@Phalgast

Hehe, I've read your post and yeah, it's really similar to how I feel about Uthuk. Reasoning behind me trying to push the archers, I guess, is that I just consider Daqan and Uthuk archers both unplayable, Daqan a bit less so, but still. I can hardly imagine taking an archer unit over a blood harvester from Uthuk side or just about anything from Daqan. So I think for archers to become an attractive unit they should not just be playable, but a bit overpowered. These 2 attack dice they've got will see to them not going over the top.

On the Grotesque vs Golems topic - I knew it was most likely a losing proposition, but there was absolutely 0 stuff for grotesques to do because of the way my opponent deployed his troops, so I thought "Well, you are both elite, so go at least do something".

I also think I'll try another strategy in balancing units - I will try to push useless units over the top and then nerf them, because I have no idea where that top actually is and taking small steps looking for it would just take too much time and effort, I think. Imagine yourself looking at Viper Legion and thinking "I'm picking it for sure". Why would you think so? I don't think poison making unit wounded would coax me into picking them, as harvesters make units wounded quite efficiently.

I would pick Vipers if, say, they had 3 attack dice. And, actually, why wouldn't they? For the same cost as harvesters at 3 attack dice they are still worse than harvesters and their abilities are weaker. At the moment if I see a Viper unit in the field - I (as a Daqan player) couldn't care less. I'd be happy if my opponent spends his activation on these 2 worthless dice, even more so if he tries to use a Lore card to buff this attack. He may do some damage, but he will lose the war of resources in the long run. Besides, no Uthuk units other than Rippers and the Bug can compliment Vipers' 4 attack range, so even if they damage somebody I don't expect there would be much immediate follow-up.

Vipers with 3 attack dice, on the other hand, look quite a bit more attractive. This is something you could try to build a strategy around and not feel embarrassed when activation of your 3 ranged units nets you 1 damage, 1 poison and couple retreats. I'd be reluctant to give Daqan archers 3 attack dice, as their ability could easily make it OP, but for Vipers I think this is a fine testing point.

Once archers have 3 dice, doesn't that invalidate Casters somewhat? Why pay 5 for range 1-3 with 3 dice when I could pay 4 for range 1-4 and 3 dice? Are the abilities of Casters one gold better than the Archers if they both have 3 dice? I would think the +1 range on archers would be about even with the better abilities on the Casters.

Once archers have 3 dice, doesn't that invalidate Casters somewhat? Why pay 5 for range 1-3 with 3 dice when I could pay 4 for range 1-4 and 3 dice? Are the abilities of Casters one gold better than the Archers if they both have 3 dice? I would think the +1 range on archers would be about even with the better abilities on the Casters.

I agree. The range of 4 is not negable. There are some differences in the fractions:

- As said various times, Viper Legion is imo almost not playable and way sub-par to the other archers and the (themselve sub-par) blood sisters

- Undead archers are quite good as a tec-unit that might blight an enemy threat, but they compete with the extremly powerfull ability (imo OP) of the Necromancers...

- Yeoman archers throw 4 dice and with Support of Riverwatch, Cristal field or lore cards even more. I think they are on par with the (very powerful themselves) battlemages. Yeoman Archers have some more benefits then any other archer unit:

- They profite two times from bonus dices (and Daqan has several ways to get them)

- They have a strong use of "Darken the skies", which would be a dead command-card instead

- If you play three Yeoman archers and you may play the lore-card "Attack", you generally insta-win the game

I've done more thinking and analysis on the viper legion. I think my initial suggestion that the poison condition make the unit count as damaged was insufficient. The big weakness of the poison condition is that on average you have to throw 6 more dice at the enemy unit for it to do anything. Even when it activates, it is at the cost of a lore. Blight, however, has more immediate and important effects that benefit you and make your opponent more likely to dispel it.

I would propose that we test making poison also deal 1 damage to an undamaged unit. It would still have synergy with the faction, but might actually make me want to pick them. Obviously, this could be OP, but this unit is just so far behind I think it's worth testing.

Once archers have 3 dice, doesn't that invalidate Casters somewhat? Why pay 5 for range 1-3 with 3 dice when I could pay 4 for range 1-4 and 3 dice? Are the abilities of Casters one gold better than the Archers if they both have 3 dice? I would think the +1 range on archers would be about even with the better abilities on the Casters.

