Weekly Discussion: Red Hot vs Gazelle

[lycane]

This one was bound to come up sooner or later there has been some debate between which one is better...I prefer Gazelle more often due to the extra attack group, Vault, and being 20pts cheaper.

def 2 is nice, hit and run is great, infiltrate is also a bonus but removing Vault?!?!?

Vault > Furious Charge IMO.

If Red Hot Needed any change it would be remove Furious Charge and Maybe Elusive just to get Vault and AG2 Back. that would make a Character Gazelle worth 20pts more.

What are your thoughts?

Gazelle
AP4
DEF4
ARM14
MOV4
PSY15
HP2

AG#1
[1] Kick AS5 RF∞ PW4 RN0 MAL -
•KP(12)


AG#2
[1] Double Kick AS6 RF1 PW4x2 RN MAL -
•KB(14)
Regen
Vault
------------------------------------------
Red Hot
AP4
DEF2
ARM14
MOV4
PSY15
HP2

AG#1
[1] Kick AS5 RF∞ PW4 RN0 MAL -
•KP(12)

•Elusive
•Hit and Run
•Regeneration
•Infiltrate
•Furious Charge

[Mr. Black]

1. By her character bio, she cannot perform the Double Kick- she has a bum leg, that's one of the whole points of her.

2. Vault, on its own, is better than Furious Charge- if you expect a model to assault only once per turn. Red Hot has Hit and Run, and thus has the potential to charge multiple models a turn, given then, Furious Charge will activate way more than the single instance Vault.

[Never Knows Best]

Normally, I would pick the infiltrate model... for infiltrate alone. However, with either Gazelle or Red Hot, with 16" movement, losing it on Gazelle doesn't concern me as much - on average you are going to be deploying an infiltrate model between 18-20" (roughly the corner of no-mans land) from your deployment zone or closer anyway.

x2 Weapons are much more handy at dishing out damage so losing the double kick is kind of hard. Gazelle is most likely going to have Elusive anyway so that's no real loss and agreed, vault is going to just about break even in usefulness vs. Furious charge. Furious Charge can grant bonuses multiple times, vault grants additional mobility (and if the feedback on my vault question is indeed correct, the ability to go through solid walls or up multiple levels for free seems very powerful).

Hit and Run is one of my favorite abilities in the game, I really like it. Still, I've always wondered how useful it would truly be in game. Neat abilities that almost never happen, for instance, are cool but not practical. So, let's take Red Hot vs. a Spear Slave. On average, she is only going to kill a Spear Slave with an initial charge 52% of the time (even with Furious charge) That's pretty dismal. Without killing it on the initial charge, it takes on average 2.6 AP for Red Hot to kill the Slave. Somewhere in the ballpark of 2.25 AP per slave, total.

I'll save you some of the math, this boils down to if there are 2 slaves within 4" of each other and Red Hot can reach one of them, it is fairly unlikely she will be able to kill both in 1 activation, even with the free movement AP and double furious charge (if she does, she would however get a second free movement.) On average she would need about an extra .5 AP.

Now with the single Vault charge at x2, Gazelle is going to fair slightly better against 2 Slaves - about 2 AP per slave even - however she's only going to have 3 AP to do it (since she doesn't get the free movement). Ironically, this means she has about the same chance of killing 2 Slaves 4" apart as Red Hot does, although Red Hot does get the extra movement past slave #2 if she is successful. On average she would need about a full extra 1 AP to do it, about .5 AP worse than her Red Hot counter part (although if she could engage both on her first vault, she would stand a slightly better chance to kill both).

I picked the Spear Slave because it is one of the easiest models in dark age to kill. As the models get tougher, the stats for both will get worse. Still, it is a very close comparison between the two math-wise. So much so that, figuring that you're rolling on average for both, Red Hot's Hit and Run/Furious Charge combo is rarely going to be more effective than Gazelle with Vault and x2. If you are "feelin' lucky, punk!" and are rolling better than average, Red Hot's going to do more for your simply for being able to get more places for free.

Unless someone else wants to really show me something I missed in the math (well punk, do you?), for the increased price you're really determining if Infiltrate is worth it between these two models and that's pretty much it.

