[Ranked] T6 Game Sample 4 - Sponsored by Crazy Cat Lady
write up not compelete, atm. gtg irl
This is one of the harder lineups to play against because AI decided to go with 3 horses and 2 cannons. Since it has 2 cannons, it has more than enough fire power to eat through our tower. If it had 1, it would've been ideal. I'm glad I've started to legendary boost forts every game incase I run into these lineups. However it would've been much easier if I had brought 1 legendary pawn 1 epic pawn.
Okay so, not only does it have 3 horses- it's also got the frontline cannon thing going on. This game sample will be good because you'll learn a little of everything you didn't learn from previous samples. First, I'd like to mention- numbers on SSs (screenshots) are indicators which units turn it was or the prioritize sequence in which units took a turn or in the cannon's case their turn and the spots they decided to move to. Now that's been taken care off, the #1 labelled horse was a good spot to move my horse to. As I've mentioned before and in the "What Not To Do" SSs on page 1 of this guide, it's not a good idea to move your units to places where AI cannons don't have to start moving to do their job. This was a good spot for the horse to move too - so we didn't really lose potential in extra damage. only if no cannons moved close enough for horse to deal damage- but consider the layout of the field, my tower being on an above spot than AI's cannons- it forced at leasy one of their cannons to move close enough for that upper horse to deal its damage. I usually like to move the bottom horse 2nd because my middle horse is always epic boosted. basically, I like to move in my lower boosted horses in first because they need to make the extra hit if possible more than my nicely epic boosted horse. In some scenarios, if I made mistakes, I would move the high boosted horse in first - basically, a scenario where the AI pawn is there before me.
It's important to keep an eye for which units the AI decides to move after their 2 cannons. In a AI 2 cannon scenario, it will move a 3rd unit after the 2 cannons have moved up. If it's their horse, like this scenario, then I know my pawn will be taking damage from it- Since it's only a basic boosted pawn, it will be a difficult run. I focus down their cannons, their upper cannon could be troublesome- I like to kill them asap because their damage can be up there when they start hitting my pawns or horses. So, based on AI cannon's cooldowns, I will prioritize the one with less cooldowns before it gets a turn. If it was a scenario where their pawn moved up, I would've known I'm going to be sacrificing a horse or two sooner than other scenarios.
Continue focusing their cannons based on their hp and cooldowns.
One cannon then, and their horse moves up. I suppose when AI has this matchup, it is more inclined to move in with horses than it would be with its pawns since there is only one- it is being very conservative with the pawn usage. That means I'll be able to keep my horses alive longer and use them as tanks against their horses while the pawns deal damage and keep horses away from my cannon.
I realize my basic boosted pawn is low on hp, I think I made some mistakes, should've killed the lower cannon asap probably- that was probably a cause for my basic pawn being wrecked so hard. Anyways, realizing its hp- I started to prioritize attacking the AI's horses. Especially that bottom one because it could be troublesome for cannon later.
As I mentioned earlier, I would be able to keep my horses alive because AI is moving in with horses more than its pawn- it's the nature of the matchup, it really wants to down my cannon but it can't as long as it's in contact to another unit. So, again- I focus the horses with my pawns as much as possible. Since my basic boosted pawn died, and epic horse was off cooldown- it couldn't have been a better time to move it to the new spot to keep their lower horse as bay. My other horse will distract the other horse for 1 turn - and since that horse has no cooldown...it will probably atk one of my basic boosted horses- putting it on a few turns cooldown. Anyways, moved my horse while using my cannon to deal some damage to the AI's horse because I need it gone- since there is more enough enough meatshielding against AI's horses- I'm free to use my cannon. You never want to use your cannon's turn before a horse makes a move because if you do and AI decides to move a unit near hitting range of your cannon, it will get a turn before your cannon does- which can potentially lose you the game. This is why I made this lengthy explanation why it's important to move your horses to keep in contact of horses because as long as AI's units has something to hit, it won't move around.
This could've potentially ended badly because of the possibility of their horse moving in on my cannon. However, if it had done that, I would've moved my cannon to one of the lower spots and started focusing that horse soon with my pawn instead of the one above it- same with my horse and cannon. I would've moved the cannon only 1 spot below- because remember, Cannons can attack everything around them and in a L shape- so that would've been a good way to kill it asap. But there's also the other option- since that horse would've come in contact to my pawn and horse, I would've stopped chasing- this means my priorities should actually be on killing the bottom horse when picking a target with my horse and cannon. Anyways, that didn't happen but I wanted to showcase what to do in a situation like that. You have to be very picky and take a moment to think things through.