Yeah, I could see that being a problem, however I am only going to try it for Viper Legion, not for the Archers in general. This would probably make them more preferable than Blood Sisters, but this is still something I will have to test and see for myself.

@Phalgast

" - If you play three Yeoman archers and you may play the lore-card "Attack", you generally insta-win the game"

P.S. We could make poison require to spend 1 lore when you activate a poisoned unit - fits thematically! Just a quick thought.

Interesting idea, although at that point, I don't know who wouldn't just pay the extra lore to remove the condition completely. Or would that be in addition to the 2 lore to remove the poison condition? That could be a nice addition, actually.

@oddus:

I've had this done to me and it's so untrue =) the guy activated 3 units of yeoman archers with this tactic card that gives them extra attack. This is 6 attacks from each archer. I think damage-wise the end result was 3 damage spread across my Units.

Which game did you Play? Attack generates auto-hits, 3 damage is impossible (if he didn't completely missplay it without having Targets). You get 6 auto-damage and 6 auto-retrat and you roll 12 attack dices. With Bonus attack you get 9 auto-damage and 9 auto-retreat and 18 attack dices... if this does not finish the game, I don't know what else should win the game!

@oddus:

I've had this done to me and it's so untrue =) the guy activated 3 units of yeoman archers with this tactic card that gives them extra attack. This is 6 attacks from each archer. I think damage-wise the end result was 3 damage spread across my Units.

Which game did you Play? Attack generates auto-hits, 3 damage is impossible (if he didn't completely missplay it without having Targets). You get 6 auto-damage and 6 auto-retrat and you roll 12 attack dices. With Bonus attack you get 9 auto-damage and 9 auto-retreat and 18 attack dices... if this does not finish the game, I don't know what else should win the game!

lol, I was thinking about the Archer-special tactics cards, "Cover the Skies" or something (I have Russian version, so I don't remember all the exact English names), you are probably mentioning Daqan's lore card "Assault", which is usually good at finishing game with whatever units, but yeah, double-shot from archers I could see been especially devastating, the thing is - it's just so easy to hide from archers behind woods/hills/other units that I can't imagine situation where you could get full value from Yeomans+Assault and you're not winning already.

I've got the german Version, yes I was thinking about "Assault", you on "Darken the skies" )

Yes Assault is a strong Card in every case. But you get so much superior value with archers. In the lategame most units are on the core-places, I almost never having a lack of Targets for them. It's imo a reason for itself to play archers with Daqan (in most cases I activate also at least 1 melee-unit to okupy a VP, but that depends the board). And as I said, they have also stand-alone 4 dices with double-shot and are a good alternative to battlemages imo.

In order for Assault to finish the game, though, each of the targets would need to be pinned (i.e. unable to retreat). Otherwise, the first attack could push them out of range for the rest of the attacks because of the guaranteed retreat. I can imagine shooting into a building, forcing a retreat, and then being unable to attack that target again because line of sight is now blocked.

In order for Assault to finish the game, though, each of the targets would need to be pinned (i.e. unable to retreat). Otherwise, the first attack could push them out of range for the rest of the attacks because of the guaranteed retreat. I can imagine shooting into a building, forcing a retreat, and then being unable to attack that target again because line of sight is now blocked.

I really never had a problem to get targets for my archers... every target that isn't yet on a forest/building will be target for at least 2 shots, and I wonder how your lategames are looking if all important units are covered ^^ I was every time happy when I had archers playing Assault... Generally they will kill the enemy legend and/or 1 or two of your enemies central units in my experience. Mostly insta "good game"

but seems we had different experiences (as told I play archers in probably 50 % of my Daqan games)

In order for Assault to finish the game, though, each of the targets would need to be pinned (i.e. unable to retreat). Otherwise, the first attack could push them out of range for the rest of the attacks because of the guaranteed retreat. I can imagine shooting into a building, forcing a retreat, and then being unable to attack that target again because line of sight is now blocked.

