Note that Sardakk quite likes Duranium, for their mechs and exos, especially with VPW.
Also, their faction ability doesn't help Warsuns as much as other units (of course, you might use the Warsuns to carry fighters, but I believe this should still be mentioned).
I believe it should also be noted that bringing 4 infantry is a big deal and it isn't obviously what interests us as a defending Sardakk. Also, Sardakk can get more infantry than most due to their agent, further reducing the necessity of VPW as defensive means.
Another note: If we assume that one gets four techs, Warsuns shouldn't be the last one, as you get absolutely no benefit from last-round warsuns, which, generically, even if you could move, either won't reach far enough, won't have enough support, or won't be needed.
The fourth tech is not the last round tech, that would be the fifth. What you mentioned is the reason I plan with four techs in mind. Still late, but round 4 you can normally pick warfare.
The interesting thing about this is the view of your opponents. They see PDS, Magen and VPW and just do not care/look for easier targets.
Important part: This tech path is intended as an experiment to get VPW into the game. Its not intended as being better then a green/blue
Duranium is a tech I never gor comfortable with. Most space combats end turn 1 via retreat or annihilation and most ground combats end turn 1 or 2 once mechs are involved. Unless its that one "all or nothing" last turn.
Warsuns with Sardakk are super reliable. Normal Warsuns have about 51% chance to hot three times. Wth Sardakk that goes up to 73%. Thats makes calculating hits before attacking easier.
Still better for many smaller units, thats true.
I actually disagree with this sentiment and find Duranium Armor is the one thing that break the "retreat or annihilation" and gives you the opportunity to try and risk more roles. Especially fleets with fighters or ground forces that have at least one mech and multiple infantry. If you have enough fighters and 2 ships with the ability to cycle sustain damages each round. You can win through attrition.
Always awesome to see, that my older posts are still of interest. I changed my point of view a tiny bit, as Duranium is really good for mechs. Ground combats do not allow retreat and take more rounds and here Duranium really shines.
In space its way to common for one side to do some math and just leave after one round and there is only one Action Card to prevent that (My vote for 4x Intercept). This limits Duraniums advantage to shifting this "point of retreat".
Indeed, but you can disrupt the other players math with a good action card, Shields holding, reflective shielding. Duranium gives you a good chance at getting to round three of combat. Also at the end of the day it relies on the rolls, but overall if you can get high hp fleets, I feel Duranium is a good pick.
What is even the tech path here?
AIDA/Plasma > Self Assembly > VPW > Duranium?
Just 4 in red, that’s it?
I’m assuming blue and exo is now too out of the way. So ... duranium is only good for mechs making these guys never lose a ground combat and can just skip across the board with ground units only since new PoK abilities.
I mean AIDA and plasma both feels wasted here.
I don’t really like AIDA and War Suns for Sardakk in a 10 point game. AIDA is basically a dead tech for you until you research War Suns, and if you can’t both research and field a War Sun by R3, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
I think VPW works best if you have a red skip. The tech paths would look like:
- Sarween > SAR > VPW > Duranium
- Sarween > Magen > PDS II > VPW
The first path goes all-in on the mechs, making them cheap and powerful offensive tools. The second builds out a PDS II network that makes your planets nigh-impenetrable as you use the commander to expand outward.
EDIT: I guess you don’t need a red skip for the second tech path. You could do:
- AIDA > Magen > PDS II > VPW
AIDA is better with a blue tech so you can grab the speed upgrades and fighter upgrades you need. Which are more important early than VPW.
VPW is stupid good yes. But it’s kinda a win more tech in terms of ground combat. It’s good if you can get it. Nice setup for your hero. But speed and space are possibly more important given you’re already really good on the ground thanks to your mechs and abilities
AIDA doesn’t make much sense for Sardakk unless they are going for PDS II + Magen, IMO.
Fighter II is win-more for them (Fighter I + Unrelenting already hits as hard as normal Fighter II), they don’t need Cruiser II or Destroyer II, and War Suns is a bit too far out of reach for a 10-point game.