[lycane]

1. By her character bio, she cannot perform the Double Kick- she has a bum leg, that's one of the whole points of her.

2. Vault, on its own, is better than Furious Charge- if you expect a model to assault only once per turn. Red Hot has Hit and Run, and thus has the potential to charge multiple models a turn, given then, Furious Charge will activate way more than the single instance Vault.

AH Mr. Black took the bait...and completed the comparison I was going to get to later on between Vault and FC.

1) I know - it's sad that she has a bum leg. I like bringing it up cuz I hate explaining it as much as you do - it's what makes the model different.

2) Thats if She kills on that charge...typically she does though but I find getting multiple charges off can be tough. I feel like Red Hot should be played SUPER aggressive to get the most use out of her - and this is not typical for some players.

I've been playing a lot of CORE and Kuk lately and decided to throw this discussion out there from a discussion with another player. I see the utility in Gazelle but Red Hot i feel needs to be player SUPER aggressive or you just wont get her points worth.

Never touched on where I think players shy away from her - she only excels at killing peons and has a tougher time going after harder to hit targets...

If you have a bag of nails, a screwdriver is useless. Same with Red Hot a lone Saint on one flank or a group of high DEF models...Red Hot should be going for the group of High DEF models.

As a side note we are trying out some games of Character heavy vs Peon heavy builds for this reason - flesh out the utility in the specialized characters and get to know how they excel or not at certain things during a game.

[Never Knows Best]

As a side note we are trying out some games of Character heavy vs Peon heavy builds for this reason - flesh out the utility in the specialized characters and get to know how they excel or not at certain things during a game.

I would be interested in some of your notes on what you find out as we've been experimenting with this as well - going from extremes of low model count, high point cost armies to swarms and back again. It's all in how you balance points vs. HP vs. Action Points and then comparing how easy something kills vs. being killed. There are some great threads here already, for example the illustrations of how a few Scuts can lock down a Howler, but definitely worth adding to and personally, I'm not sure which way I lean more toward on the subject - hordes or giants.

[lycane]

I would be interested in some of your notes on what you find out as we've been experimenting with this as well - going from extremes of low model count, high point cost armies to swarms and back again. It's all in how you balance points vs. HP vs. Action Points and then comparing how easy something kills vs. being killed. There are some great threads here already, for example the illustrations of how a few Scuts can lock down a Howler, but definitely worth adding to and personally, I'm not sure which way I lean more toward on the subject - hordes or giants.

from the few games we've run through last night swarms will have the upper hand depending mostly on initiative. - basically if the player with the elite group has positioning and wins the initiative they can usually deal with most of the threats or keep pace. It's an uphill battle though as the opponent will out activate and have free range to cap points and counter whatever positioning you may have. Hence why getting the initiative (and knowing which models to place on hold) is VERY important.

Also having more activation = more attacks. more attacks = more chances for "1"s to hit or "20"s to fail. This is another topic of discussion so I will regroup a bit.

From the few games we played last night and more this weekend - swarm lists seem to have the upper hand because it runs on auto pilot once the opponent runs out of activation.

[lycane]

Also the list I was trying was a non brood spawn as I could fit the model I wanted into 500...

Scion
Red Hot
Lasher
Lasher
Mandible

vs

War Chief
Wasteland Warriors x2
Fixer
Bully
Scuts x4

played 3 games went 1-2
lets just say - it was a tough uphill battle and the deciding factor for most of the games was: initiative, crits (fails), and being out activated. I did pull one win and it was in thanks to the red hot - the multi charge worked against the Scuts but the Bully was a toughed target...

[JamieW]

I totally agree with Lycane - As things currently stand, having more activations is an enormous advantage. Heck, it's been discussed to death in multiple threads all over these boards.

[Ahriman42]

One thing to consider is that Red Hot is in the Brood; they've got some synergies. Sadly, Red Hot isn't available to Murtros' broodspawn, but there's still a few brood models that can cause panic (+2 defense). She could also be attacking along with broodlings and an alpha broodling for gang-up bonuses, or targets knocked prone with Grists or Ratchets. her function could be to "mop up" such a scrum. And who cares if she can't fight well? She's an infiltrating model that moves 16" an activation.