Has anyone tried the WD Gargant fight?

[Sleboda]

Like it says.

[tamthethird]

Yes, and it’s a lot of fun. Played two player game, but I suspect it’s more fun with 3 or 4. Because it’s co-op, but really an excuse for bastardry.

[Anthony225]

I haven't played yet, by the cool thing is as it is co-op in the sense that you all want the giant dead or everyone loses, there is still only 1 winner of the giant falls. Whoever has the most glory wins. So it's not like there's no reason to attack fellow warbands, you'd gain a glory as well as prevent them from getting glory.

seems like a good balance to me. It seems like maybe the player who racks up glory faster will be the one attacked by the giant as well as the other warbands possibly

[Sleboda]

Hi all,

We played against the Gargant tonight and I gotta say, it was a lot of fun.

Our only real issue was that it was super easy. We used four warbands (2 orruk, 1 dwarf, 1 skaven) and it was dead after one activation in the last round. Combined, we lost a grand total of one model. It was really no challenge at all, and it really is because there is no obligation to use the Gargant intelligently.

You "may" kick a fighter with him. Simple enough. Just don't.

When he moves, we had no reason to not move him into lethal hexes.

When he attacks, we always chose his distance attack and shot it at models on the fringe who were not important.

Basically, we made the Gargant an idiot because the "programming" he has gives us no reason not to.

 

I think the core of the idea is great fun, but the rules governing the Gargant's actions leave a ton to be desired. Maybe they will revisit this down the road, but I'm not holding my breath.

Our solution is to bring in a fifth player to play the Gargant ruthlessly, which will make him a lot more dangerous, probably too dangerous in fact.

To counter that overly hostile choice, we will be building decks very highly customized to take him on. 

If all goes well, we think we'll end up in a place where the two decisions blend to make a much more satisfying experience.

 

Has anyone else found the fight to be really easy?

[Desidus]

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Hi all,

We played against the Gargant tonight and I gotta say, it was a lot of fun.

Our only real issue was that it was super easy. We used four warbands (2 orruk, 1 dwarf, 1 skaven) and it was dead after one activation in the last round. Combined, we lost a grand total of one model. It was really no challenge at all, and it really is because there is no obligation to use the Gargant intelligently.

You "may" kick a fighter with him. Simple enough. Just don't.

When he moves, we had no reason to not move him into lethal hexes.

When he attacks, we always chose his distance attack and shot it at models on the fringe who were not important.

Basically, we made the Gargant an idiot because the "programming" he has gives us no reason not to.

 

I think the core of the idea is great fun, but the rules governing the Gargant's actions leave a ton to be desired. Maybe they will revisit this down the road, but I'm not holding my breath.

Our solution is to bring in a fifth player to play the Gargant ruthlessly, which will make him a lot more dangerous, probably too dangerous in fact.

To counter that overly hostile choice, we will be building decks very highly customized to take him on. 

If all goes well, we think we'll end up in a place where the two decisions blend to make a much more satisfying experience.

 

Has anyone else found the fight to be really easy?

We’ve done the same thing. We also start him as auto inspired. And Auto on Guard. That reduces possible glory you can get and really slows down the ramp up. 

[Oreaper84]

So played it with 4 players.....and all the backstabbery ensued.  They were fairly co-op till they got him to half woulds, then they started to murder each other. Then the giant got free.....then he started beating faces in.....

 

good  times had by all

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Desidus said:

We’ve done the same thing. We also start him as auto inspired. And Auto on Guard. That reduces possible glory you can get and really slows down the ramp up. 

There auto inspired bit is an intriguing idea, but he's already auto on guard. He goes first and the first thing he does is go on guard.

How has this impacted your games? Just reducing the glory you score? He still doesn't do any more killing right?

[Sleboda]

45 minutes ago, Oreaper84 said:

So played it with 4 players.....and all the backstabbery ensued.  They were fairly co-op till they got him to half woulds, then they started to murder each other. Then the giant got free.....then he started beating faces in...

I have a feeling that the author of the article was counting on that. If the players stick together, it's an easy team win. 

 

BTW, I would have combined my replies if there were some sort of guidance on how to add multiple quotes in one post. Doing it manually via HTML doesn't do it like it does on every other forum I've ever used.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Sleboda

[Desidus]

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

There auto inspired bit is an intriguing idea, but he's already auto on guard. He goes first and the first thing he does is go on guard.