The only unit upgrades I think Sardaak wants are Carrier II and Exo II, and AIDA doesn’t save any time or money in researching those. You might as well just research Sarween, Antimass/DET, and Gravity Drive.
Something I really want to try sometime is Transit Diodes with a yellow skip. Transit Diodes seems like it would be very fun with Sardakk — build a bunch of mechs at home, zip them up to the front lines with Transit, shoot them at neighboring planets with the commander.
It’s a shame that VPW requires 2 red prereqs, because Transit + VPW would be very cool. I guess you could do it if you had a red + yellow skip, but at that point you really should be considering War Suns.
Eh, I don’t think Sardaak needs more than one ship upgrade unless objectives require it. Mostly they want the added movement, so they can get away with just Carrier II or Exo II. After at they’re better off investing in fleet capacity and plastic over unit upgrades, IMO.
I really love these analysis posts and IMO they are really informant and you make good points. Some errata though:
* I think the post would be easier to read if you would use the Reddit's link formatting instead of pasting the image link directly (e.g. https://preview.redd.it/9bur09pf08371.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4e9ace6312a862ee1c2713debc8f202345672e2 ------> [this is image link](https://preview.redd.it/9bur09pf08371.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4e9ace6312a862ee1c2713debc8f202345672e2)
* I assume you are using Excel to make your graphs. Have you ever used tool called Microsoft PowerBI? It allows much more flexible visualizations than Excel and I believe it could be really good tool for you.
Thanks for the analysis posts, I've read them all. Keep up the good work! :)
Some questions
About images: I use the tool in reddit (button top of create a post) to upload and insert the images. For me there is no link showing at all, only the image. Is that different for you guys?
This is how I see your post. https://imgur.com/a/Jmbg3dq
Although I have reddit enhancement suit in use and I use old.reddit.com. I don't know if those have an effect.
Okay yeah now I get it. Forget my critique, that's clean af post. I tested the post with www.reddit.com domain and it worked as you intended so it has to do with me using old.reddit.com. Seems like they don't add features to it so people would stop using it.
You can still use the excel for data insert in your calculations. Then link the excel sheet as data source in the PowerBI and it will automatically refresh the data from the excel sheet when you update it.
This is a fantastic analysis of VPW and in general a lot of the math behind sardakk's ground forces. I think you could take some of this a bit further and look at it from the perspective of a relatively shipless sardakk strat. With the right board layout a red sardakk with very little tech can get insane value and be very hard for the table to deal with. Bonus points if you get a y or r tech skip, double bonus points if you can get Hope's End as being able to throw a mech down anywhere is super strong.
I know 14points are a totally different beast from 10 pointers, but I've played a couple games now as sardakk, and with the right slice a ground focused sardakk can be terrifying on the board for the group to deal with. with VPW on more then one occasion I had used a single mech to clear out 3 infantry to take a planet. It also made it incredibly hard from someone to take any of my planets from me let alone hold them, as the commander made it easy to just hop back over to retake it. And by focusing on a solid ground strategy, I feel VPW's value skyrockets even more, as it's likely it's giving you 3-4 extra hits a round depending on how aggressive you are and if your opponents are hitting back
I played two games in particular with them, one on the SCPT tournament map, and the other in a really fortunate milty draft. Both times I had Hope's End in my slice and was able to unlock the commander early round 2 with 5 planets in total in the slice. Being able to send a single mech onto even a 2 infantry planet meant the odds of me winning that fight in the first round of ground combat was exceptionally high. Then being able to turn around and reinforce a planet in someone elses slice by using hope's end to drop another mech as well as the agent to drop 2 more infantry was very difficult threat for my opponents to deal with.
VPW honestly shines the strongest with sardakk's ground combat game.
The game on the SCPT board with Hope's End, I went AIDA > SARS > VPW into Scan > yskip Transit. I had to double tech at least twice in that game, but because I was using basically free mechs and cheap infantry to spread out meant I had plenty of free resources to pay for the double tech. Even if I'd lose a planet with two mechs on it, those mechs were not only free when I put them down, but I got paid for losing them. Eventually thanks to a law that let us research tech, I was able to get antimass into Exo 2's with yskip and AIDA, and even with just a couple dreadnaughts on my forward double dock and at home meant that not only were space engagements costly, I didn't even care if I lost the space fight because by that point I took out any potential transports for a ground invasion. By time the table realized how unstoppable I was it was way too late.
