Okay, new week, new debate topic. This time: “Are Brawl oriented armies a viable option?”
On the surface, this looks like a non-topic. Of course brawl-oriented armies aren’t going to be viable, just look at the rules! You’ve got to get next to your target in order to even attempt a brawl attack, not to mention that non-jumping, non-flying brawlers can’t even target flying enemies. With blast attacks, you can be up to a half a board away to attempt the attack. If I brawl you, you can hit me right back. You talk about A-die efficiencies, Andrew, and brawl attacks have got to be some of the most inefficient attacks in the game. There’s no way you can successfully take the stance that brawl armies are viable!
And yet, here I am, to tell you that you can have a successful, brawl oriented army in Monsterpocalypse.
As usual, I’m not claiming that every faction is going to have a good brawl-heavy option. Nor am I going to say that you won’t use any blasting in your army. What I consider a brawl-oriented option is one where the majority of attacks are going to be brawl-based.
First off, what would you call an attack that requires you to not only be adjacent to your opponent, but actually aligned? That will almost certainly leave your opponent in a position to counter-attack you, and that will do a minimum of 1 point of damage?
Answer: A power attack.
Power attacks share pretty much all of the “drawbacks” of a brawl attack, and even more when you consider the alignment requirement. Of course, they’ve got a huge upside to them, in that, in certain circumstances, you can do 5 or more damage to an opponent’s form with one attack. I don’t think anyone here will say that a power attack oriented strategy isn’t viable, will they?
When you boil it down, brawl attacks are really just small power attacks. They don’t have the same damage ceiling as a power attack, but with the help of a few abilities, they can do a fair share of damage. Plus, they’re much harder to screen against, as they only require adjacency.
So, let’s take a look at some of those abilities and triggers that can help brawl attacks out. Offensively, you’ve got the damage boosters, Annihilate, Weapon Master, Crunch, Lightning Attack, Feeding Frenzy, and Overload. You’ve also got the “mini power attacks”: Toss and Beat Back, which, when used in the right spot, can put a good sized hurtin’ on any monster. For Health regen, you’ve got Vampirism and Munch. For Dice economy, you’ve got Energy and Power drain, Siphon, Power Gorge, Energy and Power Cycle, as well as Chain Attack. You’ve got defense dropping abilities Weaken, Flank, and Penetrator. Many monsters sport more than one of these, and with the use of red abilities (and two space effect range), you can sometimes even pick up an extra one or two from nearby units.
In short, brawl attacks are all about stacking abilities. It’s not inconcievable to pull together a brawl attack that will do super damage to an opponent at -2 defense.
Of course, there’s the eternal drawback to monster attacks. You can only do one of them per turn. Unless…
Yes, that’s right folks, those tiny little champions of terror, the monsters that can’t power attack, MORPHERS! Morphers are a great foundation for a brawl-based army. Each of the four metamorphs brings 3-4 abilities to the table, usually with one of them being red. Each can bring 2 P-dice to an attack, and they can combine attacks. You can essentially get two monster activations in a single turn.
Let’s take a look at what, in my opinion, are two of the best brawl-oriented Morphers out there: Ancient Osheroth and Vorgax. Both have Summon, so they can bring along a unit to help out the brawl attack. Both factions have a unit with Weaken (Cthulabite and Crawler), and both have a unit with the ability to make a monster attack do super damage (Elite Corrupter (Overload) and Chomper (Feeding Frenzy)). Each of the morpher teams has the ability to drop defense on its own (Flank and Penetrator).
If you can get an opponent within two spaces of the unit with Weaken, you can bring the Ultra form up close to the enemy, drop out of hyper form, summon the other unit, and let fly with a barrage of brawl attacks that do super damage at -2 or -3 defense. That’s a potent combination, one that will likely score you at least one monster form. In fact, Ancient Osheroth was used by one player to get to the Masters finals at this year’s GenCon. If that’s not a ringing endorsement that braw-oriented armies can be viable, I’m not sure what is.
I hope that, after these two articles, and my comments on other blog entries at TeamCovenant, you are starting to take a second look at figures you’d have otherwise set aside. There’s a beautiful depth to this game, and a wide variety of viable strategies. Monsterpocalypse Now! promises to bring even more depth and richness to the game.
I get to go second this time! Here I come, Andrew =)
Are Brawl-oriented armies viable? Well, I guess anything is viable, so yes. Are they equal to Blast-oriented armies? No. It’s really that simple, and all it takes is a bit of explanation to understand.
Let me take a second to outline what exactly Andrew said just now.
