Tutorial Challenge 3B

[Adamma]

Why is the tutorial so friggin' hard? It's supposed to teach how to play the game not drive me mental

3 hours I've been replaying this same TUTORIAL mission and I'm about ready to abandon the rest of the game. "Kill a wizard with a magic sword" ,ok great...love to...but how do you get near him to even hit him once??? He's surrounded by no less than 7 - 8 dudes every time no matter how I approach.

Even when I chain the disbelieve spell and get rid of two or three guys in a row, there's still no way to get near him because he keeps spawning multiple packs of 3 lions which are way too powerful for any unit I have available.

When dragons that breathe friggin' crystal flame and manticores are no match for a pack of lions, something is wrong...

I'm just ranting, but any advice would be welcome too.

[🍪biscuits✨]

Hi.

Several of the tutorial challenges are difficult. You don't have to complete them.

If you need to attack with your wizard, make sure you are mounted. You'll have more reach, be able to attack sooner, and the mount will soak up damage. An adjacent pegasus will soak up damage for both you and your mount.

If your opponent has an escort 7-8 strong, you're perhaps waiting too long to attack.
Alternatively, you say your opponent keeps spawning packs of 3 lions: these will never be illusions, but require a lot of mana to produce. Other creatures must be illusions, or, again, you're waiting too long to attack.

Edit: I made a video walkthrough, but it didn't record properly. I'll do another if you're still having problems. I basically cast mount and advanced as fast as I could without dying, using my magic sword to kill stuff and using pegasi as escorts. Be careful of using law-shift. I can't remember if this helps the AI get dragons out.

[NoWorries]

To be fair, the Tutorial was designed initially with Chaos Mode in mind. I'd hate to have to do the tutorial again in Law Mode.

[🍪biscuits✨]

The (unfortunately broken) video I made took 6 minutes: I aced it in law mode 1st time. I think if anything law mode makes them easier (you know the risks in advance). Certainly anything where you have to melee with your wizard is waaay easier in law mode, as you know in advance what the consequences are of moving into danger. Chaos Mode (which I love, don't get me wrong), there's always the chance your mount will get one-shotted and you'll die or whatever.

[mp2]

just say it must be played in chaos mode in the info text then.

[Adamma]

OK, I'll give it a go in Chaos mode and see how it plays out.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

[Anjovi]

Suppose i'd just emphasize that the only real important ones to get down are the basic tutorials (not the challenges that branch off as 1B, 1C, 2B, etc) as you get the jist of the mechanics doing the basic ones.

[🍪biscuits✨]

It doesn't have to be played in Chaos mode. It works fine in both. It's easier in Law mode.

[MazyRun]

Hey Adamma, I made these 'walkthrough' vids for you. I guess technically they are not walkthroughs because the solution will vary depending on the deck (and what creatures are on the board). The main thing is you will get an idea of the basic tactics involved in getting in close for a wizard melee kill. Also it serves to illustrate the contrast between each mode. Hope the vids help (quality isn't great, laptop/low settings).

Chaos mode version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdGpqrk6JJA

Turn 1 - Patience is key, you're gonna need an army to be able to get close to the enemy wizard. Your creature army (and weapon casts) will dictate how much you can manage the RNG later in the game, if you go at the wizard too early you run the risk of having to rely on RNG too much to make kills. We don't want to get into any 50/50 battles yet, we want to use strategies that tip the odds in our favour and engineer a situation where victory is virtually guaranteed...
The tutorial gives you a law shift card, most of the casts you need to win the challenge are law aligned (weapons/mounts), boosting the alignment to +20 gives your law casts a kickstart. (Note - casting the law shift is not essential, you can still get by without it)
Turn 2, 3 - Building that army, developing the board, the more creatures we have the better we can control the game. It's important to keep all your units in a fairly tight formation (with the wizard among them) so you can attack any threat together as one, hunt in packs (you dont want one unit wandering off thinking they can do it all alone without support).
Turn 4 - Heading for that high ground, best place to launch attacks from and defend from. Elevated units are strong (they confer att/def bonuses)
Turn 5 - Law is at +30, Mounts are now easier to cast. I'm using the elevated dwarf as bait to absorb attacks, this draws enemies into the killzone.
Turn 6 - Watch the elf range, always count hexes (golden rule), keep key units out of its range. I position the expendable units so that the elf has to move to get a shot on them.. so that it can't shoot at them and then move away to safety.. no free shots.
Turn 7 - The AI falls for the trap and sends its creatures in. We have superior numbers, this gives us multiple chances to hit the AI creatures, the odds of them surviving are slim.. we managed to mitigate any possible bad RNG. I now have a double stacked sword, using my wizard to melee attack targets will give me a 'mana surge', 50% extra mana for kills, I can max boost my casts with all this bonus mana.. this is another way of managing the RNG (I completely forgot there was no mega-spell in the tutorial to save up for, I was saving the mana out of habit.. I should have been investing the mana to boost casts instead)
Turn 8 - It's always worth testing for possible illusion casts out there, don't give wizards a free pass... here was a good spot to try to call a bluff.. the lion looked kinda fishy. Calling a bluff is huge, you get another cast after a successful call.. I'm starting to push up, using the terrain feature (tree) as cover.
Turn 9 - Trying to clear a path to the AI wizard, dwarves are tough though. It doesn't matter if the first wave of attacks fail, there is always next turn, we are still in control. Any cast I try doesn't have to succeed either, if it casts it's a bonus, if it fails you can react to it, change plan accordingly. I could probably get away with casting an illusion but I preferred to gamble for a real cast this time (elephant).
Turn 10 - Law is high, I could start trying for Pegasi to give me 'hitpoints' (they have a 'sacrifice' ability), I could even try for the dragon.. Shield will do for now.
Turn 11 - AI wizard is cornered and panics. I now have a possible 8 attacks on him (due to patient build up and better use of troops).. not even RNG can save him now... but If my triple stacked sword attack had failed I still had enough resources (creature presence, spells and mana) to control matters for the next couple of turns and get him eventually.

