Super Awesome Ninja Goblin Fun Time!

[Capirage]

Yesterday I took upon an imposible goblin party (23 menbers) and won without casualties. About 3 ingame days later I encountered some “even” or warriors (10+warlord) and I thought I was about to steamroll them. 8 turns later had to retire, loosing all but 2 men. Save scummed, of course.

[Sarissofoi]

Goblins main strength are their archers.
Thing is that their bows lack power and with heavy armour they do little to no damage and rarely penetrate armour.
They are also easy to lure and ambush. They have decent skill in close combat but lack durability.
Their line troops(Skirmishers) are very passive which is easy to exploit. Their weapons lack power and are ineffective against strong armour. But they have decent skills even if they lack HP and armour. Their pikes can be dangerous and nets are really annoying.
Wolf-riders are good only against inexperienced and under equipped troops. Their behaviour rely heavy on flanking and its very easy to exploit. In melee their weapon lack punch. Their mobility make them hard to catch but they are not that great in actual combat.
Shaman is plain and simple big pain in the ass with his wines and swarms of insects.
Overseer is dangerous but he is just one and even with xbow he isn’t that dangerous.
Key is to fight them when you can actually defeat them.
Goblins are bane of low levels and that is why they slaughter militia with easy.
They can be challenging on medium but on high they are pushovers.
If you get 2-3 max leveled 6/0/4 archers you can slaughter them with no losses(especially when you hide behind kite shield wall). Killing 10 goblins on turn make rest broke and run. If not, just shoot them more.

The biggest weakness of Goblin is their passiveness and predictable behaviour.
Sometimes it is just silly. Like 20 Skirmishers getting peppered by archers or enemy attacking you on global map and then sit on their position and letting you retreat with no problems.
The other is lack of scaling. Goblin faction have medium tier units only(with quirks) which make them dangerous to low level enemies but joke against high tier.
Orcs still are the kings of high level fight. Goblins don’t even get close.

[Zinistar]

All I did with my breakdown is compare them to the average “useful” battle brother. The scores are a perception of what I have experienced in the game. I AM NOT COMPARING THEM TO ORCS BTW. I don’t really have issues with orcs late game, but that is another discussion.

I have over 200hrs put into this game, starting over at least 50+ times, either bc the game got boring in the late game or I was playing mock “Ironman” and restarting when things got so bad I felt the need to do so. Goblins mid-late game are not nearly as scary. I have all I need to be able to kill them w/o problem. Crossbows, kite shields and plenty of experienced men.

My argument is Early game is a huge problem. I can reload now, but later when the real ironman mode comes, I don’t think it is right to put a foe like this against a bang of noob mercs.

Instances of why I feel this way,

Battle, Rush Gobbers with Shield wall.
-Get shot by 3 archers, sometime hitting in the head, and being near death on turn one ( at this point you know they are dead unless they retreat). Multiply this by a couple rounds and everyone is dead or near death. Not to mention the bolas hits. If a goblin can drop a fully armored high hp beast, they have no issues with a new merc squad.

Battle, engage Ambushers (ninjas) with several well “early game” armored warriors, goblin ninja pulls out uber knife and stabs high level brother in the face killing him. Gobber then proceeds to double stab piercing through armor and slaying other brothers. Losing half my brothers is not a victory even it it says so.

The 6 vs 30 thing was not my post but I can relate bc I have personally seen that happen as well.

Squibie there is a difference, your posts were trollish and aggressive. Their posts are well thought out and passive. I like how you disregard other posts agreeing with me.

[scaryned]

Response to Squibie
Interesting strats. I always fight goblins at night rather then day because, when dealing with goblins, I advance a double layer shield wall (shield wall in front and rear like a turtle formation) for as many Wall bonuses as I can stack. And under the cover of night I’ll withstand the onslaught of bolas, arrows, and that dreaded overseer crossbow. I’ll even give my bill-hooks a shield to hold onto to join the wall before dropping it to pull out the two handed bill-hook when action starts. it’s very effective if the goblins don’t want to charge and end up backing up slowly to buy time for their archers, bolas, and nets. it’s also quite epic if I’m hailed with projectiles like rain. problem is that my two archers will have a much harder time landing shots, unless they’re firing into a group of goblins to hit something randomly. and if the goblins are cocky and charge early on for reasons, I’ll be forced to spread my troops out to avoid being surrounded. it’s also problematic if too many nets are thrown, as I’ll be forced to focus fatigue on untangle them as quickly as I can.

RL

[scaryned]

If I’m heavily ill equipped, like with nothing made of chain mail and bucklers, militia spears and so forth, I’ll only be willing to attack goblins if I have slightly more guys then them (with the knowledge that I’m will probably loose half my guys). If I’m facing a battle that’s 2 – 1 I just get the heck out of there ASAP. but once I have proper gear I’ll take on 40 of the gobbers with ease. Maybe even 50 if I get the chance. that would be awesome.

RL

[scaryned]

Zinistar wrote:

All I did with my breakdown is compare them to the average “useful” battle brother. The scores are a perception of what I have experienced in the game. I AM NOT COMPARING THEM TO ORCS BTW. I don’t really have issues with orcs late game, but that is another discussion.