I really never had a problem to get targets for my archers... every target that isn't yet on a forest/building will be target for at least 2 shots, and I wonder how your lategames are looking if all important units are covered ^^ I was every time happy when I had archers playing Assault... Generally they will kill the enemy legend and/or 1 or two of your enemies central units in my experience. Mostly insta "good game"

but seems we had different experiences (as told I play archers in probably 50 % of my Daqan games)

You must be more aggressive with your archers. I usually keep them back so they are range 3-4 of enemies. So my own units can sometimes block line of sight, and even if they don't, the retreat is likely to push the target out of range for the next attack. But then, I can't recall the last time I played the Assault lore card. Maybe it would have worked better than I'm imagining.

seems so. I always advance or doubleshot. If possible, I put the archers in a forest in front of them T1 or 2. Nobody likes to use an attack for just some archers in a wood. So they often stand there a hole game without being attacked... and generally they have quite lot of targets (and if the enemy attacks them... I don't want anything else then he attacks my archers in a forest. They are well protected there and if I lose them... doesn't really matter - I'm glad he did not attack my VP or something else...

That's weird, I am yet to play a game where I cared about opponent's archers. I just go about my business of grabbing VP or killing more relevant units, if he wants to sit in the woods with archers - I'm 100% ok with that, I'll just put my Blood Harvesters on that VP and he better roll some retreats or something on those dice. Or I can also wait. Scenarios usually award points for some other things, than VP hexes, so I'll just wait until these archers get out of the wood or a friend of theirs comes along.

That's weird, I am yet to play a game where I cared about opponent's archers. I just go about my business of grabbing VP or killing more relevant units, if he wants to sit in the woods with archers - I'm 100% ok with that, I'll just put my Blood Harvesters on that VP and he better roll some retreats or something on those dice. Or I can also wait. Scenarios usually award points for some other things, than VP hexes, so I'll just wait until these archers get out of the wood or a friend of theirs comes along.

I do not only move archers on the first turns First priority for sure are VP. But when they are out of reach it isn't the worst idea to move an archer to a forest and have them on a very well place for the rest of the game. For me, range is very often used to get a use for command cards that do not fit well to my units...

For Grotesques and Viper Legion I have been playing around with these changes:

Viper Legion

Poison: in addition to Lore results being possible to be committed as damage by the attacking unit on a poisoned unit, poisoned units themselves must commit Lore results as wounds on themselves.

Grotesques

Bleeding: Bleeding units have -1 attack dice after all other modifiers and in addition whenever a bleeding unit performs an attack it takes 1 wound on itself.

This will make the special ability of Grotesques somewhat on par with Golems' stun (which is amazing) and gives Uthuk a reliable lore denial ability which is also very dangerous if not removed for the Vipers. Either way it'll cause the opponent to be reluctant to activate these units (units affected by bleeding or poison) and will give Grotesques and Vipers more of a control role on the battlefield.

edit: Another way to make Bleeding more effective would be just to give it a similar effect to Blighted condition which makes the affected unit weak. -1 dice + weakness is already quite a good deal although it does nothing on archers and may even make them more effective (desperate ploy command card). Then again, they'd still be rolling just 1 dice albeit with 2 faces doing damage in the case of desperate ploy.

So final unit cards would be:

Viper Legion
Movement 2, Power 2, Health 3
Viper's Bite
Heroic: Poison the target unit. Poisoned units must commit Lore results as damage on themselves during combat rolls and units attacking poisoned units may commit Lore results as damage. When a player orders a poisoned unit, he may spend 2 lore to remove the poison marker from that unit's hex.

Grotesques
Movement 2, Power 3, Health 3
Lacerate
Heroic: Bleed the target unit. Bleeding units roll 1 fewer die during combat rolls. When a bleeding unit performs an attack, it takes 1 damage. When a player orders a bleeding unit, he may spend 2 lore to remove the bleed marker from that unit's hex.

Bone Blast
The same as before. It gets buffed by the fact that 2 faces can deal damage to targets now, albeit opponent may stop the damage from happening by not ordering them (good for you) or using lore (good for you).

Example:
Grotesques walk in and attack a Golem unit.
They roll 1 wound and a heroic causing bleeding on the golems.
Golems decide to counterattack.
Golems suffer one wound and become weak before the attack roll which is also done with -1 die.

Okay, this isn't entirely related to the Uthuk, but several times the unfairness of the Rune Golem's stun ability as compared to the other ones was mentioned.

