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OK folks, I need your input. Tomorrow, my mortal enemy RiTides will meet me on the glorious fields of battle. We're running 150 resources / 5hLVL and I would love to have some other eyes on my list to see if I have even the slightest chance.

Ribenguo list

Kunoichi hLVL 5
(I have no idea how to allocate her levels)

Tanuki Samurai (standard equipment) x 5
-Trumpet of the last bastion
-Effigy of defeated foes

Fox Shinobi x 5
-kunai x 5
-Horn of the shattered claymore
-Effigy of defeated foes

Otter Ashigaru x 10
-6 rifle
-2 bow
-2 pike
-Bugle of hunters quarry
-Banner of fallen heroes

25% mercenaries
-3 mongoose legionnaires

Trebuchets x 2

Total
150 fd, 131 gold, 50 lumber

Battle plan: The mongeese and ashigaru will shoot and / or take their charge reactions. The tanuki will go on to come around the side / back. Kunoichi and shinobi will ambush to take the side or rear. Trebuchets will soften them up as they come at me.

I'm expecting the army to run away when they see the hamsters, and to die horribly to the Hedge Knight.

So that is the basic idea... any feedback? What should I do with the Kunoichi? Is there a better way to allocate points so that I spend more lumber? It feels so wrong to leave stuff unspent!

Give your Otter Ashigaru Pavises (Standing Shields), 5LR each.
Edit: (Misclicked)

This will give them 2 extra AR from Ranged attacks.

You may also wish to give your two Pike Ashigaru Rifles as well, allowing them to have a ranged attack (But they won't get the Teppojutsu bonus from Ippitsu Soujo.

For the Kunoichi, I'm *very* partial to running a HLVL5 Kunoichi with Fire Ninpo Rank 4 and the Smoke & Mirrors Boon.

Looks awesome! The trebuchets worry me, but it will be cool to see what model you're using for it

What talents/boons you take determines how your Kunoichi plays. Water Ninpo is a great way to lock down/punish melee units, but relies on her CM which is not as high as one would prefer, but if you put a Banner of Fallen Heroes on her, she has 7 CM instead of 4 (or keep a model with that banner near her) This can also be a double wammy, forcing the model to 1) activate to flee, 2) take 1d5 DE either once or per model, for fleeing.

But without one of the other talents she's very fragile, 1 AR will protect against very little. Fire Ninpo will punish anyone who tries to charge into melee with her, generally though, if you take it, they wont charge you, leaving her either to get shot up, or generally to be an ignored nuisance. If they treat her the latter (a Vandal army has very little ranged, so with Fire she'd likely be ignored) putting either CM banner on her can help protect against the hamster's Fear tests.

Earth Ninpo makes her a brutal melee character, especially when pointed at 5 FD, low armor models. with the +4 AR she gets circumstantially, and the Cavalry Charge ability, she can make 2 attacks against every model she passes by, and with her great Speed she has a threat range of 9/15". Slap on an Effigy and that becomes 12/18". Providing a wonderful opportunity to cut through the enemy army.

Boons are usually synergistic with the talents. Smoke and Mirrors makes a squad of +3 Kunoichi, great for a 4 model cavalry charge. Using them individually, spamming Water Ninpo at 4 different squads can send your opponent's forces into chaos. Fire Ninpo works less well, as Fire does not stack, and they are less likely to leave the shadow clones alone with their measly 1 VY.

Secrets and Lies works best with a large force of Shinobi, a squad of 5 is unlikely to ruin the opponent's ranks coming in from behind.

Sweep and Kill works well with Earth Ninpo, making 3 attacks during the charge instead of 1 or 2. If you're investing up to the cavalry Charge, smoke and mirrors is the better choice, but if you're splitting your talents, Sweep and Kill is a better option for regular melee combat. Also works well with Fire Ninpo, counter attacking, 3 attacks + fire + ambush on next turn.

Hopefully these ideas will help. The Kunoichi is a peculiar model, not quite a tactician, not quite a front line attacker.


As for your army list, I might suggest investing in one of the 7 Wanderers, Amamimoto is the only one we have a model for, but customizing a troop model might suffice for a friendly game. I also agree with Cyp, filling out your LR resources with Pavises for your Ashigaru would be a good choice.

Wow, Cyporiean and miskatonicalum, thank you so much! That is very, VERY helpful. Tomorrow is going to be a lot of fun!

Oh yeah, RiTides, the trebuchet models are D&D CMG models. I got them for about $7 shipped off of ebay. I think they actually are the right base size... oh that's right, I need to remember to grab the mans for them!

Last time we played, RiTides mentioned he wanted to do a battle report. I'm planning on taking photos/notes so I'll try to do one from my perspective, as well.

Gymnogyps wrote:oh that's right, I need to remember to grab the mans for them!

Remember that Siege Weapons in Brushfire do not come manned, you must activate a number of your forces next to one to fire/use the weapon in place of their normal weapons.

Oh, I did not realize that, thank you! I'll use a few of the Ashigaru. That works nicely.

Gymnogyps wrote:Oh, I did not realize that, thank you! I'll use a few of the Ashigaru. That works nicely.

Only 'Weapon Team' units get their crew included (and on the same base), like the Chipmunks

Good Luck with your fight

The trebuchet model looks good, and what's more is cheap! Would love to see the link you got it from, Gymnogyps (I think you said ebay).

Unfortunately, I misunderstood the point level... 150 resources EACH, I was thinking 50 each and only realized it when driving over. Still a great game, and we'll do the big version next time

A Battle Report would be sweet! Needs its own thread, I think

Glad to hear you had fun again RiTides, looking forward to the Battle Report thread.

And yeah, whenever you say X Resource Battle its X FD, X GD, AND X LR.

