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 Post subject: Kazdan
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:43 pm 
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Trust me, it is horrifying enough. I've already worked out ways to effectively beam in Junk Golems over 6 squares from KP's location, in areas he has no LOS to. Fun times.

I really hope someone abuses the crap out of this at a DCI tournament so we can fix that rule... and I revise my earlier estimate about KP's value... I think he's undercosted by more like 20 now because of that flexibility (I said 13-15 before). And here I was playing him all carefully ensuring I had space to drop my toys...

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:47 pm 
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Grambo wrote:
Trust me, it is horrifying enough. I've already worked out ways to effectively beam in Junk Golems over 6 squares from KP's location, in areas he has no LOS to. Fun times.

I really hope someone abuses the crap out of this at a DCI tournament so we can fix that rule... and I revise my earlier estimate about KP's value... I think he's undercosted by more like 20 now because of that flexibility (I said 13-15 before). And here I was playing him all carefully ensuring I had space to drop my toys...


Having said all that, you still have to roll the dice to get the reserves. however you use him, I hope you're not going to build the squad around this gimmick and hope you roll the desired numbers for initiative.


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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:48 pm 
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Not a gimmick if you have over a 50/50 chance of reserves. QG JM + QVI + KP = exactly that.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:50 pm 
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(specifically 59.04% btw... though I didn't calculate the fact that if you tie, you both RR again, which would actually raise the odds higher)

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:52 pm 
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I suppose if you want to put all those points into it, heh. Generally if I build a squad that has a chance at reserves, I build it assuming I will not get any. Also remember that any of the reserves killed count toward your opponent's point totals, so you're getting more toys to play with, but they are also getting more points to work with for the purposes of winning :)


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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:59 pm 
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Yes, but having 150 points more in troops can be astoundingly powerful... and honestly, I think that synergy is what makes the squad so broken... much like Mas does for Thrawn :)

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:32 am 
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Given the massive limitations, any time a huge can actually be modestly useful in 100 or 150 DCI I'd consider it a pleasant surprise, not "broken".

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:49 am 
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Grambo wrote:
Yes, but having 150 points more in troops can be astoundingly powerful... and honestly, I think that synergy is what makes the squad so broken... much like Mas does for Thrawn :)


Considering when the Droids die (most are pretty fragile), they cost points toward victory, and Kazden's high cost, I would say it is quite balanced.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:26 pm 
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You would be mistaken... :) Something costing 22 with 80 HP and shields... or something costing 25 with 80 HP and 17 DEF is hardly "fragile". If someone just takes piles of Battle Droids or Dwarf Spiders... then sure, I agree... but I have NEVER used KP and had his droids cost me the game.

And Nickname, if you had to set up with those huges, I'd agree... but being able to beam huges out of your arse mid-game is entirely different. THey have FAR less limitations, and become perfectly viable.

And Nickname... may I remind you of how you fared against KP in our last match? You had Lando HoT mobile Vanguards out the yingyang, and yet even without this rule interp, it wasn't close. Had I known about this interp, KP would have been safely in the Tractor area pooping droids into gambit without risking a missile on himself to do it.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:56 pm 
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And Nickname, if you had to set up with those huges, I'd agree... but being able to beam huges out of your arse mid-game is entirely different. THey have FAR less limitations, and become perfectly viable.


I wouldn't disagree, and I find that a good thing, as I said before. It's going to take a particular map or precise movement to take advantage of this "exploit". Smart play will be rewarded, and huges still retain many limitations.

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And Nickname... may I remind you of how you fared against KP in our last match? You had Lando HoT mobile Vanguards out the yingyang, and yet even without this rule interp, it wasn't close. Had I known about this interp, KP would have been safely in the Tractor area pooping droids into gambit without risking a missile on himself to do it.


You had a completely optimized Kaz squad vs my completely mediocre "for fun" Vanguard swarm. The results of the game were mostly a foregone conclusion. (Not that I don't enjoy the challenge. I still tend to try my best to win but I play a LOT of inferior squads online and solid squads piloted by capable players should routinely beat me.)

