I'm a bit late to the clear, so everyone's already reviewed the mission before I do. I'll just review everyone else instead.
Anyway, Zelech murdered a few gnolls, busted into their homes, captured Gran, and now he offered them an alliance? He could have just...convinced them in the first place? This guy is literally what will arrive at my door if I order Harmos and Birram on Walmart.
And I like how Amari corrected herself from "we" to "I" in the last cinematic. I understand that she don't want Rangul and Sas to share her achievements, but damn, how could she have left out Okri and Grofzag?
It's a bit of a shame that both leadership give us better options for melee than the gnoll units.
Ackshually, I've done the math. Assuming that +3 melee, Bloodhunt and Golem Power are already researched, and assuming our enemies are mostly Heavy-armored, which they actually are, we'll have those results:
- Against Hardened Skin: Bloodhound is the second best, losing out only 1 DPS against Crystal Golem with Grofzag's Boni, or third best if you count Fanatic 100% crit chance. With LV3 Command Aura, the gap is even closer, making their damage almost identical.
- Against 10 armor: Bloodhound beats everyone, even better than Fanatic on 100% crit chance. Same case with LV3 Command Aura.
- Against both Hardened Skin and 10 armor: The same case with Hardened Skin.
Basically, Bloodhounds with Bloodhunt are insane, scale better with damage bonus, cost less food than a Crystal Golem, high movement speed, can Pillage, and you don't need to waste a Boni on them.
And Brawlers are extremely bad. Their DPS only spikes up during Frenzy, but even then, Red Priests can just use Abolish Magic on them (the same reason why I don't include Bloodcry in my calculation). In a perfect world, they'll have Frenzy on all the time with Okri's Rage of the Exile, and then, they'll deal more damage than Grunts and occasionally Rippers.
As for the source,
I used an Excel sheet with a ton of damage calculation formula I looked up on Liquipedia that you don't need to know because Math is boring Gardon told me in my dream.
Attacked the first NE base
Please forgive me, but at first I thought you meant Night Elf base.
Anyone actually done this as a ground mission?
Pretty easy with Bloodhound+Warden spam. Redfist expansion can be broken through with starter force. For the main base, lure out the guards. When they dwindle, sneak in and break a Harpy Cage while you destroy their production structures, to stall the remaining guys. Repeat that a few times, and boom, the base is gone.
For extra style point, save 7-9 cages until the end and unleash them on Zelech. He deserves that.
The greatest accomplisments they achieved were burning the orc islands, that were moslty undefended, and killing Rangul and Ephrog, who were all by themselves. These guys trained and planned for years for one purpose only, and they suck at it. They even had the support of the Imperial Regiments, the Salrians, the Dwarves, and Daric's mercenaries, and yet they suck so bad that they make the Golden Guard look competent.
The Redfist has insanely strong units, but they fail almost everytime they go against an actual enemies. I kinda pity them, honestly.
Same case with the Golden Guards, so I'll just borrow a comment from Jay's video to voice my thoughts. "Oh, so you're a fan of the Golden Guard? Name every Golden Guard captain."
That is just my two cent, overall Ironfist (the protag faction of human) is the least diverse with very limited options.
Gameplay-wise, yes, you're right, but story-wise, it fits Gardon's attitude of "Fuck you, I'll do everything by myself." Besides, he's not exactly the most trustworthy person for dissidents from other factions to join him, but they'll instead join Kerrel and Rengar or something. Maybe the rest of the Grey Guards are assimilated into the Ironfist? I'm not sure.
. I probably could do the chore after a few charges, given that I beat the other surrounding small bases of the side quest. On chapter 4 now with Merlon and his shenanigans.