What if, to make it maybe a little fairer compared to other effects, the stun effect was only around for a full round? So, unlike other effects, where you have to pay to get rid of it, the effect just disappeared after a round?

I agree with the changes for Viper Legion units, and the addition of one lore as the result of the Blood Sisters' Blood Magic, and I do like the more mobile aspect of the Grotesques.

Regarding the Blood Sisters though, what would be broken about them if their healing ability extended to anyone directly adjacent to them?

On another note, I've looked at the stats for the Doombringer and I agree that he is currently way too overpriced. As far as its design though, it's supposed to be a infantry and cavalry buster unit. In order to tune him to what you would want for an 8 Muster Point Unit, should he:

-get 1 LP

-1 more attack dice

-some ability that would either let him take less damage (-1 die if attacker is infantry or cavalry) I think this would also build upon possible modifier synergies with bleeding, for example.

-get one more attack dice only against infantry or cavalry

-gain an ability to gain 1 LP upon eliminating an infantry or cavalry unit?

Feedback or thoughts on this would be appreciated.

On 2/20/2017 at 5:17 PM, Docteur Dewm said:

Regarding the Blood Sisters though, what would be broken about them if their healing ability extended to anyone directly adjacent to them?

I think it's worth a try. Comparing the Greyhaven Battlemage to the Blood Sister, it seems like that change could work instead of gaining a lore on Blood Magic. The Battlemage's Rune Shield can shield friendly units on a heroic result. The Syphon ability requires a heroic result and for the target to already be damaged. That makes it seem like Rune Shield is still better. However, when the Syphon ability does trigger, it's an automatic increase in health (if you've taken damage). Meanwhile Rune Shield's token is removed after an attack whether the target ignored a damage or not. I think extending Syphon out to any friendly unit within 1 hex of the Blood Sister is a pretty insightful idea.

On 2/20/2017 at 5:17 PM, Docteur Dewm said:

On another note, I've looked at the stats for the Doombringer and I agree that he is currently way too overpriced. As far as its design though, it's supposed to be a infantry and cavalry buster unit. In order to tune him to what you would want for an 8 Muster Point Unit, should he:

-get 1 LP

-1 more attack dice

-some ability that would either let him take less damage (-1 die if attacker is infantry or cavalry) I think this would also build upon possible modifier synergies with bleeding, for example.

-get one more attack dice only against infantry or cavalry

-gain an ability to gain 1 LP upon eliminating an infantry or cavalry unit?

I think the Doombringer's major role is disruption. He disrupts in 3 ways:

1. He is effective at whittling down infantry and cavalry units, making them weak or destroying them outright.
2. Immobilize prevents enemy troop movement, forcing opponents to deal with him before they can get back to taking VP hexes. This makes him a sort of "taunt" piece that changes where the opponent will attack.
3. He bypasses units and terrain that are arranged to block your units from crossing. For example, an opponent may heavily guard the end of a river since that is the only place your units can pass, but the Doombringer can sneak in behind them, forcing your units to split up to guard multiple points.

So in what way does he fail in his ability as a disruption piece? I have two problems:

1. He dies too quickly. The Roc and Barrow Wyrm have flying, the Chaos Lord has Immovable 1, and the Siege Golem stays at range anyway, but the Doombringer doesn't really have any defensive bonus even though he is meant to get adjacent to units and halt their movement.
2. Too many times I have attacked with a Doombringer only to get countered and forced to retreat, lessening the effect of Immobilize.

I would really like to see Immovable so that when Immobilized units attack him, he is more likely to counter, but that ability doesn't really fit the Doombringer and I think that ability is already too common. Instead, I would like to see this simple change: " Devour: If the target unit is infantry or cavalry, cause 1 damage and recover 1 health." This rewards the Doombringer for doing what he wants to do while giving him a little more staying power.

But does it need a change?
Having said all this, I really don't feel the Doombringer is too far below the curve. I haven't yet had a chance to try this theory, but I think the Doombringer is a late-game piece. It's easy to get overzealous and hungry for infantry and cavalry in the beginning of the game when those units are everywhere, but I think charging in is tactically unsound because of the Doombringer's fragile nature. Instead, you want to hold the Doombringer back while your other units fight on the front lines. As units start being removed from the board, the enemy has less ability to coordinate a counter-strike against a Doombringer, making it safer to bring in. Its speed and Burrow ability means that it won't take long for it to get up to the front lines to help the rest of your army and its Immobilize ability will be far more potent when your opponent has fewer possible units to activate. I think that I need to try this tactic more before committing to changing the Doombringer.

