Fury

[magian]

I was making a map the other day, and wishing we had some less civilized and more savage human troops available. All the current humans looks so prim and proper, what about the savage tribes of barbarians? When do they get some love? I got to thinking about what I would like to see in a 1 turn barbaric unit. I came up with the berserker, and a new power I call fury (rage and bloodlust could work too).

Fury would basically be a final attack a unit could deliver once it was killed. Fury would have a numerical value, the number indicating how many final attacks the unit would deal. So, a unit with fury 2 would attack twice after it was killed. Fury would be triggered by assassination. So, if that wolfrider kills your berserker outright, you would still get a few final attack (from fury 2).

I see the berserker as a disposable shock unit, best suited for attack. Str 10, move 14, wounds 1, fury 2, snow move 2, +5 attack, +5 in snow.

I could see some other units benefiting from fury. The minotaur could get fury 1, and the elemental could lose a wound and get fury 3 (it would be like an exploding fireball ). The barbarian could get a fury stack bonus with a % chance to give each unit in his stack +1 fury.

[KGB]

Magican,

Fury would be triggered by assassination.

So is it *only* triggered by ambush or also triggered by ambush (ie it's triggered on combat death too)?

It's an interesting concept. I can see a few problems though:

1) It's possible to have NO winner in combat. If the last unit triggers a fury strike he could kill the last unit on the other side. This might be problematic on city conquests or other sites etc. I think most players prefer a winner in combat so that fury wouldn't be able to kill a last unit.
2) You could get a lot of stacked fury blows leading to whole units not even getting to fight. For example the Elemental with Fury 3. When it died it could fury kill the unit it faces and then still have 2 more strikes against the next unit potentially killing it without it ever being in battle. Even worse that unit might have fury too, triggering more strikes back against the Elemental side etc. So fury should never carry over beyond the 2 units in battle.

I personally like how Warlords4 did this concept (called Bloodlust). Each time a unit was wounded it's strength increased as it went into battle rage. For 2 hit units there would be only 1 increase possible obviously and for 3 hit units there would be 2 increases possible etc. An increase in strength of 7 or even 10 would be a nice Bloodlust boost.

KGB

[magian]

It would be triggered by ambush and by death in combat.

WL4 bloodlust seems ok, but I think my version of fury would be more useful. A stack of bersekers could soften up a city filled with weak units relying on ambush for defense.

I wouldn't limit fury hits to the two units currently fighting. I have no issue with and exploding elemental taking out a group of enemy units. Fury attacks would effectively cancel each other out. So, if a berserker (with fury 2) kills an elemental (with fury 3), and is then killed by its first fury attack, the remaining two fury attacks would be cancelled out by the berserker's own two fury attacks. If the elemental killed the berserker with its last fury attack, then yes, the berserker's fury attacks would target the next opponent. Every unit would get to fight, they would be defending against an enraged opponent with a mortal wound.

I don't see the issue with site or city control (in mutual elimination situations). You can control a gold site or city without any units in it, so if all the units on both sides are killed, control of the city/site remains with the defender.

[KGB]

Magican,

WL4 bloodlust seems ok, but I think my version of fury would be more useful. A stack of bersekers could soften up a city filled with weak units relying on ambush for defense.

Well definitely yours will be harder to predict. As in figuring out what the odds are for the battle in terms of calculating the 90% rule since those extra attacks may or may not have value / get canceled out / attack 1 unit vs another depending on when the fury unit died etc.

That's why I suggested a simpler skill.

If the elemental killed the berserker with its last fury attack, then yes, the berserker's fury attacks would target the next opponent. Every unit would get to fight, they would be defending against an enraged opponent with a mortal wound.

It depends on what you mean by fight. In the example where the fury carries over to the next unit, that next unit doesn't *really* get to fight. The reason why is that it's already facing a dead enemy. All it can do is defend and hope it doesn't get hit so these are free attacks only.

