Hi all,
I'm new to this forum, new to TK, and new to WHFB in general. I've played only a handful of games, and a pile of random skirmish scenarios. I picked TK for a variety of reasons, but one in particular thats relevant right now: I have bad, bad luck. I don't play well with dice. TK looked, to me as someone with admittedly a pretty minimal grasp of the WHFB system, to be less dependent on dice rolls than others: No chance of fleeing from battle, no chance of spell failure.
But in the couple games I've played, I've noticed a disconnect from the strategies that I read (mostly on this forum.) A lot of strategies seem to depend on things going right that to me, have unacceptable chances of failure.
Here's an example from the 4 games I used a scorpion in:
Game 1: 3-4 turn, scattered into a group of white lions. Achieved 0 kills, died to CR.
Game 2: 2-3rd turn: Misfire, poof.
Game 3: (Don't remember the turn) Scattered off the table.
Game 4 (2 scorpions): One arrived on turn 5, killed a BSB, then was too far away to do anything for the rest of the game. (The other was not placed underground, and chased things around all game. I consider this one the most successful scorpion use to date even though he didn't kill anything because he sure annoyed them.)
The tomb scorpion is awesome. Everyone tells me this. Its statline tells me this. But ICFB seems so hideously unreliable. The potential scatter radius is huge, and thats assuming it even comes up. Now granted, it has a 50% chance to pop up in turn 2, but some people seem to take it for granted that it will pop up and devestate a war machine in turn 2-3, when there's a high enough chance that it won't that basing your strategy on its success seems disasterous.
(And don't even get me started on my 1st turn SSC going nuclear)
So how do you account for this?
A lot of strategy seems to revolve around smacking things around with the SSC, and relying on scorpions to take out characters/war machines. Do you assume they will succeed and write off games where they don't as a lost cause? (I am assuming no, you don't.) But if thats the case, then that means planning your battles without what are arguably some of your armies best resources.
Right, so whats my actual question(s). How often do you use ICFB? Is it common to take 2 scorps/swarm and only bury one?
If the opponent places Supermage McDefenseless at the edge of the table, how close do you place the marker and whats the acceptable risk for scorpions scattering?
If that does fail, what do you do? Do you have a contingency plan in place before you lose the scorpion? (And if so, how badly does that hurt your deployment) or do you just assume it will succeed, then only come up with a contingency after it fails?
And finally, the SSC. I just don't know what to do with it. Its so devestating when it works, but honestly, I'm tempted to go with something else, even if it does a quarter of the damage but spring a skeleton gasket for 2 turns then explode. Unlike the scorpion, I don't see any way to hedge your bets with the SSC.
I'm new to this forum, new to TK, and new to WHFB in general. I've played only a handful of games, and a pile of random skirmish scenarios. I picked TK for a variety of reasons, but one in particular thats relevant right now: I have bad, bad luck. I don't play well with dice. TK looked, to me as someone with admittedly a pretty minimal grasp of the WHFB system, to be less dependent on dice rolls than others: No chance of fleeing from battle, no chance of spell failure.
But in the couple games I've played, I've noticed a disconnect from the strategies that I read (mostly on this forum.) A lot of strategies seem to depend on things going right that to me, have unacceptable chances of failure.
Here's an example from the 4 games I used a scorpion in:
Game 1: 3-4 turn, scattered into a group of white lions. Achieved 0 kills, died to CR.
Game 2: 2-3rd turn: Misfire, poof.
Game 3: (Don't remember the turn) Scattered off the table.
Game 4 (2 scorpions): One arrived on turn 5, killed a BSB, then was too far away to do anything for the rest of the game. (The other was not placed underground, and chased things around all game. I consider this one the most successful scorpion use to date even though he didn't kill anything because he sure annoyed them.)
The tomb scorpion is awesome. Everyone tells me this. Its statline tells me this. But ICFB seems so hideously unreliable. The potential scatter radius is huge, and thats assuming it even comes up. Now granted, it has a 50% chance to pop up in turn 2, but some people seem to take it for granted that it will pop up and devestate a war machine in turn 2-3, when there's a high enough chance that it won't that basing your strategy on its success seems disasterous.
(And don't even get me started on my 1st turn SSC going nuclear)
So how do you account for this?
A lot of strategy seems to revolve around smacking things around with the SSC, and relying on scorpions to take out characters/war machines. Do you assume they will succeed and write off games where they don't as a lost cause? (I am assuming no, you don't.) But if thats the case, then that means planning your battles without what are arguably some of your armies best resources.
Right, so whats my actual question(s). How often do you use ICFB? Is it common to take 2 scorps/swarm and only bury one?
If the opponent places Supermage McDefenseless at the edge of the table, how close do you place the marker and whats the acceptable risk for scorpions scattering?
If that does fail, what do you do? Do you have a contingency plan in place before you lose the scorpion? (And if so, how badly does that hurt your deployment) or do you just assume it will succeed, then only come up with a contingency after it fails?
And finally, the SSC. I just don't know what to do with it. Its so devestating when it works, but honestly, I'm tempted to go with something else, even if it does a quarter of the damage but spring a skeleton gasket for 2 turns then explode. Unlike the scorpion, I don't see any way to hedge your bets with the SSC.
