Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: MW United on May 11, 2015, 05:17:15 PM
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Hello guys
I was thinking about all the cards in the game that don't make it to the arena that often.
Akio's Hammer....... Hmm
Well what if the war machine could be manned by say a goblin builder or the dwarf engineer as two examples??
For a full action the chosen creature could move the war machine one zone in any direction but not through a wall.
This would surely give this card more play time, and the goblin builder would become a more viable option too.
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Now this is an interesting idea....
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The card is still useless since it dosen't have indirect. Place a blocked LOS wall infront of it, and it can not fire.
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The card is still useless since it dosen't have indirect. Place a blocked LOS wall infront of it, and it can not fire.
Seems like a pretty straightforward errata for both Akiro's Hammer and Ballista (promo).
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Wait, you want to make Ballista *more* powerful?
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Wait, you want to make Ballista *more* powerful?
Its not that powerful.....
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Wait, you want to make Ballista *more* powerful?
Well, it currently has the same "unplayable" issue as Akiro's Hammer for the same reason (put a LoS-blocking wall in front of it and it's useless, although in this case the wall has to be immediately adjacent to it or Ballista could target the wall). It can only attack every other round. It can't defend itself (e.g. needs a guard because can't attack anything at range 1). And unlike Akiro's Hammer's zone attack, Ballista's single-target attack isn't unavoidable so can be dodged by a defense or can trigger Reverse Attack.
I think some of the Druid's conjurations are scarier than Ballista, especially since they can pop up anywhere there's a Vine token and immediately perform an attack, often with special effect from a Mist token.
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But balista could at least attack the wall you place in front of it, the hammer cannot.
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But balista could at least attack the wall you place in front of it, the hammer cannot.
Don't you have to have LoS and proper range to a zone that the wall borders? If you put an LoS-blocking wall bordering the zone containing the Ballista, it wouldn't be able to target the wall because LoS to the target zone at proper range (1 zone away) would be blocked. The only zone that the wall borders that is in LoS is at range 0.
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But balista could at least attack the wall you place in front of it, the hammer cannot.
Don't you have to have LoS and proper range to a zone that the wall borders? If you put an LoS-blocking wall bordering the zone containing the Ballista, it wouldn't be able to target the wall because LoS to the target zone at proper range (1 zone away) would be blocked. The only zone that the wall borders that is in LoS is at range 0.
From the rules pg 18
Attacking Walls
A creature in either of the zones bordering a wall may make
a melee attack against that wall. Ranged attacks may target
a wall if either of the adjacent zones is in range, the wall is
in LoS. Walls do not occupy a zone, and are not affected by
Zone Attacks or spells that target a zone.
A ballista can attack the wall because the adjacent zone is in range and it has LoS to the wall.
Akiro's Hammer has the "corporeal conjurations" and the 2-3 range to deal with. A fog bank / wall of fire is untouchable by the Hammer
Furthermore since the hammer's zone attack targets a zone any LoS blocking wall can prevent that attack.
Ballista = Awesome
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Range of Zero would be the zone in which the balista is. A wall touching that zone would be within range of 1 because it is also on an adjacent zone which would be one zone away.
In order for a creature to be able to perform a ranged attack against a wall, it must (1) have LoS to the wall (trace LoS to the center of the border where the wall resides), and (2) be in range of at least one of the zones the wall borders. Also see “Extendable” in the Codex section.
I take this to say that a wall bordering a zone is 1 zone away.
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I was looking that up, while you posted your answer, so I had to post my answer as well, to prove I knew what I was talking about.
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But balista could at least attack the wall you place in front of it, the hammer cannot.
Don't you have to have LoS and proper range to a zone that the wall borders? If you put an LoS-blocking wall bordering the zone containing the Ballista, it wouldn't be able to target the wall because LoS to the target zone at proper range (1 zone away) would be blocked. The only zone that the wall borders that is in LoS is at range 0.
From the rules pg 18
Attacking Walls
A creature in either of the zones bordering a wall may make
a melee attack against that wall. Ranged attacks may target
a wall if either of the adjacent zones is in range, the wall is
in LoS. Walls do not occupy a zone, and are not affected by
Zone Attacks or spells that target a zone.
A ballista can attack the wall because the adjacent zone is in range and it has LoS to the wall.
