I read more and more posts recently here on the realms and I see more and more newer players at the local venues fielding "Walls" of Limited Invisibility units.

Very often, these "LI Walls" do nothing other than block LOS....and in some extreme cases absorb as much as 35% of an army's build total.:rolleyes:

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What ever happened to blocking LOS with a shade or harassing an opposing range threat with an imp? ... Which represents only ~3-5% of an army build total thereby leaving 95% for offense.

I can appreciate an LI threat like Baron or an LI healer like a CP.

I even applaud the use of a single cheap LI unit to render ineffective an opponent's 100+ point shooter.

I'm not attempting to bash the LI special ability.

But why use an LI Wall to achieve the same results had by utilizing "free" terrain and positioning?

Will newer players ever learn to competitively use terrain and tactics?...or will they simply look in their collection for their "rock" golem to counter my "scissors" army? This would, in the end, mean more sales for WK's.

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In the old days, if you wanted to achieve first strike you had to outplay your opponent. Now, most people's knee jerk reaction is to simply field an uber bounder. This doesn't mean you will win. It means you simply bought first strike capability from ebay.

Similarly, in the old days, if you wanted to avoid being shot you outplayed your opponent with tactics such as terrain usage and employing *a* harrasser. Now, most people's knee jerk reaction is to simply field a wall of Invisibles. Lobotomy nearing completion....critical thinking no longer required.

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My question is this:

In your opinion, is Limited Invisibility dampening the strategy level of MK?

Thanks,
Rob

A bit, it's been so prevalent lately. Minions was loaded with it. Uprising seems to be loaded with pierce. Both seem to be trying to do *something* with the range game.

LI is kind of lame, however it is usually taken out easily enough with a charger or a good support eater like a ** or *** throttle worm.

FOrtunately most LI figures aren't powerhouses.

Well, if I were playing with a groovy Magic Blaster, I could bring three LI figures, and use them to bridge the gap between two pieces of huge blocking terrain that i would bring to the table.

The LI wall is a very new thing, and like all new things in collectible gaming, it will run its course.

And who can blame anyone for using an LI wall? When my opponents all have figures that can shoot 16+ inches, I need something readily available to counter it....and not just one figure, because a good bounding figure will jump around that in a heartbeat.

The LI wall is Wizkids gift to all of us that do not have those big bounders....okay, my Dwarven Mounted Fusers have a 17" range, but you know what I mean...lol....


now, the bigest problem that i have with your post is in assuming that either side of the coin does not require thinking or strategy...playing Uber Bound or playing LI Turtle (or whatever) does indeed take lots of thinking, strategy, and is often won or lost with Terrain placement.


What doesnt take a lot of thinking is playing a random and motley assortment of orcs and throwing them at your opponent because you think they look cool when they go beserk...believe me, i know from experience.....LOL

The LI wall is a viable strategy and has its own counter, the LI charger.

I liked imps and shades but have to wonder if they got a little too common.

Forgive me Rob...

I didn't mean to insinuate that LI players do not think.

My point is simply that newer players are learning to stick their hands out to WK's for rock/paper/scissors answers to their gaming challenges rather than creatively thinking of sound tactics.

Reaching into your box of 10,000 MK pieces for the perfect counter strategy works great on these forums...but when you sit down to play in a competitive environment, I highly doubt you will be afforded the opportunity to view each opponent's army prior to creating your own.

At this moment, sound strategy and tactics become very important.

How do we as a community grow tactically?

If they want to waste thier points on LI lets them and watch them die to your lack of mercy

growing tactically as a community....a noble goal....

I like that the Wizkids gang allows the warlords to post tsrategy articles....it helps quite a bit...

There is always room for new strategies and army archetypes to be devloped and presented to the community.

I do, howe'er concede the point that a lot of players do react to that rock paper scissors thing. In Decipher's Star Wars CCG, we would all wait patiently for the next "Silver Bullet" cards to be printed. In other words, they would print cards in new expansions that specifically targeted the current dominant themes....sound familiar?

When we all started the game, we all had an imp or a shade in our armies.....they are great harassers, and that is how we dealt with big range....then big range got bigger, and our 12" ranged movers couldnt keep up, now we have LI...

I think I am just rambing now, but that is how I get with this game sometimes....it is cyclical, a tenuous balance of range and melee, fun and competitiveness, milk and honey, sugar and spice.....

SOmetimes I like to play pure Rebellion armies to test the waters of the current environment and see if all that we knew is obsolete...I do about as well with the old guard as i do with the new...which I find enheartening!

To sum up, and stop running at the mouth....for every rock paper and scissors, I beliee that there will always be strategy, tactics, and ability....with the latter three more prevalent at big tourneys!

:)

. . . the uber bounder? And, in particular, Corphy and the OST?

I've been playing almost exclusively MW of late (unfortunately, almost all of the "good" MK players switched in my neighborhood, which means I switched or got left playing the lesser players, which isn't nearly as much fun.)

But, of course, with the national qualifier upcoming (and a nifty prize like the Centaur Lt.), I figured I had to play. I've thought and thought and thought, and unfortunately, all of my thinking ended up either including one of the big 3 (Amazon drac being the other one, of course), or at least having to account for defending against it in my army. To me, that is a bad thing. If Corphy, OST, Amazon Drac, and others of their ilk (Striker, Backus, Khumeret) run the world, aren't we missing so much that the game could offer?

