Musketeers OP

[Crow]

A third of a cost of Scholars and can stack up to 20 with about the same amount of damage per unit. High damage when retaliating melee attacks, should probably have the Helpless Trait especially while reloading.

[BlazingScribe]

Scholars also give more and different magical essence, can fire without having to reload, and have more health.

[Crow]

Scholars also can't retaliate against melee troops, and despite the reload time the effective damage per round of a fullstack of Musketeers is insane and super cost effective.

edit: Im just a bit upset that when I go to melee a damned musketeer while its reloading, it retaliates and hits super hard. It keeps its high damage for melee attacks.

[Morphic]

Yeah, I used to think Musketeers(and Dreath) were OP as well. They hit very hard for their price, IMO. Also doesn't help they natively out range units like Shamans. However, their Melee Offense stat is low at ~4 so you should have a big advantage in Melee for most units.

So, theoretically, they should be doing significantly less damage to you in Melee. But this could change depending on enemy Wielder Stats/Skills, any spells, etc. You might be better off running some Toxicologists to either act as bait or monopolizing on their Poison effect. Or Rats, lots and lots of Rats.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Originally posted by Morphic:

Yeah, I used to think Musketeers(and Dreath) were OP as well. They hit very hard for their price, IMO. Also doesn't help they natively out range units like Shamans. However, their Melee Offense stat is low at ~4 so you should have a big advantage in Melee for most units.

So, theoretically, they should be doing significantly less damage to you in Melee. But this could change depending on enemy Wielder Stats/Skills, any spells, etc. You might be better off running some Toxicologists to either act as bait or monopolizing on their Poison effect. Or Rats, lots and lots of Rats.

what types of strats do you suggest against musk/dreath. clouded vision def helps i know

[BlazingScribe]

Muskets can be mitigated if you can get them to waste their shot and then rush them down. Alternatively if you can outrange them with artillery, magic or ranged units of their own, you can force them forward and they lose their powerful alpha strike ability. In short, exploit their reload to get I close, and find ways to get them to either waste their shot.

Elite muskets are trickier because they can use their down time to gain range and damage. Remember, their SECOND shot will always be more dangerous than their first. Kill them before they can shoot or before they finish reloading.

Dreaths are best fought at range, or with a unit like pikes that can avoid their return strikes. They don't have rage like rats do, so pick them apart with magic, slows and ranged units. If you have to fight them directly, either soak the hit with a unit like pipers or minstrels that you can afford to lose, before hitting them with something bigger.

Elite dreaths have infinite retalations. Do not fight them in melee at all if you can avoid it, as that guarantees you'll take damage. Zone them out with heavies they cant easily knock down. Also remember that dreaths are expensive by Barya standards. Losing a unit of dreaths hurts far more than a unit of pipers, and more even
than pikeneers.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Archaon The Never-Chosen:

what types of strats do you suggest against musk/dreath. clouded vision def helps i know

EDIT: BlazingScribe went into greater detail.

Well it kind of depends on your army composition/skills. Generally with Dreath I try to slow/obstruct their movement and hit them with range to whittle them down for Melee. Otherwise casting spells like Ethereal Scales before using Melee attacks helps.

Muskets are usually challenging to me regardless. Against AI you can bait them decently by offering up targets or pulling everything back, making them move up a bit. Then using high movement units(Ravagers, Knights, etc.) or spells to get into Melee with them. If you are Rana, Cheluns can laugh at them most times while they crawl towards them. Arleon Footman are somewhat similar but aren't as tanky.

IMO, a single stack of Musk/Dreath isn't that big an issue if you have an appropriate strength army. It becomes an issue when you are facing 2+ stacks of Musk/Dreath, then it can get rough pretty quickly.

[Zymeth]

Baria without a very specific build (not based on musketeers like that) is way below every other faction.

Musketeers are obvious choice for Baria, at the same time making it easier to counter.
Any decent player will teleport behind / around your musketeers before you can shoot in deadly zone. It can be done in one turn too.

Cheluns from Baria are easy counter and obvious choice for Rana anyway - they get reduced ranged damage and are very strong overall.

[Crow]

Originally posted by BlazingScribe:

Muskets can be mitigated if you can get them to waste their shot and then rush them down. Alternatively if you can outrange them with artillery, magic or ranged units of their own, you can force them forward and they lose their powerful alpha strike ability. In short, exploit their reload to get I close, and find ways to get them to either waste their shot.

Elite muskets are trickier because they can use their down time to gain range and damage. Remember, their SECOND shot will always be more dangerous than their first. Kill them before they can shoot or before they finish reloading.