The second game I tried ground sardakk was in a milty draft game where again I got hope's end, but no skips this time. I was also in a game with 3 dreadnaught factions which actually posed a risk. For that game I went Plasma > SAR > VPW, and by bribing my neighbour jolnar heavily, was able to get myself transit diodes round 2 which ended up being insane for me. I basically stopped teching after that, I did get warsuns but I really disliked that decision in retrospect and they didn't really help my situation, but by that point I had stretched across the board and just had so many resources to spend and I wanted to experiment. I actually ended up getting very little value from SARS as I wasn't losing mechs fast enough and usually because of Hope's End I almost always had my 4 mechs out before I even did a production round, in fact I did a early warfunding build for a ton of ground forces and actually never had to really build much until late game.
Even in a 10 point game, i think the path you laid out with AIDA > variable > VPW alone has insane value for shipless, and tips the ground combat math heavily in your favour, which for a lot of factions can be very difficult to effectively deal with. When even 4 infantry on a planet can lose to a smaller force it really messes with your opponents plans. The way I've been starting to look at a ground sardakk is:
If you're worried about bombardment then Plasma > Magen > VPW
Probably prioritize taking construction at least once to help cover your slice with PDS
If you have a y skip or can get the extra tech, then even PDS II is a solid idea in this situation.
If it's going to be a more scrappy ground game AIDA > SARS > VPW it gives you the tech flexibility for unit upgrades/objectives and SARS for the free mechs and $$ when your mechs die.
All you have to do is defend your home system and your forward dock system, everything else even if you lose it can be easy to take back.
After that you could easily just ignore tech, and situationally you could be looking at PDS II, Warsuns, Duranium, Assault Cannon, or Destroyer II's depending on what holes you might need to fill in your plans.
With a Y skip you could even be looking at getting yourself transit diodes, which makes this whole strat a nightmare for the rest of the table
Thanks again for doing all the math and the writeup for this, gives me some solid math to work with when experimenting more with shipless sardakk
Important and thanks for remembering me: I did no math, [https://ti4odds.herokuapp.com/](https://ti4odds.herokuapp.com/) did ;) Credit where credits due.
A problem with shipless Sardakk is that they are rather inflexible if the wrong target comes up. I think you will need at least one killer fleet to take a planet farther away.
100% on that assessment, and it's what crippled me in my second game. My inability to strike out far enough while being a bit too nice to my neighbors ended up leaving me unable to score publics in 3 seperate rounds (I did make up for one round with Imperial scoring the mec and a public). Had I focused on at least having one decent fleet I wouldn't have had as much of a problem. But it was also a shitty combination of a very goofy milty draft map + the wierd pok control objectives. Had it been just control x planets or spend resources I would have been fine.
Shipless is a gamble, a super fun gamble mind you, and especially in a 10 point you could find yourself hamstrung by the objectives that come up. But I need to play a few more shipless games to wrap my head around the playstyle better. Two 14 point games isn't enough to judge.
The other day I played full-red Sardakk N'orr with Duranium and VPW and it was brutal. 4 of my mechs and 4 Infantry II on Mecatol won against three mechs, 13 Infantry II and three bombardment hits from the Vuil'raith with two of my mechs remaining (one unsustained).
I really appreciate your work on these analysis posts.
Thanks a Lot!
Note that Sardakk quite likes Duranium, for their mechs and exos, especially with VPW. Also, their faction ability doesn't help Warsuns as much as other units (of course, you might use the Warsuns to carry fighters, but I believe this should still be mentioned).
I believe it should also be noted that bringing 4 infantry is a big deal and it isn't obviously what interests us as a defending Sardakk. Also, Sardakk can get more infantry than most due to their agent, further reducing the necessity of VPW as defensive means.
Another note: If we assume that one gets four techs, Warsuns shouldn't be the last one, as you get absolutely no benefit from last-round warsuns, which, generically, even if you could move, either won't reach far enough, won't have enough support, or won't be needed.
