44 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

My gut feeling is that they were afraid that if Ravos kept hurting himself, he wouldn't be worth taking. Hence we have Insatiable Hunger, Viscera Goblet, and his insanely low 40 point cost.

I think that allowing him to hit friendly units (in an HP heavy faction) would have been enough.

46 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Unfortunately, this doesn't make for balanced game play in a miniatures game.

No minis game is balanced or stays balanced for long. That said, my answer to Ravos is Death Knights. They have the hit-point soak to stay in his face and the damage output. Plus, at least for me, they’re a staple in my Waiqar, so I’m not having to build in preparation for Ravos.

1 minute ago, Hawkman2000 said:

They have the hit-point soak to stay in his face and the damage output.

He can kill 2 death knights per round w/o being engaged with them.

5 minutes ago, flightmaster101 said:

He can kill 2 death knights per round w/o being engaged with them.

Through Fear Incarnate? That’s situational. Death Knights can engage him. Def2/HP7 isn’t that tricky.

I’m just going to insert right now (again) that issue stems from Insatiable Hunger. Not Ravos. Try Running Ravos without it and you have a powerful but somewhat clumsy melee hero

38 minutes ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Through Fear Incarnate? That’s situational. Death Knights can engage him. Def2/HP7 isn’t that tricky.

Through his unique surge to cause a wound to a enemy unit at range 1, and his end of round ability to cause a wound to a unit at range 1, neither of which require Ravos to be engaged. With only 2 wounds per tray, and their Mortal Strike modifier, Death Knights don't strike me as the answer to Uthuk Y'llan. Now, a 12-tray unit of regenerating Reanimates, that has the potential to hold them up for a long time. I think. It is as of yet untested.

Don’t get me wrong @flightmaster101 Ravos makes me really mad a lot of games, and I only recently broke a ten game losing streak against uthuk. Prior to that I’ve been crying bloody murder about balance. There’s a lot of elements to the uthuk that just seem unfair at first, but there are ways to beat them. However, to do so I had to heavily tech my Latari specifically to fight uthuk, so it’s still questionable. I’m trying to withhold my judgement until the new(old new) units release.

if it turns out uthuk still dominate, I’d either say increase Ravos points, remove one hp, make insatiable hunger exhaust, or reduce his surge to a damage instead of wound.

50 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Through his unique surge to cause a wound to a enemy unit at range 1, and his end of round ability to cause a wound to a unit at range 1, neither of which require Ravos to be engaged. With only 2 wounds per tray, and their Mortal Strike modifier, Death Knights don't strike me as the answer to Uthuk Y'llan. Now, a 12-tray unit of regenerating Reanimates, that has the potential to hold them up for a long time. I think. It is as of yet untested.

Right, but board control still helps you to bypass that. Range 1 doesn’t matter when you move like cavalry. DK are getting off a charge hit on Ravos first. Throw in MoI on the DK and that’s a lot of damage off the first charge.

@Church14 Insatiable Hunger lets Ravos move 1 or 2 speed turn before the end phase. His unblockable wounds are his passive ability. That is the issue. He doesn't mortal, so dks cant block it. It turns all armor to $#!+ and he doesn't even have to engage. After that he is brutal and precise. This is totally a Ravos issue. Pretending his issue is only with a 3 point card that lets him move ignores that he is massively under-costed for all the damage he throws out and the mere fact that you cant even get near him. He is broken. Plain and simple.

4 hours ago, Jukey said:

however, to do so I had to heavily tech my Latari specifically to fight uthuk, so it’s still questionable. I’m trying to withhold my judgement until the new(old new) units release.

This is a sign of a broken game. You have to army build to beat one faction? Meanwhile there are lists that can take on all comers from all 3 other factions, just not somebody's favorite faction.

4 hours ago, Jukey said:

if it turns out uthuk still dominate, I’d either say increase Ravos points, remove one hp, make insatiable hunger exhaust, or reduce his surge to a damage instead of wound.

I would say change his passive ability to take a wound to do a wound. Or increase his points to something fair.

5 hours ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Through Fear Incarnate?

Nope through his passive ability and his unique surge.

Somebody throw one of these great battles where Ravos goes down so easy on YouTube. Seriously I want empirical evidence that he's so easy to deal with, because through all the experimentation we've done trying to figure out how to break the Uthuk code we have seen average players best players very much better than them buy just running over and being there.