Their upper horse died and I didn't want the middle horse to move near my cannon. So I decided to move my pawn up.
Thanks to my horse's help and frostbite, the bottom AI horse died while dealing as much damage as possible to their middle horse (which you could say is the upper horse now)
Deal last bit of damage to the horse before my pawn dies. their pawn decides to move up and I move my cannon up because pawn was on cooldown and alive. Keep in mind, you never want to make a move on your cannon before AI's horse, especially at this point in the game because your cannon will have a 1turn cooldown but their horse won't. 0cooldown cannon only happens when only 2 units on the field or all ur units or their units except 1 are gone. Even the 1 red bar hp on my pawn was enough for me to make a move on my cannon, in this situaton, it was okay because their horse was also on cooldown and would've spent its next turn on killing my pawn- I realized frostbite had ended and pawn was still 1 red hp bar, that's why it was a good time to move my cannon.
I was hoping AI would target my horse but since their pawn was on cooldown and horse wasn't...it went with targeting my pawn.
This is where I won the game. But, I took a moment to think of some possibilities that could've ended badly. Going to make a couple of scenarios where I could win or lose.
Scenario 1 (Scenario where I would lose)
If my horse moves to 1 then my cannon can't go there in case their horse moves to 3. So, it would basically be deadlocked in that corner. My horse goes 1. AI horse moves 3. my cannon goes 4. then ai horse cud move to where my cannon was originally at. GG because I can't escape to move to 1 on the cannon because the spot is occupied by my own horse. Horses can atk any direction around them... so there would be no escape, I would've cornered myself. Let that be a lesson :P Think before you make your move :)
Scenario 2 (I should win, but in the unlikely hood of it doing something I could regret, I didn't use this scenario to win)
At this stage of the game, their horse and pawn, my horse have 0cooldowns. However, the cannon will experience having 1turn cooldowns. So, their horse moves up after I make a move on the cannon, their horse won'v have a cooldown when my cannon does- so cannon would die. How do we negate this? We can skip our turn and let our horse die to the pawn or maybe the AI will move horse to spot 3. However, I wouldn't have a cooldown on my cannon since it would end next turn on same turn it moved it near me. if the ai horse moved to 5, I would move my cannon further up and it would end up being a fort for fort rush and I would easily win it. Having played T5s unboosted helped me learn the limits of fort for fort rushes. If their legendary unit is hitting my fort, I have 4 or 5 turns before before I need to start hitting their fort to win the the fort for fort rush. Considering my fort is a legendary, and it would only take 2-3 turns to get to their fort safely, I would win the fort rush...especially with a legendary fort on my side. Keep in mind, if the horse moves to 5, and loses contact with the cannon- it will stop chasing because it would've come in contact with my horse and fort. However, if it did continue chasing, this is why I went with another scenario choice because I didn't want to risk it. Reason I worried is because my horse was still alive...it could still potentially keep chasing. I really doubt it would but didn't want to risk it.
Scenario 3 (100% win)
This is the scenario I decided to go with. I move horse to 3, their horse kills my horse then my cannon's cooldown ends because their horse spent its turn on killing my horse- now my horse is dead and my cannon will have 0cooldowns moving forward because it's my only piece left alive. Then ai horse moves to 3. I move cannon to 1, not 4 because I wanted to destyroy all their units, I could've gone 4 and their horse may have moved to 5, and I could've escaped through the upper area of the field. Anyways, I move to 1, their horse moves to 5- then I move to 2 and kill the horse while its hitting my fort, repeat process on pawn, and finish off their tower for the win.
Scenario 4 (not done writeup I think? kinda lazy to finish atm)
Any scenario where the pawn would move up to come in contact of my fort would be an easy win too because it would prioritize hitting my fort with the pawn rather than chasing me around the field with its horse. But the unlikely hood of the pawn moving was high. However, if I moved my horse to 2 and then their horse moves to 3- that could be a huge risk same as scenario 1 because if I spent a turn moving to 1...I would have a 1 turn cooldown and their horse wouldn't ...so it would just move up an kill my cannon in 2 turns. Spend 1 turn moving near me, spend 2nd turn killing me. In that scenario I'd need a lot of luck using my horse as a sacrifice to the pawn and hope it targets horse with pawn instead of cannon with horse. only reason I would move the horse to 2 is to hope for the pawn to come near my fort. But, it's a huge risk relying on luck hoping that it would move pawn instead of horse.
Scenario 5
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