[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

Let’s take a crack at this, Astro...

Captain Konah:
I’m not sure how I feel about Einar’s Orders on this guy. Moving the EI and Konah could be pretty devastating in the right situation. But, since the EI are already rather expensive I can understand why it isn’t factored too much into Konah’s price. Strike Aura is a very strong power alone, rivaling Taelord’s. I’d give this guy some serious testing before settling on 130 points as his cost.

I thought that the ability would be stronger when used to keep Empress Kiova in position, but I'll test him out more aggressively when I get the chance. If need be, I'll scale down Einar's Orders to only apply to Einar Kyrie Heroes, since I'm specifically aiming for 130 points for him.

As for Strike Aura, I'm considering drawing back the aura to only 4 spaces or the like. Since the only beneficiaries of it are Kiova (who doesn't get much use out of it) and the overpriced Einar Imperium, I purposefully left it on the strong side. Given how much the increased mobility of Einar's Orders could help the Imperium alone, though, I definitely understand the concern.

I'm hoping to be able to get in more concrete playtests at some point after the DFW Tournament this weekend, and Captain Konah is very likely the figure that I will focus on first. Ideally, I'm hoping to get him passed through SoV, so thanks for your feedback on him!

Tenri Samurai:
These two minis are really expensive for what they can do themselves. Ranged Counterstrike is a cool power to give them, though. I do worry they won’t help much against horde armies, as the heroes in those armies are generally not the focus of those types of builds. And Samurai builds have a hatf time against OM-strong builds. They really would need to be played by a good player to get their value.

My Samurai bias is a curse. I'm sadly aware that these guys are worth much more than their points, especially if their Reflective Armor lets them function as standalone units. I was considering cutting their movement to go as low as 4, which could significantly hamper the mobility of Samurai armies using them, but I'm not sure if this would be enough.

I may cut out Reflective Armor's use on them entirely, making them only able to protect the other Samurai. Since they're essentially protecting your other Samurai units, I'm hesitant to increase their price too much, and I feel like 80 points is a good balance for the faction in order to add some new point totals to choose from and create more army options.

I considered dropping either their attack or their defense to 3, but I felt like that would be too low for a Unique squad of two members. I'll probably test them out with the Reflective Armor applying to themselves with only 3 defense first, then see about changing it to only work on adjacent Samurai if that's still too powerful.

I am fine with them being difficult to use to their full potential, though, since the Samurai never struck me as a conventional army, especially when focusing on potential Order Marker nightmares like the Unique squads. I'm slightly surprised that you feel they won't be effective enough in horde armies, as that was one of the army compositions that I worried they would be too strong against. Units like the Arrow Gruts and the Ashigaru could potentially be slaughtered by the now inescapable Counterstrike, especially since they already have a low base attack.

Eltris:
A dragonrider is cool. I fear she may be nearly useless with both 1D and Eternal Heartbreak. Taking turns with her is already risky, since there won’t be many activations where she will be more effective than a dragon’s turn. You had mentioned bumping her defense to compensate for Heartbreak damage... that’s probably a step in the right direction. As she is right now, I’d rather have another squad of Greenscales or even a dedicated cleanup unit. Keep working on her!

Thanks for the encouragement! I went ahead and upped her defense to 2 so that she'll be able to take a few more hits. I'm also leaning towards giving her an extra +1 attack and defense when within 2 spaces of her dragon to evoke a more mutual bond, which would make her significantly stronger when paired with a durable heavy-hitter like Charos.

Steel Ultimatus:
Beep boop beep boop. A cyborg who affects flyers in a strange way, by denying their key power. It’s a cool effect, but places him firmly in the counterdraft catagory. Cool unit overall, and pretty creative use of the leap attack. Just remember that Special Leaping Attacks ignore Gravity Well, like Kursus’s attack (special attacks are never modified).

Yeah, I can see Steel Ultimatus falling into the counterdraft role. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to toy around with gravity after reading the backstory behind his strange piston legs. He does have some potential synergy with preventing flyers or the monks from going over screens, but I doubt that he'd revolutionize the meta or anything.

I also completely forgot about Kursus' Special Attack, but I'm not sure about how to properly block it without getting too wordy or also limiting his own leaping attack. I mostly used the Glyph of Rannveig as an inspiration, blocking Flying/Stealth Flying and throwing in Leap in a similar fashion, but units like Kursus and the Wolves of Badru may have to slip past him, unless I figure something else out.

Black Harts:
Hey, it’s a bunch of Valguards! Neat way to make a momentum based squad, but this squad will probably have a sweet spot where they’ll be the most effective and will then be dead weight against ranged beyond that. Not an issue if your group isn’t the most competitive, however. With armor like that though, I’m shocked you only gave them 2 defense. I guess you can reason that sports equipment isn’t quite as useful as platemail.

Cool stuff Astroking! I’ll try to poke in and out from time to time. Keep it up!

My group actually wanted me to up their defense to 3, but I'm still not completely sold on it yet. These guys can be pretty devastating, albeit it does require ganging them up on a target and they're extremely fragile. I wanted them to feel pretty different from other melee armies like the Knights or the Cathars, so I felt that putting more of an emphasis on speed than defense was the way to go (along with pricing them slightly cheaper than the more common melee common options).

These guys are another group that I'd like to get through SoV at some point, so I was reluctant to make them too powerful and then have to cut back later (unlike what I'm doing with Captain Konah ). Since they've been pretty public at aiming for the B range in Power Rankings, I didn't want these guys to be too powerful.

Thank you for the detailed feedback; it's helped get the gears turning for how to better balance these guys, and I'll keep it in mind as I free up more time for playtesting!