My two cents is that if WK would ban Corphy and the OST from competetive games, the world would be right. While the Amazon Drac and Backus are tough, they are just big figures that are beatable. (Think of the Amazon surrounded by 100+ points of KI infantry - guess who wins (barring obscene dodge rolls, of course).) Corphy and the OST, on the other hand, change the way the game is played. Corphy screws formations, eliminating so many figures that require formation movement. One of the most amazing things I've realized reading the posts on MKRealms the last few days is how few armies suggest formations anymore. Wow! Similarly, the OST is so tough for its points that without the Amazon Drac to reign it in, there isn't much that can really stop it effectively.

To get to your real question - I do wonder about the LI walls. I am really concerned about fielding any army that relies so heavily on support troops. Support troops don't hurt anything, and hurting things is still key in this game. So, while LI walls work when both sides bring uber bounders with support, if we could do away with the game breaking pieces, so many other pieces would open back up that LI walls would be exposed for the anchor they are.

Totaly, But LI is Almost always in one of my armys like a shadow to go and get the opponents healer or somthing like that, and LI armys are fairly easy to kill with a KI tank, HBM, or Kuneret of cearo (Don't know how to spell his name) because they can either shoot right past them or don't have range and just charge the crude out of the LI. And I hope I don't come up agenst any this saterday when I play in the NQ.

LI is just another strategy, it takes hard work to bring it off, especially against MB, also, the OST is not the best thing in the world, it is in-expensive, and has a large range, but at a recent tourney I saw it destroyed by amazon mancatchers, also, just because LI is in use dosen't mean it's the rock to the AD, just push until you have MB or why use the AD in the first place? There are plenty of competitve armies out there that don't make use of a single one of the figs or SA's that you mention (mine included). If you have to use LI to beat an AD either come to the battle plans and read up on some strategy to defeat it, or use terrain.

If you are wondering which side I'm arguing for, tell me when you find out.

I think the LI-walls are cool. ITs the only way to hamper these crazy bounders, actually, and its quite a good method.

If we had an 18" moving Shade we wouldnt need the LI walls.
But the current Shade is still the old Shade, but the current bounders are definitely not the old bounders.

Well I think that using some LI dudes in conquest is oke like 100 point worth of them in a 2000 battle, but anything more then that is just cheap. I actually do use SOME LI walls but i'm not talking about like 10 or 15 guys, I mean 2 or sometimes 3 to make it a formation.
I notice however that some ppl who use LI walls rely on only that. For example I used Yo-yo to make a "hole" in the wall. And once I did that the guy just went downhill. He wasn't prepared to do something when his wall died and that's how I won.
When I use LI wall I have a plan for almost everyting because I know how tempting it is to knock out those *******.
No another example. I was fighting this other guy and his army was composed of like 80% sprites. He used everything on the field to his adventage and used so much strategy i'm wasn't sure when i lost. He came in at the exact right time and started freezing me and hitting me. He took out my Troll Chieftain in 2 turns and my other guys followed after that. NOW THAT WAS STRATEGY.

To sum all of this is basically I think that it's ok to use 2 or 3 guys but anything above that is just plain cheap

This is USUALLY the case:

LI dudes used | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11+
strategy (/10) |10 9 9 8 7 4 3 2 0 0 -10 000
cheapness (/10) | 0 0 1 2 3 6 7 8 10 12 10 000
intellect (/10) |10 9 8.5 7 6 4 3 1 0 -5 -10 000

As u can see ppl who use more than 10 LI dudes MOST LIKELLY should be banneed and they can go find something else to do while getting high.

Again all this is for about 90% that play 10+ LI dudes. Some ppl that use LI figures could whip your *** in 5 turns.

I believe that LI has become a viable option as an army, as most of you know. This is not a "Knee Jerk", it is a thought through strategy that returns to all players the option of first strike and area domination against big bound, therebye making the playing surface much smaller.
Yes it is a powerful option, but personally I'm not interested in "LI Support", just as I was never hugely impressed by cheap harrassers, I want my army to be 100% about offence if that is at all possible, making use of the best figures to inflict damage on my oponents figures.
LI "Invisible Armies", along with such developments as Borg's "Posse" will force new strategies and views of the game.
How can that be a bad thing for anyone who claims to favour the search for new strategies over using Uber Figures.

One thing to keep in mind with an LI wall is that the opponent will of course not waste actions firing at the figures. However, sometimes it is wise to use high defense, cheap figures to entice your opponent to shoot. A miss is a lost action. An example of such a figure is a 17 point magma guardian with a 19 defense against range (assuming no pierce). Would you waste an action trying to hit that? Some people try and miss. That can be used to your advantage. LI is great, but there are other options.

I think along the same lines as Waylander. Other defensive abilities have become weaker and weaker as new expansions have come out. Pierce can make short work of Toughness and Battle Armour these days. Defend isn't as good since you must use formations, and that's just Corphy bait.

LI still works against everything, and so is the best tool available to block all the ranged ####...

Hope this helps...