Small Suggestions for Treekin

2twoto · May 2020

Suggestions: increase speed for Treekin (I think bringing them up to 40 speed would work, though this isn't a solid number) and mark as treekin as "High Threat" entities (for those who don't know, when a splash-attack hits entities labeled as "high threat," just one of them will take all the damage from the attack, rather than the damage being spread out across all hit entities).

Basically, the problem currently with tree kin is they are defensive monstrous infantry: the idea behind them seems to be using their mass and high defensive stats to block high-mass enemies (i.e. SEMs and Cav) and basically tank damage from such enemies for the WE army, but they struggle to actually do this due to slow speed (34 speed is fairly slow for the WE roster) and how monstrous infantry work (i.e. the infantry fighting with the monstrous infantry tends to have more damage directed at them than the monstrous infantry, which works when the monstrous infantry is supposed to be the heavy hitter but not so well in the inverse).

Most people have advocated for swapping more of their defensive power for offensive power, but doing so undermines the purpose of the unit: they're supposed to be hyper-tanks that need help to kill enemies, not forest trolls/chaos spawn with a tree skin. Instead of trading defense for offense, why not give them the tools they need to do their job?

Increase their speed so they can actually block/pin high-mass enemies and change them to "high threat" so they actually tank damage from such enemies instead of the infantry taking it. Do this and tree kin should become much more viable outside of tree-blobbing (and to prevent said tactic from being buffed by this just swap the MD increase in woods to a speed buff while in woods for these abilities). Additional improvements could be added (i.e. increasing their mass or size) if necessary, but these two buffs will allow them to fulfill their purpose without compromising their identity.

Sarmatianns · May 2020

I've been suggesting that for a long time, but with no success.

Raising their speed makes them a better blocker, without really buffing tree blob (speed is irrelevant there).

There's no reason for them to be that slow, when other bulky monstrous infantry is much faster.

IMaybo · May 2020

its an ironical paradox of WE, they have one of the fastest and slowest units at the same time

do you suggest changing their price as well?
maybe not in the case of speed, but in the case of mass + speed the price should go up as well

Sarmatianns · May 2020

Their mass is fine. It's the speed that need looking. Treekin certainly need no price increase.

They're almost never used, and they're in a roster that desperately needs high mass units on the ground. That should be telling enough.

Pocman · May 2020

2twoto said:
Suggestions: increase speed for Treekin (I think bringing them up to 40 speed would work, though this isn't a solid number) and mark as treekin as "High Threat" entities (for those who don't know, when a splash-attack hits entities labeled as "high threat," just one of them will take all the damage from the attack, rather than the damage being spread out across all hit entities).

Basically, the problem currently with tree kin is they are defensive monstrous infantry: the idea behind them seems to be using their mass and high defensive stats to block high-mass enemies (i.e. SEMs and Cav) and basically tank damage from such enemies for the WE army, but they struggle to actually do this due to slow speed (34 speed is fairly slow for the WE roster) and how monstrous infantry work (i.e. the infantry fighting with the monstrous infantry tends to have more damage directed at them than the monstrous infantry, which works when the monstrous infantry is supposed to be the heavy hitter but not so well in the inverse).

Most people have advocated for swapping more of their defensive power for offensive power, but doing so undermines the purpose of the unit: they're supposed to be hyper-tanks that need help to kill enemies, not forest trolls/chaos spawn with a tree skin. Instead of trading defense for offense, why not give them the tools they need to do their job?

Increase their speed so they can actually block/pin high-mass enemies and change them to "high threat" so they actually tank damage from such enemies instead of the infantry taking it. Do this and tree kin should become much more viable outside of tree-blobbing (and to prevent said tactic from being buffed by this just swap the MD increase in woods to a speed buff while in woods for these abilities). Additional improvements could be added (i.e. increasing their mass or size) if necessary, but these two buffs will allow them to fulfill their purpose without compromising their identity.

They need more offensive power or they will never pay for themselves.

Blocking cavalry or SEMs with a 900 gold unit is not hat useful if they can't damage it back.

Plus, isn't high threat intended to avoid damage being dispersed through the unit? So they would lose models faster, but won't really protect infantry better...

@CA_Duck ?

Bastilean · May 2020

I just flipped through my Wood Elf army book. Dryads, Treekin and Treemen are movement 5 which is the same speed as wardancers and other wood elf infantry. Problem is Total War does variations on unit speeds... so infantry vary from 33 to 46.

Who's bright idea was it to make Dryads slower than dwarfs? These are supple agile creatures. Also vanguard deployment is interesting to say the least. That's a cool addition. I think I just saw the trees outside our camp move boss!

Dryads should be health ~108, damage ~42 and cost ~900; stats more similar to savage big'uns (str 4, T 4, 2A). On TT these are beefy mid tier models. Drop the 30 armor.

Kin and Treemen should have expert charge defense. They literally have roots for feet.

I would be fine with these tree creatures having speed ~38 to 42. That's faster than most of the WE infantry.

Treemen should have a ranged (60) root attack that does damage equivalent to 10 crossbows (280 damage) which does not need line of sight and can move and shoot. Treemen should also do extra damage to gates and damage walls like dwarven miners. If you can, make treemen start with melee selected despite having a ranged attack. It's an aside not a primary weapon. Also, I would add unlimited ammo or ammo replenishment feature since it's not actually using any.

That's my take on Tree Spirits based on the book.

Bastilean · May 2020

Here's some more Wood Elf army updates I would pursue:

Wild Riders should have perfect vigor thanks to Fury of Kurnous providing deadly vigor.

Add great stags monstrous cavalry.

War Dancers, Way Watchers, Rangers should all take at least 2 turns to produce as primo units.