I like Kaz. I think he's tourney-viable. I don't think he's even a consistant tourney winner but time will tell. Anything that's "20 points undercosted" should be incredibly dominant. I haven't seen anything of the sort so far. Again, time will tell.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:24 pm 
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You had a completely optimized Kaz squad vs my completely mediocre "for fun" Vanguard swarm. The results of the game were mostly a foregone conclusion. (Not that I don't enjoy the challenge. I still tend to try my best to win but I play a LOT of inferior squads online and solid squads piloted by capable players should routinely beat me.)


Oh come now... Lando HoT + 10x Vanguards is pretty nasty and competitive... hell, I absolutely shredded a Republic Jedi force (including Shaak Ti JM) with exactly that without HoT just the other day. Missiles 30 is brutal... and the ability to dodge my counterfire is REALLY brutal. The biggest tide-turner was you forgot I could whip missiles of my own out, and you let me nail three with Missiles when a Phase 3 popped up. It that sheer flexibility that makes him so good.

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I like Kaz. I think he's tourney-viable. I don't think he's even a consistant tourney winner but time will tell. Anything that's "20 points undercosted" should be incredibly dominant. I haven't seen anything of the sort so far. Again, time will tell.


I disagree... anything that is that undercosted will be potentially dominating, but a 20 point shift is large, but not by itself "game determining"... if it were, KP would be even MORE broken, as I have seen him regularly pump out 150 points of reinforcements into a game. You know as well as I do that skill and luck will sometimes alter what should be a "given" on the surface...

This all having been said, KP cannot be "meta" because he is instantly shut down by a single piece... MTB. You may consider this to make him "balanced"... I'm not sure I do. In the end, the math is what is is... and while we can argue about it all we want, the math remains.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan Reinforcements Placement
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:58 pm 
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Grambo wrote:
Oh come now... Lando HoT + 10x Vanguards is pretty nasty and competitive...


It's okayish. Its problem is that it about as fragile a squad as you can get. As soon as a piece is based, it's dead because you have to start rolling saves for him any time any of your sqaud attack that target. Granted it would die next round anyway, but now they can attack someone else or move another 12. I wouldn't even consider it tourney viable--I'd expect it to have a losing record if attempted. So we just have to agree to disagree until there's some anecdotal evidence that it can beat anything good fairly consistantly.

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anything that is that undercosted will be potentially dominating, but a 20 point shift is large, but not by itself "game determining"...


Yeah, pretty true. Ignoring MTB Hate, being 20 points undercosted would make it the single most "broken" piece in the game in both raw points and percentage of value. (Unless you have an opinion you haven't mentioned?) Such a piece should, in theory, be lighting the fire of a LOT of competetive players. But he ain't close to Boba BH, Mara, JWM or even Vader U in my experience all of whom I think would be entirely comfortable with a 10% price bump. But Kaz at 75 points? Never get played IMHO...

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:20 pm 
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Topic split and merged (don't ask).

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:44 am 
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I'm realyl thinking about giving Kaz a trial run this coming week, since I haven't had a chance to play him yet, but the MTB is what concerns me the most. I've been playing on and off with the MTB the last few weeks, and I'm afraid I've probably shown the other local guys what a nasty piece it can be if used right, so I might have shot myself in the foot for using Kazdan effectively. However, I'm thinking that between QG-JM's Master Speed, and Kaz's surprise move, you could probably track down the opponent's MTB by the 2nd or 3rd round without too much trouble.

If the base of the squad is QGJM, QVI, KP, what are you planning to fill it out with for 150 or 200? That's where I'm struggling right now. Trying to decide the best overall support for him, based on the assumption that I may not get initiative nearly as often as I'd like to.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:55 am 
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Well, his points are meaningless if a single 8-point piece can shut him down entirely. MTB does that. Perhaps that's why he's only 55 with his power... though if THAT is true, they've (in my opinion anyway) taken rock-paper-scissors a bit too far.