I've only used the Doombringer on a handful of occasions, but he has always performed quite well for me. In theory, I do think he's a little on the weak side.

Comparing to the Roc Warrior we get this:

• Damage: Roc > Doombringer. They are equal against cav and inf, but roc is far better against other types
• Durability: Roc ~= Doombringer. It's situational, but the defensive component of Flying can be thought of as roughly equal to 1 hp. Again, totally situational.
• Mobility: Roc > Doombringer. No real question there.
• Utility: Roc < Doombringer. This is just because of immobilize and Roc doesn't really have a utility ability. I'm not really sure how much Immobilize is worth though as I never seem to be able to make it matter.

When analyzed in this fashion, it seems that Doombringer is underpowered. However, my doombringer has pulled its weight when I have used it, but I tend to get very lucky with him, so that's probably not usually the case.

If I were to buff him (and I'm not sure I would), I would buff his survivability. I would go with something thematic that allows him to get in and tie up enemy units using immobilize without dying so quickly. Some like:

• Spiked Carapace - This unit ignores the first (single sword aka cleave) rolled against it in melee combat. If this effect occurs, deal 1 damage to the attacking unit.

That's probably too good, but I love the idea of something along those lines. It would basically be a weaker passive bone spurs.

14 minutes ago, Willange said:

• Spiked Carapace - This unit ignores the first (single sword aka cleave) rolled against it in melee combat. If this effect occurs, deal 1 damage to the attacking unit.

That's probably too good, but I love the idea of something along those lines. It would basically be a weaker passive bone spurs.

Love it! Thematically, I was envisioning the same scenario but couldn't put it into words so I went with eating things (also highly thematic). I agree that it's overpowered, especially combined with Immobilize, but it's still really cool.

I suppose you could also just go with "armored carapace" and have it do the same thing without dealing any damage. Or alternatively have it only deal damage without preventing any and then you would keep the name

I realize this is an old thread, but I'm starting to get into the game (and it is still making "Good Game" lists of people) so I thought I'd add a little bit. I wrote a little paragraph about changing the Bleed mechanic on BGG so here it is:

"Instead of changing the Blood Sisters or the Grotesque, I think it would be better to change the bleed mechanic they both utilize. Instead of the bleeding unit rolling 1 fewer die (which seems a bit defensive for the Uthuk to me), the unit takes 1 damage if it both moves and attacks during a turn.

I think it fits thematically, if you move to much you lose more blood and its a more aggressive effect than one that promotes living, and can actually be useful on both BS and GR. For the BS, you can bleed your own Blood Harvester unit in order to power up your attack that very turn, as well as damaging an enemy. From the GR side its a little bit less of a straightforward effect, but it means that if they are able to bleed and cause a melee enemy to retreat, they can then attack that enemy again through Bone Blast, as well as forcing them to take damage or spend lore if that melee unit wants to reengage.

Unfortunately it synergizes a bit poorly with the Doom Bringer, but I think that serves to keep it from being to overpowered."

With regards to some of the other comments on here:

Doom Bringer- I think its a little easy to over-tune this guy. He's a lot more disruption as opposed to direct damage, so I'd propose the following changes. Non-legend units adjacent to the Doom Bringer may not Move during your opponent's move phase, or advance; and for Burrow, the Doom Bringer ignores retreats if he did not move the past turn.

These allow the Doom Bringer to not only tie up enemy units, but also to hover around a VP space preventing enemies that kill a capturing unit to move in and take it. And in ignoring retreats basically past the first turn he moves in, it forces the opponent to shoo him away immediately (bug thematic :D), or have to deal with not being able to move where they'd like. The eating abilities are already taken by the Obscene and Barrow Wyrm in my opinion.

Viper Legion- For the VL's, I think simply giving them a lore in addition to triggering poison is sufficient. When a unit is poisoned its equivalent to having a Riverwatch next to them permanently, so its not bad at all.