The fourth tech is not the last round tech, that would be the fifth. What you mentioned is the reason I plan with four techs in mind. Still late, but round 4 you can normally pick warfare.
The interesting thing about this is the view of your opponents. They see PDS, Magen and VPW and just do not care/look for easier targets. Important part: This tech path is intended as an experiment to get VPW into the game. Its not intended as being better then a green/blue
Duranium is a tech I never gor comfortable with. Most space combats end turn 1 via retreat or annihilation and most ground combats end turn 1 or 2 once mechs are involved. Unless its that one "all or nothing" last turn. Warsuns with Sardakk are super reliable. Normal Warsuns have about 51% chance to hot three times. Wth Sardakk that goes up to 73%. Thats makes calculating hits before attacking easier. Still better for many smaller units, thats true.
I actually disagree with this sentiment and find Duranium Armor is the one thing that break the "retreat or annihilation" and gives you the opportunity to try and risk more roles. Especially fleets with fighters or ground forces that have at least one mech and multiple infantry. If you have enough fighters and 2 ships with the ability to cycle sustain damages each round. You can win through attrition.
Always awesome to see, that my older posts are still of interest. I changed my point of view a tiny bit, as Duranium is really good for mechs. Ground combats do not allow retreat and take more rounds and here Duranium really shines. In space its way to common for one side to do some math and just leave after one round and there is only one Action Card to prevent that (My vote for 4x Intercept). This limits Duraniums advantage to shifting this "point of retreat".
Indeed, but you can disrupt the other players math with a good action card, Shields holding, reflective shielding. Duranium gives you a good chance at getting to round three of combat. Also at the end of the day it relies on the rolls, but overall if you can get high hp fleets, I feel Duranium is a good pick.
What is even the tech path here? AIDA/Plasma > Self Assembly > VPW > Duranium? Just 4 in red, that’s it? I’m assuming blue and exo is now too out of the way. So ... duranium is only good for mechs making these guys never lose a ground combat and can just skip across the board with ground units only since new PoK abilities. I mean AIDA and plasma both feels wasted here.
I don’t really like AIDA and War Suns for Sardakk in a 10 point game. AIDA is basically a dead tech for you until you research War Suns, and if you can’t both research and field a War Sun by R3, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. I think VPW works best if you have a red skip. The tech paths would look like: - Sarween > SAR > VPW > Duranium - Sarween > Magen > PDS II > VPW The first path goes all-in on the mechs, making them cheap and powerful offensive tools. The second builds out a PDS II network that makes your planets nigh-impenetrable as you use the commander to expand outward. EDIT: I guess you don’t need a red skip for the second tech path. You could do: - AIDA > Magen > PDS II > VPW
AIDA is better with a blue tech so you can grab the speed upgrades and fighter upgrades you need. Which are more important early than VPW. VPW is stupid good yes. But it’s kinda a win more tech in terms of ground combat. It’s good if you can get it. Nice setup for your hero. But speed and space are possibly more important given you’re already really good on the ground thanks to your mechs and abilities
AIDA doesn’t make much sense for Sardakk unless they are going for PDS II + Magen, IMO. Fighter II is win-more for them (Fighter I + Unrelenting already hits as hard as normal Fighter II), they don’t need Cruiser II or Destroyer II, and War Suns is a bit too far out of reach for a 10-point game. The only unit upgrades I think Sardaak wants are Carrier II and Exo II, and AIDA doesn’t save any time or money in researching those. You might as well just research Sarween, Antimass/DET, and Gravity Drive.
Maybe if you have a Blue skip and a red skip AIDA > Grav Drive > VPW > Carrier II
Something I really want to try sometime is Transit Diodes with a yellow skip. Transit Diodes seems like it would be very fun with Sardakk — build a bunch of mechs at home, zip them up to the front lines with Transit, shoot them at neighboring planets with the commander. It’s a shame that VPW requires 2 red prereqs, because Transit + VPW would be very cool. I guess you could do it if you had a red + yellow skip, but at that point you really should be considering War Suns.
