Metagame

Hello guys, i am interested to hear your opinions about the overall balance of the game (or the current meta, lets say).

I've been playing for 3 days and i have done about 25 matches. The game is great and all but i noticed the following things:

- i faced the undead army maybe 4 times out of 25 .
- Most common army that i faced is lion. Almost always it had archers (which they really rock in the majority of maps) and mages. Rarely used is the big Knight and the Lion (although i think both are nice). Never ever saw the spirit of light.
- Wolven they either go full melee or full melee with warrior-mage that plays the kiting dance. I still have to meet once the ranged class. HIGHLY favored for the VIP match.

what is your general opinion about the meta?

EDIT: time has passed and my match count increased quite a lot ( i'd say almost 200 with different setups):

just some updates:

-somehow right now im facing so many undead comps, more or less always the same (necro + basic units)
-Lion somehow disappeard but i guess it is just because of low players: they still are in my opinion the strongest race with mages.
-wolven, pretty much thats it minus the fact im loving the ranged class

I'll do an extensive post about metagame and tactics for undead army and lion army soon, but for the moment i can say that almost every unit have a role in the meta-game. It's mainly a matter of your playstile.
I've epxlored in deep lion and undead army sinergy and there's just a need of adjusting AP and skill cost or ability for some unit but nothing complete useless.

Also sparkling of light have some nice use (if his devotion will be corrected would be better)
Lion knight also is a great unit, also a bit too much expensive imo right now.

For the undead army the only unit i'm not using are zombie because in general Acheron army can use summoned morbid puppet as cannon fodder.

Also priest of saluel that not many are using out there are very intresting unit and i build a list around him that work quite well.

I can't talk about wolfen as i can't use 3 army yet ;D (need cyan pls it's a beta we need to use stuff!)

Deep Blue writing about wolfens without ranged units - it is realy old thread indead

In my opinion Lions are most common - becouse they are quite natural for most players. Human races are most popular in most of games as i see. Although i took them bocouse it was my second army right after the Cynwalls.

i'll write about my thouts of meta in few days - when may win-loose ratio would be slght better

Deep Blue writing about wolfens without ranged units - it is realy old thread indead

In my opinion Lions are most common - becouse they are quite natural for most players. Human races are most popular in most of games as i see. Although i took them bocouse it was my second army right after the Cynwalls.

i'll write about my thouts of meta in few days - when may win-loose ratio would be slght better

ah yeah that was a thread when i just started playing, you got me . In all honesty my perception of the game didn't change that much:

- Lion are probably the strongest army in the game, valkyrie + mage + archer are a very hard to beat setup especially in big maps. Mages probably need to be reworked a little especially with their nr 1 skill.
- Wolven: i've no idea why i dont see the crossbowman more often. it really rocks with harassment stance and it is borderline OP. I'm happy not many players use them I'm having a good success with my build with 3 crossbowmen + 1 lonewolf + guardian of runes. With the latter being much more powerful than i thought and probably the only unit that offers a hard counter to the valkyrie + mage + archer setup.
-Undeads: i think they are the most difficult of the races to play. In order to overcome the inherent disadvantage of starting second (usually) the best way is having more units than your enemy If you enjoy zerging the enemy they are awesome. I think they have the hardest time vs valkyrie + mage + archer setup as their archers need to get much closer. all in all I feel they are balanced but i would lower the base AP cost of the black paladin...especially considering that at level 1 they are rubbish and i would rather have 2 base warriors with ferocious (70 AP in total...less than 1 lvl 1 dark pala!). Highly underplayed is the priest of saluel...to me one of the most fun units of the game! try it out especially at VIP elimination map with the body transfer.

@skydancer: the base skeleton warriors are awesome, the real strenght is their low AP cost and ferocious...not to say that it combo nicely with the lvl 3 skill that grants +3 ACC in exchange of -3 DAM, making the malus non-existant more or less.

hmm interesting analysis. but why do you think guardian of the runes is a hard counter to that setup?

i havent finished with my light army yet, but when i move onto building my 2nd company im def gonna invest in dark. with light becoming more popular, dark should also see a rise because it counters it so well.