-> Brawl attacks benefit from buffs and debuffs
-> A few of the Morpher forms have devastating Brawl potential
That doesn’t really tell me much. Blast attacks benefit from the exact same buffs and debuffs, often from the exact same abilities that Andrew mentioned. Weapon Master is found on Blasts, Annihilate affects Blasts, Overload, Energy Drain, Power Drain, Siphon…etc. And yes, some of the morphers do well with Brawl attacks. I hardly consider that ample evidence to come to the conclusion that “you can have a successful, brawl oriented army in Monsterpocalypse”. Brawl-oriented does not simply mean that I have a monster with a brawl attack.
But Andrew did do a good job of outlining some of the problems with Brawl-based forces. And if you’ll notice, those problems were never really addressed. Here’s what it comes down to as far as brawling units are concerned:
-> Brawlers must (98% of the time) move to attack (A-Die deficiency)
-> Brawlers cannot secure buildings and attack
-> Brawlers have a much harder time combining attacks
-> Brawlers attacking a monster allow for an easy stomp
-> Brawlers cannot inherently attack Flying figures
-> Brawlers cannot screen your monster and attack
-> Brawlers are (unbelievably) often slower than Blasters
-> Brawlers have a smaller threat range than Blasters
-> Oil Refinery increases reach by 1, Radar increases reach by 2
-> Bank HQ gives Blast B-Die
So we have a type of unit that has all of these restrictions, all of these hindrances, all of these obstacles that are working against it from the start. There has to be a trade of some kind here. Because of all of the disadvantages of Brawlers, they should have some clear advantages. These are:
-> Brawlers can attack adjacent units
-> …
It’s really incredible. You would expect brawling units to at least have a significantly higher DEF or at least 1 more B-Die on average than blasting units, but if you look across the board, this just isn’t the case. Further, brawling units are actually, as a whole, weaker statistically than blasting units.
Let’s take a second to think about the factions. G.U.A.R.D. has G-Tanks and G-1s with Rocket Choppers as its bread and butter. It’s a blasting faction though, so that makes sense.
What about the Martian Menace? Vanguards, Hunters, Despoilers, etc. Again, we have all blasting units as the staples. Where are the Reapers?
The Shadow Sun Syndicate is a great example of what I am talking about here. They had the quintessential Brawler in S-Types + Zor-Raiden. The S-Type is as good as a Brawler gets, with Flank, Cloak, and Jump, and SSS’ Skyscrapers actually made it viable. Add to that Blue Charge and you’ve got to be saying – unstoppable!
But we all know the sad truth of what happened. The Katana came along. It was over. SSS players quickly figured out that the Katana was superior to the S-Type. With all of the goodies that both bring to the table, the deciding factor was Blast v. Brawl. SSS players started reveling in the ability to stay mid-board and destroy anything that they wanted. They no longer needed Skyscrapers. They no longer needed Flank. They no longer needed Raiden. The inherent superiority of Blasters won out. Maxim was just icing on the cake.
The Terrasaurs have what you would expect to be a decent shot at a brawling army. They’re dinos after all! But look at what you find: Bellowers and Spikodons, with Pteradactix for Tow. Does anyone really run Carnidon and Raptix anymore? If they do, it’s foolish. Again, the usual Terrasaur force consists of Blasters, only using Brawlers for certain abilities (Tow in this case).
Even Cthulian forces are focused on blasting. Every Cthul list that I’ve seen or played against is Spitter-heavy. Then Cthulabites with Multi-Shot. Even Towers of Corruption are Blasters. The only Brawler actually used to Brawl is the Task Master, and that’s because it has a Blast built into its Brawl (Fling). Other than that, you might see an Elite Corrupter for Red Overload. How many Snatchers do you generally see on Cthul lists? I thought so.
That is 5 of the 6 factions, and it’s obvious that those 5 factions are more competitive when they run their Blasters over their Brawlers. Already I can say, without a doubt, that blasting forces are more competitive than their brawling counterparts.
The Planet Eaters are the only faction left, and I’ve written enough about them. They are the only faction to use primarily Brawlers, but it’s because they do not have any decent Blasters. G-1s have a B-Die. Vanguards have a B-Die. Katanas have a B-Die (High Impact). Spitters have a B-Die. Bellowers have a B-Die. Belchers and Scorchers have no such thing. So a lot of PE lists are Brawl heavy – but what do you think would happen if, next set, there is a Blaster with a native B-Die? I’ll give you a hint – it will be the exact same thing that happens to every faction with a solid Blaster.