1 hour ago, flightmaster101 said:

@Church14 Insatiable Hunger lets Ravos move 1 or 2 speed turn before the end phase. His unblockable wounds are his passive ability. That is the issue. He doesn't mortal, so dks cant block it. It turns all armor to $#!+ and he doesn't even have to engage. After that he is brutal and precise. This is totally a Ravos issue. Pretending his issue is only with a 3 point card that lets him move ignores that he is massively under-costed for all the damage he throws out and the mere fact that you cant even get near him. He is broken. Plain and simple.

Let’s unpack all of that.

His auto-wound is a liability if you can’t get into range 1 of an enemy. With Insatiable Hunger, I can keep him in range of an enemy unit probably 7 of 8 rounds. Without it, I’m looking at maybe 4 or 5 rounds where Ravos is in range of enemies. This is why I point at Insatiable Hunger as the real issue people have a problem with.

Again on Insatiable Hunger, Ravos keeps doing damage because he is nearly always meleeing or charging. That doesn’t happen without Insatiable Hunger.

Again, I pointed out earlier that with a bit of planning, Maegan actually puts out more damage. So it feels like it is more of a perception issue to me. People really don’t like watching a solo figure (usually 43-50 points) wiping out 2-4 tray units (that usually cost less than that) and then moving on. It isn’t about excessive damage as much as unusual concentration of force.

As as for the complaint that he turns armor to garbage: He and Kethra had **** well better be good at smashing armored targets because the rest of the entire faction is terrible at dealing with armor. Literally no other mortal strike causing mechanic outside of heroes. Every other faction has at least one non-unique unit/card to bust armor. Without Ravos, I’m worried about facing a couple of solo lancers.

9 minutes ago, Church14 said:

His auto-wound is a liability if you can’t get into range 1 of an enemy. With Insatiable Hunger, I can keep him in range of an enemy unit probably 7 of 8 rounds. Without it, I’m looking at maybe 4 or 5 rounds where Ravos is in range of enemies. This is why I point at Insatiable Hunger as the real issue people have a problem with.

He has a rune depended forward, a 4 forward and a wheel. With the speed of berserkers to accompany him and take any wounds he would take if he doesn't corner someone I give him 2 rounds tops before he is across the table cornering units. Insatiable hunger doesn't help, but doing a wound instead of a mortal is really really really good.

12 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Again on Insatiable Hunger, Ravos keeps doing damage because he is nearly always meleeing or charging. That doesn’t happen without Insatiable Hunger.

It does, and I've seen it. Again he can move all we wants to set up for charges, I have no issue with that. But just to get a free wound is crazy. You don't have to be an amazing player to get in range 1, but unengaged of something. With a 4 speed march, a 2 speed shift and a wheel on march it's not hard to position him around even without IH.

14 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Again, I pointed out earlier that with a bit of planning, Maegan actually puts out more damage. So it feels like it is more of a perception issue to me. People really don’t like watching a solo figure (usually 43-50 points) wiping out 2-4 tray units (that usually cost less than that) and then moving on. It isn’t about excessive damage as much as unusual concentration of force.

Damage means little in this game when compared with the ability to directly wound. Its just this simple. A unit that does damage must do 2 to 4 damage to do a wound against a well armored opponent, but a direct wound negates the primary defense of 75% of the factions in the game. Throw that in with Spined Threshers who are crazy brutal and Berserkers who can be upgraded to charge at speed 7 you cannot shift your way out of trouble. Uthuk are too fast.

I would appreciate a battle on YouTube of you showing how easy Ravos is to deal with. After everything I've seen in playtesting I haven't seen it. Especially when you have to use a set list to take on all comers.

I do have to chime in here about the Meagan/Ravos comparison, because it’s bothering me. Meagan hands down has the highest damage potential of any unit in the game, but it’s just that, potential. It’s not an auto power swing, it requires multiple factors to go off.

First, to get anywhere near damage potential, she needs Fdice, so now she’s 42 points. Fdice is an exhaust so she cannot reliably do it every turn.

Second, she needs to be kept safe, as in at least two scions at a minimum, so that’s another 28 points.

Third, runes, if you don’t get good runes she doesn’t Fireball the whole army, and since Fdice is already an auto include, if you want malcorne you’ll need alliana to carry it, 39 points.

Fourth, and this is the biggest one, your opponent has to clump their units in an area less than half the play area to get the Fireball.

