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

[Hesmyrr]

Lurkers welcome, although I'll likely be updating somewhat infrequently.

[Hesmyrr]

My commander is Elodie, one of hidden commanders. She wields the weapon "Requiem", and once her groove is charged, I can move adjacent to enemy unit to convert it into my side... which acts immediately as an added bonus. She's basically Sigrid in that it discourages usage of powerful units around her. The fact that Elodie have no HP regen mean that number of moves she can pull off safely is more restricted than Sigrid, so let's see if the brainwashing benefit is enough to make up for this deficit. 




The beginning turns of the map. Everyone is opening up the same, and red is expected path that players will likely use to grab the buildings.
However I am the only one who decided to move the commander aggressively forwards rather than capturing the town near the tower - something that I can perhaps utilize if scooter decides to move Tenri back to capture his tower.

Next turn is when it's going to get interesting, with how one deploys spears/carts. Maybe I can copy superdeath again?



My central plan at the moment is to go hard on scooter for two reasons:

First, Trebuchet must take rather swirly path while traveling on this map (since they cannot go over forests); while the mountain is symmetrical, this path restriction means that each player have one weak flank and one strong flank. In my case only Old Harry's foot units can reach my HQ efficiently, while all of scooter units can threaten it after few turns. So ideally I want to dominate the weak flank early to prevent this weakness.

Second, scooter is Tenri a.k.a. Tornado Lady. Her ability is to teleport one unit (anything other than enemy commander) from one tile to another, which is extremely powerful skill in stalemate. She can "cut" my strong unit easily by grabbing it and moving it into her territory. Otherwise, she can teleport her strong unit that has not yet moved, and place it in an ideal place for attack. This means she has 100% guaranteed single critical shot with Trebuchet, for example, which means keeping Elodie and HQ in low HP is much more dangerous against Tenri than any other foe. Contrasted with Old Harry's Emeric, whose power is defensive in nature, no one should fault me for wanting to see much more urgent threat dead. 

[Hesmyrr]

Interesting move from scooter, using the cart to move his commander forward. Tenri is in safe position where she can retreat to heal, or move forward to capture depending on the situation.

However, he needed to sacrifice his air unit production in order to accomplish this. scooter will need at least 2T to capture the tower, which means I can build Aeronaut at red spot to prevent Tenri from moving too aggressively. Also I believe that I have opportunity to destroy his cart: it's position is such that I can attack and block the unit simultaneously with Elodie. Even if scooter attacks with both Tenri and a soldier, his other units are too far away to punish. I can retreat back to well-defended mountain and heal. A spear that I'll drop at purple spot should prevent creative attempt by scooter to prevent this retreat via blocking E and S of my commander.

[Hesmyrr]

Played as planned, but Old Harry's commander is getting dangerously too close for me to ignore the danger. My original plan - spear spam - isn't enough to endure dedicated assault from Emeric so I might have to build Trebuchet up there.

[Hesmyrr]

Very smart disengagement from scooter. Wagon's health is such that I cannot kill it with soldier+aeronaut barring very good RNG, so I'm much better off tackling the town with aeronaut to deny him 100 gold rather than pursue those silly odds. He can put Tenri on the wagon and pull back West through the town next turn.

I'm debating whether to hit spearman or the town with Elodie. None of his spears are available for crit, so I can justify making such an aggressive push. I can also retreat back into the wagon no matter whom she hits.

[Hesmyrr]

Decided to hit the village for gold denial and Elodie charge. Her groove is now at 60%, against scooter's 27%.
 
Emeric is being super annoying and is likely to neutralize one of my village, but I can hold the next village near my base and Old Harry gotta pull his commander eventually to handle the encroaching threat of Superdeath.

Actually, after playing the turn, I regret not moving the soldier below Emeric 2S into the mountain in order to fork both towns. Then it could have captured the village should scooter abandon it, and even if scooter moved in deeper to weaken the unit, moving Tenri out of position would have been far more beneficial.