Priest of Salauel - causes mage to fail next attack, and can run in and surprise swap with black paladin so he can attack directly next turn

Black Paladin - occult erosion is the biggest mage counter in the game. -2 mana, -2 wp after EACH incantation until THE END OF THE GAME? its almost too hard of a counter tbh

hmm interesting analysis. but why do you think guardian of the runes is a hard counter to that setup?

i havent finished with my light army yet, but when i move onto building my 2nd company im def gonna invest in dark. with light becoming more popular, dark should also see a rise because it counters it so well.

Priest of Salauel - causes mage to fail next attack, and can run in and surprise swap with black paladin so he can attack directly next turn

Black Paladin - occult erosion is the biggest mage counter in the game. -2 mana, -2 wp after EACH incantation until THE END OF THE GAME? its almost too hard of a counter tbh

guardian of the runes has a skill at lvl 4 called "Middle way" it shuts down every spell of light and dark within 8 hexagons of the caster for 2 turns. The only weakness of that skill is that you cannot recast the buff if you still have it, thus making at least 1 unit free to cast if you don't start first (other than the fact you need 3 faith points but it is not hard as it has the orthodox skill and piety (2) at level 5 and usually i cast it once per game which is enough).

about occult erosion: yes it is strong but not as strong vs the lion mages. It really devastates other's necro or wolven lonewolf but the lion mages by the time they have low will to fail regularly their main attack (difficulty 7 if i remember correctly with WILL 15) you already lost 2 units. additionally you need line of sight (Middle way doesn't as it is an area effect) and faith points not to mention that what are you going to do is relatively obvious and you have to be close to the mage...and the mage starts first vs undead 90% of the times, giving the possibility to one shot the pala right away. It depends on the battlefield situation...but it is not that easy counter as you believe i fear (i played a comp with 2 black pala ) . Occult erosion is the same thing, they fail one spell but can cast other 3 Transfer is nice indeed but often you end up killing your priest to kill the mage (i mean who leaves the mage alone?!). All in all i think wolven offer a better counter...i also add that lonewolf has a counter to favorable auspices (100% hit rate) with ice shield, giving a 50% extra chance to block arrows, regardless if they hit or not.

I'm deleting my old lion company to try once again the undeads especially vs that hard lion combo...so hopefully soon i will have a more optimistic opinion

i feel that the rock paper scissor is like that Wolven>Lion>Ram>Wolven etc....

Wolven provides the hard counters i just said shutting down archers and mages (the strongest lion units imo), Lion always starts first and undeads are generally slow, huge advantage with their archers compared to the undead ones, undeads tear wolven apart with cheap units (35 AP / 44 AP archers) being able to always hit for 10 hp regardless of TOU, punishing high AP units.

Thanks for explaining that. I was wondering about Paladin's skill, so does the curse last till the end of the game, OR curse last only for that turn and the penalties incurred (-2wp each spell) last until the end of the game. also you're right about wp not going low enough to start missing, but -2wp also lowers their spell dmg because their spells dmg based on wp.

Yeah I think you're right about that rockpaperscissors order, i guess every faction provides some soft counters but wolves seem to have harder counters for light, didn't know about middleway. also wolves have highest dodge vs archers.

maybe dark would do better vs a single mage, since their counters are single-target, and wolves would do be better vs 2. ill have to try them out more, just been playing light since starting

also wolves have highest dodge vs archers.

this one can be realy annoying - expecialy when in classic Conf - Wolfen was Large and was easier target than otner races and now shooting them even srom point blank can be failed. In case of units than can kill 2-3 units for one activation in HTH they definetly should have lower dodge stat

also wolves have highest dodge vs archers.

this one can be realy annoying - expecialy when in classic Conf - Wolfen was Large and was easier target than otner races and now shooting them even srom point blank can be failed. In case of units than can kill 2-3 units for one activation in HTH they definetly should have lower dodge stat

i think archers are powerful enough and poor wolven are good as they are with dodge, considering they cost lot of AP...

i think archers are powerful enough and poor wolven are good as they are with dodge, considering they cost lot of AP...

I knew that with Valkirie % doesn't matter so much but difference between dodge of Wolfens and other units is quite werid. Especialy when not using Valkirie or playing Acheron ;P

Wolfen units are expensve but definetly becouse born killer. Few times i lost whole band becouse one last wolfen (Tracker/Predator) that managed to go in to close combat

Alahan mage is a bit to strong with option to cast 3 copies of one spell at one enemy - Wolfens can do 3 atacks as long then manage to reach CC