Helheim dirty tactic

[Micah]

12 chest prot vs 14 damage...I'd think it would be biased to head hits, which would be 15 prot instead, but it's hard to tell without a mod or a lot of living pillars.

The chance of getting a 0 damage body hit is 38% though, according to the table, which is pretty close to what you got.

No idea how 24 of them died though, that seems like a really really high number.

[MaxWilson]

38% had no afflictions, but when I watched the battle replay a lot of those were from little 1-2 point hits, and the occasional unscratched guy. I did run it a couple of times and 25% dying is about par for the course; maybe it's not really 14 damage. Or maybe it's armor-piercing; one Ironskinned Svartalf with Prot 20 took 11 points of damage and died, which is a lot more plausible with AP than normal attacks. The thing I was most surprised about, though, is that shields don't help. Blade Wind does almost nothing to Ambibate Nobles, but Rain of Stones stomped all over them and I presume it will do the same to any medium infantry (or EA heavies).

-Max

[Wish]

it comes from above, maybe it hits the head (thus taking into account mostly their helmet)

[MaxWilson]

Wish,

Micah pointed out that the Ambibate Nobles' protection is actually *better* on the head (15 vs. 12), so 14 damage should be negligible. And the Ironskinned Svartalf's Protection was 20 on both head and body.

-Max

[Sombre]

Critical hits? There's probably a base chance of getting them.

[Micah]

Not according to the rulebook Sombre...unfatigued units can't be critted.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, the critical hit might explain the Svartalf casualty (his fatigue was 70-something after casting).

-Max

[BigJMoney]

MaxWilson said:
Wish,

Micah pointed out that the Ambibate Nobles' protection is actually *better* on the head (15 vs. 12), so 14 damage should be negligible. And the Ironskinned Svartalf's Protection was 20 on both head and body.

-Max

But he was saying this because getting hit on the head would ignore the shield, while blade wind wouldn't, and that's a huge difference. Of course, I have no idea what an Ambibate Noble is and whether they have shields or not, lol. Obviously I'm assuming. Also, that one instance of the guy being killed is obviously a high roll. Check the debug log, it will explain everything if you're really curious.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[MaxWilson]

Is it just conjecture that a head hit bypasses the shield? The manual sounds like all ranged attacks go through the opposed roll calculation and doesn't mention anything about exceptions for head hits--I've never seen any mechanics for how head hits work but I assumed hit location was generated after damage had already been rolled (but before checking Prot, obviously, and before generating afflictions). And it's quite thematic that a shield could be raised overhead as easily as it could shield you from missiles from the front.

After a little bit more experimentation, I'm pretty sure that the one guy getting killed was a moderately high roll combined with a critical hit from spellcasting fatigue.

Thanks for the tip about the debug log, I will check it out.

-Max

[Dedas]

In a recent SP game I played MA Ulm, augmenting my protection 20 troops (head to toe + tower shield) with "legions of steel" (+3 prot to every "part"), and still I got the odd 9 - 11 damage from slings (damage 9) while advancing. It was VERY rare though.