2twoto · May 2020

Pocman said:

2twoto said:
Suggestions: increase speed for Treekin (I think bringing them up to 40 speed would work, though this isn't a solid number) and mark as treekin as "High Threat" entities (for those who don't know, when a splash-attack hits entities labeled as "high threat," just one of them will take all the damage from the attack, rather than the damage being spread out across all hit entities).

Basically, the problem currently with tree kin is they are defensive monstrous infantry: the idea behind them seems to be using their mass and high defensive stats to block high-mass enemies (i.e. SEMs and Cav) and basically tank damage from such enemies for the WE army, but they struggle to actually do this due to slow speed (34 speed is fairly slow for the WE roster) and how monstrous infantry work (i.e. the infantry fighting with the monstrous infantry tends to have more damage directed at them than the monstrous infantry, which works when the monstrous infantry is supposed to be the heavy hitter but not so well in the inverse).

Most people have advocated for swapping more of their defensive power for offensive power, but doing so undermines the purpose of the unit: they're supposed to be hyper-tanks that need help to kill enemies, not forest trolls/chaos spawn with a tree skin. Instead of trading defense for offense, why not give them the tools they need to do their job?

Increase their speed so they can actually block/pin high-mass enemies and change them to "high threat" so they actually tank damage from such enemies instead of the infantry taking it. Do this and tree kin should become much more viable outside of tree-blobbing (and to prevent said tactic from being buffed by this just swap the MD increase in woods to a speed buff while in woods for these abilities). Additional improvements could be added (i.e. increasing their mass or size) if necessary, but these two buffs will allow them to fulfill their purpose without compromising their identity.
They need more offensive power or they will never pay for themselves.

Blocking cavalry or SEMs with a 900 gold unit is not hat useful if they can't damage it back.

Plus, isn't high threat intended to avoid damage being dispersed through the unit? So they would lose models faster, but won't really protect infantry better...

@CA_Duck ?

This is the description of High Threat from TWW Stats: "When a splash attack hits one or more "High Threat" entity, ONE of the "High Threat" entity will be chosen to receive ALL the damage. This overrides the normal splash attack behavior of splitting the damage between all hit entities."

Basically, if Treekin are made high threat, then any time they are hit by a splash attack one of their entities will absorb all the damage, essentially mitigating the splash damage taken by whatever unit they're embedded in (splash damage generally come from SEM's, monstrous infantry, Lords/heroes, and some cav units). You are correct in that they'd loose models faster, but the unit isn't going to kill things itself anyways so better it takes the damage than the EG/Wardancers/WWR they're protecting.

While you are correct that blocking alone isn't worth 900gp, being able to block and protect elite infantry at the same time should allow them to actually be worthwhile outside of tree-blobs. Thus, I advocate making them capable of doing their job rather than turning them into generic monstrous infantry with higher defensive stats.

Pocman · May 2020

Umm, I don't think that will change nothing.

I mean, is not like WEs have a problem with monster infantry or SEMs. They have a problem with single entity chariots and specially, heavy cavalry. And for those, the change you propose will have no effect. Similarly, it would nothing against infantry. Which would leave you with the same exact problem they have right now: you pay a lotfor a unit that they can simply ignore.

Imho, take out the missile resistance and a minor amount of MD, and give them speed MA, and WS.

The VPirates crabbies are what treekin should be, once the cost difference is taken into account.

Sarmatianns · May 2020

Pocman said:
Umm, I don't think that will change nothing.

I mean, is not like WEs have a problem with monster infantry or SEMs. They have a problem with single entity chariots and specially, heavy cavalry. And for those, the change you propose will have no effect. Similarly, it would nothing against infantry. Which would leave you with the same exact problem they have right now: you pay a lotfor a unit that they can simply ignore.

Imho, take out the missile resistance and a minor amount of MD, and give them speed MA, and WS.

The VPirates crabbies are what treekin should be, once the cost difference is taken into account.

All units with "scaly skin" get missile resistance.

I do use Treekin to block cavalry sometimes. It is hard to pull off, but it can be effective when you do. Raising the speed to 40 would make it little easier.

And as it has been established that they had good movement speed on TT, there is absolutely no reason not to increase their speed to 40. Might not be enough, they still might be a very niche pick in just a few specific army builds, but it is a safe buff, and I don't why it should not be tried.

2twoto · May 2020

Pocman said:
Umm, I don't think that will change nothing.

I mean, is not like WEs have a problem with monster infantry or SEMs. They have a problem with single entity chariots and specially, heavy cavalry. And for those, the change you propose will have no effect. Similarly, it would nothing against infantry. Which would leave you with the same exact problem they have right now: you pay a lotfor a unit that they can simply ignore.

Imho, take out the missile resistance and a minor amount of MD, and give them speed MA, and WS.

The VPirates crabbies are what treekin should be, once the cost difference is taken into account.

The proposal would actually help the WE vs both of those units: The speed increase would allow them to reposition to block both chariots and heavy cav better (negating the impact hits both rely on for their damage), while being made high threat would protect the infantry they're with from the chariot's attacks in melee (which are splash attacks).

While it is true that the heavy cav most commonly brought against WE don't have splash attacks (i.e. 45 or 36 model units; any cav with less than that has splash attacks), the speed boost will still improve their performance vs such by allowing them to effectively block charges (which would make them harder to ignore, as they'd hobble the heavy cav's performance until the treekin are dealt with)

Also, I proposed 40 to be conservative: initially I was going to advocate for the buff to be up to 46 speed, but I decided to low-ball it in case a +12 to their speed seemed too radical, given that it's currently the slowest unit on the roster. Given that everyone seems to agree they need a speed boost though, I'd advocate upping their speed to 46: that will allow them to keep up with Wardancers and WWR, both of whom they synergize really well with (or would, if they could actually keep up).

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