So Meagan combo takes 109 points and poor planning from your opponent to reach peak damage, which is 8 to the target and 5 to anything nearby. Yes that’s a lot of damage, but takes over half an army to pull off properly, and it’s only going to happen 2-3 times in a match.

Not saying the other units involved won’t do anything, but would like to add some perspective. There’s also the matter of hp, but that’s another can of worms.

I want to see some matches without any heroes and see how the Uthuk do. If the Uthuk no longer win as many games, then I'll consider Ravos as the problem. Until then, it seems like it's just speculation.

The other thing to explore is how the Uthuk do without Insatiable Hunger.

Personally, the part about Insatiable Hunger I like the least is the 2-speed turn. The 2-straight is okay by me, but giving him a free 2-speed turn gives him distance AND maneuverability. I mean, when I pull that move at the end of the round, it doesn't feel like Ravos -- more like an X-Wing. I'm not saying removing it would make him balanced; I'm just saying it doesn't even FEEL thematic, regardless of balance issues. I don't mind the 4-speed marches so much because they either require runes or are really late initiative, showing that he is actually kind of slow.

3 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

Personally, the part about Insatiable Hunger I like the least is the 2-speed turn. The 2-straight is okay by me, but giving him a free 2-speed turn gives him distance AND maneuverability. I mean, when I pull that move at the end of the round, it doesn't feel like Ravos -- more like an X-Wing. I'm not saying removing it would make him balanced; I'm just saying it doesn't even FEEL thematic, regardless of balance issues. I don't mind the 4-speed marches so much because they either require runes or are really late initiative, showing that he is actually kind of slow.

This. Everything else is fine or can be written off as future-proofing. If it were just possible to keep him away from my units for a turn it would be nice. Nerfs do happen though, and if Ravos doesn’t learn to be quiet and lose once in awhile he’ll be feeling the sting of the nerf bat soon...*cough* Demolisher *cough*.

Honestly, just sequencing insatiable hunger to be after his auto wound is all that’s needed.

7 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

Damage means little in this game when compared with the ability to directly wound. Its just this simple. A unit that does damage must do 2 to 4 damage to do a wound against a well armored opponent, but a direct wound negates the primary defense of 75% of the factions in the game. Throw that in with Spined Threshers who are crazy brutal and Berserkers who can be upgraded to charge at speed 7 you cannot shift your way out of trouble. Uthuk are too fast.

See, I don’t fundamentally agree on how powerful you view mortal strikes (though I do pick up on your comment about “wound” vs “add mortal strike”) so our evaluation of Ravos will never quite match up. You value them a lot higher. I don’t because I see a lot of massed infantry and one other Uthuk player. So mortal strikes do me less good than rolling an additional die would.

Threshers are honestly more my point of concern as they do similar damage to Ravos (minus mortal strikes) for a lot cheaper as a solo tray and do more for cheaper as a 2x1. They can most move fast enough, though are limited by only having a 3 straight and 2 bank charge.

Berserkers don’t worry me as they don’t hit that hard. Sure, a speed 7 charge is awesome, but a max damage style BerserkStar caps at around 21 Damage and realistically hits for 15ish. They are crazy mobile (in their own way), but their damage cap/average in large blocks is low compared to other factions (a spearstar set for max damage output caps at 30). Their Lethal mechanics encourage MSU, which suffers badly against armor.

7 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

I would appreciate a battle on YouTube of you showing how easy Ravos is to deal with. After everything I've seen in playtesting I haven't seen it. Especially when you have to use a set list to take on all comers.

I’m not much on posting anything to YouTube (partially due to not having any good camera), but Jukey and I play a lot and we can always document matches with pictures and write ups. Nonetheless, I never said dealing with him is easy. If I gave that impression, I’m not trying to. Without IH, he is still a wrecking ball once he arrives.

But my general impression is on is that no hero should feel easy to deal with. I adjust my entire approach to deal with certain heroes. It’s part of why I don’t have standard army deployments for my typical armies.

Im also willing to try armies without Ravos now that I’m not prepping for any tourneys. Time for a lot of proxying.

I think the important part to understand about blaming Insatiable Hunger for Ravos' power is that it is what helps him mow through a unit and then keep going instead of getting stranded on his own and chowing down on himself. Without it, he'd spend more turns repositioning for his second or third victim the way other heroes do. With it, he gets to make melee attacks and eat other things from the moment he engages on.

