So, after we all have had time to play against (or with) Scuttling Horror for a while now, what have players been finding?

Jukey and I have been putting in some miles with Uthuk and we’ve been finding that Scuttling Horror just matter less. Still, we play a lot in a small meta and strategies there tend to evolve quickly into hard counters.

As a bane-slinger only, it sits costed comparably, though slightly overpriced against Ritual Poison and Blackthorn Assassin. All 3 trigger by making attacks. Blackthorn adds HP and you get 3 charges. Ritual costs you HP and you get three charges. Scuttling is an exhaust in a faction lacking good rally options (for a while yet). So it sits a little worse than the other current banethrowers.

But it isnt just a banethrower, it gives you... *dramatic music* sideways shifts! I tease, but that ability does become extremely useful either near terrain with capacity or when being flanked.

So? After this card has been out for a while, have players seen it still dominate their metas or are players learning good counters and finding it less significant?

I've been running some practice games with and against it.

In my experience so far, it occasionally does amazing at keeping your opponent uncertain.

Mostly though, it's just a nice utility. Good for terrain, or simply just getting out of the way. Shifting in combat can make room for a second unit to charge.

It makes a great unit better.

Yeah it has turned out to be not as frustrating to deal with as I expected it to be, while still being well worth its low cost. The stun hasn't see much value in our local games (it has been forgotten about more than once). Its biggest use has been getting through terrain, which, while really good for the points isn't, hard to predict from the other side of the table. This definitely makes it not feel as bad to play against.

I have only had a few games where I set up a really good flank and got beat by the 50/50 shift or not. These moments were frustrating but none of them have cost me the game by themselves.

My feeling at this point is that much of the doom and gloom over the upgrade was probably a little bit of an overreaction... But it is still so undercosted for what it does that it had become mandatory for the local Uthuk players.

Our experiences are very similar then. Undercosted, but not so rage inducing anymore

It should probably be 5 or so points? I think I’d rather see an errata to it then a points change. Just increasing the cost creates that wierd deadzone where it becomes either pointless or useful only in very niche builds.

It's a good card, but fairly easy to see coming. I rarely get caught by surprise with a scuttle now. The stun is really the nasty side of the card.

Still either undercosted or mis-sequenced. No card for 3 points should do 2 things with no cost imo. Could be changed to an exhaust to stun, or sequenced to scuttle before activating the unit, giving it less power. They could also do nothing to it and I'd be fine with it.

Threshers are mean units, but they have limits, and are probably the most predictable unit in the game (it hits stuff real good...what else does it do?).

**VIRTUALLY NO ACTUAL PLAY EXPERIENCE AGAINST IT PLEASE IGNORE**

I do like looking at the two effects separately, though it's tough to compare to other upgrades because it's a Unique slot.

Ritual Venom (which looks extremely strong, if you ask me) costs 3 points plus 1-3 wounds. Those wounds will be worth something like 1-2 points each, depending on what it's on (this is not how scoring works, but it's the best way I can think to evaluate it), so you could think of it as a 6-7 point upgrade that you can probably only count on getting two banes out of.

Looking at it that way, it's pretty comparable to Blackthorn, though I think Immobilize will generally be stronger, and certainly the ability to choose mid-game is great. 1/2 statline on a figure upgrade is pretty strong so it's not at great risk of being sniped out, but neither does it offer much extra durability. Also, critically, there is steep competition for Champion and Equipment upgrades.

So, what would I pay for an exhaustible stun on attack for a melee bruiser? Maybe 3 points, probably not 4, certainly 2 (sometimes). Looking at Rune Golems, using their skill to stun is half of what they do when I play them, but that's as much to do with initiative and the defense modifier as the value of the stun itself.

The shift doesn't have as many contemporaries, so it's harder to get a baseline. 6 points, like Wind Rune? Not nearly as powerful, but doesn't require a Skill to use. Perhaps 4, like Lay of the Land? 4-6 certainly feels like the right range, for 6-9 points total. Seems more reasonable.

That said, I'd be happier if it just didn't exist at all because it fundamentally breaks the action economy of terrain. I really like terrain in this game: it works as an interesting speed bump/springboard/obstacle, but when you can enter or exit it without ending your activation, it becomes really powerful. I like what terrain does to the decision-making possibilities in a game, but I'd be crazy to bring anything with capacity, as a non-Uthuk player.

We don't have enough of an Uthuk presence for it to matter. We just got two new players, one of whom plays Uthuk, and the other Latari. Prior to that, I was the only way to have Uthuk and Latari, so Uthuk versus Latari match-ups were in short supply, and I've probably been Latari 80% of the time. And I've experimented with some different builds as Uthuk out of curiosity. It still seems like an upgrade that is easily forgotten, both as Uthuk and as the opponent. So both missed opportunities and misaccounted-for possibilities abound.

Note: haven't played much against it since our uthick player has dropped/taking a break.

To me it was more the out of sequence that disrupted me. My local meta (all two of us) thought that it might be more balanced if you just chose at the end of the round. That gives more open knowledge for dials next turn.

When you talk about moving it to activation of the unit I just get concerned about like how decloaking worked in xwing originally and the issues there. Ironically the solution for that turned out to be that they moved it from activation to the start of the round. The two games have different mechanics so the impact is different.

The stun did not bother as much (it helped that my opponent kept forgetting to trigger it). It's great and powerful. I see it similar to the front line scion. Maybe a point or two undercosted?

20 hours ago, Church14 said:

Our experiences are very similar then. Undercosted, but not so rage inducing anymore

It should probably be 5 or so points? I think I’d rather see an errata to it then a points change. Just increasing the cost creates that wierd deadzone where it becomes either pointless or useful only in very niche builds.

I actually think 5 points would be a fair price for the upgrade if the 2x1 of spined threshers got a cost increase. Pushing that unit cost too 30/31 would make the whole package feel allot more fair and make it not an auto-include in Uthuk lists.

I also think if they were to make any cost change balance adjustments like these they should make some older, over-costed upgrades cheaper. I think the game could use more 1-3 cost upgrades in general. I love that they released viper trap master and faces of the fallen. These are very cheap upgrades with real use that still feel fair. They make list building more interesting. Meanwhile, upgrades like Fertile Soil, flank guards, and captivating hexer don't do much for the cost, especially when compared to scuttling horror or devouring maws. Dropping the cost on allot of these under-utilized upgrades would be great.

That’s a good point about older upgrades. I’ve run Fertile Soil a few times on larger scion sets, but it doesn’t trigger with the same ease as devouring maws.