Akiro's Hammer has the "corporeal conjurations" and the 2-3 range to deal with. A fog bank / wall of fire is untouchable by the Hammer
Furthermore since the hammer's zone attack targets a zone any LoS blocking wall can prevent that attack.
Ballista = Awesome
I interpret that text the opposite way (assuming there should be "and" where the comma is). The wall is in LoS but the adjacent zone (at range 1) is not, so I can't attack the wall. The other zone adjacent to the wall (e.g. the zone containing the Ballista) is in LoS but not at a legal range for the attack. At least, that's how we've been dealing with these types of effects.
For example (that has come up), [mwcard=DNC13]Skeletal Archer[/mwcard] wants to attack a LoS-blocking wall that borders its zone. It has to use a 2-dice melee attack because it can't see a zone that the wall borders that is at legal range for its 4-dice ranged attack.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, the text you quoted has a grammatical error. (Is that a direct quote from the current rules?)
*edit* I was posting this while other answers were coming in. Well whaddya know?! We've been doin' it wrong! Suddenly ranged attacks with min-range of 1 look SO much better.
OK, fine, Ballista doesn't need the Indirect trait, but Akiro's Hammer could certainly use it.
*edit again* And Akiro's Hammer isn't as bad as I thought it was, because the only corporeal LoS-blocking walls it can't attack are the ones that border its zone (and ones that are beyond 3 zones away, but it doesn't care about those ones). I thought you could put a wall on the border between 1 and 2 zones from AH and block LoS to your conjuration with impunity, but apparently it can target that one despite not having LoS to a zone that's in range. That's very unintuitive based on rules for range (e.g. when casting walls) and even tricky to deduce from the rule book (but clearer in the FAQ). Now, as V10 pointed out, incorporeal walls are the silver bullet against Akiro's Hammer.
I guess that's the only instance where a non-flying non-reach creature can choose between either a melee attack or a ranged attack with minimum range of 1 against the same target.
(I know you can always target a flying creature in your zone with a ranged attack, even if it's inside the minimum range of the ranged attack - but then you wouldn't be able to target it with melee unless you were also flying)
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Just a point on the wall placement problem.
Sure a wall would block line of site but the war machine would be able to be moved away from the wall on future turns.
The wall could be attacked as an alternative
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I vaguely remember suggesting using creatures (someone else suggested Goblin Grunts) as crew for siege engines. I didn't consider giving the thing the ability to move (which I think is great, if that's all it can do), but there was a lot of positive feedback on having the creature add a load token. I don't know where that thread is though... it's been a while.
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I vaguely remember suggesting using creatures (someone else suggested Goblin Grunts) as crew for siege engines. I didn't consider giving the thing the ability to move (which I think is great, if that's all it can do), but there was a lot of positive feedback on having the creature add a load token. I don't know where that thread is though... it's been a while.
It would be neat to have a War school "cleric" or Tataree-like creature that as an quick action, could put a token on war machine or mana on a spawn point. But I guess War already has Otto and Goblin Builder, so maybe that would be too many utility creatures (?).
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The card is still useless since it dosen't have indirect. Place a blocked LOS wall infront of it, and it can not fire.
That is the point of allowing a creature to spend a full action moving it. A mage has placed a wall in front of it and the Hammer is now unable to fire down range. Simply move it and now it is back in play.
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The card is still useless since it dosen't have indirect. Place a blocked LOS wall infront of it, and it can not fire.
That is the point of allowing a creature to spend a full action moving it. A mage has placed a wall in front of it and the Hammer is now unable to fire down range. Simply move it and now it is back in play.
That's a difficult thing to balance.
You can't remove all the defensive options from the other player as well, the opponent still needs some room to play aside form "break this thing now"
My only eyebrow raise I get from it is the "corporeal conjuration" forced targeting. Non ethereal attacks get to attempt to hit incorporeal objects in every other scenario in the game..... but whatever.
A fun way to balance Akiro's Hammer would be to play it between zones as if it were a wall.
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I kinda like the idea of some sort of moving War Machines, because it interacts nicely with the best idea I've heard for Ballista Errata, which is to make it's range 2-2.
EDIT - typoed "had" for "heard". Can't take credit for that one.