How has this impacted your games? Just reducing the glory you score? He still doesn't do any more killing right?

Oh we don't waste an activation on that. We allow him to start throwing rocks around to start with. The reduction on glory with the auto inspire forces players to back stab to get early upgrades. Or you just don't have the damage output to deal with him. 

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I have a feeling that the author of the article was counting on that. If the players stick together, it's an easy team win. 

 

BTW, I would have combined my replies if there were some sort of guidance on how to add multiple quotes in one post. Doing it manually via HTML doesn't do it like it does on every other forum I've ever used.

Double quoting is easy, there's a little + symbol next to the quote option. Simply click that on every post you want to quote and a new box should appear in your bottom right screen (tracks number of posts you're quoting in the thread). 

When youre done click That box to quote all the post. Ta da!

[PlasticCraic]

15 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Has anyone else found the fight to be really easy?

You do realise that you don't win and lose as a team?

Sorry if that sounds patronising but everything you've written makes it sound like you collaborated, and you think all won together by killing him. 

That's not how it works - and that's the genius of it. The equation between collaborate and shaft swings wildly. Amazing game. 

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

You do realise that you don't win and lose as a team?

Sorry if that sounds patronising but everything you've written makes it sound like you collaborated, and you think all won together by killing him. 

That's not how it works - and that's the genius of it. The equation between collaborate and shaft swings wildly. Amazing game. 

I do, but our view is that we would rather at least not all lose than infight in an attempt to be the top dog. If you fight each other too much, the Gargant laughs his way to a victory over everyone.

 

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Desidus said:

Oh we don't waste an activation on that. We allow him to start throwing rocks around to start with. The reduction on glory with the auto inspire forces players to back stab to get early upgrades. Or you just don't have the damage output to deal with him. 

Double quoting is easy, there's a little + symbol next to the quote option. Simply click that on every post you want to quote and a new box should appear in your bottom right screen (tracks number of posts you're quoting in the thread). 

When youre done click That box to quote all the post. Ta da!

Ah, I see. No wasted activation for him.  That makes sense. That would help.

Double quote.  Thank you.  I've been asking for help on that (even from the mod team) and nobody has ever been able to tell me that.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to break up the text from one post, like yours.  I would prefer to have answered the first part of the quote, quoted the second part, and then answered that.  Again, though, thanks!

[Anthony225]

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I do, but our view is that we would rather at least not all lose than infight in an attempt to be the top dog. If you fight each other too much, the Gargant laughs his way to a victory over everyone.

 

This doesn't make sense to me. The Gargant is to easy to kill because you're working as a team and essentially ignoring the part where only 1 player wins. The rules seem pretty good if you consider 1 person wins. If everyone is trying to be the "winner" then the game would play much differently than you describe. 

I completely agree that the gargant would be way to easy to take down by working as a team and trying to win as a team. If you're doing it that way then yes you'd need to modify the rules somehow.

I for one think the idea of trying to balance fighting the gargant enough that he dies while also considering how much glory your opponents are gaining and trying to gain more than them sounds incredibly fun and strategic. 

Fighting as a team and calling it a "win" for everyone if thebgiant dies just sounds boring using that ruleset.

[Ninelives]

We played two games and in both of them the giant died, buy there was only limited collaboration, as the giant is more useful controlled to kill your enemies of fortune that walking in dangerous hexes 🤣 . We had a clear winner and it was a lot of fun. I like that you can run it almost like a board game as an introduction to Warhammer Underworlds without an objective deck. 

[tamthethird]

5 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I do, but our view is that we would rather at least not all lose than infight in an attempt to be the top dog. If you fight each other too much, the Gargant laughs his way to a victory over everyone.

 

I think the issue here is that you are all simply too good as people and that GW is over-relying on the average gamers innate bastardry and desire to crush their allies and drink their salty tears 😂

[PlasticCraic]

1 hour ago, Anthony225 said:

I for one think the idea of trying to balance fighting the gargant enough that he dies while also considering how much glory your opponents are gaining and trying to gain more than them sounds incredibly fun and strategic. 

Fighting as a team and calling it a "win" for everyone if thebgiant dies just sounds boring using that ruleset.

This is exactly right. We played it with 4 players and it was really on point. The whole thing works so, so well because only one of you can win. 

If you do collaborate and make the Gargant act like an idiot, it's impossible for it to be too easy to win. Because 3 out of the 4 of you will still lose. Not using the Gargant to hit your opponents isn't an easy way to win, it's an easy way to lose. 

