory I'm about to capture.  I can also heal with one or both of my mages--I know it heals in a cross that extends one tile, but I'm not sure of its range--I know that tripped me up for a bit during the SP too.  As such, here's what I think I'm going to do:
* Southern Archer kills Spear
* Mage next to the Factory moves east and heals something (I think centered on the Knight, though maybe centered on the Mage gives me just enough of a push to kill multiple air units?)
* Knight moves somewhere (I think it attacks the 6 HP Village from the north)
* Soldier moves captures the Factory
* Ragna moves 1S and heals off the Factory
* Other Mage heals Knight and Ragna (I'm assuming the Knight takes some damage from the Village)
* Archer, two Swoopers, and Mage kill/damage some air units (unfortunately I don't think can kill the Witch; I might have to settle for chip damage on a Village)

Anyway, that was a surprise--let's check the rest of the map (updated after Bob's turn)!


superdeath is continuing his Spear flood, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it--I guess the counter is supposed to be indirect units, air units, and Giants, or maybe Ragna's Groove? That deals ~42% to each Spear in range, which probably isn't good enough--I wish Spears weren't as good defensively as they are. He is bringing up an Archer to investigate, which is why I moved a couple Soldiers to the island. Meanwhile, scooter is hanging on by a thread, mostly since he finally chipped down Bob's Giant (though unfortunately didn't kill it--it's coming up here and might get a chance to heal and try to defend my inroads). He still doesn't have much--I assume Naru can still beam down a ground units even if he doesn't have factories, but I don't see anything he can do, even with a Dragon. This game is getting interesting.

[Cheater Hater]

New turn, and things are going better than I thought they would!  Here's the situation:


I only did one heal since the range of the Mage is only two squares, but otherwise things went mostly according to plan.  The main benefit is that my Knight one-shot the Village and my Mage one-shot the Witch, which means Bob has almost no presence on that quadrant now--I wouldn't be surprised if Bob uses the Wagon to retreat Tenri and focus more on holding the remaining two Factories.  That does mean he's giving up air support, but that might be for the best considering I have so many Mages deployed.

Now that I've clearly won the battle for the quadrant and most of Bob's army is away from me (and focusing on finishing off scooter) I need to start worrying about superdeath, who is clearly going to claim more of the spoils from scooter's territory.  You can see the center island incursion force and the Giant, but let's see the full picture:


I'm not sure what I'm going to do next--I'm starting to wonder if the only practical way to take down superdeath is an HQ rush, as he is starting to ignore that area slightly (though that might be just because he wanted the Giant on the forward base). Either that, or I'll need a really good Groove (and note that Caesar's Inspire is up too).