What does Drakes do vs loyalist?

[Airk]

The case you describe Airk is exception. Better not think about it unless situation is desperate or you have a 3/4 chance to kill enemy leader. Because when a desperate assassination fails, you lose a lot of your army in vain.

That's why you don't do it desperately and foolishly. But if the leader is alone with only, say, one unit that he recruited this last turn, and his other units and -just- far enough out of place that they won't be able to get back, it can potentially be very mean. Obviously it varies with leader type (Better luck with a white mage than a Dwarvish Steelclad. ;P) But drakes have a better chance at being able to -survive- a failed assassination than almost anyone else because of their ability to get in and out over what is, for other factions, very difficult terrain.

[krotop]

I think there is a slight difference between your 1st message and this one if I correctly understood what you were saying.

On a small map, it would seem the Drakes' quickest bet is to lure the enemy out of position and then slam his leader with a couple of high move units. This can end the game in a hurry if your opponent hasn't been keeping his leader covered. Fighters are probably the best for this, especially if you can get a couple of Quick ones, and maps like Blitz in particular can be friendly to this strategy because the opponent may be lured into forgetting that you can zoom across all that water in a hurry.

This certainly won't work all the time, but it's a definite option to keep in mind, particularly against loyalists, who aren't famous for their mobility.

Here, you're talking about a plan to assassinate the enemy leader : lure the troop far from your true target by flanking with some of your units. This is quite huge and complex and risky. This may work but it is a real advanced strategy, working in exceptionnal cases (opponent doesn't pay much attention).

That's why you don't do it desperately and foolishly. But if the leader is alone with only, say, one unit that he recruited this last turn, and his other units and -just- far enough out of place that they won't be able to get back, it can potentially be very mean. Obviously it varies with leader type (Better luck with a white mage than a Dwarvish Steelclad. ;P) But drakes have a better chance at being able to -survive- a failed assassination than almost anyone else because of their ability to get in and out over what is, for other factions, very difficult terrain.

Here, there's no more plan, just a case in which you describe a good occasion to kill the ennemy leader, but not necessarily a consequence of the luring plan. Of course you have to take this opportunity.

What I'm criticizing is more the fact that this strategy focuses on the leader and not much on his army while the easiest way to win is to dismiss his army 1st. This plan implies (as I understood) that you spend turns not trying to harm the other army the best way, to keep your units ready for the assassination. While I say to do as much damages and kills as you can, if opporunity to kill the leader is good enough or there's no other way to win as you're being crushed, take it.

I may be wrong and your strategy may work well, but I haven't seen it yet. Anyway, this is, again, really advanced strategy and not the basics required to fight loyalists with drakes in my humble opinion.

[Sapient]

It's good to note that the drake faction has exceptional potential for leader-kill situations. This is due to their high damage and mobility, combined with low defense, and also the availability of skirmisher units.

Of course, you could say the same for loyalists if they recruit a lot of horsemen and fencers, but that would not be practical since it would limit their army's versatility.

[Airk]

Thank you Sap.

Yes, that's my point - the drake units lend themselves far more easily to assasination techniques, because they are fast, hard hitting, and less limited by terrain. The loyalists (or anyone else, for that matter) simply don't have comparable maneuverability across the variety of terrain that the drakes do.

Even if you don't -go- for an assassination attempt, a good player will keep the THREAT of one present, forcing an opponent to either fight near their keep (losing strategy), commit their leader to the battle (limiting recruitment and possibly exposing him to skirmishers.), or to keep units back to guard him (Weakening their frontline.)

No terrain forms a natural barrier to drakes except caves - they can glide with impunity over water or mountains or other terrains that would take other units multiple turns to cross. Nowhere on the map is really safe from drakes.

[F8 Binds...]

I have a mere suggestion, (however much that is) but would it change anything to raise the spearman cost to 15g? (a slight hp bonus could be added) Also, another weakness of the drakes is their weakness on open terrain. Their movement is absolutely the same as average units, and well... They can't make an effective "firstrike attack", because the enemy would have similar movement, so if you move within range, you can get attacked by your opponent. I find Drakes VERY hard to play, as I am used to defending when it suites me, and then advancing with a strong, threatening line, as to force the opponent to retreat, in which his line is unorganized, and then I fall on him and kill him. This is why I play best with rebels. Drakes just can't defend. They must always be on a constant offensive. This is also why I am inventing a new drake!