[Hesmyrr]

"Meta" is in my favour. Superdeath's catapult build location shows he is serious about pushing Old Harry, and since I am deliberately positioning spears to avoid signs of offensive, matter of priorities mean that there shouldn't be much other than border skirmish on the northern front. Mage is the only "big" unit I am going to building on top barrack to discourage Old Harry from doing something with air units, will only spam spears until I finish eating scooter.

Meanwhile scooter is too pressed that meager spear offensive from Superdeath is serious threat. He'll either need to invest Tenri or units from top barracks to prevent loss of his income. Scooter has 853 gold to spend this turn + 700 income, a state where Trebuchet is massive investment for him. I have 1450 gold so hopefully I can push Giant next turn if the healing isn't too necessary.

My game plan:
1) Eat scooter. Red is my ideal zone of conquest.
2) Eat Old Harry. As said on the first post, the map design makes Trebuchet push very strong there.
3) Hopefully I get enough of edge on scooter corner, which I can translate to victory over superdeath.

[Hesmyrr]

So I abandon my wildly optimistic plan. 

Two factors: with Emeric actually positioned the way he is, with crystal available for viable push, Old Harry is perfectly capable of pushing 9HP village. I need Trebuchet up there to secure northern front, which has to be built immediately since Trebuchet only move 3 tiles per turn over the grassland. To make up for the gold investment I hope to capture 1~2 villages there within 5 turns.

Second factor is that scooter has 1003 gold. If I built a Giant, he would have immediately responded with Trebuchet and I really don't want that thing present at the moment. It's probably good choice for him to Trebuchet now anyway, since I can't yet touch the bottom barrack, but scooter just might consider splitting his gold evenly on both fronts...?

[Hesmyrr]

State of affairs after my turn:



My offensive toward scooter is pattering out, but he's only at 500 income with 100 saved and I don't see a fast way for him to recover from this deficit. As long as I don't make a glaring mistake, I see myself winning through war of attrition though the fact that geography and supply lines are in favour of scooter is a concern. I do wish I picked Sigrid who is commonly considered to be stronger - if I could healed my commander reliably, this offensive could have been decisive enough to capture the barracks.

Ironically Old Harry front is much more promising, I'm poised to retake 6HP village and will start catapulting the one beyond the mountains 2 turns later. I mean, that's what I expected to happen from first impression of the map - let your enemy establish oneself on your weak flank, especially with siege, and you're going to have a bad time. Superdeath seems to have followed similar strategy as I did, spamming spears on the strong side and producing expensive units on the weak side.

Superdeath is being super helpful at the moment. My attack against scooter would not have succeeded thus far if his spears had not suppressed his income and kept Tenri momentarily occupied. He does not seem to be supporting his 3 spears, which may be understandable decision to prevent scooter from folding too quickly. Regardless even the decision to focus primarily on Old Harry benefits me now.

[Hesmyrr]

Scooter played, waiting for Old Harry.



Filling Tenri's groove by killing my village is a good decision. Normally commander in that position would be trapped then killed in 2 turns, but Tenri is one of those characters that can escape - if I invest all my resources to weaken her, she can tornado herself to 1S of yellow tower then heal back effortlessly in untouchable position. However, leave her unchecked and you have full HP commander running around with unpredictable ability.

I find Tenri terrifying for reasons listed above, but it's only useful as long as there are other allied units nearby to take advantage of the transportation. Perhaps he wanted to take advantage of Archer critical by covering more ground, but scooter made critical mistake in its spawn position... when my turns roll around, I can mind control his archer and kill everything in the area sans an Aeronaut.


PLANNED MOVES:
Archer moves to the mountain then hits spear 3W,
2HP spear kills 1HP Aeronaut 2S.
Aeronaut kills weakened spear.
Protect the archer by moving 1HP soldier 3E.
Elodie scooter's archer.
Use scooter's archer to kill 1HP Aeronaut (Aeronaut is one of Archer's weakness, so this moves Archer away from Aeronaut range. Attacking Aeronaut directly isn't helpful since it deals only moderate damage and will get countered harder next turn. Also pretty sure 1HP soldier meatshield won't work if I keep that 1HP Aeronaut alive).
Build dragon.