My opponent added the vulcans in the final round, I added stormcallers with emp and range in the final round.
I like going 'no missiles' all game sometimes and on the final round hitting my opponent, who usually has no anti missile tech by then, with emp stormcallers - which unless they're well prepared or psychic( ;-) ) has a decent effect.
In escalating order from civility to...less amicable endings. Text at bottom shows common 'end states' of a battle/match.
Hope they enjoy it. The Chinese Text says something like "YOU DARE EAT ME!!!"
I know I've lost by round 4 before, I can't imagine how you'd lose by round 3. You'd almost need to have picked a starting lineup that has the lowest hp starting value, and then pick all the wrong units for your opponent's choices and place them in the worst possible positions, all unsupported.
(Knowing my luck, having just said that I'll play in tonight's tournament and end up losing in 3 rounds to my first opponent probably...)
There are times when you end up being so strongly outplayed by your opponent you question whether you want to queue up for another match in the short term.
You can be similar MMR levels but sometimes a loss can be quite brutal. We're not talking nukes here or spells, I mean - sometimes your opponent keeps you on the ropes the entire match and you're trying to put out fires all over the field and nothing you do works, and they just gain and gain more and more momentum each round.
It's part of the game and you do need a little bit a of a thick skin when you experience it. But yeah - sometimes a loss can be quite emotionally punishing.
I've been playing some experimental games lately to expand the strategies I know.
Recently I played with fire, now I'm playing with hackers.
Build a line of tanks, either sledges or tarantulas, and try to make them 'tough' enough to survive the opening salvo.
Stick some chaff in there as well.
And put the hackers in the mix.
My mmr is low around 800+-100, but I've been playing around with different strategies recently.
A rather disgustingly quick round - couldn't even see what was left at the end of the battle!
I've been experimenting with using lots of flames and assault marksmen, it seems to work nicely in some situations.
Fire badgers and assault marksmen across the front line, with crawlers ready to rush forward and mess with enemy targeting, phantom rays dropping oil directly in front of the fire badgers, and fangs in a second wave. Other stuff as required.
It has some strong vulnerabilities but it seems to work quite nicely in some situations.
If the opponent isn't expecting it, it can be quite devastating in some battles.