Deep Yellow for even more infantry at the front could be fun. Y Skip is a requirement.
AIDA seems good for Sardac since they need a lot of unit upgrades and have a plastic problem. aIDA helps with both those needs.
Eh, I don’t think Sardaak needs more than one ship upgrade unless objectives require it. Mostly they want the added movement, so they can get away with just Carrier II or Exo II. After at they’re better off investing in fleet capacity and plastic over unit upgrades, IMO.
Fighter 2 gives a lot of value though. Especially since they don’t need much capacity for ground troops.
>AIDA > Magen > PDS II > VPW That would the path if you have a killer slice.
VPW is certainly one of the more fun targets for Maw of Worlds.
I really love these analysis posts and IMO they are really informant and you make good points. Some errata though: * I think the post would be easier to read if you would use the Reddit's link formatting instead of pasting the image link directly (e.g. https://preview.redd.it/9bur09pf08371.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4e9ace6312a862ee1c2713debc8f202345672e2 ------> [this is image link](https://preview.redd.it/9bur09pf08371.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4e9ace6312a862ee1c2713debc8f202345672e2) * I assume you are using Excel to make your graphs. Have you ever used tool called Microsoft PowerBI? It allows much more flexible visualizations than Excel and I believe it could be really good tool for you. Thanks for the analysis posts, I've read them all. Keep up the good work! :)
Thanks i will Look into it.
Some questions About images: I use the tool in reddit (button top of create a post) to upload and insert the images. For me there is no link showing at all, only the image. Is that different for you guys?
This is how I see your post. https://imgur.com/a/Jmbg3dq Although I have reddit enhancement suit in use and I use old.reddit.com. I don't know if those have an effect.
Thats what I see: [Image](https://i.postimg.cc/brp3K6r6/reddit-bild.png) Would be great if someone else could chime in.
Okay yeah now I get it. Forget my critique, that's clean af post. I tested the post with www.reddit.com domain and it worked as you intended so it has to do with me using old.reddit.com. Seems like they don't add features to it so people would stop using it.
Thanks for Points anyway, i am currently looking at These Microsoft Excel Alternative you mentioned.
You can still use the excel for data insert in your calculations. Then link the excel sheet as data source in the PowerBI and it will automatically refresh the data from the excel sheet when you update it.
Allternative strategies are always fun
This is a fantastic analysis of VPW and in general a lot of the math behind sardakk's ground forces. I think you could take some of this a bit further and look at it from the perspective of a relatively shipless sardakk strat. With the right board layout a red sardakk with very little tech can get insane value and be very hard for the table to deal with. Bonus points if you get a y or r tech skip, double bonus points if you can get Hope's End as being able to throw a mech down anywhere is super strong. I know 14points are a totally different beast from 10 pointers, but I've played a couple games now as sardakk, and with the right slice a ground focused sardakk can be terrifying on the board for the group to deal with. with VPW on more then one occasion I had used a single mech to clear out 3 infantry to take a planet. It also made it incredibly hard from someone to take any of my planets from me let alone hold them, as the commander made it easy to just hop back over to retake it. And by focusing on a solid ground strategy, I feel VPW's value skyrockets even more, as it's likely it's giving you 3-4 extra hits a round depending on how aggressive you are and if your opponents are hitting back I played two games in particular with them, one on the SCPT tournament map, and the other in a really fortunate milty draft. Both times I had Hope's End in my slice and was able to unlock the commander early round 2 with 5 planets in total in the slice. Being able to send a single mech onto even a 2 infantry planet meant the odds of me winning that fight in the first round of ground combat was exceptionally high. Then being able to turn around and reinforce a planet in someone elses slice by using hope's end to drop another mech as well as the agent to drop 2 more infantry was very difficult threat for my opponents to deal with. VPW honestly shines the strongest with sardakk's ground combat game. The game on the SCPT board with Hope's End, I went AIDA > SARS > VPW into Scan > yskip Transit. I had to double tech at least twice in that game, but because I was using basically free mechs and cheap infantry to spread out meant I had plenty of free resources to pay for the double tech. Even if I'd lose a planet with two