From the initiative one discord comes an unexpected spoiler packed in the season 2 kit!

3/5 is great, long melee range is great, extra mobility and scout is great, but with no brutal... Definitely interested to see the significance of the icon after the name, could have to do with it using two different models somehow.

Vorun'Thul has the same symbol

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?

@rebellightworks maybe you can deploy them on one base together OR as two separate units?

5 hours ago, rebellightworks said:

Vorun'Thul has the same symbol

A similar, but different symbol, actually.

My guess is, since the uniqueness rule is that you can only include one unit/upgrade with a certain name and the underline in an army, they added the symbol to indicate two things essentially share a name, for rules purposes. So Vorun'Thul has the same symbol on both his cards, so they are considered to have the same name and thus you can't include both in your army.

Assuming this is correct, it means that Th'Uk Tar can maybe be fielded without Gorgemaw or something similar.

As fun as it is to see this, I think I need the actual announcement article. I can usually work out strategies for heroes even with limited information, but this one escapes me.

You can hit at distance 1 of your front, but only one target. So not as good as Sweeping Strikes (a card I personally never see played). Voluntarily increased speed and bank shifts could be amazing, but with no dial you can’t tell how good that is.

Precise 1? Woohoo

Lethal 1? Sure. Doesn’t hurt

Protected 1? Woohoo

Scout? Uh... I guess I need to see the dial.

Red/white melee with no brutal? If I roll well I can kill 4 Infantry in a swing. Epic.... Cool, so his direct damage is crap but his splash damage from surges is awesome... uh... not there? Hm.

The double unique slots makes me think this is going to be a hero that shows up doing one or two things well, but only through lots of upgrades. For 42 points and a rather meh army building buff, he had better get something fascinating for upgrades.

If they can be fielded separately, you would either need two dials, or you have Gorgemaw as one unit and Gorgemaw + Th'Uk Tar as a combined unit. It wouldn't make sense to give Gorgemaw the same dial as Th'Uk Tar.

Another siege hero makes me think Uthick will end up having more siege type units then the rest.

What's the interaction of the build ability and Scout? Do you perform the blue then measure range for the inspiration or the other way around?

That's quite a scoop. Wonder who spilled the beans.

Anyway, it is more than fantastic that this seems to indicate that Uthuk are going to catch up a with the factions that have been out for awhile.

Notice that it looks like this hero can field two unique upgrades!! Wonder what cards they'll have for that!

The ability to count as engaged everyone at range 1 is interesting. Thinking about that, you could flank attack without getting yourself tied down, opening up what you might do during your next activation. With the shift being able to be modified by a turn that brings up some pretty fun shenanigans.

Someone remind me what Scout does again...??

9 minutes ago, darkjawa103 said:

Someone remind me what Scout does again...??

Deploy last, and then you perform a blue action after deployment (outland scouts has the full text)

Seems like his purpose is to be tanky and maybe deal some chip damage. Curious if he has armor on the dial and/or a defensive upgrade. If so, he could be a legit wall. So interested in seeing his dial now...

As for running him as two separate units.... How would this work logistically with the box and the content it provides? Do we get the first hero with three different models (one with them together, one for the rider only, one for the Gorgemaw only)? Do they all have champion/siege upgrades to add to other units?

The most logical answer is that there will be only two models in this pack, same as other heroes that come in expansions. If that's the case, I'm thinking there will be only Gorgemaw with rider and Th'Uk Tar by himself. It could then have a Siege Champion upgrade for Spined Threshers, a Heavy upgrade for Berserkers, and a Champion upgrade for Th'Uk Tar by himself.

Maybe the worm model has a slot that the infantry model fits into? That way you can have two seperate or combine them.

I am thinking each gets two unique and so the double means you get to take one from each as opposed to doubling down on the one units unique.

I wonder if one of the unique upgrades is just similar to sweeping strikes?

1 hour ago, tgall said:

Thinking about that, you could flank attack without getting yourself tied down, opening up what you might do during your next activation.

The only bummer is that with the wording you don't get the flanking bonus die since you are considered engaged on the front.

46 minutes ago, QuickWhit said:

Seems like his purpose is to be tanky and maybe deal some chip damage.

With this in mind, and considering the army setup ability to grant inspiration tokens, he almost seems to be an anti-Uthuk Uthuk piece. People have said:

• Uthuk struggle against high armor
• Uthuk's low armor makes them susceptible to chip damage
• Also, Ravos' start-of-game panic can be countered by the inspiration (though let's be honest, I'd save that inspiration to cancel an immobilize token, not a panic token because 1 wound is a heavy price to pay)

I'm looking forward to learning more about him, but I somehow suspect that, just like Baron Zachareth, we won't see the dial in the preview article. Hope I'm wrong.

11 hours ago, Church14 said:

Precise 1? Woohoo

Protected 1? Woohoo

Red/white melee with no brutal? If I roll well I can kill 4 Infantry in a swing. Epic.... Cool, so his direct damage is crap but his splash damage from surges is awesome... uh... not there? Hm.

Isn't the main complaint about Ardus that he doesn't have precise? Precise on a hero with red dice seems like an obviously desireable trait. And it frees up the Artifact to not be Fortuna's.

Protected is actually pretty nice, here. A three-threat unit can't chew him up wound per hit, and it will take four hits from a two-threat unit to do more than one wound. And given that he absorbs a massive FIFTEEN damage before protected (Mortal Strikes aside), this dude takes a beating. In a faction overflowing with offensive aggression, I think it excuses his modest damage output.

11 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

If they can be fielded separately, you would either need two dials, or you have Gorgemaw as one unit and Gorgemaw + Th'Uk Tar as a combined unit. It wouldn't make sense to give Gorgemaw the same dial as Th'Uk Tar.