What seems to have happened with unit design in these first 3 sets is that the Blasters get the range and B-Die, while the Brawlers get the abilities. So I might run an Elite Corruptor to Summon, or a Pteradactix for Tow, or a Chomper for Feeding Frenzy – but these units exist for utility. When it comes to the heart of nearly all competitive forces, you’ll notice that it is composed of Blasters.
I guess it makes sense this way. In the spirit of Kaiju films, you have giant monsters fighting it out and the support is always in the form of gunfire, missiles, and lasers. Rarely do you see a group of ninjas stab Gamera in the toe, or punch Godzilla in the tail. Hell, even the movies tell us that Blasters are superior!
But maybe Brawlers are superior because they can do something that Blasters cannot – stack abilities. Andrew did posit that “brawl attacks are all about stacking abilities.” – but this is nonsense. What does it even mean? It is said over and over and over but I simply do not understand. Do Blasters not benefit from stacking abilities as well? Weaken + Spotter + Logistics + Armor Piercing + Power Gorge + Power Drain + High Impact, etc. Flank only works for brawls, Spotter only works for blasts. Berserk only works for brawls, High Impact only works for blasts. You want to stack abilities for both kinds of attacks. Saying that the real secret to brawling is that you can stack abilities is…ridiculous.
Andrew is right about some monsters being good at brawling, like the aforementioned Osheroth and Vorgax, as well as Mega Dax. But those are monsters. Running one of them hardly makes your army “Brawl-oriented”. What makes an army Brawl-oriented is running Raiden and S-Types, or Mega Dax and Raptix. You do not see these armies in competitive circles.
What it comes down to is this – a competitive army formed from the first 3 sets will be composed of mainly Blasters. There will be Brawlers included, but they serve only as utility. This may well change when Now! hits, but as it is, Brawl-based armies are inferior.
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Gotta agree with Steven on this one. Once Now! hits and Mantacon (and possibly others) bring the Brawlers some much needed relief we might see more brawling forces. There’s a decent chance a brawling force could stand toe-to-toe with blasters. At the moment though, brawling units aren’t geared to doing damage effectively. They can provide some utility (feeding frenzy and weaken, for example) in a fight, but they won’t be very effective on the front line since they’ll constantly have to be running back across the map to get things done.
Of course, if you could get enough of them out there or get a high enough mobility on them (P-Tix towing would be a way to get 1 unit there… we need more than 1, unfortunately) you could have a very competitive brawling force. At least, that’s my guess.
Oh, I don’t know. My Tyrannix list depends pretty heavily on it’s Brawl attacks. Now the Ultra is a Power attacking fool, so it may not qualify as Brawl oriented. And my Spikodons and Bellowers are all about the range so that might weaken my case.
Andrew, it might help to see your idea of a brawl oriented list and to define viable better. Can it win a local tournament? Can it win Masters? Can you play it and expect to have fun doing so? Different definitions and affects the debate.
And after reading Stephen’s I really have to agree with him. Of course, how the terms oriented and viable are defined will impact the debate significantly.
I think both of you made some excellent points. I also think that you guys would have agreed had the question been worded a bit differently. If the question had been, ‘Can an army with a MONSTER who is brawl oriented be competitive?’, you would have both said yes.
Further, I think that anyone would admit that blast is superior to brawl, assuming you have access to the same abilities, stats, etc. Example, if you can be have weapon master, munch, charge, etc. on blast and brawl, I am going to blast you instead of brawling you.
The real question is whether current blast based units are better than current brawl based units or vice-versa. If they have the same or similar abilities and stats, sure something with greater reach is better. I feel that Andrew is simply saying ‘don’t overlook something because it doesn’t blast’ and then Steven is trying to prove that ‘reach is superior’.
I think both of you are right…
Two units given the same stats and abilities with the only exception being that one can blast while the other brawls will always be in favor of the blaster. That’s the nature of the beast.
Cloak helps to even the field, but short range blasting is still blasting and still superior to brawling, all else being equal. In a combat sense, blast beats brawl every time.
Of course, there are piles and piles of variables to consider, such as the speed of the brawlers against the range of the blasters. The ability of either group to be consistent in their damage-dealing efforts. Etc. etc.
One thing I’d like to see and we probably never will would be a reaction that reflected a blast attack (maybe even still taking damage, but damaging the attacker in return, possibly only if the attacker rolled more hits than their own defense) that would severely cramp blasters. If it were popular enough in the meta, it could even push brawlers into the limelight as no one would want to rely solely on blasting. Just a thought.
I’m wondering where this “-> Brawlers must (98% of the time) move to attack (A-Die deficiency)” comes from.
