Looking at the new Lion Standard Bearer (Steadfast: Fear) alongside the Reanimate ability to try and understand how valuable Steadfast really is, especially since the cost of the Lion Standard is pretty big for an upgrade, Reanimates are still pretty cheap considering they have Steadfast: Doubt built in, and for the fact that the Reanimate ability hasn't come up for me in a game yet.

I started with a table of distribution for all of the Morale keywords and their cost:

The first thing I notice off the bat is that the Lion Standard works 2/5 of the time, while the Reanimate ability works 1/5 of the time. Just by that comparison, the Lion Standard looks twice as good.

But the second thing I noticed was that the likelihood of drawing a 2 or 3 point Doubt Card was much greater, so then maybe there is a valuable trade off there?

I took a look at what's in the actual cards, and ignoring cost for a moment, and I think that Steadfast: Fear still holds the edge. For 1 cost, you get Frozen in Dread, which gives the unit an immobilize token. This could be disastrous at the wrong time, so avoiding that is extremely valuable. For 2 cost, you can get what I think is one of the most disastrous cards in the game: Uncertainty. Uncertainty lets your opponent perform a reform action on your unit which can, in my experience, seal the fate of the unit in question. Uncertainty is only outdone of course by the Fear 3 cost, which is Flee in Terror. This is reform and a speed 2 march. The potential of this card is extreme. Definitely want to avoid this.

By contrast, the doubt cards are a little more tame. The 2 cost card removes a tray from the backmost rank. Devastating against expensive 2x1 units like archers, but not such a big deal vs. bigger blocks of reanimates... especially if Ankaur Maro is around. The three cost card is "Betrayal" which causes the unit to attack itself. Now this one is not that big a deal for archers, especially if they're down to just a tray. On the other hand, it's crazy bad for a 3 or 4 front block of reanimates, especially if Ardus is riding along. So really, it feels like Steadfast: Doubt is pretty good if you have that large unit of reanimates, but only 1 in 10 morale draws.

One other thing I'm thinking about is how much panic each army is likely to encounter. Because reanimates and archers can use a modifier to cause panic, they have good synergy with Terrifying Heraldry, meaning that Daqan can expect to get a lot of spare panic dumped on them. Oathsworn do have Impact 1 for additional panic, but that's only going to go off once or twice a game. So it seems like Daqan are going to be taking more Morale tests against higher cost cards than Waiqar, which makes the value of defending against morale that much more valuable.

The last value piece I can think of is that the Lion Banner takes up a valuable Heraldry slot while the reanimate ability is free. It does have 3 armor, so it adds some toughness to the unit, but is it enough once you compare it to the other good options out there: The Raven and Eagle banners, or the heraldic surcoats?

My conclusion is that the Lion Banner is definitely more valuable than the Reanimate ability. But is it worth 5 points and a heraldry slot? I'm not sure I can make that argument just yet.

If they have 2-4 panic, increasing each fear by 1 can half the number of cards they can play off of it.

Wow, thanks for including so much analysis! These numbers back up the feeling I had - 2's and 3's suck for everything, but Doubt has no 1's. In my experience, really bad morale results come as a result of big draws - 3 or more - which mostly come after a Rising Panic result. Turning that one especially into a 2-cost should help prevent the snowball effect that ends up with your large units being punished.

Ultimately in my mind one of the greatest strengths of a unit of Spearmen is how tanky they can be, ASIDE from morale, so an upgrade to mitigate that weakness might be better than it first appears!

Seeing that it affects 8of 15 one cost cards means that it's great for a unit you plan to panic a lot with friendly shooting.

As a total newbie (first post!), while we are on the topic of morale tests, any chance you could give me the lowdown on Confusion?

Hey sorry, I haven't had a chance to get back and look at the deck, and I won't for a couple of days. I'll write up confusion when I get a chance.

Thanks - as it happens I have just bought the game so have the deck myself now.

On 5/18/2017 at 6:42 PM, Radix2309 said:

If they have 2-4 panic, increasing each fear by 1 can half the number of cards they can play off of it.

No matter how many panic tokens or icons rolled and spent, you can only ever play a single morale card in any given test. You still draw one card for each icon.

I see Steadfast (Fear) being rather good since theres so many dang 1cost cards and its really easy to get a bunch of 1 severity tests on a unit. For instance, shooting into a combat causes your units to take a Sev1 test, if they have Steadfast (Fear) that DRASTICALLY reduces the odds of it affecting them at all, letting you fire away practically for free.

The other two i dont really hold any value in for Steadfast. I've played around a couple dozen games and Steadfast (Doubt) has popped up ONCE since i always cant afford it to begin with, i preferred the Fear/Confusion card i had in my hand, or the situation rendered it moot. Ardus' Steadfast (Fear) though has prevented a ton of cards being given to him

Rarely a devastating effect. But it's just OK. Doesn't seem to be too expensive.

On May 30, 2017 at 6:33 PM, Vineheart01 said:

For instance, shooting into a combat causes your units to take a Sev1 test, if they have Steadfast (Fear) that DRASTICALLY reduces the odds of it affecting them at all, letting you fire away practically for free.

I agree with your point... In the 7 games I've played so far, Steadfast: Doubt hasn't come up once.

Off topic, I may be misunderstanding what you're saying in the quote above, but that's not how panic tokens work. When you receive a panic token, it stays on the unit until an opponent chooses to spend it during the resolve morale step of an attack. Even then, you're required to spend panic icons rolled on the dice, but not panic tokens. So one could save them up for a more expensive option, and more options on a test.

4 minutes ago, Elliphino said:

I agree with your point... In the 7 games I've played so far, Steadfast: Doubt hasn't come up once.

Off topic, I may be misunderstanding what you're saying in the quote above, but that's not how panic tokens work. When you receive a panic token, it stays on the unit until an opponent chooses to spend it during the resolve morale step of an attack. Even then, you're required to spend panic icons rolled on the dice, but not panic tokens. So one could save them up for a more expensive option, and more options on a test.

Shooting into combat does not give them a panic token, its an immediate Sev1 test. For YOUR units in the combat anyway, panic boons arent even involved in this. In fact, far as i can tell nothing says panic tokens can even be spent for that test to increase the severity (could be wrong on that since these rules like to be spread out)

I believe if your unit has panic tokens when you shoot, you suffer the severity 1 morale test and panic tokens can be spent to increase the severity. There was a topic on this in the rules section. I recall seeing it.

31 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

I believe if your unit has panic tokens when you shoot, you suffer the severity 1 morale test and panic tokens can be spent to increase the severity. There was a topic on this in the rules section. I recall seeing it.

Correct. You have to look at the "Panic" explanation under "Banes" in the rules reference. It states that panic tokens can be spent on any morale test to increase its severity. The "severity 1" just means you do a minimum of severity 1.

Figured i was wrong about that since it felt weird but like i said the rules like to be spread out a bit.

Still, the root of my original post was referring to getting a Sev1 test when your allies shoot at a unit youre engaged with. Unless you have panic tokens, its going to be a sev1 test. Half of the Sev1 tests are Fear, so having Steadfast (Fear) is pretty potent there. And personally i find the Sev1 card that gives you 2 panic tokens to be the main way people tend to stack panics, since the other methods are specific upgrades, impact (which happens once), or bad planning (failed charges, bumps w/o a charge).

Ive seen Ardus with a Panic stack once because he usually ignores that Sev1 card that gives him 2 panics. Steadfast (Fear) is awesome.

I concur, Waqiar do not "fear" sev 1 morale tests.