Low Drop Counts (Competitive)

[TeclisGod]

Hello Gamers,

This is a short and simple post. What is a good amount of drops for a list? I haven't played a tournament yet but I know that having a low drop count is very important throughout games. I have heard of lists with 2 drops, 3 drops or even a 1 drop. Would a 4 drop be too many or would it be not much different than a 3 drop. I know this can be very situational on what people bring to a tournament but in a tournament where it is heavily played in the current meta...what would you expect to see with drop counts and what to look for in a list to try and secure your turn decisions? Thank you so much and I am sorry this is a vague question and I expect to have vague answers but as a starting point it would be nice to see what to look for. Thanks

[swarmofseals]

@TeclisGod great topic. I'll preface my response with a caveat: I don't have personal experience at the top level of play, but I follow the meta quite closely. I think I'm pretty knowledgeable in this area but would not consider myself an "expert."

With that being said, I think that this is a complex question with a complex answer. There is no hard and fast rule about how low drop you need to be. How valuable having the choice of turn is varies from army to army, battleplan to battleplan, and matchup to matchup. It's also relevant to think about how much you are giving up to reduce your drops. Some factions give up very little or even nothing in order to keep their drops low, while other factions have to make major compromises to reduce drops.

Thus when considering this question context is very important. Are you trying to be competitive in local tournaments, regional/national tournaments or international tournaments? Are you shooting for a winning record, a Top X finish or are you really gunning for 5-0? Depending on your answers you will be able to hone in on the metagame you really need to pay attention to. You want to know how many drops other players are taking.

I did some math on this compiling results from a couple of major tournaments last year and looked at how likely you would be to have the choice of turn at each level of drops. I found a few inflection points where there was a pretty steep gain in reducing your drops to that level, but the inflection points may well be different now as the metagame has evolved since then. Regardless, you want to know what your payoff is for reducing your drops to a certain point. Depending on what your focus is, you should either be honing in on the overall metagame (if you are looking to maximize your win rate) or the top tables metagame if you are trying to maximize your odds at 5-0. If you are aiming at local tournaments, analyze your local metagame. If you are aiming at larger regional events try looking at results from those tournaments. If you are looking at international (GT) level competition, look at results from those events.

Once you have that information handy, you can then delve into the question at various levels of sophistication:

• At the basic level, you can try to understand how much your army cares about having the choice of turn. If you are very vulnerable to alpha strike or are relying on an alpha strike yourself, you probably are very invested in having the turn choice. Also in general if your army is very committed to playing the game in one particular way you're probably more likely to want the choice of turn. If you null deploy but aren't committed to an alpha strike you probably care less about having the turn choice. Similarly if you are very fast but also not particularly fragile you probably don't care as much. If your army can play in a variety of ways you probably care less.
• At the next level, you will consider the specific tournament pack for the tournament you are planning to compete in. Check the battleplans and see if they change anything about your calculus regarding turn choice. Historically some battleplans have punished not having the choice of turn very harshly, although that is a bit less true now (who knows with the new GHB!)
• At the next level you'll consider both the battleplans and the metagame. Are there specific matchups that are both likely to be present and where your win rate is likely to be swung very dramatically by having the turn choice? If so, what drop count do you need to beat in those matchups? Also try to avoid falling into the trap of obsessing over matchups that are heavily against you (as long as those matchups aren't completely inevitable). Sometimes the best plan is just to hope that you don't get matched up against a faction that you can't realistically beat.

Just in case you really don't have the time, information, or experience to do the work necessary for the above calculus, here are some general impressions that I had the last time I looked at data. Take this with a huge, huge grain of salt though as the metagame has probably shifted a lot since then and we really don't know what it will look like in the near future:

• The average list was in the 7-8 drop range. If you're just trying to compete against the field in general and want to have the choice more often than not, then being in the 6-7 drop range was a bit of a sweet spot.
• Three is another cluster of lists in the 4-5 drop range. However, these lists also tend to be more competitive and high performing on average. If you're looking to shoot for 5-0 and care a good deal about having the choice then I would shoot for 4 or fewer if you can, or 5 at the most. If you really, really need the turn choice then you pretty much need to be under 4.
• Just remember though that not all factions are equal in terms of their ease of reducing drop counts. If you need to make a major sacrifice to get from 5 to 4 or 4 to under 4, then you really want to think long and hard about it. Same goes for getting under 7.

