Arena Rex Forums

Simple question. How do you feel about lethal hazards, such as the humble pit template?

Are they fun and/or freaky? Should your arena feature them in every game, or just once in a while?

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I only use them for 5+ matches and never more than one on the field. While I understand they are just a tool to get used and learn to work around, I tend to find them to be a bit much in smaller games.
Wounding hazards... those I litter all over the place.

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Morituri te salutamus.

So, I like them in general. But I feel bad when I'm rocking Anum and titans.

Most non-Anum games I play with pits, either most folks die to the pit or no one does.

I was going to ask why Anum and the titans was an issue... and then I remembered. And then I remembered what caused me to start this thread - that I had Sereqet pushed into a pit by Septimus in my last game.

Argh! I forgot that titans can't be pushed and that Sereqet is a titan!

Deep breaths... alright. My point that I was going to make, I think, was that pits seem very all-or-nothing, which can be very dramatic, but I think isn't always the kind of game you might want. It's very dramatic, but you don't always want games to be super stressful like that.

By that I mean that, as I see it, you will typically end up in a situation where one model is near a pit, and an enemy model plots to push them into it. So the enemy model goes up and makes an attack and hoping for pushes. If they succeed, then they defeat the enemy. If the attack fails, then the original model can just use their free move to walk directly around the enemy model, and now try and push their former attacker into the pit. So by trying to take advantage of the pit, you also make yourself vulnerable to it. It is a good "risk vs. reward" mechanic - but it is just extremely hazardous, and the game can be decided very quickly that way.

So it seems like pits are great if you want a high-tension, high-stress game - but I'm not sure I want that every time.

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I like having a pit, but having played a titan heavy Amun cohort it can be disheartening.

As reece said above the pit usually ends up being either >50% of the deaths or 0% of the deaths. I tend to play very "pushy" cohorts ive noticed.

I think the game is definitely meant to be very pushy - I guess one of the interesting things about it is that almost every character (or every? maybe) has at least one push in their damage tree, and that this is because pushes are meant to be more powerful than damage depending on circumstances, and being able to go for max damage or damage and push is one of the core choices every turn that makes the game exciting. Even without hazards at all, you can still use pushes to get extra tag team successes, but pits definitely turn push control into a much more dramatic game element.

So I see the problem with the titans - their push immunity is a really big deal, to the extent that it maybe detracts from the fun of the game, really? If both sides feature as many titans as they can, so they can't be pushed into pits, the game loses that dynamic aspect and pushes might as well not be in the damage trees or in the game.

Maybe titans shouldn't be immune to pushes entirely... but just be immune to pushes from models on smaller base sizes, or something?

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Titans being totally immune kinda sucks.

I say this, because I live running a beast pack. Unless I wanna run horses (hell, Dex is now a titan), my only non-titans are Leo and Anum. I'm not gonna run horses.

It sucks because I feel a little bad for my opponents. We're all still pretty new and completely ignoring a huge aspect of the game with 50%+ of your force is rough. Granted, the titans generally do less damage. But the damage is irrelevant when you're pushed in a pit.

Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe not-totally-push-immune titans could be a house rule worth exploring.



I'm gonna run horses!

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I could see some Titan on Titan push action becoming a house rule.

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Morituri te salutamus.

Pits used to bother me quite a bit but, I've learned to play around them and use reposition to my advantage when it comes to them.

Both of my friends love using Micon with his Atlas Throw and all his pushes but, lately I've taunted him near pits but out maneuvered him in a way that it was pointless for him to even go for it. It's been fun teasing them about Micon getting fired for not being able to do the one job he was supposed to out on the field!