Let say you have 3 salamanders and 9 handlers in starborn with 10 bravery getting wounds, and you always remove all handler first before you put wounds on a salamander. What would the possible outcomes be? Lose 6 wounds -> bravery down to 4 On a 6 lose 2 more handlers On a 5 lose 1 more handler On a 1-4 pass battleshock Lose 7 wounds -> bravery down to 3 On a 6 lose 2 handlers and 1 Salamander 17% On a 5 lose 2 handlers On a 4 lose 1 handler Lose 8 wounds -> bravery down to 2 On a 6 lose 1 handlers and 3 Salamander 17% On a 5 lose 1 handler and 2 Salamanders 17% On a 4 lose 1 handler and 1 Salamander 17% On a 3 lose 1 handler (last one) So you have 33% chance to pas battleshock and 17% to just lose a handler. But also 50% chance to lose at least 1 salamander, 33% to lose at least 2 salamanders and 17% to lose al 3. At this point you could chose to remove 6 handlers and put 2 wounds on a salamander, to only bring your bravery down to 4. Where if you failed battleshock on a 6, you need to remove two models. Which could be 2 of the 3 remaining handlers. (Not sure if you need to remove wounded models first, cant find it in the rules) But even if you put al wounds on the salamander, you would be at bravery 4 and only lose more handlers on a 6. At these odds, I would chose the chance of 100% losing 1 salamander over 33% odds to lose 2 or 3 salamanders. At 9 wounds suffered and only removing handlers, you would lose 1 salamander on a 2, 2 salamanders on a 3 and 3 salamanders on a 4+. So here I would surely pick off 1 salamander to guarantee to only be at bravery 3 and on a roll of 6 lose the 3 remaining handlers. Of course the tipping point of amount of wounds suffered shifts if you already lost some handlers. Anyway, I’m making a cheatsheet for myself for next tournament so I dont have to do the calcs mid game. I hope this made sense Let me know if you see this the same way or totally disagree with me And if someone knows if you need to remove a wounded model in battleshock, please let me know!
Yeah ive played games where ive decided to take off a salamander when i still have handlers left because of the damage coming in. in an ideal world you have a hero to spend a CP to save them. i quite enjoy just running them as single salamander packs, unless you intend to buff them up there is no real need to, they perform good on their own
Yeah, if we werent so high on drops already that would be nice. And of course teleport! But on the summoning we have some nice singels
Actually, if you have more than, like, 6 drops, they stop being a matter, because you won't outdrop most good armies anyway and you shouldn't be concerned by weaker ones anyway.
I dont fully agree. I wouldnt say it doesnt matter. Being above 5 drops means you wont get to dictate who goes first versus low drop armies. But it is still important to outdrop your opponent. Especially with seraphon. I would also look to decrease on drops on tournaments. Not to the point like you would want with a ‘low-drop’ army, where you often pay tax or handicap yourself in a tradeoff vs low drops, but certainly minimize it where possible. There are alot of very good armies and lists which arent low-drop and in the range of 6-9 drops. So if plitting my salamanders up drom 1 to 3 units or from 2 to 6, thad would definetly decrease my odds of outdropping my opponent. Best example would be a mirro match vs seraphon...
What competitive list are you running that isnt flat out bad with such little drops though? I feel like it is impossible to go below 10ish drops. I do think there is huge value in having a lot of drops - You can place junk on the board while the opponent reveals his entire plan, meanwhile you have revealed nothing. Especially in the mirror not being forced into dropping an entire unit of 3 Salamanders is also kinda big imo.