Law mode version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w1ZBGnTi2s

Turn 1 - Similar principles as before but with a few differences.. this time, rather than strategy and RNG management, it's all about hitpoint/damage output management (both modes feature mana management prominently). I open with a lion (not really a standard move for law mode.. I still had my chaos mode hat on), I used up my entire mana allowance for that turn, but that's ok, it's still a good opener and it means I can disbelieve the AI's casts for a while.
Turn 2 - Failed disbelieves net you 4 mana and you get 15 mana per turn (for the passage of time).
Turn 3 - In law mode most things are predetermined, attacks and casts are guaranteed to work 100% of the time, it is essentially a training mode with the chaos game mechanics removed, there is no risk management stuff and there are no big calls to make.. we already know that the approaching lion is dead, because my attack cant miss and my cast wont fail. This is an example of a move that could not be risked in chaos mode but in law mode there is no risk of my dwarf cast failing or risk of it getting one shotted by anything and leaving me vulnerable.. there are no real risks as such, no unforeseen possibilities to factor in to your decision making.
Turn 4 - Often wizards either don't have enough mana to cast a real creature or they are saving up for a bigger cast later, when this happens they either cast a fake, disbelieve something or skip a cast entirely, however because all wizards are in the same situation they are all more likely to use disbelieve regularly (because often it is the only cast-able card in their hand), fakes are harder to hide, creatures will be getting tested a lot, so the illusion mechanic isn't particularly effective in law mode.. I am mostly just disbelieving the AI's casts by default (not because I have figured them out to be fake).
Turn 5, 6 - Now it's just a process of getting the attacks in the right order to gain the most amount of mana. Remember - using the wizard to get a melee kill gives you a mana surge.
Turn 7 - I can't make this turn 7 play in chaos mode because a) I can't guarantee that the attacks will work and b) there's no guarantee the subsequent cast will succeed (in law mode both these things are certain). In chaos mode the optimal line is flexible, you need to have a number of backup plans for various outcomes, all your decisions will be made on the fly, you are aware of the predicted outcome of every choice (just like military tactics). A degree of tactical depth is missing from law mode due to the absence of core Chaos mechanics (the stuff which creates suspense and interesting situations). Because there are no odds to weigh up in law mode we already know at the start of the turn exactly how the turn is going to play out (and how the subsequent turn will play out to) ..it's a foregone conclusion in law mode. When the outcomes are certain, instead of random, we know for sure that the dwarf will die and the elephant will cast.. this will in turn put the AI wizard in 'checkmate'.. the wizard is certain to die on the following turn, there is a 0% chance of the the final sword blow failing.
Turn 8 - Success!

[ChaosGoneRogue]

My mind is blown by this, Mazy, you're incredible!

[MazyRun]

Gee thanks my man :) ..I only just discovered win10 game mode the other day, so I really wanted to try the game capture facility out (coz I've always struggled with OBS).

When Rafi said his video broke I thought I'd have a go at this (plus I know he doesn't have a lot of free time to be making lots of vids).. I still use the youtube account you created for my other Chaos vids lol

[Adamma]

Hi MazyRun,

Good lord, that's quite the wall of advice there, thank you!

Might I also point out that this is probably one of the most detailed and helpful replies to any thread I've ever seen. Hats off to you sir!

[Tiger]

Mazy FTW!

[MazyRun]

Cheers! Don't be disheartened by how many attempts each challenge takes, you're learning a lot of the fundamentals in the process. Is good training.

I'll take another look at the challenge later and try to recreate some scenarios where the AI casts a dragon and hopefully show some methods for dealing with it.

[NoWorries]

Originally posted by Adamma:

Hi MazyRun,

Good lord, that's quite the wall of advice there, thank you!

Might I also point out that this is probably one of the most detailed and helpful replies to any thread I've ever seen. Hats off to you sir!

MazyRun is a rockstar. And like all of us, Mazy started off playing the game and getting bolted in the face too many times before learning the ins and outs of the game. Now Mazy is among the best players of the game. Just takes practice. (Though Mazy is also among the nicest players, too, and that I think just comes naturally.)