I have over 200hrs put into this game, starting over at least 50+ times, either bc the game got boring in the late game or I was playing mock “Ironman” and restarting when things got so bad I felt the need to do so. Goblins mid-late game are not nearly as scary. I have all I need to be able to kill them w/o problem. Crossbows, kite shields and plenty of experienced men.

My argument is Early game is a huge problem. I can reload now, but later when the real ironman mode comes, I don’t think it is right to put a foe like this against a bang of noob mercs.

Instances of why I feel this way,

Battle, Rush Gobbers with Shield wall.
-Get shot by 3 archers, sometime hitting in the head, and being near death on turn one ( at this point you know they are dead unless they retreat). Multiply this by a couple rounds and everyone is dead or near death. Not to mention the bolas hits. If a goblin can drop a fully armored high hp beast, they have no issues with a new merc squad.

Battle, engage Ambushers (ninjas) with several well “early game” armored warriors, goblin ninja pulls out uber knife and stabs high level brother in the face killing him. Gobber then proceeds to double stab piercing through armor and slaying other brothers. Losing half my brothers is not a victory even it it says so.

The 6 vs 30 thing was not my post but I can relate bc I have personally seen that happen as well.

Squibie there is a difference, your posts were trollish and aggressive. Their posts are well thought out and passive. I like how you disregard other posts agreeing with me.

I never bring my heavily armour guys to fight against knifes, not without heavy shields and good experience. knives finding weak spots in the armour is reasonable (I do admit damage penalties the thicker the armour is) and it forces me to use troops with less armour and less experience against the ambushers, because they have the same level of difficult as my plate mail guys, exept with less to loose if they die. And to prove that they’re worth their slat in the company. Besides, I’ll be dispatching skirmishers so quickly, almost all the ambushers run for the hills without a second thought.

RL

[Meeky]

So, having fought the goblins several more times recently on a new save, I want to add a few more thoughts concerning them:

1) Early game, when you’re only going up against small bands of 5-8 goblins? They’re not that rough. I had no real problems fighting them at that point in the game. Indeed, I purposely hunted them down to get access to those pikes of theirs. They’re not bad early game weapons, and I like them with Quick Hands because you can take two steps forward, swap to a Jagged Pike and then stab someone two tiles away.

2) Mid-game is when these little green bastards get mean. Goblins that appear as “Even” or “Challenging” to you are almost always a bad idea to fight. 20+ goblins vs. 12 mid-level (5-8) brothers means you’re probably going to lose a few brothers. I think I’d make their global map difficulty seem a little harder than it is presently. Presently, it seems misleading.

3) Once you get past the mid levels and start rocking level 11 archers and so forth, they’re easy to fight again, moreso even than orcs because you can send the whole pack of gobbers scattering within 1-2 rounds of arrow volleys. The only danger they pose is if they manage to accidentally shoot your archers in the back row. Maybe this is good incentive to level Initiative on your archers? I normally don’t touch that stat, but I’m thinking about trying that out.

4) Finally, goblin wolfriders never pose a real threat. I love killing those guys. It’s easy XP. I think they’d be more challenging if paired with Orc Warriors and supported with Goblin Ambushers and a Shaman. That would be a mean fight.

[RusBear]

Goblins? who care about goblins :) 6 orc warriors- that’s the real power! They kill 10 militia in 10 hits…and makes me use all my tactic battle to win them. i wish some orc warriors in my party! that is the fact ;)

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[Binkus]

just thought i would tag onto this, I picked up the game again after a few months break to have a look at the stuff and reinvent the Crusading carrots

I got a bit into the game before i really came up against the goblins in a tiny hut (met them before but it was with a large patrol party and caravan so didnt even cross swords with them)

and goblins.OH MY GOD TINY NINJAS OF MULTIPLE DEATH!! i mean these things should have conquered the world by now surely! with 12 lvl 4 ish guys reasonably well armed and doing the rounds without a single casualty so far (not save spamming but i played enough to keep my guys alive) there were 8 of them they wiped the floor with 6 of my guys 3 before i have even got into combat with the buggers.

I only saw their archers miss when they were ready to run, tiny cleavers and spears made short work of my heavily armoured guys…….

i like a challenge but these things seriously damage my calm, fun to fight something a bit less predictable but they are only short of firing laser beams from their arse!

[Mithril]

I don’t understand why goblins give people hard times, even early game. Goblins strength is the thrown weapons/archers. Simple counter, pull them at night, and have shields equip’d. Rush your shields straight into the melee, save 2 shield brothers to rush towards the archers. The archers will either stay where they are so u can Body anchor them, and then they are lambs to slaughter or they back pedal like retards, either way effectively nuetralizing them. Only thing deadly with the goblins are the crossbow user. But shield/night time, he will miss 90% of the time, and more than likely will hit his own goblins.

