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[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

FYI, W9 SVs and Longdead Horsemen move a lot farther than 8 squares per turn. Also FYI, units don't use ranged weapons when they're in melee.

Riderless spiders also have their web attack in melee. The web spitting is just a bonus. It's the melee web that is the killer, as you very well (should) know. Vestals, just like everything else, are useless when webbed. That is why spiders are so excellent against anything hitting hard; the enemy charges in, killing the spider rider. The spider then webs the attacker, and it is game over for the attacker.

On turn 5 you may very well have 20+ vestals with 30+ longdead horsemen. I'll have 50+ brown spiders against them (and if I forgoe recuiting mages, lots more spiders instead). You'll have to kill them twice, and first time you kill them they start to web you in melee. Enjoy your defenseless vestals.

Btw. Since when has ranged damage had to go through defenses? Shield parry is the only thing affecting wether a missile hits or not. Assuming you have three vestals per square, the rolls to compared (assuming fire darts vs vestals) are DRN + 6 + 2 vs 2 + DRN + 8. That is a 30% chance to hit a vestal in the square. One hit = one death. There are lots of fire darts flying even from one caster. Sure, they might miss the squre, but when the range is short that is not an issue (even if the darts deviate, they won't deviate that far).

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

Riderless spiders also have their web attack in melee. The web spitting is just a bonus. It's the melee web that is the killer, as you very well (should) know. Vestals, just like everything else, are useless when webbed. That is why spiders are so excellent against anything hitting hard; the enemy charges in, killing the spider rider. The spider then webs the attacker, and it is game over for the attacker.

On turn 5 you may very well have 20+ vestals with 30+ longdead horsemen. I'll have 50+ brown spiders against them (and if I forgoe recuiting mages, lots more spiders instead). You'll have to kill them twice, and first time you kill them they start to web you in melee. Enjoy your defenseless vestals.

Btw. Since when has ranged damage had to go through defenses? Shield parry is the only thing affecting wether a missile hits or not. Assuming you have three vestals per square, the rolls to compared (assuming fire darts vs vestals) are DRN + 6 + 2 vs 2 + DRN + 8. That is a 30% chance to hit a vestal in the square. One hit = one death. There are lots of fire darts flying even from one caster. Sure, they might miss the squre, but when the range is short that is not an issue (even if the darts deviate, they won't deviate that far).

Hmm.. i was misremembering the manual. For some reason I thought defense got factored into that.

You still have to blow through twist fate, and I'm really not convinced 1 hit = 1 kill after the twist fate goes down. Fire darts doesn't do much damage.

Also, lets be realistic, how much do brown spiders cost? And its not like you know Ermor is going to be coming for you turn 1 either, so you've been doing whatever you were going to be doing for expansion. Assuming players are precognostic is a little much.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

You still have to blow through twist fate, and I'm really not convinced 1 hit = 1 kill after the twist fate goes down. Fire darts doesn't do much damage.

Fire darts deal more damage than Vestals have health. Of course luck may see the Vestal survive the hit, but most of the time one hit = death.

Also, lets be realistic, how much do brown spiders cost? And its not like you know Ermor is going to be coming for you turn 1 either, so you've been doing whatever you were going to be doing for expansion. Assuming players are precognostic is a little much.

Spider riders cost 30 gold and 4 resources a piece. I'll be churning out 10 per turn if I am unaware of somebody intending to attack me (as that leaves me enough money to recruit a mage too *and* save some money for the second castle which I'll start building as soon as possible), because 10 plus an indy commander is an expansion party (and when necessary to take tougher indies, I combine two or three such parties). On turn 5 I'll have 50 spiders, and if I figured out on turn 4 you'll attack me, I'll have way more. No need to be psychic here, just basic bread and butter for Machaka.

Machaka is very strong in early game, and one of the strongest, if not *the* strongest, in midgame, but they totally suck in end game.