Note: I had a rules wrong in the set up of the tyrant encounter. Nightshade should be at the TOP of the the BQ (not the bottom). Ultimately, I like this rule because it helps reduce the chances that you will have 3-4 heavy hitting baddies going before all gearlocs. Happy to discuss further in the comments!
Regarding the thick skin and engulf - I agree I don't think it would have mattered. I won't go right back and check because it's hard to know how much HP there is on the wolf. But my justification in part is that Stanza still had her def 2 die in the active slot at the end of the fight that you forgot about. It wouldn't have changed anything with Tantrum's death from memory and the wolf was going to die from poison regardless.
Yeah - the fact that I could account for 6 of the 7 health and both gearlocs survived the encounter leaves me pretty confident that the rules mistake didn't really matter. :)
Great playthrough, Greg -- I always appreciate your content -- some of the very best on the Tubes! You are playing on Legendary, with the additional self-imposed nerf of balancing skills and stats. A couple fewer skills and a couple boosted stats, and it would have been much more balanced. When played on heroic mode, the opposite issue is often seen -- too much power creep. But I think you would have seen more success even on Legendary, if you had gone just a little more stat-heavy. Tough to pass judgment (not that you are, necessarily) on the game with your masochistic rules ;)
All fair points and well made. I mostly agree…other than my feeling that the wild swinginess in ini die is still a major design flaw. Days 11-13 would have left at least one gearloc dead before having a turn unless I pumped 5-6 more training points into health across the two gearlocs. It’s one of the things that has always bothered me about TMB.
Oh I know that goblin pyro. Had him come up a few times in my various games. So much for shuffling chips well... Pain in the butt, but realised Boomer has the means to dispatch him quickly with her frag grenade :) Waste? Perhaps. Satisfying not having two attack dice hitting my weakest gearloc? Yes. Always read the fine print in this game. Or between the lines, Or just read in general. You know what I mean. Lots of reading. Though your solution to nullify him was absolutely clever. I was revisiting some of your old videos recently too for this game. Hello 2021, my what a long time ago that was. Watching your old Patches video for instance - have you ended up trying out Hoplomachus Victorum yet? I've personally shelved that game for now and awaiting the new content which I think will address most of my complaints with the game. In days 1 - 3 (when not on a raft), I normally think about one signature skill I want on the gearloc, then go for stats. Then days 4-6 is a mix of skills and stats. Then after that, I've invested enough into that particular game I just try and make the best choice I can.
I think flight is a positive effect. It renders the unit untargetable. So when the unit is stunned, then it cannot fly, which makes thematic sense. I believe the added comment in stun with negative effects is just to ensure effects like poison or bleed apply. When a unit is stunned and it has the flight effect die on it, then I believe the die is still removed because it does state if it is there, to remove it. One of those "don't overthink it" scenarios in the game.
@@joshb4613 All good stuff, Josh, and always good to hear from you. As for Hoplo, I haven't explored it yet and I'm pretty much guaranteed not to until I get the expansion content. I think I would like it in the current form, but it's too much for me to realistically learn well right now with a time of play that long.
@@SoloPlaythroughs Yeah, definitely wait on Hoplo until expansion content comes. While I was initially enthusiastic about Hoplo (and there's something special about the stadium seating that makes the game look grand) it does feel a bit too samey and the game length means it will wear out its welcome as a result. It still has some of the zaniness that chip and card combos will yield, like a 16HP juggernaut to take down in a match because the unit happened to be a tanky character and the event required the first unit to have double HP, and I think they also got extra HP from tactic if I recall. But at least I can not recall a single instance of dangerous darts or lock picking or chip flicking or some other weird meta-game in Hoplo :) The black die in Hoplo has 5 hits and 1 miss. If the game makes it to the channel, I'd have to set up a drinking game where every miss you score on a black die I take a shot. I reckon I'll be drunk by the end ;)
Certainly some crap dice rolls there, but it wouldn't be a channel playthrough without those. Regarding the Ini dice. I get what you're saying, and I full well know the limitations/sub optimal play you went for. But on the longer campaigns, you do need the health stat because you know those 20 point baddies will be coming out and they will be hitting hard. 7 HP for each gearloc seems pretty low to me for such a final encounter. Related to the ini die, not enough is done with the locked slot that I can think of readily. There needs to be a limited prep phase before each battle where some number of skill dice can be locked sort of like Picket's innate where he can roll his def die and start off with shields. Being able to start a fight with Tantrum's Like a Kobold? Sounds good to me. I do wish the game had some better, generic health gain option. Frankly, loot cards are too random to rely on and successive day failures can result in a death spiral if a player can't pull loot cards while the baddies get more numerous and much stronger.