The rules GW have provided are amazing. I can't recommend it enough. 

[Ksym77]

Planning on playing a game of this but with a modification to the gargant’s actions - we are giving each player 12 cards (Ace to Queen) in one suit from a standard deck of cards. Whenever the gargant would Rampage, each player secretly plays a card then all cards are revealed. Highest UNIQUE value played controls the gargant for the activation. If everyone played the same card then he performs the ‘Bellow of Outrage’ action. Once one player is out, they control the gargant. If more than one player, they play cards against each other to determine control. Hoping it will add some more interesting choices to what already seems like a really fun mode.

[Kaptain Murder]

Our 4way Gargbang fight was fun and definitely re playable. We have a friendly, yet competitive group, so during the first 1 1/2 rounds, everyone swarmed the gargant. After, when glory was tougher to get, the players started to turn on each other... for reasons both real, imagined, and just plain sadistic. The gargant went down in the 4th round, and the "underdog" ended up getting the most glory.

Its a great and different way to spend an underworld nightvault night!

[Sleboda]

Just got another game in.  This time it was just two of us.  Magore and Goblins. We used the giant more aggressively, as others have suggested here.  He was killing fighters regularly, taking out 6 of them by the end.

We beat him down before the end of Round 3, with my Fiends winning on Glory with 17 Glory compared to 8 for the Goblins.

 

Still pretty easy.

[Anthony225]

16 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Just got another game in.  This time it was just two of us.  Magore and Goblins. We used the giant more aggressively, as others have suggested here.  He was killing fighters regularly, taking out 6 of them by the end.

We beat him down before the end of Round 3, with my Fiends winning on Glory with 17 Glory compared to 8 for the Goblins.

 

Still pretty easy.

Maybe the goblin player didn't think it was "easy" as he didn't win. You could just be a better player maybe? I think the design of the format is that the gargant should almost always die, but it comes down to who is more strategic in the way they gain or prevent others from gaming glory. 

It's possible you're just better at that then other players. 

Primary goal is to take out the gargant, secondary, assuming gargant is dead, is to have more glory at the end. 

[Sleboda]

Nah, she's really good with the goblins. They got her mentality perfectly. It's just that Magore's Fiends are great at dealing chunks of early damage reliably. 

I also had control of the Gargant every turn, so that was big

We played again tonight, and this time she was in control of it. I lost Magore and Ghartok in the first two activations, so I was not going to win. I played to make sure she would not win either, and by Round 3 it was clear she didn't have the damage output to kill it, so we called it. Win for the Gargant.

[PlasticCraic]

11 hours ago, Anthony225 said:

Maybe the goblin player didn't think it was "easy" as he didn't win. You could just be a better player maybe? I think the design of the format is that the gargant should almost always die, but it comes down to who is more strategic in the way they gain or prevent others from gaming glory. 

It's possible you're just better at that then other players. 

Primary goal is to take out the gargant, secondary, assuming gargant is dead, is to have more glory at the end. 

Yep I agree with this. You've beaten your opponent then declared that the game itself is easy.

By definition it's harder to win than a normal game of Underworlds because you have the same maximum 1 winner, but you *can* ALL lose.

Once you've started playing properly, you and your opponent have lost 3 of 4 games between you. 

[Sleboda]

If you check my last posts, we've already started playing "properly." Thus the comment that it was "still" easy.

[PlasticCraic]

Oh yeah I got that. What I meant was that you beat your opponent in the first game after you posted on here. And you both lost the second.

So you're 1-1 and they are 0-2 

Combined record of 1-3 

So I don't see how it's especially easy for either of you. 

Edited December 27, 2018 by PlasticCraic

[PlasticCraic]

Which is important because you're not trying to beat the game. You need to beat your opponent. It can only possibly be easy if you're much better than your opponent, in which case any game would be "easy".

The way that you have to juggle glory farming and stopping your opponent is fiendish. You can kill their big hitter and cut off their flow of glory, in which case you might let the Gargant off the hook and everyone loses. 

If you are playing 4 player (Which I recommend), and you score a lot early, you make yourself a target. But then whoever gets eliminated gets to control the Gargant and avenge their vendettas. 

The pendulum between cooperate and shaft swings wildly. Honestly the whole thing is so well designed, it's amazing. Great game, and we've had a ball when we've played it.