Before people say rushing the melee goblins is bad, the reason this works is 70% of the goblins have switched to bolas and such, so yes they will toss one at you, and some more the next turn, making them waste more actions switching back to their melee weapon, or standing there with out a melee/shield making them super easy to kill. your men with shield/leather armor/mail armor should have no problems surviving the bolas, yah nets sucks but shouldn’t be to much of an issue. Only thing u should have to watch out for is the pike users, they should be your first melee goblins you kill.

For all my battle brothers but my 2 captains I go Shield Master->Hold out->Collosos->Nimble->bags and belts->quick hands->Pathfinder->brawny->fortified mind->foot work

So against goblins I start the battle with shields/axes equiped use my above strategy

Against orcs, u abuse nimble with war hammers, makes them a joke. (late game you will have 20+ warriors, make sure your weapons are repaired of have a back up, you can break them by the end of the fight, also your captain with the fatigue restore, have him kinda float in the back till around turn 5, so he has the fatigue to use it, it costs 40 fatigue)

Humans its debatable if they have a lot of archers use shield/warhammer/axes if there isn’t a lot of archers go nimble and mow them down

Undead is also debatable, tons of archers use shield till their dead, switch to single, vampires are a joke with nimble, also banshees shouldn’t be a problem around 7-8 with your captains

Werewolf, they are a joke with a shield, even more a joke with nimble.

all my brothers I have War hammer, combat axe, 2 shields(I like the orc warrior shields late game) and Bolas/Throwing spears equiped.

Captains I take 1 all the way up utility for the 2 differnt traits they have, then down defense tree. same equipment.

PS if you see a sword master for hire, do what u have to recruit them, they are the best unit in the game IMO they start with 20+ melee def, and 70+ melee, always have decent resolve, only weakness is a low hp pool, usually 40. Late game u can equip them with noble sword, sit in counter stance and do quite a lot of damage.

[Drygord]

Against high armor Orcs have a squad of daggermen with puncture and crossbowmen in the back :) Why bash thru hundreds upon hundreds of armor points when you can go right to the source? I swear this works- zero casualties and zero weapon breaks- unless they flee and you break your daggers on their colossal armor XD

[Binkus]

after reading this post and going at the goblins again with revised tactics, they are still hard but doable

this time i lost 1 BB to their 8

missile troops are key i had all my guys get quick hands and bows then mowed the lawn… the goblin lawn… :)

[Sarissofoi]

I think most of the complains against goblins come from the fact that they have no low tier troops like people expect.
Bandits have thugs, undead have skeletons and zombies and ghouls, orcs have young orc(still they are strong for low tier) but goblins have no lows.
#There comes a idea.
Why if there be added some Wild Goblins. They are not organized ones like the regular Goblins so their forces consist of typical goblin rabble. They would be no belong to faction troops but become a filler troops for neutral locations and sometimes a roaming band of them.

Another idea is adding some high tier troops for them. Like some armoured wolfrides with charge and heavy armour or heavy front line troops with a lot of pikes(that can actually fight against armoured troopers).

[Meeky]

Another idea is adding some high tier troops for them. Like some armoured wolfrides with charge and heavy armour or heavy front line troops with a lot of pikes(that can actually fight against armoured troopers).

While I feel heavily armored troops wouldn’t work out, I wonder if maybe having some units on the team that increase the vision range of goblin archers at night could be fun. Namely: goblin cavalry wielding torches and nets.

So, let’s pretend that there’s an elite cadre of goblin wolfriders whose job is to increase vision for ambushers at night. They rush up to the enemy army with lit torches, thus giving the ambushers vision of that area. They then toss nets onto the enemies rather than immediately engage, the better to slow them down, and start flanking like wolfriders already do. Alternatively, the torch could be their “shield” slot item instead. Give them bolas or javelins and they can do hit and run attacks with their thrown weapons while providing vision for their army.

While in the light of the torches, player units could have reduced ranged defense (thanks to being easier to see) on top of being seen by the goblin archers. The reason? It’s hard to see past the light of a torch, but easy to see into the light of a torch, so the humans and wolf riders caught in the torchlight would be easier to hit and less able to dodge weapons fired at them. (People didn’t actually go chasing things through the night with torches and pitchforks. Torches would give away their position and make it nigh impossible for them to find what they were after.)

Basically, if goblins get elite units, they should not be heavily armored. That doesn’t suit them. Instead, they should get a unit that adds something to the game that fits that weird goblin aesthetic and fighting style.

Heck, I’d actually enjoy seeing goblins riding giant spiders as a deadly sort of foe. They could have the ability to maneuver through normally impassable obstacles without difficulty (like trees and logs and large rocks).

[Goresome]

I can see there are a mixture of views here, I’ll just add my 2 cents.

I came across a goblin stronghold (13 goblins, mostly skirmishers/ambushers, with a boss-man type thing). I don’t remember the name, but his crossbow would nearly 1 shot my troops AND send them flying back.

I had 6 brothers vs 13 Gobbo’s. I tried. I cried. I raged. I tried harder. Then I beat them.

Learn & adapt, it takes effort and patience, but you’ll get there.

Take it from a noob.

[Author]

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