Is that scientific?
Zach and Phillip,
As I touched on in the article, all things ARE equal between brawlers and blasters, save that blasters have a huge advantage in range. That’s exactly the problem. In fact, a lot of times the brawlers are WORSE units even on top of the inherent disadvantages of brawling. The “piles and piles of variables” are there to look at. Check the speed of Chompers, Explodomites, Explodohawks, Raptix, Snatchers, etc against the speed of Katanas, G1s, Bellowers, Spitters, Cthulabites, etc.. The brawlers have no noticeable advantage speedwise, and often they actually are slower for some crazy reason.
In the same way, look at the ability for each to do consistent damage. Even if a lot of the brawlers had a long range blast they would be sub-par units. Who really cares about ANY non-utility unit without a native boost? Why are Katanas, G1s, Bellowers, etc. so staple? It’s the native boost.
So there might be a lot of variables to consider, but it’s not hard to sort them out! Once you make a list comparing the top brawlers to the top blasters, it’s just disheartening. Brawling forces =/= competitive.
Zach you said that “the real question is whether current blast based units are better than current brawl based units or vice-versa. If they have the same or similar abilities and stats, sure something with greater reach is better.”
Do the work man! Ask yourself that question and dig into the units to find out the answer. I’ll save you the trouble – current blast-based units are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than current brawl-based units. And the blasters actually have BETTER STATS. Enough with the ambiguity, Zach. Do the research =)
Haha Jason, that is completely scientific. Take the number of times I’ve had to advance my brawlers to attack, divide by total times that I have attacked with a brawler – 98%
=)
I admit to having not read the entire post or the comment section, and apologize. I’m back in school so time is a little more limited.
Brawl armies will be a little more viable once units with brawl reach the power potential of the shooty units.
Look at the baseline shooty figures of each faction: Spitter, G1, Katana, Bellower, Vanguard.
Each of these units comes with a natural B Dice and has a threat range of 9-12 squares. (assuming spitter has the elite’s radar)
On further inspection you’ll notice that most of these units came from I chomp. Unit wise the expansions breakdown like this
Rise: Utility + brawl units (hell, SSS was brawly)
I chomp: shooty + natural B dice
AYB: installation + more utility/meta units.
Brawl units simply came out too early. They were generated for the current Meta and were far out-classed by their shooty I chomp counterparts.
I guarantee if the chomper were to move 8 (9 threat range), he would be more viable. Now that the power curve allows for a brawly unit with 8 movement and a natural B Dice, we will see brawly based armies.
Steven,
I should have been more clear. By “piles and piles of variables” I meant things like abilities, location of spawn points, the opposition’s reach, the amount of impassable terrain on the map, etc. There are dozens if not hundreds of things to consider when doing a complete evaluation of useful or useless a unit is.
Strictly in a combat sense or assuming all abilities to be equal outside of combat, a blaster is easily the better choice. What I meant was if a brawling army had the ability to take greater advantage of the situation somehow outside of combat, it should be considered. The number of factors involved would be immense.
I don’t mean to suggest a brawling army ever actually is superior to its blasting equivalent. I was just trying to say that there’s a lot to consider under the wide array of things that could be classified as a “viable brawling army.” I believe the question provided too wide a scope to be succinctly answered either way.
Phil,
I think you hit on something important. That’s the thing. Without a game mechanic to limit the advantage of blasting (line of sight), there is no situation in which the map, buildings, placement, spawns, etc. will NOT favor blasters. If it was the case that some maps had tons of mountains in the middle that made blasting impossible, that would be a factor, but as it is now, I cannot think of ANY factor that would make brawling better than blasting.
Maybe I’m missing something?
Line of sight. That right there would put brawlers on even footing with blasters. At least, it would at the beginning of a battle.
“Andrew, it might help to see your idea of a brawl oriented list and to define viable better. Can it win a local tournament? Can it win Masters? Can you play it and expect to have fun doing so? Different definitions and affects the debate.”
ChiVenger, wait until tomorrow.
As for what I mean by viability, I would consider a force viable if it feels competitive in a local tourney. “Feels competitive” is a difficult to quantify quality, but I would say if I feel like I’ve got a chance to win all the way up to the end of the match on a consistent basis, it’s a viable army. I’ve played some non-viable armies, to be sure.
Oh, and Steven, the question isn’t which is better blasting or brawling, but whether or not brawling is viable. Absolutely blasting offers a lot of benefits, as you illustrated. But I still say, when you get in it up to your elbows, a brawl heavy army can pull their weight.