I understand the general strategy of baiting the shot or mitigating the alpha strike, and I'm sure that's how the devs intend to fight them. However, its a bit more difficult to kill them before they finish reloading when they turn around and smack you with a retaliation attack that kills 10+ of your cultist stack because their base damage is in the 5-8 range and they can stack to 20. They really shouldnt be allowed to retaliate at all, or at the very least have "Helpless" when they reload.

Originally posted by Morphic:

Yeah, I used to think Musketeers(and Dreath) were OP as well. They hit very hard for their price, IMO. Also doesn't help they natively out range units like Shamans. However, their Melee Offense stat is low at ~4 so you should have a big advantage in Melee for most units.

So, theoretically, they should be doing significantly less damage to you in Melee. But this could change depending on enemy Wielder Stats/Skills, any spells, etc. You might be better off running some Toxicologists to either act as bait or monopolizing on their Poison effect. Or Rats, lots and lots of Rats.

It doesn't really matter their melee offense is very low when their base damage is so high. Id love for rats to be a solution in my game right now but Id be trading at least 60 rats for 20 muskets in most conditions, and I dont have the resources (yet) to summon multiple fullstacks of rats.

[Jolly the Joker]

Frankly, I don't see the problem. If you play Loth, what do you think the Legionnaires are good for? Or how do you want to fight Archers with their 8/5 range? Rats are a solution for a lot of things, but hard-hitting ranged troops are not it and nor are Cultists a good at it.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Crow:

It doesn't really matter their melee offense is very low when their base damage is so high. Id love for rats to be a solution in my game right now but Id be trading at least 60 rats for 20 muskets in most conditions, and I dont have the resources (yet) to summon multiple fullstacks of rats.

Their low Offense stat means they will do less damage against units with higher Defense. The greater the difference between the two, the less/more damage is done. With ~4 M.Offense that should mean they will be Retaliating for ~30+% less damage(reducing it by at least 1 point) to units with 10+ Defense. That makes a difference. Of course this is going off of unmodified stats, so not counting spell effects or wielder skills.

Are you only fighting a single full stack of Muskets(in conjunction with whatever else)? Because if you are, then using spells or a topped off army should solve it. Perhaps the enemy wielder has strong skills that are making the Muskets hit harder. Does your wielder have decent combat skills? Or did you have some other skillset strategy in mind?

The only other thing I can think of is focusing on upgrading units or spamming Oathbound/Rats. If you can afford it, double up on their production buildings. Some maps I use all small build slots for Rats just so I can spam them out hard. (course that's if there are gold sites nearby)

[sandman25dcsss]

As far as I know damage is increased by 1% or decreased by 0.5% for every point of attack vs defense difference so base damage is much more important than 10-20 points in attack or defense.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

As far as I know damage is increased by 1% or decreased by 0.5% for every point of attack vs defense difference so base damage is much more important than 10-20 points in attack or defense.

But it at least lowers damage by 1 point. So that's at least 10-20 damage from a stack of 10-20, which can make a difference between how many units live. Even if your stack was reduced to 1-2 units left, that means something would need to waste its turn finishing off your stack. (or waste essence on a spell to kill)

So hopefully that "wasted" turn can be used to your advantage. E.g. that Musket can't shoot since there's still 1-2 rats next to them. The AI will often have them melee the rats, thus not shooting, or have another unit run up and finish them. (which prevented them from advancing or hitting another one of your units) A player would often Boil Blood or something to finish it off and then shoot, but you made them waste ~2 essence that might have delayed them casting something bigger/nastier.

Overall, sure; it's not a lot. But it can make a difference in a lot of situations, IMHO.

[Jolly the Joker]

This seems to be a case of EARLY engagement against Musketeers/adv. M, since OP doesn't seem to have much more than Rats and Cultists, maybe Scholars, no upgrades. If you MUST for some reasons fight Musketeers, the most important thing is that they have range 6/4 (adv. Ms will get +3 Range and damage with Aim, which is not good to say the least).
The best advice is to not attack them with Rats and Cultists only, especially not with a sparse force.
If you hace a few Scholars that's good, because they outrange Ms by 1 and have solid HPs. So keep everyone in a distance of at least 7 hexes (you will want to keep Rats AWAY. You may Haste them later).
Important: If a Ranged troop MOVES, damage is halved - so let them Musketeers come to you in round 1 and fire shots out of moving. Then you can attack. But you need something that does damage in melee. Keep in mind that Berserked Rats do a lot of damage, but also suffer from a lot when they leave something standing.