Greetings Battlemages! This week we will have a look at a ruleset that makes battles very uncertain and random: Aimless!
In the Aimless ruleset, every monster gets the Scattershot ability.
Basically, that means that all monsters using Magic or Range damage will now shoot at random. There's no Snipe or opportunity or even concentrating fire on the monster in first position: they all shoot randomly.
As an ability by itself, Scattershot is often found as not desirable, as one would want to concentrate the attacks to kill more quickly. I could be used to bypass big monsters with Taunt, but even then, the result is still pretty random.
It's the kind of ability that when you play it, you only hit armors. But when the opponent plays it, he manages somehow to snipe your one vulnerable key monster behind the Taunt...
I guess for the ruleset there's two different schools. One to avoid Magic and Range monsters, to use a classic strategy. And one to embrace randomness to wreak havoc at random (that's particularly powerful with Explosive attacks).
We will see in practice in the battle below, where I used a mixed strategy.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_49c2dc71bb2cdab315ff480ef7e6b7d2&ref=engilhramn
The battle is played in Modern Silver. It is opened to Fire, Earth and Dragon, with a mana cap of 42. Of course, the ruleset is Aimless.
I decided to go for a mixed approach: the key monsters will use melee and a classic strategy. A few support monsters will scatter their shots and we will see...
I went with a Fire/Dragon team with Quix the Devious as summoner.
For the "classic" monsters:
Djinn Chwala in first position, as a Throny tank
Carnage Titan in second, with Reach and Double Strike
Tenyii Striker is in fifth position, to sneak attacks and hold the backline in case of need
And I let the RNG plays with the others:
Sorriel the Bale in third position, because I just got him, and well, double magic attack, even scattered, it must be good
Spirit Hoarder, important in this ruleset to heal the backline hit at random
Naga Assassin in last position, who looks like not much, but I like her speed to evade sneaky attacks
I went to face a Fire/Tarsa team with focus on Sneak attack and 2 range attackers.
I think the match was decided in Round 1. To start the game, the enemy Lava Launcher sniped my Spirit Hoarder. There goes in the first strikes my fine strategy of backline healing...
But no, the key point was that my Naga Assassin dodged not one, not two, but three sneaky attacks! If she didn't, I would have lost my Tenyii Striker, and with him the game.
My Naga Assassin didn't dodge the fourth one, but she turned the table. My Carnage Titan got rid of Tusk, so his Tenyii Striker goes front line. Some Thorns damages, one lucky strike from Sorriel the Bale and the final blow by Djinn Chwala: there goes the Tenyii Striker. And so the Sand Worm goes front line. But thorns are thorny: good bye, Sand Worm!
And so here we are: my two tanks are still up, the Titan still not touched even!
Sorriel gets killed right away, but the Titan and thorns of Chwala dispose of Uraeus.
Two attackers versus one and a meat sack. Even though the Lava Launcher can still attack in first position, it doesn't stand a chance. The Titan still has plenty of armor and the Striker is untouched.
Just for the photo finish.
Because of the Scattershot, I find Sorriel the Bale to have been underwhelming. He did weaken some monsters, but it's much more important to finish and kill them. That was probably my mistake and Lava Launcher for example would have been better with its bigger damage. No point in scattering even more with a Double Strike.
Spirit Hoarder died to sson to be useful, but I will continue to use him anyway in this ruleset. He's cheap anyway, and can make a big difference.
So in the future, I will probably avoid as much as possible Range and Magic monsters, at the exception of Spirit Hoarder. That should give the more consistent result.
See you on the battlefield!