Yeah - there does seem to be some easy fixes to the ini die within the design space that Chip Theory just chose to never bother with and just made the latest gearlocs stronger (too strong?) to compensate for the problem. I agree about the health stat - not getting it up to 8 or 9 before the tyrant battle was a problem but losing on days 11 and 12 left me pretty vulnerable in that death spiral. I also had a set up rule wrong in the final battle (see the pinned comment) that made it worse. I played off camera and had a much more enjoyable game while really hammering health a bit more.
@@SoloPlaythroughs Yeah I understand your house ruling, maybe just a bit of a tweak to compensate for the sort of game you'll have by letting that health die tick up a bit more in place of skills. I'd argue too that a higher HP stat also lets you manage the nightshade scouting rule a bit better if you don't need to reheal between every battle. It does seem like the game is pushing you in this Tyrant variation to grow HP more based on the challenge of the final encounter. It is good you had a more enjoyable game off camera, and the right rules/BQ arrangement does help. Chalk part of it up to being rusty of course.
Note: I had a rules wrong in the set up of the tyrant encounter. Nightshade should be at the TOP of the the BQ (not the bottom). Ultimately, I like this rule because it helps reduce the chances that you will have 3-4 heavy hitting baddies going before all gearlocs. Happy to discuss further in the comments!
Regarding the thick skin and engulf - I agree I don't think it would have mattered. I won't go right back and check because it's hard to know how much HP there is on the wolf. But my justification in part is that Stanza still had her def 2 die in the active slot at the end of the fight that you forgot about. It wouldn't have changed anything with Tantrum's death from memory and the wolf was going to die from poison regardless.
Yeah - the fact that I could account for 6 of the 7 health and both gearlocs survived the encounter leaves me pretty confident that the rules mistake didn't really matter. :)
Great playthrough, Greg -- I always appreciate your content -- some of the very best on the Tubes! You are playing on Legendary, with the additional self-imposed nerf of balancing skills and stats. A couple fewer skills and a couple boosted stats, and it would have been much more balanced. When played on heroic mode, the opposite issue is often seen -- too much power creep. But I think you would have seen more success even on Legendary, if you had gone just a little more stat-heavy. Tough to pass judgment (not that you are, necessarily) on the game with your masochistic rules ;)
All fair points and well made. I mostly agree…other than my feeling that the wild swinginess in ini die is still a major design flaw. Days 11-13 would have left at least one gearloc dead before having a turn unless I pumped 5-6 more training points into health across the two gearlocs. It’s one of the things that has always bothered me about TMB.
Oh I know that goblin pyro. Had him come up a few times in my various games. So much for shuffling chips well... Pain in the butt, but realised Boomer has the means to dispatch him quickly with her frag grenade :) Waste? Perhaps. Satisfying not having two attack dice hitting my weakest gearloc? Yes. Always read the fine print in this game. Or between the lines, Or just read in general. You know what I mean. Lots of reading. Though your solution to nullify him was absolutely clever.
