[Leaf_It]

Originally Posted by Scytale

You are underestimating the power of the -1. It hardly even matters what it does statistically; people will be loathe to give up the dice.

Besides, I really like that it doesn't hit heavy hitters as badly. It does even more to distinguish it from Combat Challenge.

In my opinion, -1 is interesting and valuable, and easily underestimated. -2 is unnecessarily burdensome.

I'll run a few tests and see how I like it.

Originally Posted by Scytale

I was thinking the Great Axes were Common. Being Unique does change things quite a lot, enough that I can buy 80pts. Still, do not underestimate Tenacity. When rolling attack dice, getting two skulls is an ok chance at doing damage. Rolling three, though, is very likely to do damage. Tenacity turns all 2's into 3's. That's amazing.

I could see an argument for as high as 90 points if they are backed by Raelin, or Tealord, but being melee range only, and unique makes this setup hard to pull off effectively against a player who is familiar with how Tealord/Raelin strategies work. Tenacity is Good. Really Good. But in this design it's not broken.
EDIT:

Originally Posted by Astroking112

On the topic of Imposing Threat, I actually think that it's significantly better with just 1 dice. I still think that you should just use a tweaked Combat Challenge if that's the power that you're trying to make, but making it slightly less impactful actually further differentiates it from that ability. I can see far more instances where an opponent might choose to attack a squad figure if they're only losing 1 dice, but it's still something that they would usually want to avoid and accomplishes the same theme.

For the comparison on attacks, I just want to throw out there that I think these guys will probably perform better offensively than the Kozuke. They're more likely to survive against range (especially since the Kozuke only have 3 members), and if they can nab height, they're looking at an expected three skulls per attack, which matches the Kozuke. Even without height, I'd still rather take the fourth attack (with improved odds) over the extra attack die. Counterstrike and the better movement don't quite make up the difference for a better defense and a fourth squad member in my eyes, but the Kozuke also aren't the best squad in the first place, and power levels only really come through in playtesting. I just wanted to point out that this comparison doesn't really hold up, so I wouldn't use it as a pricing indicator.

The difference between these isn't big, but the former feels like it places a more equal weight on the latter two clauses to me, largely due to the slightly more complex second fragment. Saying "if a friendly figure within 6 clear sight spaces is engaged" isn't as immediately readable, since it splits the subject we're looking for (an engaged friendly figure) from its adjective across the range of the power. Perhaps I've just been writing too much code in the past few days and am in the wrong mindset, but introducing just "a friendly figure," then the range, and then the clause that the figure must be engaged doesn't flow as well to me as introducing that we're looking for an engaged friendly within range. I don't think that it's a huge problem (or that the proposed phrasing is perfect), but I do think that there is some minor room for improvement in the wording of the power.

I wanted to respond to you, but I had to leave for work when I posted so I didn't have the time to do so. I think you and Scytale are right about -1 differentiating it more, and so I will be seriously considering it. I wanted Combat Challenge way back when I was first creating this design, but this design was different in other ways back then, and I no longer want to use it here.

The Kozuke are very good against melee only armies, but pretty "meh" against armies with decent range. At the time of their release the meta was different, and maybe they were better at the time, but in the current meta, they should probably be reduced to 90, or even 80 points. I'd say they are slightly better than the Great Axes just because they can't be kited by range so easily. The Kozuke's attack is more consistent without a height advantage, and with a height advantage, they are about the same on average, but the Kozuke have a higher potential roll. If the Kozuke can live long enough, they will do more damage than the Great Axes, even with 1 less figure. The only advantage the Great Axes have (aside from the extra figure) is the single extra defense, and that takes a bit of luck to take advantage of. I think the other 100 point squads are clearly better though.


The wording isn't a big issue in my eyes, so for the time being, I'm going to leave it as is.