Bottom line, KP can never, EVER, be "meta" purely because of MTB. However, I think he's an absolutely dominating piece in many other formats. If you're not using Gambit, he's absurd. If you are using Gambit, and don't face MTB, he's pretty ridiculous. Yes, you do need to build around him... otherwise he's merely good... but if you do (and anyone who plays him does), he's a simply deadly guy.

As for price of 55 vs 75ish... bottom line is this, Nickname... he's a 30-33-point mini (by pretty much any comparison... looking at JWM, or the better Republic Jedi) because of his specials ignoring reserves. With the flexibility of deployment of those reserves, and knowing that in any game without MTB he's going to see reserves at least once, and likely twice, AND be able to beam them in conveniently... gotta say, that doesn't feel like a 22-25point power to me. And if it is... can I please add it to some others? ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:28 am 
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I dont know. I beat a Kaz/Qui Gon/Quinlan/JWM squad with a Francor/Dooku/Proxy squad. He got reinforcements twice in a 150pt game. I killed the easy points from the droids to win.

Grambo - here's what I dont understand. Do you think you can take Kaz and beat any great player with a top tier squad more than 50% of the time? Now, asside from that, you yourself have already suggested he requires finesse, and choosing the right reserves can be key, as well as knowing where to move Kaz to place them, etc. Why is it a problem to create a good figure that takes very careful play and choices?

Unless you can answer both of these questions I dont see the problem. For me, Kaz is way to random, and I have yet to have an issue with nerfing his init control, even when I dont have an MTB.

You might try, staying out of Quinlan's los until you are ready, same with any other recon piece. Droid reserves are really only significant if they are timely, otherwise, you can usually kill them from range without a problem (assuming you are not an all melee build). Second, kill qui-gon as fast as posible. Let him force spirit kaz or quinlan, just remove the reroll of init. Third, run lobot, as just about any 200pt squad should, and bring a MTB along in case you face Kaz, if you are really, really worried about it.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:53 pm 
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This thread was "split and merged" so I may have missed something; what is the "beam exploit" with Kazden?

And since Kaz is the topic; does anyone prefer Nym's recon over Vos's?

thanks,
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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:41 am 
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If there's no room to place Kaz's Reserves adjacent to him, you place them as near as possible. With a huge this can be pretty far away, particularly if you use Surprise Move to manipulate the situation by placing Kaz in a tight corridor.

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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 3:21 pm 
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I think if I was playing Kazdan, I would try to work in Lobot so I can bring in my own MTB to counter an opponent's MTB.

I hadn't thought of the "as near as possible" exploit... that's nasty, definitely boosts his playability. So supposing I bring in a Junk Golem and two battle droids... can I place the battle droids first and use them to block possible Junk Golem positions, thus allowing me to place the Junk Golem farther away? Is that part of the trick? Or is it handled more like initial setup, where I think you have to place the Huges first?

On the subject of Recon, Kaz can be used with Quinlan Vos Infiltrator, Rebel Trooper on Tauntaun, Probe Droid (through his own reserves), Nym, and Admiral Ackbar. Nym and Ackbar really seem too expensive compared to their playability, and don't have much synergy with a droid squad.

But for Anticipation (which doesn't require LoS) your only options are Qui-Gon JM and the cheap but lousy Ki-Adi Mundi. So it's only in a Republic build you can use both Recon and Anticipation, so you can roll 4x for initiative if you have LoS. But if you go with a Rebel build, you can get much cheaper Recon in the Rauntaun, and you can use Ghost Obi to build up Kaz's FP's while he's assembling his droid army. It might be fun to use Luke HPU with Kaz too. There are a lot of options!


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 Post subject: Re: Kazdan
PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:23 am 
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My $.02:

I've had a lot of experience playing non-sanctioned games with Kaz. When they previewed him before the set came out, I, like many others, planned on making the Quinlan/Qui-Gon build.