12 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

Somebody throw one of these great battles where Ravos goes down so easy on YouTube. Seriously I want empirical evidence that he's so easy to deal with, because through all the experimentation we've done trying to figure out how to break the Uthuk code we have seen average players best players very much better than them buy just running over and being there.

Asking for a YouTube video showing Ravos getting beat is like asking for a YouTube video on Bigfoot. The problem is you don’t believe it can be done because for some reason you don’t want to believe. Any video won’t convince you.

The empirical evidence is that not everyone shares your opinion. So, Ravos being broken is only your point of view.

23 minutes ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Asking for a YouTube video showing Ravos getting beat is like asking for a YouTube video on Bigfoot. The problem is you don’t believe it can be done because for some reason you don’t want to believe. Any video won’t convince you.

The empirical evidence is that not everyone shares your opinion. So, Ravos being broken is only your point of view.

I wouldn’t take it that far. In his defense, we are throwing a lot of opinion and not a lot of fact or demonstration around.

From personal experience, the ways I’ve seen a Ravos die:

-I had a Ravos die during a CareFul Engagement deployment against a Cavstar/Spearstar/3trayXbow list. Him, a 2x1 Ripper, and a 1x1 Thresher cleaned up the SpearStar. The rippers died and he had 2 wounds left. The 3x1 Xbows smoked him.

-Facing Uthuk, I killed my opponent’s Ravos by forcing him to engage front to front with a 6 tray of berserkers. I did have the benefit of he moved earlier than initiative 8, so my init7 shift+Warsprinter/Aggresive got the charge first. He took 3 wounds, killed a few trays back, then took 4 wounds from the turn 2 melee attack.

-I lost him to elves where a 1x3 Leonx with column tactics smoked him for 4 wounds and splash from FDice Maegan finished him off. He had eaten himself for one turn due to the weird deployment

-I had one eat himself to death after suffering a few wounds from archers while trying to grab a pile of supply tokens. It was an odd match with dense terrain that made it difficult to get supporting units in place.

-A Scion blocked him on turn 1, he killed it turn 2, ate a solid 6 wounds from 2 tempered steel Derpwoods. He killed the scion, use IH to get in contact with an archer, killed a tray and closed rank to arc dodge the second archer, and then died to self-consumption when Maegan surprised him and ran away rather than try and fight.

A common theme (maybe not spelled out well by text) is these are all games where Ravos didn’t thread the needle and actually had to fight face to face. With 2 armor he melts fairly fast.

44 minutes ago, Hawkman2000 said:

Asking for a YouTube video showing Ravos getting beat is like asking for a YouTube video on Bigfoot. The problem is you don’t believe it can be done because for some reason you don’t want to believe. Any video won’t convince you.

The empirical evidence is that not everyone shares your opinion. So, Ravos being broken is only your point of view.

First sentence: yes my point exactly. Second: nope, evidence will change my mind. The fact no one can bring forward such evidence is why I have the opinion I do. And I did not say everyone shares my opinion, I don't know where you get that from. Of course others don't share my opinion that is why we are having a conversation about it.

I am asking for evidence becasue I have not seen it. I don't believe anything, I've seen things and draw conclusions from them which is where I'm coming from. If I see the evidence I've asked for I'll change my mind. And of course he is broken from my point of view, I am writing the comments.

4 hours ago, Church14 said:

Without IH, he is still a wrecking ball once he arrives.

Great! We are on the same page with this. His dial also makes it really easy for him to get across the table by turn 2, that's all I'm saying.

4 hours ago, Church14 said:

I adjust my entire approach to deal with certain heroes.

Adjusting approaches is fine. Building specialty lists is another thing entirely. That is what I'm most concerned about, that Ravos makes the Uthuk like the Imperial Assault 4x4, and with three other factions in the dust that's a huge bummer.

And please make no mistake, I'm a huge fan of this game. That is why when I see three factions outplayed by 'run over ther and I win!' I get concerned. How do I sell a game to potential players when I can honestly say an average person playing one faction can beat all other players of all other factions in league? Other than the obvious anwer of telling everyone to forgo the faction they want to play and get Uthuk boxes.

1 hour ago, flightmaster101 said:

Other than the obvious anwer of telling everyone to forgo the faction they want to play and get Uthuk boxes.

That's what @Parakitor did. He now owns as many Uthuk as I do.

1 hour ago, Budgernaut said:

That's what @Parakitor did. He now owns as many Uthuk as I do.

Shhhh! You're giving away my secrets!

In all seriousness, it was a great deal for two army boxes, and now I have a bunch of potential Waiqar conscripts!