So in addition to carry over being free attacks, there is also the problem of it affecting a lot of other skills in the game (for example if the next unit has ambush, does it lose it's ambush roll or does it get to keep it for the next real unit it faces). Other skills that can be affected by carry over include Anti-Air if the next unit is a flier. It may also affect future skills added to the game that are battle dependent. That's why I would be against carry over and simply allow it to strike a last blow(s) against the unit it currently faces.

The carry over reminds me of 3rd edition AD&D where the feat of Great Cleave got abused badly in conjunction with other skills. Great Cleave allowed a player to get 1 free strike against another opponent when you killed your current foe. So the running joke was that fighters carried Kobolds-in-a-can (ie have someone summon some weak monsters) so that when next to a Boss they would strike a Kobold and kill it and get a free attack on the Boss and then do the same on the next Kobold etc getting 5-6 free strikes per round against a Boss unit when they would normally only get 2-3 strikes in regular combat.

I don't see the issue with site or city control (in mutual elimination situations). You can control a gold site or city without any units in it, so if all the units on both sides are killed, control of the city/site remains with the defender.

I'm personally not a fan of mutual elimination as I like a winner and loser in each fight. Others might disagree. This would be best put to a vote.

KGB

[magian]

Well, you made some good points there. I didn't consider some of the possible complications. Your question about anti-air affecting fury attacks seems like and obvious 'yes' to me. However, the interaction between fury and ambush seems needlessly complicated.

My issue with the WL4 bloodlust power is that it doesn't really seem to add anything new to the game. There are already so many strength boosting abilities in warbarons. Did bloodlust units fill a specific role in Warlords 4?

[KGB]

Magican,

In Warlords4 Bloodlust was a powerful skill. Units could double their strength and obviously survive a lot longer in combat. Since the bloodlust happened during combat it wasn't reduced by any of the pre-combat stack bonus's either (like how Anti-Air works). Many a time a Minotaur would Bloodlust 2-3 times and literally wipe out a whole bunch of units on its own.

In Warbarons it would be a far less useful on units with only 2 hits since they can only get Bloodlusted once.

I don't mind the fury concept as you've laid it out if it doesn't carry over between units. But it's really not that much different than having an ambush roll at time of death instead of when entering combat since those strikes are as I pointed out 'free' and can potentially kill the other unit.

To me the skill the game needs most right now is a 'Crushing Blow' skill (Trample from DLR) that does extra damage. Put it on a big strong land unit like a Colossus/Titan/Iron Golem and make it 4 turns with 18 moves and Warding 25 so that it would be a city smasher.

Other skills needed are a ground unit that can fight/cross ridges, something to stop vectoring, a disease to temporarily weaken enemy defenders in cities etc.

KGB

[magian]

Yeah, trample was one of the most fun abilities in W3, I like the sound of this titan of yours. Something like disease or poison would help with some of the city defense issues (although they wouldn't help against ambush stacking). Maybe a version on curse that causes a unit to lose it special abilities (or have them reduced) is called for.

[KGB]

Magican,

I'd like disease to remove skills rather than remove hits. And by skills I mean all individual units skills: individual +X when defending/attacking, individual warding, individual AA, individual ambush, individual terrain bonus, swarm etc. Units that are sick don't fight near as well which is why plague rats were sent into cities to weaken the defenders. The disease would last 2 turns then be cured (the plague runs its course). The first turn a unit would lose 100% of its skill and the second turn it would lose 50% of its skill (so for example the turn it was diseased a Hv Infantry would get +0 from its defending bonus. The next turn it would get +5 and then be back to +10 when the disease is finished)

KGB

[magian]

Sounds pretty good, but aren't stack bonuses more of an issue than individual skills?

[KGB]

They are an issue too. But there are already units with other skills (Devil/Archon/Unicorn) to deal with those. So I'm not sure we need another skill to counter those bonuses.

KGB