Elgos Knights by
Ixe
The Elgos Knights are a custom whose name you should know, but are they the hippest trip in America or just a bunch of jive turkeys? As always in parting, we'll see if they have what it takes to make it into the... SOULDIERS OF VALHALLA!
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Balance
The Knights just don't look so good in this department. You can get the Horned Skull Brutes with the same base stats for a little over half their cost, or get the Minions for 20 points less and get around the same stats (counting 2 attack with deadly strike as roughly equal to 4 attack) all the time as the Knights have when fully charged. Both of those squads are common, and have augmented movement of some type, which are huge advantages for a melee squad. Even with the resurrection power, I'm not seeing the Knights being worth such a steep price over those two.
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Theme
Undead using souls as a resource is a pretty common fantasy trope, and it's clear what both of the powers are doing thematically. The minis all look suitably evil knightish and fit reasonably well together. Overall, very cohesive theme here.
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Creativity
Shield of Lost Souls is just Blood Lust for defense, but the addition Dark Resurrection makes the power more interesting than it otherwise would be. Not a bad little package altogether.
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Playability
They're too expensive to be worth using, simple as that. Even when fully charged, they're honestly nothing that special for their points. You'd be lucky to get them to that point in the first place though. They need kills to fuel either of their powers, and even against other melee squads it's pretty much a total gamble that they'll fuel up enough to matter before they're put down. Ranged squads and Unique Heroes are even more of a challenge for them.
Once you do get charged up, you are almost always going to have to immediately burn two of the markers to replace your loses. The choice between one or two figures with 6 or 7 defense and two or three figures with 4 defense isn't really much of a choice at all. Granted, bringing back a figure is a pretty good trick, but it's obviously nothing the original designers considered that game breaking, compare how much easier the Zombies, or Marro Warriors, or even the Dividers to a degree, can resurrect at far cheaper prices.
Overall, while they can have a good game with enough dumb luck (which you could say about pretty much any card), they never felt like they were worth drafting to me, and that's a pretty big problem.
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The Elgos Knights are going in an interesting direction, but at the moment they are far too expensive for what they do. Even at a lower price, I'm not entirely sure they'd pass, but I do know they're not up to par as they stand now.
I vote
to induct the Elgos Knights to the SoV.