I think you're right, here. I'm assuming we'll get two heavy upgrades out of this, and no character upgrade. Could be interesting.

7 hours ago, QuickWhit said:

Seems like his purpose is to be tanky and maybe deal some chip damage. Curious if he has armor on the dial and/or a defensive upgrade. If so, he could be a legit wall. So interested in seeing his dial now...

As for running him as two separate units.... How would this work logistically with the box and the content it provides? Do we get the first hero with three different models (one with them together, one for the rider only, one for the Gorgemaw only)? Do they all have champion/siege upgrades to add to other units?

The most logical answer is that there will be only two models in this pack, same as other heroes that come in expansions. If that's the case, I'm thinking there will be only Gorgemaw with rider and Th'Uk Tar by himself. It could then have a Siege Champion upgrade for Spined Threshers, a Heavy upgrade for Berserkers, and a Champion upgrade for Th'Uk Tar by himself.

I don't think he needs armor or defensive upgrades to be a "legit wall" -- he'll already take more effort to kill than a four-tray non-siege unit. The protected nudges him over the top, here, and will see impact against both threat three and threat two.

I don't think Berserkers are going to see a lot of leaders running with them. I think Kethra's it. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to embed yourselves in a mindless charging berzerker horde, and I feel like even Kethra only does it because slicing their throats is kind of her thang and it's handy to have them nearby to do it.

38 minutes ago, kaffis said:

I don't think he needs armor or defensive upgrades to be a "legit wall" -- he'll already take more effort to kill than a four-tray non-siege unit. The protected nudges him over the top, here, and will see impact against both threat three and threat two.

Actually have you tried to kill a 4 tray of spearmen that armored up every turn? It's 32 effective HP + whatever odd numbers get cut out for 30 points. Granted it's not typically doing any damage (unless you have lance corporal and some banked inspiration), but that is twice as tanky as this guy. Also, we have seen plenty of Hawthorne with Might of Daqan + swinging and armoring at init 2 for 20 effective HP + overflow damage cut by the armor.

Sure, he doesn't need defensive upgrades or defense on the dial to be tanky, but he needs them to be on par with these two units, both of which are cheaper than he is. I'm actually thinking he'll get them...

43 minutes ago, kaffis said:

I don't think Berserkers are going to see a lot of leaders running with them. I think Kethra's it. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to embed yourselves in a mindless charging berzerker horde, and I feel like even Kethra only does it because slicing their throats is kind of her thang and it's handy to have them nearby to do it.

Uh... Th'Uk Tar is a berserker... Why would he not run with them...

12 hours ago, kaffis said:

Isn't the main complaint about Ardus that he doesn't have precise? Precise on a hero with red dice seems like an obviously desireable trait. And it frees up the Artifact to not be Fortuna's.

Protected is actually pretty nice, here. A three-threat unit can't chew him up wound per hit, and it will take four hits from a two-threat unit to do more than one wound. And given that he absorbs a massive FIFTEEN damage before protected (Mortal Strikes aside), this dude takes a beating. In a faction overflowing with offensive aggression, I think it excuses his modest damage output.

My woohoo were actually genuine. Precise 1 and Protected 1 are a big deal as you laid out. It is super easy for a 3 threat unit to roll 6 damage and a typical 2threat peaks at around 6 damage. So 3 armor and Protected 1 making that one wound only is significant

My my concern is that he is the weakest attack for any hero while being the most expensive. So he must have some qualitative benefit. That benefit isn’t on his card.

EDIT: I forgot about Lethal 1 when looking at damage compared to other heroes. He’s now equivalent(ish) to Hawthorne. Who appropriately is a hero whose melee Damage is secondary to 95% of his use cases

On 6/6/2018 at 12:03 AM, Church14 said:

My woohoo were actually genuine. Precise 1 and Protected 1 are a big deal as you laid out. It is super easy for a 3 threat unit to roll 6 damage and a typical 2threat peaks at around 6 damage. So 3 armor and Protected 1 making that one wound only is significant

My my concern is that he is the weakest attack for any hero while being the most expensive. So he must have some qualitative benefit. That benefit isn’t on his card.

EDIT: I forgot about Lethal 1 when looking at damage compared to other heroes. He’s now equivalent(ish) to Hawthorne. Who appropriately is a hero whose melee Damage is secondary to 95% of his use cases

Any chance the symbol in its name means that every side is its front edge?

The stance in the art on the card and the symbol kind of scream that to me?

But then it’s ability is really good because it can basically attack anybody within one!

Just a thought?

Zetan mentioned the rule for unique units above, but I just noticed now that this card DOES NOT have the underline symbol that marks a unit as unique. So ... you can have as many of this unit in your army as you want? Or maybe that is a new symbol that means you can only have 2 of a given unit? I'm confused.

1 hour ago, Budgernaut said:

Zetan mentioned the rule for unique units above, but I just noticed now that this card DOES NOT have the underline symbol that marks a unit as unique. So ... you can have as many of this unit in your army as you want? Or maybe that is a new symbol that means you can only have 2 of a given unit? I'm confused.

2 hours ago, Epicgamingnight said:

Any chance the symbol in its name means that every side is its front edge?

The stance in the art on the card and the symbol kind of scream that to me?

But then it’s ability is really good because it can basically attack anybody within one!

Just a thought?

Someone else said it but I think that symbol will get used when units with a different name cannot be in your army at the same time. I think Gorgemaw or Th’uk Tar will be available as a weaker hero

EDIT: A dumb thought, but I’ll take bets that this hero has a shift+attack available. Not shift charge. I wonder if this hero could shift at nearly point blank range and keep attacking without engaging.