Drake Fury: Somewhat like a berserker. When it kills a unit, it gains the ability to move another 3 hexes and attack again. If it kills another unit, this occurs again. (like in SurvivalXtreme) Some stats:

Drake Fury-
hp: 38 mp: 6 xp: 47
lawful
melee- 11-2 blade
cost: 23
note: has same movetype as regular drakes

[zookeeper]

I find drakes problematic on small maps, like the majority of mainline duel maps (charge, silverhead crossing, blitz, etc). It's hard to utilize the mobility on such maps, because you rarely if ever can flank the enemy so that none of their units can reach you on their turn (and if your opponent has any brains, he makes sure that unit is a spearman, horseman or something similar). My idea of using mobility to my advantage would be to threaten my opponent's villages or flanks in order to force them to do certain moves, which doesn't seem to work that well in small duel maps. Of course mobility also means that you can threaten multiple locations or units with a single highly mobily unit (more likely on small maps), but for some reason I don't find that useful very often either. Or maybe it's just me?

This of course isn't specific to drakes vs. loyalists, even though loyalist have some very annoying and dangerous mobile units (on their favoured terrains), like the horseman and merman fighter.

[Kalis]

Zoo: in smaller maps, I'm starting to realize that the advantage of mobility is initiative. It lets you attack first and eliminate 1 or 2 enemy units for little to no damage taken.
And since drakes have such low defense, and saurians such low HP, if you're not attacking first, you lose.

Here's a short 10-turn Drakes vs Rebels Blitz game. It ended with me having 4 losses, 10 kills.
Note: I completely messed up on my positioning and use of the drake burner on the left side. It worked out, but it was a very poor use of him.

Also attached is a Clash film: Drakes/orcs vs Drakes/orcs.
We seized the initiative, kept our troops concentrated while theirs got spread out, and just rolled them.

[taro]

Here's a short 10-turn Drakes vs Rebels Blitz game. It ended with me having 4 losses, 10 kills.

Have you had a look at the stats? 9 vs. 38 damage inflicted and 68 vs. 56 damage taken for the rebel player after turn 5. Though it went less bad for the rebels later it still stayed in favour of you. And at least for my taste your opponent recruited too many scouts.
I would like to see how you win this match up with average luck against a good rebel player.

[Kalis]

Taro: Took a look. And frankly, basing it on the EV is a bit silly.

Here's the damage analysis:
1. elvish scout ranged missed 6-2 vs augur 60% (4.8EV)
2. elvish scout melee missed 4-3 vs augur 60% (4.8EV)
3. elvish archers melee missed 5-2 vs skirmisher 60% (4EV)
4. elvish fighter ranged missed 3-3 vs augur 60% (3.6EV)
5. elvish fighter ranged missed 4-2, hit 4-1 vs augur 40% (7.2EV)
6. elvish fighter melee missed 5-3, hit 5-1 vs gladiator 30% (14EV)
total damage: 9
total EV: 38.4

Note that #1-2 should of never occurred in the first place.
He was in a village, I was silly to attack with a solo augur, even from 60% block terrain. Ultimately, it ended up in 0 actual damage dealt, since he healed it instantly sitting in a village (I dealt 16 damage there, compared to an EV of 12.4).
So I guess techncially got good luck, but honestly, it was an action that shouldn't of been performed, and basically got canceled out instantly (due to village healing for him, and him missing against my 60% block).

For #4-6, assuming average luck, it would of just meant my units would of had damage spread out. A bit of extra damage to my gladiator, to my augurs, and to a saurian skirmisher.

That said, I agree, my opponent here was not exactly brilliant.
I posted it more as a show of what can happen when drakes attack fast and hard. I used the same basic strategy in the blitz and clash game (although with different unit choices). Similar result though. In the clash, it was 10 kills 6 losses on turn 10, and 12 kills 7 losses on turn 11.

[Beholder]

A simple scenery.