Since I wasn't sure about his playability, at my LGS and with friends at home, I started play-testing him in non-DCI games first. When the game was for fun, or against an average player/build, Kaz was awesome. Whipping out reserves every few rounds is just a huge annoyance for most players to deal with. The math does indeed say you will get reserves more often than not and it's really cool. Not having to worry about gambit and/or time-limit was also huge boost to the squad (if the game was based on total elimination, I'd say Kaz is almost unbeatable). So I then set my sights on playing him against some top meta squads to see what would happen.

Well, to put it simply, he did not do well. Even when Kaz would hit his reserves many times in a row, he ran into the same problem over and over: Droids just aren't that good. They are too fragile. There is no combination of 30 points of droids that can deal with big melee beat sticks. It doesn't matter if you hit multiple reserves of 30 points in a row, if the best support you can bring in to deal with your opponent's pieces are a Junk Golem or a destroyer droid, then you are in BIG trouble. I give you the following example.

I was playing 150 point Kaz vs. a JWM swarm on cloud city. I hit reserves on the FIRST 3 TURNS. Lots of awesome droids, insane attack bonuses to them, and my opponent was already starting in with the "that squad is broken, you are lucky, etc." bit. Since I couldn't get shooting lines of sight on the opponent's squad in the cramped confines of CC, I headed them to the gambit area. Any decent player will know what happened next:

The JWMs got into the room, and ripped apart all my reserves. Yeah, I put some hurt on them, but we were looking at my measly HP against their epic HP. For every 26 points of Droids I had, he had a JWM who was worth 3 droids. In the meantime, I suddenly wasn't rolling reserves. Even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. My opponent now had control of gambit with a 40-50 point lead. I couldn't catch up and lost.

Hmmm... that was unfortunate. Lets try it against B&B. Surely it could overrun him on activations. So I made lots of droids who did a great job against the swap fodder. But guess what? There is no combination of low point droids that can deal with Vader himself. He would cut through a ton of them like butter and swap out. Rinse and repeat until the reserves run a little dry, and then charge Kaz. Kaz put up a great fight, but obviously lost in the long run.

Kaz vs. San Hill? LOL. If the San player gets map, rolling reserves is almost the worst thing you can do. You can't get to San's shooters easily, and if you try for gambit, well, we all know what happens then. It's a shooting gallery of free points. The same thing happened in every game: my fragile droids, even the BEST droids available can't do enough damage to kill my opponent, and are laughable if trying to hold gambit against other good pieces.

So, is he playable? I'll say yeah. Can he win some of the time? Yeah, why not. Is he fun? It's one of the most fun squads I've ever played. Is he DCI-tournament worthy? Um... not at this point. I will reiterate what billiv15 asked, can it beat a meta squad more than 50% of the time? I'm going with no. Sure, you'll win some matches with him, but against good players and good squads you will not win tournaments. I don't even think you need the MTB to justify him being weak. I think the fact that his gimmick is based upon bringing in reserves that are weak, and that will inevitably get cut down (usually quite quickly) for some easy points for your opponent is enough to take him out of the competetive build.

If in the future they make some droids with some legitimate staying power, then I think he can work, but at this point, even the most destructive droids are glass cannons that will fall to any decent beatstick. If you want to do an experiment, I give you this last test: take a 150 Kaz squad, and add a whole bunch of reserves at the START of the game. Don't give yourself reserves during the game. Now look at your squad. Even when you START with multiple reserves, do you still feel completely confident you can beat anyone? You may feel confident, but as I look down on my cluster of bodyguards, dark troopers, destroyer droids, and junk golems, and then look across at the likes of Boba, Aurra, JWMs, and Vader, I certainly don't. I see free points for my opponent, that do not have the capability of getting an even amount of points for me first. Don't get me wrong, you will certainly win some of your games with this build, but certainly not all. If you can't pull it off starting the game with the droids, how are you going to do it getting a few at a time?

Just my $.02.


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