Deployment can make or break a game. In some instance you do want to outdrop your opponent, like if your playing nagash or a maw crusha to ‘surprise’ over which side you will attack. For seraphon I can only think of this with a blob of saurus warriors. But competitive being FoS an DT you really want to have your deployment done in the best way. Knowing if you het to choose if you go first or second differs allot in setup. For instance, do I need to screen or deploy defensive in case of een alpha strike? Or do I hamstring myself by doing so if I need to go first and mostly being out of range to do damage en possible face a double turn. With seraphon being brittle and shooting, you really want a choice. Either to forgo screening and setting up an alpha strike, or screening well and go for the double turn. Personally I would probably always want to go second with a shootint army. Especially now when the meta tends to be shooty list. You really dont want to get double turned
Of course all of us would like to be a 1 drop if possible, but it is not. You didnt really address my question though. What list are you running since you even consider competing with outdropping your opponent? IMO it is completely impossible to participate in this competition as Starborne, simply because our batallions are terrible. It is pretty much impossible to make a good list below 10 drops in which case the vast majority of armies will outdrop you by miles, so splitting up creating further drops as @Nart pointed out has no real downside. In fact I do think there is an advantage in outdropping your opponent by miles because, as I said, you can keep throwing junk on the table and position your things accordingly.As with your example of a Maw Krusha, you can put your important pieces in a far corner if you so desire and put screens of Skinks accordingly. If you had almost as many drops he would know where you were going, so his Maw Krusha would be much closer to you. I plan my list and deployment assuming Im given the first turn every game. Im not too worried about the double turn since that is where Skink screens with careful and defensive positioning comes into play.
Sorry, cant post my list. I have a GT coming up. But my list doesn't matter in this conversation. There are too many toptier high drop lists where you do want the choice to go first or second. I think we have to agree we just disagree on this.
Of course your list matters. My point is that you cant make a good list that competes with other armies in drops (at least the vast, vast majority), but apparently you believe so. I havent seen a single one that doesnt outright suck. Of course you want to have less drops, this is common sense, but not for any price. It doesnt matter about *maybe* having the choice of going second if your list is significantly worse. Sounds like a very serious GT if you think "leaking" your list on Lustria will give you a huge disadvantage, but good luck my dude.
any leak is advantageous to the opponents of individuals that regularly go 4+ wins... competitive means competitive lol
I recently adjusted my list to have 1 less drop drop. That will give me around 10% more chance to outdrop my opponent. While the total chance to outdrop my opponent is still low, it is a huge increase which I take gladly. Ofcourse not at a too high cost, but we were talking about splitting a unit of salamanders up in singles. Another example might be, 4 x 10man units of Skinks or go 10-10-20. One choice gives more flexability in terms of screening or battleshock, the latter gives 1 less drop. I know my choice. On the part of sharing my list, seraphon and this forum is quite popular where im from. And with the new book the interest and players just skyrocketed
Changehost is 2-3 drops anyway, so I would never bother. Besides, Dracothion's Tail isn't sensitive to first/second turn. Probably, the only MA where I could see drops important is CoS. Other top tier-armies will outdrop us and I don't care about lower tier. Good luck to you. I'm interested in the list too.
I dont even understand how having 1 less drop corresponds to 10% more chance to outdrop your opponent. Anyways, this talk is entirely pointless since without seeing your list there is literally no counter arguement to what @Nart and I said earlier in this thread. Any list we have seen on TTS have been the same - Tons of drops. Im curious to see your list after the GT and I would be happy to swallow my words if it turns out we have a solid low drop army. Yes and no. Im going to a 34 person event at the start of next month and I could leak my list and it would literally change nothing. Nobody is gonna alter their own list to try and counter a single person. I could see this being relevant if we are talking master's level of competitive AoS but I dont believe any of us on these forums are at that level.
A lot of though armies have drops in the range of 7-10. Say OBR, FS, IDK, the list goes on. As seraphon we obv cant compete with the lowdrop armies. But we can be between 7-10 drops. But besides ‘top-tier’ armies, it is the top ranked players playing the armies I fear most. And while some are going for low drops. The others are at 7+. And to add to that, it isnt about winning the game at a tournament, but also getting all the killpoints, secondairies, or now the auxilliaries. It is basic math tbh. If you bring a 1 drop list you have a high chance of outdropping you opponents (90-100%, depending on local meta). Going a 2 drop list, you have lower chances etc etc etc. I dont see what sharing my list would contribute to the theoretical discussion to be fair. If you really want to know, you could ask in a DM. Or if you just want to know how many drops I have,.. just ask... Nice that you can post your list. Guess your not one of the top player people try to adjust. Not saying that I am one, but I know some few me as though matchup (which im not, I just roll lucky). But by all means.. share you list here
awww sad react for my "that was supposed to be funny" comment. save up man, Trog prices are down and with knights now (and recently) the best battle line, the Start collecting is worth it... even if you don't follow the guide to get two bodies out of the carnosaur parts and just go straight trog.