How Not to Look Like a Newbie aka Scuzz's Pet Peeves

Oh, yeah; I know what you're saying..."I'm not a newbie so I don't need to read this." Wrong! These tips are helpful for both new and old players because they help you become aware of some mistakes you maybe making. I've seen decent players make these mistakes (myself included) and these are some tips to help you avoid em.

1) The single most annoying thing people do is blow up their dwarven heros and/or meele units when some one runs anything at them (including a lone thrall). Always be careful with dwarves and fetch and make sure you aren't firing into your own units. Conversley don't run infantry into a fight before you fetch or dwarves get a chance to do some damage. Wait until they have softened the advancing force up a bit (that is what you go them for).

2)Watch out for ghols that are acting strangely. If 2-6 ghols charge a much larger force they most likely have pus and/or satchels and you should scatter your force immediatly. I've seen 27 warriors charge right at 4 ghols that ran straight at them. All I could do was laugh as the warriors were pussed to hell.

3) Don't attack when outnumbered. If the other guy has 14 warriors and 6 ghols and you have 9 warriors then you better run. If you do fight you won't just lose but you will lose badly. On the same token be aware of the health of your units vs. the health of enemy units. If your 9 warriors are all in the green and his are all in the yellow then you will most likely win. The only exception is if his warriors are vets. But you can also check veteran status by using the status bar and don't be afraid to do so. The only time you should fight when outnumbered is when you are specifically ordered to do so as a delaying action. And if you must fight outnumbered do it right...

4) Bring all your force to beat at the same time. If you are chasing 14 warriors and 6 ghols with 9 warriors and 15 thrall you clearly have the numerical advantage. However this doesn't guarantee you will win. If you 9 warriors get too far ahead of the thrall then the enemy could turn on them and destroy them before the thrall can catch up. And now all you have is 15 thrall against around 12 injured warriors and 4 ghols which isn't a sure bet at all (that is assuming it isn't terries and they just don't out manuver you the rest of the game). Moving on, don't let your units attack piecemeal. If you units get spread out walking from Point A to Point B form them up in a tight formation before you attack Point B. Don't send 3 warrios then 2 more and then finally 4 more a few seconds later. Form them up and send all 9 at the same time.

5) Which leads me to the proper way to spread your formations. Let's say you captain gives you 45 thrall. The obvious reaction would be to form them up in a long line like so:

																						tttttttt
																						tttttttt
																						tttttttt
                      tttttttt 
                      tttttttt
                        ttttt

This is all wrong. You should at the very least keep them in long lines of 15 a piece like so:

tttttttt          tttttttt       tttttttt
 ttttttt           ttttttt         ttttttt

If you look at these two ways of forming up the second is obviously better for many reasons. Take the surface area of these two ways of lining up. The first has roughly 26 unit spaces of surface area wheras the second has over 50. The 3 long lines also provide a much more intimidating sight for opponents. The larger surface are also serves a second more important function. Looking at the first example you can see many units are trapped inside the formation where as in the second none are trapped in the middle. This of course means you units will have an easier time engaging the enemy and doing damage to them.

6) Don't retreat after you have engaged. If you attack an enemy do not retreat unless ordered to do some by your captain or a player more experienced then you. Generally if you retreat after you are already trading blows you will be run down from behind by the bad guys.

7) Watch out for mixed units. This is when a player mixes two unit types together (ie thrall and warriors). If you attack just the thrall or just the warriors that is all your units will attack leaving the other to get frees hits on your units. The best defense against unit mixing is to mix your own units and use shift click. Dwarves or fetch also do a nice job on mixed units ; ). Unit mixing can also be accomplished if two players are controlling the same unit type. A normal click will only attack one of the players leaving the other players units free to hit yours.

8) Always keep an eye on how many flags/balls you have. I have seen many teams win the melee battle only to lose because the other team captured all the flags/balls. Always make sure in games like FR/Scav hunt or BoP/CTF that you have guards on your home flag.

9) Guard your balls from the steal. I have seen one fast unit (a ghol) steal balls from 30 slow units (thrall).  To properly guard the ball from a steal put your slow units in a circle around the ball and leave them on guard. You can use other fomations also (though circle is the most effective) but just make sure you leave the slow units on guard.

10) Don't mess with water if you don't know what is under it. This goes for souless especially. I have seen thousands of souless die because they floted over a pond with a wight in it. This goes for thrall and any other unit too. If you must cross a place and you think there is a wight there cross in small groups of 2-5 units at a time.

11)Be aware of what's laying on the ground. I have seen lots of people blown up by satchels dropped from a dwarf that died in the middle of its own guys. Keep an eye out for pus chunks laying around also.

12) Use small pus on giants. There are two very good reasons for doing this. 1) Small pus is reusable so if you miss you can just go pick it up again. 2)If you throw in a big pus there is a chance you will hit your own infantry and damage them. Even if you hit the giant he will have time to escape and your infantry will have taken unesecary damage.

13) Archers in front. That's right archers in front. If you got archers they aren't going to do any damage from behind your infantry except maybe to your own guys. Put them out front and let them lead the charge.