I was revisiting some of your old videos recently too for this game. Hello 2021, my what a long time ago that was. Watching your old Patches video for instance - have you ended up trying out Hoplomachus Victorum yet? I've personally shelved that game for now and awaiting the new content which I think will address most of my complaints with the game.
In days 1 - 3 (when not on a raft), I normally think about one signature skill I want on the gearloc, then go for stats. Then days 4-6 is a mix of skills and stats. Then after that, I've invested enough into that particular game I just try and make the best choice I can.
I personally hate the 5 point bog lurk unit that hits multiple targets for poison 2 by the way. That whole fight at the 3:21:00 looks pretty gross.
I think flight is a positive effect. It renders the unit untargetable. So when the unit is stunned, then it cannot fly, which makes thematic sense. I believe the added comment in stun with negative effects is just to ensure effects like poison or bleed apply. When a unit is stunned and it has the flight effect die on it, then I believe the die is still removed because it does state if it is there, to remove it. One of those "don't overthink it" scenarios in the game.
@@joshb4613 All good stuff, Josh, and always good to hear from you. As for Hoplo, I haven't explored it yet and I'm pretty much guaranteed not to until I get the expansion content. I think I would like it in the current form, but it's too much for me to realistically learn well right now with a time of play that long.
@@SoloPlaythroughs Yeah, definitely wait on Hoplo until expansion content comes. While I was initially enthusiastic about Hoplo (and there's something special about the stadium seating that makes the game look grand) it does feel a bit too samey and the game length means it will wear out its welcome as a result. It still has some of the zaniness that chip and card combos will yield, like a 16HP juggernaut to take down in a match because the unit happened to be a tanky character and the event required the first unit to have double HP, and I think they also got extra HP from tactic if I recall. But at least I can not recall a single instance of dangerous darts or lock picking or chip flicking or some other weird meta-game in Hoplo :)
The black die in Hoplo has 5 hits and 1 miss. If the game makes it to the channel, I'd have to set up a drinking game where every miss you score on a black die I take a shot. I reckon I'll be drunk by the end ;)
@@joshb4613 Ha! Maybe I can do the drinking game while I stream and we can see what happens! 😂
Certainly some crap dice rolls there, but it wouldn't be a channel playthrough without those. Regarding the Ini dice. I get what you're saying, and I full well know the limitations/sub optimal play you went for. But on the longer campaigns, you do need the health stat because you know those 20 point baddies will be coming out and they will be hitting hard. 7 HP for each gearloc seems pretty low to me for such a final encounter.
Related to the ini die, not enough is done with the locked slot that I can think of readily. There needs to be a limited prep phase before each battle where some number of skill dice can be locked sort of like Picket's innate where he can roll his def die and start off with shields. Being able to start a fight with Tantrum's Like a Kobold? Sounds good to me.
I do wish the game had some better, generic health gain option. Frankly, loot cards are too random to rely on and successive day failures can result in a death spiral if a player can't pull loot cards while the baddies get more numerous and much stronger.
Yeah - there does seem to be some easy fixes to the ini die within the design space that Chip Theory just chose to never bother with and just made the latest gearlocs stronger (too strong?) to compensate for the problem. I agree about the health stat - not getting it up to 8 or 9 before the tyrant battle was a problem but losing on days 11 and 12 left me pretty vulnerable in that death spiral. I also had a set up rule wrong in the final battle (see the pinned comment) that made it worse. I played off camera and had a much more enjoyable game while really hammering health a bit more.
@@SoloPlaythroughs Yeah I understand your house ruling, maybe just a bit of a tweak to compensate for the sort of game you'll have by letting that health die tick up a bit more in place of skills. I'd argue too that a higher HP stat also lets you manage the nightshade scouting rule a bit better if you don't need to reheal between every battle. It does seem like the game is pushing you in this Tyrant variation to grow HP more based on the challenge of the final encounter.
It is good you had a more enjoyable game off camera, and the right rules/BQ arrangement does help. Chalk part of it up to being rusty of course.