[Ixe]

Thanks for commenting, all. I have to disagree with Scytale and stick to my guns about him being a Feylundian Ogre. Japanese Oni can be a pretty diverse bunch that can cover a wide range of physical morphologies. With only one data point so far on ogres from Feylund, I see no reason why we should believe they are all cyclopean like Gurei-Oni and not able to be something much more diverse.

I suppose he's stuck with Utgar or possibly Valkrill to give the new guy some love. It bothers me a little bit how much color palette sways unit placement. It's good for game aesthetics and all but sometimes feels rather dubious from a theme perspective. Are the Valkyrie generals passing up on summoning different units because they don't like how they dress, or are they getting their army tailor to slap a new paint job on everyone that comes through?

I'm pretty comfortable with how Torrent of Steel looks right now and how it provides a preset diversity of attack dice reflecting his different weapons. I don't actually think it will provide that much of a decision, however. When it melee, I'm just going to keep throwing attack dice on who I want to kill and go in order of targets from there. Then again, I suppose I can see me throwing my stray 1's at squads instead if it doesn't have a chance of bringing down a hero anymore.

I included counterstrike to try to get more of a theme connection to Gurei-Oni and to give this otherwise fragile hero a defensive, or defensive-like power. With only 4 life and 4 defense, he has the survivability of Agent Carr, perhaps a little better with a few extra immunities from his size. He is already a fiend in melee so it may prove unnecessary, but Counterstrike can act as a natural psychological deterrent from units attacking him and keep him around a bit longer. More seasoned opponents may be undeterred since they will have to do it eventually anyway, but then it gives him a chance of throwing down some wounds before he checks out. I can see the elegance of reducing his powers and I'm not sold that Counterstrike is the best possible option, but I think that it is accomplishing more than it is hurting in theme and function. Another solution would be to increase his life or defense slightly, but that sets him further away from Gurei-Oni when I'm already trying to connect the two. He is no further than the brainstorming process right now so I am more than open to hearing alternate ideas that can address my concerns.