[TeclisGod]

45 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

@TeclisGod great topic. I'll preface my response with a caveat: I don't have personal experience at the top level of play, but I follow the meta quite closely. I think I'm pretty knowledgeable in this area but would not consider myself an "expert."

With that being said, I think that this is a complex question with a complex answer. There is no hard and fast rule about how low drop you need to be. How valuable having the choice of turn is varies from army to army, battleplan to battleplan, and matchup to matchup. It's also relevant to think about how much you are giving up to reduce your drops. Some factions give up very little or even nothing in order to keep their drops low, while other factions have to make major compromises to reduce drops.

Thus when considering this question context is very important. Are you trying to be competitive in local tournaments, regional/national tournaments or international tournaments? Are you shooting for a winning record, a Top X finish or are you really gunning for 5-0? Depending on your answers you will be able to hone in on the metagame you really need to pay attention to. You want to know how many drops other players are taking.

I did some math on this compiling results from a couple of major tournaments last year and looked at how likely you would be to have the choice of turn at each level of drops. I found a few inflection points where there was a pretty steep gain in reducing your drops to that level, but the inflection points may well be different now as the metagame has evolved since then. Regardless, you want to know what your payoff is for reducing your drops to a certain point. Depending on what your focus is, you should either be honing in on the overall metagame (if you are looking to maximize your win rate) or the top tables metagame if you are trying to maximize your odds at 5-0. If you are aiming at local tournaments, analyze your local metagame. If you are aiming at larger regional events try looking at results from those tournaments. If you are looking at international (GT) level competition, look at results from those events.

Once you have that information handy, you can then delve into the question at various levels of sophistication:

• At the basic level, you can try to understand how much your army cares about having the choice of turn. If you are very vulnerable to alpha strike or are relying on an alpha strike yourself, you probably are very invested in having the turn choice. Also in general if your army is very committed to playing the game in one particular way you're probably more likely to want the choice of turn. If you null deploy but aren't committed to an alpha strike you probably care less about having the turn choice. Similarly if you are very fast but also not particularly fragile you probably don't care as much. If your army can play in a variety of ways you probably care less.
• At the next level, you will consider the specific tournament pack for the tournament you are planning to compete in. Check the battleplans and see if they change anything about your calculus regarding turn choice. Historically some battleplans have punished not having the choice of turn very harshly, although that is a bit less true now (who knows with the new GHB!)
• At the next level you'll consider both the battleplans and the metagame. Are there specific matchups that are both likely to be present and where your win rate is likely to be swung very dramatically by having the turn choice? If so, what drop count do you need to beat in those matchups? Also try to avoid falling into the trap of obsessing over matchups that are heavily against you (as long as those matchups aren't completely inevitable). Sometimes the best plan is just to hope that you don't get matched up against a faction that you can't realistically beat.

Just in case you really don't have the time, information, or experience to do the work necessary for the above calculus, here are some general impressions that I had the last time I looked at data. Take this with a huge, huge grain of salt though as the metagame has probably shifted a lot since then and we really don't know what it will look like in the near future:

• The average list was in the 7-8 drop range. If you're just trying to compete against the field in general and want to have the choice more often than not, then being in the 6-7 drop range was a bit of a sweet spot.
• Three is another cluster of lists in the 4-5 drop range. However, these lists also tend to be more competitive and high performing on average. If you're looking to shoot for 5-0 and care a good deal about having the choice then I would shoot for 4 or fewer if you can, or 5 at the most. If you really, really need the turn choice then you pretty much need to be under 4.
• Just remember though that not all factions are equal in terms of their ease of reducing drop counts. If you need to make a major sacrifice to get from 5 to 4 or 4 to under 4, then you really want to think long and hard about it. Same goes for getting under 7.

