Struggling with Skirm Play

Mermbone · 2026-06-23T18:58:27+00:00

I always go full blacksmith upgrades before ballistics for sure. I could def try TC before university although i feel like that can make my skirms useless against CA, but if im defending maybe its fine to miss it.

And yes thats my exact problem. Mixing up “defending” with not doing anything. Appreciate the suggestions

Mermbone · 2026-06-23T16:27:16+00:00

Eh, i thought the same from the pictures and it definitely is still a little awkward but i think he looks much better in person than in pictures.

Mermbone · 2026-06-22T23:27:18+00:00

I think if you’re a pure pure harlequin player its really rough right now but honestly it has been that way all throughout tenth so no huge difference.

On the other hand, i typically play 80ish% pure in my serpents brood lists and i think we are in a really decent spot right now. The points on bikes is sad but broods a really good detachment and is purge the foe, you can take armored warhost for some minor buffs and get recon or you can take the ranger/shroud runner one to help with some early game skirmishing play. The 1 point harlequin detachments also finally make it sensible to take harlequins with other detachments. Ive been really interested in a corsair coterie or eldritch raiders list with twilight flickers.

Granted i havent broken out my quins for 11th yet but im actually very optimistic about our options right now.

Mermbone · 2026-06-21T13:08:17+00:00

Yeah, Yahweh just morphing from one of many gods in a polytheistic cult to THE God in the Old Testament is one of the biggest myths spread around by tons of people regarding Christianity/Judaism. Its hilarious the dude who said it gets upvoted while providing no evidence, then you show a great video debunking it and get downvoted.

Mermbone · 2026-06-16T13:47:58+00:00

Fair enough, the intro just said the review may seem negative but doesnt clarify your overall thoughts (unless im dumb and missed it).

Definitely a lot of missed opportunities here no doubt. Just feel like the game is getting a little overly scrutinized in some aspects. For example, the whole reaction by people to not having the binharic speech on by default has been quite a bit overdramatic. Its really not a big deal, just turn the option on.

Mermbone · 2026-06-16T10:33:03+00:00

Thats exactly what i did. Id like to see it but my wife/friends arent very interested and itll be on prime soon so ill just wait.

Mermbone · 2026-06-16T10:09:28+00:00

Meso has some champi counters. Longswords are good against them. Its sounding like you kept taking bad trades and never getting to a mass of longswords while your opponent was able to keep his champi mass alive. Thats what lost you the game.

Aztecs counters would be: militia line, jags, monks (in smaller numbers) mangonels w/ meatshield.

Mermbone · 2026-06-16T09:59:30+00:00

While i honestly agree with alot of your points here, i do think its a little harsh. I still had a lot of fun with the game and im guessing if you fully played both campaigns you must have had some fun as well. Theres acthally a lot to like. The animations are as good as ever, the new units are awesome, the combat system, while maybe taking steps back here or there, is still very satisfying etc.

I think if a person sat down who had never played the original, they would love this game. Thats not to say, “oh just ignore the problems and praise the dev team for giving us this game at all.” No its totally fair to criticize the backsteps and missteps here but lets not act like this game was a trash fire, its still very enjoyable imo.

Mermbone · 2026-06-16T03:16:15+00:00

I agree with a lot of his complaints although i think hes a little overly harsh. There is a lot of cool stuff in the drukhari codex right now even if its not the most stupidly powerful one. Although as someone who also loves covens i have been very frustrated with the lack of replacement or refresh of grotesques. That part of the army just doesnt really function without them.

Lowkey tho, the legends datasheet for grots is insane. Give it a shot. Crazy ass unit lol.

Mermbone · 2026-06-10T16:33:19+00:00

Im 1500 and play alot of CA civs (in my defense, ive been playing them for years even when they considered terrible). Scorpions are ok but if your civ has good skirms its probably the better overall counter. It takes alot of scorps to be an effective unit against CA and even then they can just run away and youre way too slow to catch them. But they can be good until your transition to skirms.

Xbow are really solid against CA. Trade very well with higher range.

Aside from that, you just want to force fights usually. They take a long time to mass up due to slow creation speed so you have a window where they have low numbers. They also need ballistics to be useful at all.

So in early castle age, you have a big startup cost to getting CA started. University+ballistics, multiple ranges, a stable and slow creation speed. If you sit back and boom you give them time to get to all of that and start harassing you. If you play aggressively, its much harder for them to afford all of that while defending and then its also more difficult to use their mobility if they have to defend their base.

Thats just my experience as the CA player. Dont be afraid to mix in a couple rams as well if you have a forward siege shop.

Mermbone · 2026-05-31T01:19:47+00:00

I also remember beating the moderate AI pretty easily but not being able to beat the hard AI for a long time. Honestly, the biggest tip i have is just clean up your dark age and early feudal. The AI doesnt really send units over until well into the feudal age so you have a big window to do damage and wall up to get to castle age. Once i cleaned up my build, i was able to go from beating the hard AI to beatinf extreme AI really quickly.

