Repel

[Kungfoo]

From the manual:
Repel is how Dominions represents the effectiveness of long weapons, such as
halberds, pikes, and the like. If a unit attacks an enemy who has a longer weapon than the
attacker, the defender may actually repel the attack and prevent it from happening. This
occurs as follows.
Any defender that has a longer weapon than the one used by its attacker makes a repel
attack automatically upon being attacked. Attack and defense rolls are made. If the result is
a hit, the attacker must make a morale check or immediately abort his attack. If the attacker
passes the morale check, he may make his attack, but the defender’s attack then generates
damage and protection rolls. If damage is inflicted, the attacker takes one point of damage
and finishes his attack.
This simulates the defender successfully placing his longer weapon between himself and the
attacker. All of this occurs before the attacker’s strike is resolved. Note that units with low
morale are more likely to be repelled, and thus using long weapons against low-morale
troops is very effective. Also, units with claws and bites (weapon length zero) are easier to
repel.
A unit gets -2 to its Repel roll for each time it has been attacked that turn. So it’s easier to
repel the first attack than the second, and so on.

Translation:

Defender (guy trying to repel): Attack rating + DRN
vs
Attacker (guy trying to get past the repel): Defense rating + DRN

If the defender wins, then:

Defender: Morale + DRN
vs
Attacker: Morale + DRN

If the defender wins at this stage, the attack is over and you avoid damage. If the attacker wins the morale check, he then goes on to make a normal attack role vs the defender, but the defender gets to roll up to a 1-damage hit against the attacker's prot (woo!).

In other words, it isn't just the length of your weapon; it's how you use it. Confidence matters, too.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Thanks Kungfoo, that's exactly what I was looking for!

This time I tested with Heart Companions (longspear) with a f8N9 bless. With attack 20 and 99 morale, I was actually able to notice a good number of free attacks. A far from optimal bless, but entertaining. Less extreme cases (marignon pikemen + growing fury) didn't produce noticeable results, so I don't think I'll be building any repel-based strategies.

[Bat/man]

Its an interesting little niche:

Wrathful Skies & Blood rain can make repel viable, and these combinations are very rarely used or considered in conjunction with Repel, and so can be a surprise to an opponent (and fun!). Combine with fear units to force a rapid route.

Beware berserck/undead (...) as always of course.

[JonBrave]

So is it "In practice it is bugged", or is it as per the manual?

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

So is it "In practice it is bugged", or is it as per the manual?

Im still not 100% sure, but it does not seem to be. It's just a little too subtle to come into play regularly without large variations in stats between the contestants. The most important part is the defender's attack skill, which is hard to buff (I think only the berserk spells and the fire bless can do that for units. Am I forgetting anything?). If I understand correctly, unless you win the initial check, you don't make the morale check, which is much easier to "rig" (fear-spam/ berserking repellers).

So I think repel is limited to being a "nice when it happens" sort of thing, but not something to build a strategy around. Even using longspear/pikes as line-holders, as Bat/man suggested, is only viable some of the time (like if the enemy has no ranged weapons). Otherwise, troops with shields would generally be better line-holders.

[Kungfoo]

The amount of blatantly incorrect statements that are being passed off as fact in these forums is staggering.

corinthian: "In practice" repel is working as intended.

brxbx: "Longer weapons allow you to attack first"? Really? When, in those incredibly rare scenarios where you run out of APs before getting in range of your weapons, but while within range of your opponents weapons? Last I checked all defenders used up their APs, and then all attackers used up their APs, and then that cycle repeated.

bat/man: "Wrathful Skies & Blood rain can make repel viable, and these combinations are very rarely used or considered in conjunction with Repel, and so can be a surprise to an opponent (and fun!). Combine with fear units to force a rapid route." Really?!? You're advocating a blood 4, b3 300fatigue 3 slave battlefield enchantment, plus an evo 6, a5 200- fatigue 2a battlefield enchantment to take advantage of a mechanic that still requires you to win an attack roll before you get to the morale check? Who are you going to pull this combination off with? Vanheim with their skinshifters that have 10 attack, and a length-3 weapon that turns into length-0 claws after they change shape?



It's a great mechanic to know about, because it can effect your scripting or recruitment against certain opponents. If you're playing la marignon and you're up against la atlantis, yeah, match your pikemen up against his mournful! if you have access to morale-reducing spells, maybe you can think of a clever way to take advantage of repel. what you shouldn't do is invest 1280 points of research into a gimmick.

[Hrum]

Originally Posted by Kungfoo

The amount of blatantly incorrect statements that are being passed off as fact in these forums is staggering.

Sounds like you're channeling Sombre / Calahan. That's cool if you're channeling those guys in the accuracy of your analysis as well...

Originally Posted by Kungfoo

Defender (guy trying to repel): Attack rating + DRN
vs
Attacker (guy trying to get past the repel): Defense rating + DRN

If the defender wins, then:

Defender: Morale + DRN
vs
Attacker: Morale + DRN

I don't actually know enough about the mechanic of repelling to know if this is accurate or not. However, the way you describe the morale check doesn't sound right to me.

If it worked the way you describe - as a contested morale check against the repeller's morale (instead of against a constant = 10 + diff in weapon lengths + DRN or something) having a repeller that was berserk (morale 99) would be a way to be nearly impervious to attacks in melee wouldn't it? Said berserker would need an attack value high enough to hit with each repel attempt (which granted is hard to do when completely surrounded if you don't have something like awe or the vine shield to reduce the number of incoming attacks), but if you could sort that out a repelling berserker would kick some serious butt against any non-berserk melee opponents. Even most mindless undead (morale 50) would be too scared to strike at the berserker (morale 99), because he has a spear and might poke them! Nothing scares undead like a berserker with a spear!

I'm not in front of the game at the moment, but a possible test of your interpretation of these rules might be:

Markata Scout with Berserker Pelt & boosted attack items (Ring of the Warrior, Burning Pearl), and a spear (Thorn Spear has low damage and only does poison, so use poison immune guys for)...

vs

Small group of non-berserk guys, using short(er) weapons (Soulless? Longdead?). If you use guys that have high prot here they shouldn't be easy for the Markata to kill, in spite of his high attack value (necessary for all the repels). Until the troops accumulate enough fatigue that is (so use undead).

So, who wins this fight? The Markata Scout Berserker, or the undead?

Don't know why this has to be a Markata in this test. I guess I just think it's a more epic matchup that way.

[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by Bat/man

Its an interesting little niche:

Wrathful Skies & Blood rain can make repel viable, and these combinations are very rarely used or considered in conjunction with Repel, and so can be a surprise to an opponent (and fun!). Combine with fear units to force a rapid route.

Beware berserck/undead (...) as always of course.

What would the best nation to leverage this mechanic be? Someone who can spam H2 priests for sermon?

Would you pick up those paths on your pretender to guarantee access if your nationals don't provide it?

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Originally Posted by Radio_Star

What would the best nation to leverage this mechanic be? Someone who can spam H2 priests for sermon?

Would you pick up those paths on your pretender to guarantee access if your nationals don't provide it?

LA Marignon and LA TC both have pikes and fear-spam. But as Kungfoo explained above, you use fear-spam because you want to use fear-spam (traditionally to rout a large army whose retreat path you were able to cut off magically), not because you have pikes. What's up for debate is really whether pikemen make good line-holders WHILE you are using fear-spam.

So definitely don't design your pretender around something everyone in this thread has affirmed as a niche use!