With the addition of equipment cards in the 2nd release, along with some very popular Epics, we've seen honor for a lot of teams up in the high 20s. The often talked about triple Amalars with two Hand of Rags and a Boomstick gets up into the mid 30s even.

Is this what UD initially intended to happen?

Personally I think that when teams have so much honor that you can't even complete the game due to time, then you've got too much honor.

Once this trend has started, I don't see how its going to stop. Are Death Knights and Heroic minis (I use the term 'mini' loosely haha) going to jack the honor average up even higher?

If things keep going at this rate, UD is going to have to update the rules to make kills worth 8 points, and the VP worth 2 points on ticks 5/10.

I do not agree with you. The game has built in checks and balances for that problem. A cheaper team wins faster than an expensive one. The trick is finding a cheap team that works. As more sets and more equipment is released more combinations will become viable for cheaper parties. The way different scenarios are introduced makes different types of parties more or less popular as well.

There are some great low cost pieces already, I am sure there will be more to come.

---

Phoolish
<Jive Horde>
<Low Rollers>

1698754:

I do not agree with you. The game has built in checks and balances for that problem. A cheaper team wins faster than an expensive one. The trick is finding a cheap team that works. As more sets and more equipment is released more combinations will become viable for cheaper parties. The way different scenarios are introduced makes different types of parties more or less popular as well.

There are some great low cost pieces already, I am sure there will be more to come.

Aye I think the flexible win condition is one of the best innovations in this game.  It allows for cheap parties to compete with expensive parties in many ways (not always :).  In every other mini game I have played you build the party to the points, which meant cheap figures and expensive figures never got played. 

2552088:

Aye I think the flexible win condition is one of the best innovations in this game.  It allows for cheap parties to compete with expensive parties in many ways (not always :).  In every other mini game I have played you build the party to the points, which meant cheap figures and expensive figures never got played. 

+1.
I've played Star Wars Miniatures for a long time (and still love the game), but one major boon that WoW Minis has going for it over SWM is the variable party builds. In SWM, you have to fill out the rest of your squad, even if your design is already accomplished at only 3/4 of the point value. In WoW Minis, it's quite different.

Sure, you can build a solid 25+Honor party, but if you face a good 12-16 Honor party, you could be in trouble. While it's fun to use an 8H character, sometimes a 6H will do the job just as well, and will therefore make the team more competitive. That's a very cool mechanic.

When building a party, you still have to do all the careful measuring and comparing that you do in other CMGs, but it has a different angle to it, which is invigorating.

I'm not a competitive WoW Minis player (yet), but, I personally prefer the high-Honor parties, because I like being able to do lots of cool and powerful things. I guess the 30+Honor teams could present a problem if they become/remain viable, but it's also worth recognizing that at some point a high-honor team will actually handicap you in more ways than one. In addition to simply requiring you to score more VP to attain victory, a high-Honor team also makes it more difficult for you to do that in the alloted time. An opponent with a lower-Honor party will have a much easier time playing against you. And for that reason, I'm not too worried about high-honor teams forcing the game to longer time limits.

I think the current end of match procedures may keep the party costs from getting too out of hand. if you think about a 33 honor team vs. a 12 honor team the 33 honor team needs to get 21 VP before he is winning since the winner is the one who reaches their honor total first or whoever is numerically closer to their teams honor at the end of time. if the 33 honor team has 20 VP at the end of time and the 12 honor team has  0 then 12 honor team still only needs 12 more VP while the 33 honor team need 13 more VP and therefor looses the match.

i think it is the greatest thing about this game that it is self balanced by the honor system and allows much more freedom in team setup because of it.

---

Disclaimer: This post may contain information that is based on opinion, speculation, or insane rantings. If you are an overly sensitive person, have no sense of humor, or have any religious beliefs of any kind you are hereby encouraged to stop reading now.

2436053:

In SWM, you have to fill out the rest of your squad, even if your design is already accomplished at only 3/4 of the point value. In WoW Minis, it's quite different. Sure, you can build a solid 25+Honor party, but if you face a good 12-16 Honor party, you could be in trouble.

I think this is why the game (if UDE chooses to keep it going) still has a significant amount of headroom.  Because it really is about maximizing every fig & not just grabbing 2 obvious headliners and filling the roster out with battle droids.

As a fellow SWM player i agree with TiNT.  The WOWM design solves many of the issues that SWM is having to deal with because it is built to such a rigid structure.  The fluidity is a major boon to the game.  I have had great teams, built in the mid 20s that kicked the snot out of smaller teams, but i ended up losing anyway because they had such a low point total to get to and i could not overcome the difference in total honor.  It makes for a nice game balance.

Also, so far i have yet to see very many equipment cards that are actually effective for the Honor cost that they add to the team.  While i know we will have more in the future, the sheer cost makes some good equipment cards unplayable right now.

I have to agree on the equipment cards. There are some nice items, but I rarely find myself using them as I not only don't want to up my honor, but I don't want to miss out on that 2nd spell.

Ya'll keep mentioning that honor differences in low honor teams and item using Epic teams will keep the honor cost of teams down, but are you seeing that happen? Were there any top 8 teams at Worlds that were under 20 honor? (I haven't looked at the list of the top 8)

I guess I find it a bit hard to believe that with Heroics coming out, along with more equipment cards (I have to assume), that honor won't continue to climb in future popular teams.

Edit: I suppose maybe I shouldn't be assuming that Heroic biggies will up the honor cost as we don't really know how they work yet, or what the new mechanic is. Maybe they're a higher honor character, but are meant to take the place of two minis... who knows.

The biggest problem facing low-honor parties right now is 3x Mortimers.  They are so incredibly effective at 18 honor that none of the cheaper teams have a competitive opportunity.  Prior to them hitting the scene, there were many viable low-honor options that put pressure on the high-honor teams with their ability to win quicker without worrying about taking a few casualties.  Marlowe, Ojo'mon, Blindlight, Wilton, Azarak... these are all pieces that can give high honor parties fits.  But they roll over quick against 3 teleporting warlocks with Jhuroons and DoTs.

---

I wanted to give everyone a list of all the trustworthy people who traded with me on this site, but it exceeds maximum character length. To me, that's a hopeful sign.

I think Shredder/Shredder/Rethilgore was the only sub-20 T8 team.

E/E/J - 22
Vashj - 27
Zoom Zoom Zoom - 24 (x3)
S/S/R - 18
K/K/J - 26
Amalar/Amalar/Ona - min 22

-Ben

---

Isgee is, by definition, a snob.

2442750:

The biggest problem facing low-honor parties right now is 3x Mortimers.  They are so incredibly effective at 18 honor that none of the cheaper teams have a competitive opportunity.  Prior to them hitting the scene, there were many viable low-honor options that put pressure on the high-honor teams with their ability to win quicker without worrying about taking a few casualties.  Marlowe, Ojo'mon, Blindlight, Wilton, Azarak... these are all pieces that can give high honor parties fits.  But they roll over quick against 3 teleporting warlocks with Jhuroons and DoTs.

But the more important question:

Can Mortimer's beat Velen on King of the Hill?
Can they beat Iranas?

-Ben

---

Isgee is, by definition, a snob.

I'm with TINT and SD13 on this one... having played SWM for several years, and Mechwarrior: AOD for several years before that, I find the honor cost to be the single most interesting thing about this game. It really allows for some major flexibility.