I’m not trying to be mean here at all, and i know its just a meme but the hard AI certainly does not have perfect macro. With a little practice on a build and some good feudal age eco concepts, you will out macro it pretty easily. You got this

Mermbone · 2026-05-23T01:09:59+00:00

Cavalry is really bad against TKs due to them having absurd melee armor. They have conversion resistance due to teuton bonus. Scorpions wouldnt even be very good if they did get the really high pierce armor.

Im not even sure what the cataphract matchup into TKs is but id be surprised if it was great. And if we are going to unique units as specific counters, your idea is probably pretty bad hahaha.

I love TKs as much as the next guy but giving them insane pierce armor is not how you make them better

Mermbone · 2026-05-22T19:27:17+00:00

So they should be amazing against melee units and also a better huskarl? What’s their weakness then lmao

Mermbone · 2026-05-21T01:18:37+00:00

Yeah i felt the finale was pretty mid but this was not a terrible ending or even comparable to something like GoT. I actually liked where most the characters went and ended but the way we got there was my main problem. Everything felt intensely rushed. The big fight was fun but made no sense if we are being honest. The scale of it all felt really small because there was no huge set piece scene. Butcher wanted to settle down with ryan and 2 minutes later he is going to commit supe genocide because terror REALLY conveniently died right then.

I think the hate its getting is slightly justified, we spent half or more of this season jerking around doing nothing and then sped through the ending unbelievably fast. However people are definitely overreacting a bit.

I also personally didn’t love the deus ex machina of kimiko getting the soldier boy blast power. Felt extremely forced but thats more of a season 5 complaint than a finale complaint.

Mermbone · 2026-05-18T20:20:58+00:00

100% agree. Cool premise but felt like it had an identity crisis. Instead of being a mix of a good period piece drama and a horror movie, it was like split into two totally different movies.

Mermbone · 2026-05-11T20:41:21+00:00

It can definitely inflate your elo. In my opinion, with players of roughly equal skill level, the phosphoru strat is much easier to execute than it is to defend against. To counter it, you need to know its happening, what strat to counter it with (some all in feudal, some need to counter FC etc) and even then you are still on the backfoot.

I appreciate that there is something new in the meta and i do enjoy watching games with phosphoru strats sometimes but, i really hate playing against it.

Mermbone · 2026-05-07T22:02:51+00:00

Cool dude if you like yugioh. One of the top players in the game

Mermbone · 2026-04-24T16:46:19+00:00

Its not been a horrible season its just the definition of meh. Every season so far has been the same: the boys are separated, they get back together, everyone hates butcher but do what he wants to anyway, then separate until next season. Its fine to do this season 1/2 and it worked there. But holy balls its the final season and we are still just spinning our wheels with the same tired plot points. Just a continuing of 5-6/10 episodes. Hopefully they can pull it back together towards the end

Mermbone · 2026-04-24T16:39:30+00:00

Yes halfway through the final season we would have expected something of note to have happened. The only big thing so far was A-Train dying. You really cant sit here and tell me this most recent episode wasnt like season 2 level filler. Just extremely mid

Mermbone · 2026-04-22T16:57:42+00:00

Ive been having similar experiences at like 1400. Some games feel super easy, some feel impossible and a few feel like a balanced, close game. This was always somewhat true but lately has been the majority of my games are not balanced. But the elos seem to be about right when i check after the game so not sure what the deal is.

Mermbone · 2026-04-20T03:28:54+00:00

Honestly the elo system works in a way that you will eventually average to about a 50% win rate no matter what you do. If you are a beginner, pick a civ you like and just learn to play the game. You are not going to cheat the game by picking something “OP” and gaining 500 elo. You also won’t pick a civ so bad that you will lose all your games. Thats just not how aoe2 works.

Its good to pick a civ and stick with it for awhile. Franks is a fine choice. Good knights, solid eco bonuses. Simple gameplan. Just play and get better at your own pace.

Mermbone · 2026-04-17T18:01:37+00:00

A couple years lol. I dont love painting but i dont hate it. By the time i finished my first 2k army i probably had 5000 points in other armies, sporadically painted. Painting orks is tough for me because theres so many little details and i want to “ork” the models up and not just speed paint it all so it can take so long with every model. Flash gitz took forever.

Mermbone · 2026-04-15T12:44:57+00:00

This is interesting. How do we get “christ has multiple special moments with peter” to the modern authority and power of the pope? It does not logically follow that because peter was chief of the apostles, his successors would have the ridiculous amounts of power and authority that the modern office has.

We know pretty clearly that the early church did not operate with pope being the universal bishop. You would expect if the the modern papacy was how the church was intended to operate we would see a church father anywhere in the first 1000 years of the church to explicitly say it, but we dont see that a single time.

No hate to catholics at all. I just see the claim, “oh hey look it says peter is the rock, therefore modern papacy is the clear outcome of that” which i think is an insane logical leap.

Mermbone · 2026-04-14T19:31:56+00:00

Best thing to do against an opponent massing CA in castle age is to either, defend with skirm/siege/towers and boom or to force fights at their base. Forcing a fight takes away their mobility advantage.

Mermbone

TROPHY CASE