Get a map like Blitz. You have a donut-shaped map, with a way to left, and one to right and water on the middle.

So, lets say both armies get half of the donut, and things are even HOWEVER...

The Loyalist player put some Spearman on one side, and advance with it's main force of at least 2 Spearman at 1 Horsemen on the other side.

The Drake will have a hard time getting any village (60 defense, regeneration from village) from the "weak" side. If he is lucky, he can kill the Spearman after 3 guys attacks, but this means it's other side is unprotected.

I am not even counting the water villages which can be stolen by Merman on a minute notice and will be a pain to get back.

Main point here is: If the Loyalist player take it's time and advance slowly with a minimum team of 2 Spearman + 1 Horseman , always covering exposed villages, what a Drake can do?

Horsemen charges. If he connects, the Spearman finish the job. If not, retreat and wait for a new Horsemen. With the time, the Loyalist will hire yet more Spearman and the pointly tide will start getting villages from one side by sheer numbers.

A quick replay versus the AI just to ilustrate. Yeah, the AI isn't bright but it show how it can be pulled.

[Beholder]

A simple scenery.

Get a map like Blitz. You have a donut-shaped map, with a way to left, and one to right and water on the middle.

So, lets say both armies get half of the donut, and things are even HOWEVER...

The Loyalist player put some Spearman on one side, and advance with it's main force of at least 2 Spearman at 1 Horsemen on the other side.

The Drake will have a hard time getting any village (60 defense, regeneration from village) from the "weak" side. If he is lucky, he can kill the Spearman after 3 guys attacks, but this means it's other side is unprotected.

I am not even counting the water villages which can be stolen by Merman on a minute notice and will be a pain to get back.

Main point here is: If the Loyalist player take it's time and advance slowly with a minimum team of 2 Spearman + 1 Horseman , always covering exposed villages, what a Drake can do?

Horsemen charges. If he connects, the Spearman finish the job. If not, retreat and wait for a new Horsemen. With the time, the Loyalist will hire yet more Spearman and the pointly tide will start getting villages from one side by sheer numbers.

A quick replay versus the AI just to ilustrate. Yeah, the AI isn't bright but it show how it can be pulled.

[Ultimatum479]

Since you mentioned a specific map, let's analyze fighting tactics on that one.

If I were a Drake on Blitz fighting against a Spearman- or Horseman-obsessed enemy, I'd go with Burners and Augurs on one side to progress offensively, while merely holding the line on the other side using Skirmishers and Augurs. It's even better with fog because then there's only a 50% chance they'll guess through which side you're planning to attack. You send a Sky Drake on the offensive side to grab a village near the back of the Loyalist group, and they're faced with a choice: either stick with the loss of income or send some troops to deal with the issue. They'll almost always choose the latter, and that's your chance to use your Burner + Augur army to start pushing ahead.

Once they get the hang of your tactics and start sending Bowmen instead of melee troops (so as to counterattack properly when your Burners and Augurs attack with ranged), or if they already were using Bowmen in the first place, fall back on that side and start reinforcing your Skirmisher side instead. You keep see-sawing back and forth between the two to counter when your opponent does the same between melee and ranged pierce attacks.

If you're fighting someone who knows how to keep the proper balance between ranged and melee pierce against a Drake army -- which, judging from the many worries of "massed Spearmen death" in this thread, isn't a frighteningly commonplace find -- then it's a much tougher battle. You have to do the same: balance Skirmishers, Burners and Augurs on both sides, keeping the Augurs always within healing range and close enough to finish off wounded enemies while alternating between Burners and Skirmishers depending on what you're hitting. You'll find yourself low on gold quite frequently in a battle like this, but that doesn't mean you should play defensively and not take many risks so as to conserve gold...on the contrary, it means you should make certain to kill as many of his expensive troops as you can, to make him even _lower_ on gold. Due to the gold issue, you might wanna get more Augurs against this type of opponent: they can really help the Burners take out the enemy's Horsemen, one of the most expensive unit types in Wesnoth, and they'll help your units stay alive. Every once in a while, when the enemy starts to get pushed back at night by your Skirmishers and Augurs, make a Skirmisher try to run and grab a village so they bring even more units off the front line trying to deal with this new threat.