I will be testing them thoroughly at home, and probably unleash them on the locals from time to time in the name of testing. I just want to understand them better.

And bonus: my younger son refused to play Runewars because I didn't have his favorite faction, but now that I do, he is pumped to thrash some skeletons! (My older son loves Waiqar, so he's very happy with our collection). I look forward to seeing them face off: "Let them fight!"

Allergy season is here, but instead of "achoo," with each sneeze I hear myself exclaim, "UTHUK!" They are polluting my mind! There is no escape!

Frustrated Waiqar player currently wishing for these Uthuk nerfs (motivation further down):

-Spined threshers red modifier is panic only (not hit+panic)

-Ravos unique surge ability gives damage (not wounds), might not need to be unique anymore.

Playing Waiqar vs Uthuk is currently a real challange for me (se example from last night below if interested).

I notice from the "damage per point" calculations re-supplied(?) with the Initiative one ep 9 entry here on the forum that Spined threshers pretty much puts out 50% more damage than lancers, but they are pretty much equally costed, and I think that excludes effects from the pretty much certain strength 2-4 morale test each combat round (one from ability, one from dial and 0-2 from dice). I wonder if nerfing Spined threshers by removing the hit from their hit+morale modifier would get their power level in line with the cost? That would even their damage with lancers (I think) but keep their unique morale test engine and reroll ability. In my opinion they would become more "flavour" and less "do-all" (I personally like the former over the latter in general).

Also, I find Ravos just insane (already covered in this thread). Does he really need his unique surge ability that gives wounds (not mortal strikes, which from a Death knight perspective would be more reasonable) to everyone close by to be worth the 40 points? I think he would still be very playable without it, or (as someone might have mentioned) if it gave 1 damage instead.

Example from last night of being run over:

By using archers I managed to get 2 blight on a berzerkerstar with FL Thresher and Tempered steel and engage with a 2x2 Lancer (yay!). But my opponent made a shift/rally (thus loosing the blight), and then attacked first the following round with a perfect 21 damage (hit+hit, hit+surge for the TS, dial hit, sacrifice one berzerker) which killed 2 lancers and wounded one.

My third lancer was eaten by Ravos who was close by but busy chopping up the other units.

On the other flank another 2x2 Lancers were dueling with a 2x1 thresher, which pretty much ended as a draw due to a string of nasty morale cards.

Dead center my 3x2 Reanimates with executioner and BVB were fighting with a 2x2 ripper who managed to snipe the executioner and kill the unit.

The game ended by turn 6 with me totally wiped and I had killed for about 70 points. I only got flanked once, by ravos getting my 2x1 archers turn 6.

I don't know what other units to put in. 2x2 Lancers and Reanimates with executioner looked good on paper.

5 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I notice from the "damage per point" calculations re-supplied(?) with the Initiative one ep 9 entry here on the forum

I like that they tried to quantify damage per point, but I listened to their numbers. Whatever math he was doing overvalued Lethal as the berserkers get it. Suffering wounds to get it isn’t fun and stops being viable quickly. Especially when running figure upgrades. Beyond that, he was trying to average across all tray sizes and getting some weird numbers. I don’t put a lot of faith in those numbers until I see the math to them.

Comparing damage outout of a Thresher to a Lancer is wildly misleading. Lancers are a more techinical unit that also happens to be able to hunt hard targets really well. Their ability to blight isn’t quantified in that comparison. Threshers... just kill and panic units. They are fast... in a straight line.... sort of. As soon as you want to turn or charge they slow down significantly.

For the the rest of your post:

I would need to see the whole list. Without it, a lot of what you said isn’t making sense to me. Some looks like bad unit-unit matchups for you. One specific example is that Flesh Rippers are soft targets intended for hunting soft targets. The two blue dice helps get accuracies for sniping. Setting them loose on Reanimates is their best matchup in your army (besides the archers, I guess). If a 2x2 of Lancers rolls up into them, they will get smoked. They struggle badly to breach armor.

Your executioner block would have been better off against the Threshers. Do 2 damage and then your skill modifier kills a thresher. Their lack of accuracy means they cants just snipe a figure .

I do realize it’s easy for the couch warrior here (me) to criticize matchups without a full play by play. I do realize other circumstances may have prevented ideal matchups.

I play Waiqar and Uthuk and I admit I haven’t played against Uthuk as Waiqar yet. So I don’t have a “This works for me” yet.