This is the answer I was looking for. Thank you so much
Once tournaments start to open up again in my area and things are safer to participate in I will be taking all this into consideration. My goal atm is to just have an even record if I can since it will be my first tournament for AoS (I used to play fantasy but I will admit this is a completely different game). I have just started collecting Lumineth Realm - Lords and will be using them in tournaments. I am not sure how familiar you are but I figure you know a decent amount since you do stay up with the meta, but Lumineth has a pretty low model count do to having a leader that is pricey but mostly worth the points. With that said they also have good battalion choices as well which I will be using one in my list. My original list was 3 drops but I wasn't sure how much I would suffer from going to 4 by adding and extra element to the list that provides a little more variety. From what it seems like in your post going from a 3-4 drop isn't the end of the world and because Lumineth is brand new it will take many games to figure out. Just hoping I would get someone to reply that is already or has been in a Meta focused mindset and I have. Would it be easier to answer if I provided a list and you can break it down for me or is Lumineth not yet enough discovered for you? Thanks again

[swarmofseals]

@TeclisGod I've been poring over the Lumineth tome recently and while I don't have any conclusive answers for you (nobody does), I do have some thoughts.

There are a couple of plausible ways that Lumineth can get to a 5 or fewer drop level:

1. Build around the Alarith Temple battalion in Ymetrica. This can get you to 2-3 drops with some sacrifices or 4-5 drops pretty easily.
2. Build around the Auralan Legion battalion. Can be as low as 1 drop (although I don't think it's wise to go that low). Easy to fit it in 5 or less.
3. Build around Alarith Temple battalion in Zaitrec. This one is going to be a 4 drop minimum.

Before going any further, I think it's worth considering the following:

• Teclis is a really risky centerpiece to build around. In some matchups he is going to be fantastic, and in some matchups he will likely be a huge liability. If your local metagame involves a good amount of shooting I'd be really hesitant to take Teclis at all. If you do take Teclis you will also need to screen him from melee, which is pretty unrealistic to do if you are building around an Alarith Temple. So you're probably going to go Auralan Legion in a Teclis build.
• I suspect that most competitive Lumineth builds will need to include some Vanari Dawnriders. The army is just so slow without them and they give you a lot of play that you wouldn't otherwise have access to. They are also really good at what they do well. But they don't fit into the two build-around battalions, so you're probably looking at increasing your drops by 1 or even 2 to fit in some dawnriders.
• Another big question is whether you take Avalenor (or possibly Eltharion). I think you obviously take him in any Alarith Temple build, but it's less clear in an Auralan Legion build. It's going to be tough to fit him in a Teclis build, but in a non-Teclis build your heroes are going to be super weak without him. You could take Eltharion instead, but from a drops perspective it's the same question.

So with all that in mind I think these are the most likely directions for a competitive Lumineth shell (in no particular order):

1. Ymetrica Alarith Temple with some sentinels and dawnriders. Probably 3-4 drops.
2. Zaitrec Auralan Legion with Avalenor and some dawnriders. Also probably 3-4 drops.
3. Zaitrec Alarith Temple with 2 units of wardens, 1 unit of sentinels and 1 unit of dawnriders. 5 drops.

Probably the best way with Teclis is to run number two swapping Avalenor out for Teclis.

 

[TeclisGod]

39 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

@swarmofseals Thanks for your input and thoughts for this new faction. You and maybe one other people has actually told me that not only is Teclis not necessary, but is also risky. Its good to hear multiple styles of list building with Lumineth. I agree 100% with you on the dawnriders. They are the only fast unit in a slow army and is pretty good as well. I tend to find Zaitrec the more competitive nation for Lumineth as well. I have had thoughts on Avalenor as well. He will definitely be a unit to keep an eye on performance wise. There was a Teclis list I built but lacked a lot of model count so it was pretty fragile of a list. I can see why it's so hard to build a list around Teclis. Thanks again for your thoughts. 

 

 

[swarmofseals]

@TeclisGod

Avalenor does a lot of different things competently enough. He's a pretty good beater in melee and is pretty tough (for a hero), and he provides solid support with his -1 hit bubble. Avalenor supported by Shining Company wardens could be really tough to deal with in melee. I don't think he's good enough to be an auto-include in a general sense, but in the context of the faction as a whole he very well may be. It depends on the battleplans you are going to be using though. If you are going to be playing battleplans that depend on heroes and/or monsters for objective capture, then Avalenor seems really important to me. I just don't see how you can rely on cathallars or stonemages alone for these kinds of battleplans.