Cyporiean wrote:Glad to hear you had fun again RiTides, looking forward to the Battle Report thread.

And yeah, whenever you say X Resource Battle its X FD, X GD, AND X LR.

How common is it to max out all of your resources in a given game, I ask because when I totaled out how many points of Aquitar that I owned I had alot of food but very little wood and gold. Are the last two resources used primarily for upgrades?

On another note, has anyone tried magnitizing any of their models, if so how did it come out?

Catyrpelius wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:Glad to hear you had fun again RiTides, looking forward to the Battle Report thread.

And yeah, whenever you say X Resource Battle its X FD, X GD, AND X LR.

How common is it to max out all of your resources in a given game, I ask because when I totaled out how many points of Aquitar that I owned I had alot of food but very little wood and gold. Are the last two resources used primarily for upgrades?

On another note, has anyone tried magnitizing any of their models, if so how did it come out?

Some factions will max out LR/GD more easily then others, Banners/Horns/Siege Weapons/Fortification can help use up points if you feel like your sitting on a stockpile. We intend to address this in the future with some more generic upgrade options... among other things.

Magnetize? Hm. Not sure how I'd like that, but I guess with some small magnets weasels could have magnetized weapons. But why would you use anything other than rifles? =D

Also, BatRep ASAP go go go.

Crossbows do have the Extra damage on a crit, and can always be used to stand & shoot with.

Cyporiean wrote:Crossbows do have the Extra damage on a crit, and can always be used to stand & shoot with.

This. Have a group of weasles with crossbows infront of a unit with rifles to break charges.

Gavin Thorne wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:Crossbows do have the Extra damage on a crit, and can always be used to stand & shoot with.

This. Have a group of weasles with crossbows infront of a unit with rifles to break charges.

Bingo! While the Crossbow and Rifle Fusiliers can't activate together, they do still work well being near one another.

Keep a Mongoose Legionnaire or two in the middle of that rabble for extra fun when someone try to come into Melee

Well, I was thinking about something using mass weasels with rifles and a level 5 trapper. But now that I re read it to discuss the current topic, I see it wouldn't work. The idea was Grenadiers ability with trappers gives extra counterfire attacks. BUT if they've already activated with rifles I guess no counterfire. The idea was a defensive army winning via attrition with legionares and mass rifle weasels with trapper with lots of spotter abilities and grenadiers. And rerolling hits on counterfire for brutal retaliations.

tl,dr; What I want to do works better with xbows.

Hero Talents/Boons can sometimes trump the Activation system, RAI Grenadiers would allow you to make the Grenadiers attack even if you had activated as your not counterfiring with the Rifle or Crossbow, but with the stash of Grenades.

Posted the QnA in the wrong thread, derp.

Grenadiers is still useful with rifles, Rifles are doing 2 DE 1 AP, which is 'virtually' 3 damage against something that is armored, so if both attacks hit from a single model, theyre doing 4 DE 1 AP, as opposed to just 4 DE with a Crossbow (5 DE on a critical). So theyre consistently doing more damage, plus they can reroll their misses. To avoid the issue of having activated before a charge, you'll just need to take a few other things rather than just Fusiliers so that you can pad the beginning of your turn with other model's activations, so that your opponent has to play his charges before your weasels activations.

Finally started on my army! Yay Rats!

miskatonicalum wrote:Posted the QnA in the wrong thread, derp.

Grenadiers is still useful with rifles, Rifles are doing 2 DE 1 AP, which is 'virtually' 3 damage against something that is armored, so if both attacks hit from a single model, theyre doing 4 DE 1 AP, as opposed to just 4 DE with a Crossbow (5 DE on a critical). So theyre consistently doing more damage, plus they can reroll their misses. To avoid the issue of having activated before a charge, you'll just need to take a few other things rather than just Fusiliers so that you can pad the beginning of your turn with other model's activations, so that your opponent has to play his charges before your weasels activations.

Just to clarify on Matt's bolded point, you can reroll the misses on the Rifle attacks, but not the Grenadiers attacks.

Sekai wrote:Finally started on my army! Yay Rats!

Huzzah! Let's see the WIP pics!

Gavin Thorne wrote:

Sekai wrote:Finally started on my army! Yay Rats!

Huzzah! Let's see the WIP pics!

Yes, pics please!

These just look like normal rats, no reason for WIP

Not doing anything fancy? C'mon you gotta do something to make them look like "Dishonor Guard" rather than just regular raiders!

I know, I asked so nicely, too!

Miskatonic and Cyporiean, but actually anyone really, I'd love your assistance. Using warbands only, what would you use to defeat Zabar? What tactics would you use?

Edit- grammar

Gymnogyps wrote:I know, I asked so nicely, too!

Miskatonic and Cyporiean, but actually anyone really, I'd love you're assistance. Using warbands only, what would you use to defeat Zabar? What tactics would you use?

Zombie Tactics, keep them at bay and concentrate fire from as far as you can on one model at a time. Keep moving, if they get into Melee with you its all over. Focus on the Lioness or Hyenas first and then the War Hogs.

Axony would likely have the easiest time dealing with them, but Aquitar and Ribenguo can take them down as well with slightly more trouble. I've take the Zabarans down with Civitas as well, but they have a hard time.

Vandalands would have the hardest time.

Thanks! I'll post my results after we play tonight.

Edit-

We played, I won! Ribenguo beat Zabar. We do have several questions, so I'll add to the Q&A thread.

Congrats

Zabar is definitely one of the more scary forces to go against.

So my flight to SD was delayed 90 minutes. My brushfire rulebook will maintain my sanity.

The more I see Zabar the more I want. I like the synergistic play and the need for good timing and placement.