There is another advantage to brawling units that can’t be found by looking at stats. It’s not a big one, but it’s something I have yet to see discussed in the argument between blast and brawl.
Brawlers, by their very nature, must spend A-Dice to advance before attacking, sometimes over the course of multiple turns. This makes them, in the battle between the Brawl and the Blast, quite clearly, the more inefficient method of ‘attack’. However, brawling and blasting aren’t the only thing you can do to ‘attack’ your opponent. What do I mean?
It’s simple. Building disruption. Brawling units are ‘inherently’ better at disrupting the securability of buildings on the board.
“Wait, what?”
I put inherently in quotes for a reason. You might say, “Hey, blasting units can secure and contest buildings, too! That’s crap!” then I’d to say “Hey, let me get to my point!”. You see, if you advance your blasters before attacking, to secure or contest buildings, you’re removing a very big advantage blasters have, their a-dice efficiency. So, how can we use this to our advantage? Well, it depends on the situation. If there’s a building your opponent might want to secure, or a building YOU want to secure, or perhaps a power point near your advancing unit’s path, just snag it as you go. Sure, you might not secure it forever. But you MIGHT secure it for a turn.
Playing to this advantage, on average, for the factions that can choose between both brawling and blasting units, brawling units generally have higher defense, making them even “better” at securing/disrupting. (For example, Bellower 3 – Carnidon 4; Belcher 3, Explodomite 4)
Is this enough to “balance” brawlers against blasters? Well, not really. But I think it’s something that needs to be brought up before you decry brawling units as worthless. Something for the secret Carnidon lover in each and every one of you.
Had a couple of ideas on how to balance blast and brawl:
- modifier for shooting at long range that makes it slightly more difficult to hit. +1 DEF might be too much but maybe no super strikes at long range is enough, and not hard to remember.
- all units get a hit and run trigger on brawl. This allows them to spend the inefficient A-dice to advance on that 1st turn, but after they are in the mix, they can just keep hitting and moving.
- if you have 1 unit adjacent to an enemy figure, other units adjacent to your own can combine in a brawl attack even if they are not adjacent to the enemy. This works in making combined brawl easier to achieve. Right now it’s hard to combine brawl because buildings and water effectively BLOCK brawl LOS but don’t block blast LOS for combined attacks, ie it’s much easier to combine blast and this needs to change.
None of these changes affect the stats on unit bases. What are your thoughts?
Explodoman,
The only problem I have with what you said is that a blaster can do everything a brawler does. The only exception being that some blaster’s can’t brawl or bombard adjacent to themselves, so on a soft disruption there’s a very slight chance they might be less efficient. While moving a blaster in order to disrupt is “removing … their a-die efficiency” it’s not any worse than paying the same cost to move a unit that can’t help but be inefficient. Inefficient is inefficient is inefficient. I’d rather take a unit that can do more in general than one that’s already handicapped to do the same job.
Another thing on blaster disruption, sending a blaster to disrupt will generally be more effective as they can hit the units securing the buildings long before your brawly unit gets anywhere near disrupting. A G1 or Katana can reasonably kill a unit and unsecure a building every turn, even if it has to spawn and move. Brawly units, like the Explodomite or Carnidon wouldn’t be able to say the same. They’d still be sitting on your half of the map while your opponent takes advantage of a nice little power base for at least a turn or two. By the time you get nearer, they will likely have their own units (probably blasters) in position to take out the soft disrupting brawler. In the Master’s the only reason soft disruption was so effective seemed to be simply because it wasn’t convenient to spend the dice needed to take out the offending units.
And because of Skyscrapers =) The one savior of Brawlers…given to one faction…which then got the most solid blaster in the game…
Cover is a start. Blasting has a slight disadvantage in that defenses against it can be raise naturally (which means “without involving abilities, imagine figures with the right side of their base blank) whereas brawling naturally just has to deal with the printed stat.
Now as far as abilities go…
Blasters have 3 hosing factors. Cloak (all range is now considered “minimum” which means most things will be in running zone of brawlers), Decoy (no range at all), and Force Field (unit def +1, gives ‘em +2 with cover). Of course, a blue force field (which you’d need with blue berserk just to make brawlers competitive) appears only on Defender X and Ultra Mothership.
Meanwhile, brawlers have 2 hosers. Terrify (no unit brawling) and Shelter (def +1 against brawling but a joke).
Still blasting rocks. The way I see it, for brawling just to be on an even playing field you need:
1) higher defense than blasters
2) higher movement than blasters
The ability quickness (free movement) seems like a step in the right direction. Let’s just hope it appears ONLY on brawl units and never on a blast.