[TeclisGod]

@swarmofseals That is true. LoE seems to be the weakest of the non cathallar/stonemages to field but he is 220 points so it makes sense. Shining company and the -1 aura of a Avalenor is huge and easy buff to acquire. The Command Ability is good but not necessary it seems. You think fielding 2-3 heroes would be a common choice in Lumineth? I don't see many people running more or less than that. 

[TeclisGod]

This was the list I was talking about earlier. 4 Drops, but the model count might be too low. What do you think?  

LuminethTeclis.pdf

[swarmofseals]

@TeclisGod oof, yes I can't imagine that list working. The model count is super low, its extremely defensively inefficient, and it doesn't do much damage either.

[TeclisGod]

@swarmofseals

So something along the lines of this you would say?

Avalenor.pdf

[Skreech Verminking]

Depends on the army, I guess.

For example A skaventide army that has only bad and overpriced battalions will often then not choose to take more units, more threads and have the risk of doing nothing in the first turn then having a 3drop or less list (although even that isn’t really possible, since most of our battailons, unless we go full out on one clan Will only lighten our drops by three, so a typical skaven list with a battailon will more then merrier have 7-8drops)

Playing skaven you will often have a 11 or more drop army.

 

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++
@TeclisGod if you want specific advice about the Realmlords, can you create a topic over in the order Part of the forum. This is quite a cool topic as I’m sure others have a similar question and would like to leave here but if it carries on for Realmlords, I’ll move it

[TeclisGod]

@Gaz Taylor Sorry, I got carried away. If it ends up getting more on the Lumineth side of topics feel free to move it. It seems to have died off altogether but thank you for the reminder.

[Graywater]

I dont think there is a strict answer as to whether or not it is better to be as low of a drop as possible. There are absolutely times when being able to decide the first turn is a massive advantage, but i think there are advantages of not going first as well.

If you are clearly fewer drops, your opponent will be able to deploy with more information than you, and means you're deploying with less. That alone can help mitigate the first turn, as it allows one to plat around whatever plan you see unfolding on the other side of the table. Also, simply having the choice of who goes first puts pressure on the individual who has that choice. They then make one of the first decisions of the game, and this game is often won or lost based on who makes the most mistakes. More decisions to make increases the likelihood of making mistakes. My daughters of khaine army for instance doesn't care about deciding who goes first.

In contrast, there are some armies whose whole gameplan revolves around having the right order of things happen in the first turn. Alpha striking armies with across the board reach will want to go first before their opponent gets their buffs up, whereas a slower melee army will often want to go second to allow their opponent to move closer into range and to play for the turn 1-2 double turn. 

Deciding how you want to approach it depends totally on how you personally play with your army of choice. Youll have to play it out and see what you think. You may find that getting your spells off before your opponent has a chance to go is mandatory, or that it actually doesn't matter, and that being able to gain knowledge on your opponents intentions is more valuable than the sacrifices you make to be a low drop. It just takes time. I feel comfortable with my army going first or second because I've played them exclusively as my competitive army for almost 2 years now and have enough familiarity with both it and the capabilities of whatever army my opponent may bring to the table.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

4 hours ago, Graywater said:

I dont think there is a strict answer as to whether or not it is better to be as low of a drop as possible. There are absolutely times when being able to decide the first turn is a massive advantage, but i think there are advantages of not going first as well.

I can agree with that.  I am not a particularly competitive, or even a good player, but my Ravagers Slaves to Darkness army doesn't really care about going first or second.  The army itself is about 6-7 drops consisting mostly of mortal heroes, Warriors and Knights/Varanguard.  It is setup to be an attrition army.  Since that is all I can expect it to accomplish with few, if sometimes accurate, attacks and practically no Rend.  So, I don't really care about getting charges or double-turns all that much.  My units are going to be punching bags that will try to hold ground and/or grind away at my opponent's army.

I usually go with a 2/3rds strategy where I plan to try and control 2/3rds of the table leaving the other 1/3 to my opponent.  With more drops it becomes much easier to pull off that strategy off as I can easily setup a denied flank long after my opponent finished deploying.  Going first allows my army to better get into position (especially if my opponent doesn't get the double-turn) and going second gets me the usual double-turn/pick my fights.  Either way, I can try and gain an advantage while reducing any drawbacks.