Archers- I think archers (at least in the first dozen or so comments) were a bit undervalued. While they do have a lower chance to hit and roll less dice, the are extremely safe at 4 range each and don't get counter attacked. Get them in a forest and you have an instant strong point. Because of their low dice count they are rather supporty, but their effects are excellent (Blight is a pain in the neck and Poison is above). The Daqan archers are of course the odd ones out in that they have no support capability, but in rolling two separate attacks they benefit HUGELY from Riverwatch and Assault getting double the benefit from each.

18 hours ago, Telethia said:

"Instead of changing the Blood Sisters or the Grotesque, I think it would be better to change the bleed mechanic they both utilize. Instead of the bleeding unit rolling 1 fewer die (which seems a bit defensive for the Uthuk to me), the unit takes 1 damage if it both moves and attacks during a turn.

I think it fits thematically, if you move to much you lose more blood and its a more aggressive effect than one that promotes living, and can actually be useful on both BS and GR. For the BS, you can bleed your own Blood Harvester unit in order to power up your attack that very turn, as well as damaging an enemy. From the GR side its a little bit less of a straightforward effect, but it means that if they are able to bleed and cause a melee enemy to retreat, they can then attack that enemy again through Bone Blast, as well as forcing them to take damage or spend lore if that melee unit wants to reengage.

Unfortunately it synergizes a bit poorly with the Doom Bringer, but I think that serves to keep it from being to overpowered."

This is brilliant! I don't know how I missed this on BGG. There is so much synergy here! And I agree that it really accentuates the offensive nature of the Uthuk.

For the Blood Sister, if she bleeds a Viper Legion, he doesn't really want to move anyway, so it's not such a big deal. If she bleeds a Berserker, the Berserker can move, then choose to attack. The question is when the damage is applied. Is it after you commit to the attack or after it is resolved? If it is when the attack is committed, this is great because, like you said, the Berserker suffers 1 damage, increasing its attack. To clarify this interaction, here is how I would word your bleeding condition:

"A bleeding unit may not attack and move (including advancing) in the same round. If a unit has already moved or attacked, it may choose to suffer 1 damage to remove this restriction for the remainder of the round."

An alternate reading is,

"A bleeding unit may not attack and move (including advancing) in the same round. At the start of that unit's activation, it may suffer 1 damage to remove this restriction for the remainder of the round."

I think the first one is better, but a little more clunky. I like it because it's not quite as punishing for the bleeding unit and allows the Berserker to get a benefit from bleeding. The second one is still good for Berserkers, but I don't like how it can screw the opponent over. Case 1: You choose to activate a Citadel Guard. With only 2 dice, you think its chances of causing a retreat on the target unit (on a VP banner) is unlikely, so you choose not to suffer the damage. Miraculously, you get that morale result, but since you didn't suffer a damage earlier, you can't take the flag. Case 2: You suffer a damage in hopes of pushing an enemy off a VP banner. You don't get the morale result, so you suffered the damage for no reason, and now the counter is even more likely to take you out. So even though the first version is not as elegant as the second one as far as clarity, it feels like it works better as a game mechanic.

The best part about your idea is that I never really liked Bleeding as a mechanic anyway, so I wouldn't miss the -1 die at all.

Hey Budgernaut, glad you liked the mechanic change! I had actually just posted it on BGG before posting it here as I had been reading both forums at about the same time.

With regards to the exact workings of the rule, I would have the unit take the damage immediately upon announcing the attack or advance. This lets a Berserker get the damage boost right before attacking (but without taking it unnecessarily that turn if the enemy he would attack if forced to retreat, for example), but doesn't force it to be a premeditated choice for the opposing player. I'll try to put it into "official" wording:

"When the controller of a Bleeding unit declares an attack with that unit, deal one damage to that unit if it has previously moved this turn. When the controller of a Bleeding unit declares an advance or uses the Mobility 2 ability, deal one damage to that unit. A Bleeding unit can only take one damage in this way per turn.

I'm not entirely sure that this change fixes the Grotesque (which is sad because they have the coolest model ever), but it certainly helps them if they're able to get a retreat and Bleed their target. Additionally, it allows Grotesque to be adequate Bleed fodder for Blood Sisters since they can use Bone Blast instead of advancing; I would like to prevent Bleeds from activating on double attacks just to make sure YA's aren't hard countered by this.