The advantage of Drakes on Blitz is largely their high movement, and that applies even to the Saurians, although the water advantage of Drakes is lost by Saurians against Mermen. Still, even the Saurians should have an easier job moving between east and west than the Loyalists. Use that to quickly rearrange your troops when necessary to press the advantage on either side or swiftly reinforce a weakening line. And don't forget to occasionally call in the big guns: a single Clasher when you notice an opponent stocking up too much on Bowmen and not enough on the other troops (which is likely to happen with your Augur + Burner ranged versus only your Skirmisher melee) can truly wreak havoc in the enemy line, so it might be a good idea to keep a single one in reserve just beyond the fog.

[Beholder]

Since you mentioned a specific map, let's analyze fighting tactics on that one.

If I were a Drake on Blitz fighting against a Spearman- or Horseman-obsessed enemy, I'd go with Burners and Augurs on one side to progress offensively, while merely holding the line on the other side using Skirmishers and Augurs. It's even better with fog because then there's only a 50% chance they'll guess through which side you're planning to attack. You send a Sky Drake on the offensive side to grab a village near the back of the Loyalist group, and they're faced with a choice: either stick with the loss of income or send some troops to deal with the issue. They'll almost always choose the latter, and that's your chance to use your Burner + Augur army to start pushing ahead.

Once they get the hang of your tactics and start sending Bowmen instead of melee troops (so as to counterattack properly when your Burners and Augurs attack with ranged), or if they already were using Bowmen in the first place, fall back on that side and start reinforcing your Skirmisher side instead. You keep see-sawing back and forth between the two to counter when your opponent does the same between melee and ranged pierce attacks.

If you're fighting someone who knows how to keep the proper balance between ranged and melee pierce against a Drake army -- which, judging from the many worries of "massed Spearmen death" in this thread, isn't a frighteningly commonplace find -- then it's a much tougher battle. You have to do the same: balance Skirmishers, Burners and Augurs on both sides, keeping the Augurs always within healing range and close enough to finish off wounded enemies while alternating between Burners and Skirmishers depending on what you're hitting. You'll find yourself low on gold quite frequently in a battle like this, but that doesn't mean you should play defensively and not take many risks so as to conserve gold...on the contrary, it means you should make certain to kill as many of his expensive troops as you can, to make him even _lower_ on gold. Due to the gold issue, you might wanna get more Augurs against this type of opponent: they can really help the Burners take out the enemy's Horsemen, one of the most expensive unit types in Wesnoth, and they'll help your units stay alive. Every once in a while, when the enemy starts to get pushed back at night by your Skirmishers and Augurs, make a Skirmisher try to run and grab a village so they bring even more units off the front line trying to deal with this new threat.

The advantage of Drakes on Blitz is largely their high movement, and that applies even to the Saurians, although the water advantage of Drakes is lost by Saurians against Mermen. Still, even the Saurians should have an easier job moving between east and west than the Loyalists. Use that to quickly rearrange your troops when necessary to press the advantage on either side or swiftly reinforce a weakening line. And don't forget to occasionally call in the big guns: a single Clasher when you notice an opponent stocking up too much on Bowmen and not enough on the other troops (which is likely to happen with your Augur + Burner ranged versus only your Skirmisher melee) can truly wreak havoc in the enemy line, so it might be a good idea to keep a single one in reserve just beyond the fog.

Why the Loyalist doesn't send a single Horsemen to kill the Glider? He can die on one volley and the odds are at it's side.

A Loyalist can hold every village if he wants and still have enough troops to advance.

[Beholder]

Why that Loyalist doesn't send a single Horsemen to kill the Glider? He can die on one volley and the odds are at it's side. Massing one unit doesn't means you are forbidden to use others.

A Loyalist can hold every village if he wants and still have enough troops to advance.

[binaryquasar]

how much gold are you playing with? 2 spearmen + one horse = 28 + 23 = 51 so you have to be playing with more than the standard 100 gold to even place that configuration on both sides and of course 6 units is not enough to hold all your villages and still attack offensively. In multiplayer you will most likely end up with 100 gold on said map, so I suggest you make comments based around that sum.