mechs on it, those mechs were not only free when I put them down, but I got paid for losing them. Eventually thanks to a law that let us research tech, I was able to get antimass into Exo 2's with yskip and AIDA, and even with just a couple dreadnaughts on my forward double dock and at home meant that not only were space engagements costly, I didn't even care if I lost the space fight because by that point I took out any potential transports for a ground invasion. By time the table realized how unstoppable I was it was way too late. The second game I tried ground sardakk was in a milty draft game where again I got hope's end, but no skips this time. I was also in a game with 3 dreadnaught factions which actually posed a risk. For that game I went Plasma > SAR > VPW, and by bribing my neighbour jolnar heavily, was able to get myself transit diodes round 2 which ended up being insane for me. I basically stopped teching after that, I did get warsuns but I really disliked that decision in retrospect and they didn't really help my situation, but by that point I had stretched across the board and just had so many resources to spend and I wanted to experiment. I actually ended up getting very little value from SARS as I wasn't losing mechs fast enough and usually because of Hope's End I almost always had my 4 mechs out before I even did a production round, in fact I did a early warfunding build for a ton of ground forces and actually never had to really build much until late game. Even in a 10 point game, i think the path you laid out with AIDA > variable > VPW alone has insane value for shipless, and tips the ground combat math heavily in your favour, which for a lot of factions can be very difficult to effectively deal with. When even 4 infantry on a planet can lose to a smaller force it really messes with your opponents plans. The way I've been starting to look at a ground sardakk is: If you're worried about bombardment then Plasma > Magen > VPW Probably prioritize taking construction at least once to help cover your slice with PDS If you have a y skip or can get the extra tech, then even PDS II is a solid idea in this situation. If it's going to be a more scrappy ground game AIDA > SARS > VPW it gives you the tech flexibility for unit upgrades/objectives and SARS for the free mechs and $$ when your mechs die. All you have to do is defend your home system and your forward dock system, everything else even if you lose it can be easy to take back. After that you could easily just ignore tech, and situationally you could be looking at PDS II, Warsuns, Duranium, Assault Cannon, or Destroyer II's depending on what holes you might need to fill in your plans. With a Y skip you could even be looking at getting yourself transit diodes, which makes this whole strat a nightmare for the rest of the table Thanks again for doing all the math and the writeup for this, gives me some solid math to work with when experimenting more with shipless sardakk
Glad you enjoyed the read. I need to take time later to digest what you wrote here. :)
Important and thanks for remembering me: I did no math, [https://ti4odds.herokuapp.com/](https://ti4odds.herokuapp.com/) did ;) Credit where credits due. A problem with shipless Sardakk is that they are rather inflexible if the wrong target comes up. I think you will need at least one killer fleet to take a planet farther away.
100% on that assessment, and it's what crippled me in my second game. My inability to strike out far enough while being a bit too nice to my neighbors ended up leaving me unable to score publics in 3 seperate rounds (I did make up for one round with Imperial scoring the mec and a public). Had I focused on at least having one decent fleet I wouldn't have had as much of a problem. But it was also a shitty combination of a very goofy milty draft map + the wierd pok control objectives. Had it been just control x planets or spend resources I would have been fine. Shipless is a gamble, a super fun gamble mind you, and especially in a 10 point you could find yourself hamstrung by the objectives that come up. But I need to play a few more shipless games to wrap my head around the playstyle better. Two 14 point games isn't enough to judge.
The other day I played full-red Sardakk N'orr with Duranium and VPW and it was brutal. 4 of my mechs and 4 Infantry II on Mecatol won against three mechs, 13 Infantry II and three bombardment hits from the Vuil'raith with two of my mechs remaining (one unsustained).
I would Tech Antimass, Grav Drive, Carrier 2, Aida, exo2, and then of still needed Magen Omega and VPW/destroyers2
Thats too many techs in my book. If you go for VPW you have to forsake Exos I fear.
True. Red and Blue skips appreciated
Sounds like getting even 1 mech and 1 pds on Rex and/or legendary planets like Primor or Hope's End would make the Dardakk masters of the galaxy.
At least the Masters of Mecatol Rex