Comprehensive proposed Woldwarden/Megalith changes.

[Zyrael]

Woldwarden

Animus. In MK I Undergrowth was too good for it's cost and accessibility. Now it's been nerfed in several ways. Rough terrain doesn't stop charges, and undergrowth itself doesn't provide concealment. This is overkill, while still reeling from our inability to stop charges we realize we can't escort our squishy models up the field. I say lets simplify this animus and make it more in line with our needs and functions as a faction in MK II. Make it 2" from the base, and lets have the area just be a forest.... a simple forest. This aids us in utilizing many of our abilities with "forest" as a trigger word... it never blocks LOS to the warden, and by it's very nature it grants much needed concealment. It will lose the -2 def vs enemies and I think that's a worthwhile sacrifice. Keep it's cost at 2.

Geomancy. It's already been noted that this was overkill in multiple directions. I believe geomancy should require a force but not the full cost... how do you compensate for that? Lower their fury by 1. Also impose the restriction that it must be a spell costing 3 or less and not be CTRL or Self. How does this interact with the proposed animus? They can still cast and use the animus but if they boost even ONCE they can't do both... now lets face it that is FAIR. being able to boost Forked Lightning in MK I and use Undergrowth just wasn't right. This makes Geomancy relevant but doesn't let us do everything we want each activation.

Stats. The aforementioned -1 fury and thats about it.

Summary.
Animus: 2" of forest in all directions, cost 2.
Geomancy: force for 1 fury to cast, cost 3 or less.
Stats: -1 Fury.


Megalith

Animus. Make it cost 1. With the decreased power of knockdown this should cost less. Simple enough.

Geomancy. Same as above ^

Natural Power. Simple. Megalith may cast spells costing 4 or less with geomancy.

Bountiful Restoration. Change to be any warden's in the same battlegroup may heal 1... with no restriction on proximity. It's 1 pt of dmg after all.

Affinity. [Baldur] I'd change d3 to d6 and POSSIBLY add that baldur is immune to continuous effects. This needs to feel like a relevant part of the game, and the current d3 doesn't.

Summary
Animus: Cost 1.
Geomancy: Same as Warden.
Natural Power: Megalith can use Geomancy to cast spells costing 4 or less.(still no Self or CTRL).
Bountiful Restoration: any warden in same battlegroup regardless of distance.
Affinity: d6, possibly make baldur immune to continuous effects.


Conclusion
Keeping the same point costs, I believe these changes would make the Warden a worthwhile model, but not overpowering. He would be a valid choice for his points when compared to other in faction heavies. Megalith would feel like an improvement on the woldwarden that is an optional upgrade for lists that can utilize it. But for those lists it would feel like an 11 pt model.

[bushman101]

word
My Heavy Constructs have been mediocre at best for me.
Even when Megalith was working at his best, a Warpwolf could have done much better

[Voltimor]

Give Megalith the old Natural Power back or make it one of the Affinity rules that Megalith can cast Baldur spells for free ?

[Ancient_of_MuMu]

If those are your proposed changes actually play games with them to see how they do. Feedback is more than just x is weak, you need to say x is weak, y seems better in my play experience.

[Achiles]

+1 to this! Honestly those are the best suggestions I've seen thus far.

[LEJKaya]

With these changes Morv REALLY needs another offensive spell. Either return Wurmwood or something else.

[Mutton]

I like it; gives me a reason to take Mega with Mohsar. Although making a forest might break Baldur...

[Zyrael]

I thought about that. It doesn't break Baldur, and here's why.

Since he can now place himself entirely within rapid growth and mannikins can create his destinations he already has the lethal mobility (not to mention reach). The warden is an easier to use destination or origin point, but at 9 points a pop it's hardly breaking... especially if you want to use it on both ends. If baldur invests 18 pts in beasts so he can teleport without sentry stones or his spells... isn't that costed appropriately?

[Mutton]

Baldur's already taking a Woldwarden. That's set in stone. He helps it out too much. Now, instead of using two focus for rapid growth, you just have the WWarden cast his animus and trample forward! Have something push him into a mannikin forest or upkeeps Rapid Growth on himself; his assassination vectors are good enough as is, not sure if he should get something awesome like this.

[Zyrael]

Still not sure where the myth comes from that Baldur needs to spam Warden's... or that it's his optimized beast list.

In MK I he did more for a warpwolf... the same applies in MK II. Sure he can use a warden for it's utility but none of it is exclusive to him or it. +2 str and arm.... that's still BETTER on a feral... pathfinding... what use does a warden have for that?

And i may be in the minority... but I've never found Earth Spike's spammable or even a particularly desirable spell. Maybe i'm just not good at critting *shrug*

A 9 point heavy, and 2 fury placed on it to create a patch for baldur to synergize with seems balanced in the overall environment of Warmachine/Hordes.

Baldur is a ninja anyway let's not forget. But various other things in the faction need a reliable non-super squishy method to have access to forests.

And another point in direct response to you Mutton. If this was granted... baldur could conceivably place himself within 12 inches and have a melee threat of MAT 7(10) and pow 14 (16) with anywhere from 4 to 7 attacks depending on what he needs to cast/upkeep.... How is that any more lethal or broken than eCaine? If you are within 12" of eCaine... the game is over... period. now THATS an assassin.

[Mutton]

To be fair, Baldur does have a possible greater threat range than eCaine. And he does far more for his army. I'm just putting ideas out there; test it and see how it works. I probably would have cried foul when eCaine first came out in mk1 if there was a FT about it as well, and let's face it, only reason he wasn't utterly broken after legends is because eHaley was even more broken.

[wvieira422]

Ok it seems some people like geomancy the way it is and some don't. Most of the players in my group have explained to me that they think it's a fury soak for a chance to do nothing. (I play circle but these are people who don't play circle). Many have voiced that they didn't mind spell strike and natural power except they thought it should be a forcable ability.

Wardens should have the ability "Spell Slave" like the skarlock thrall( and yes the thrall is squishy however...) circles spells are far weaker than cryx' and it would fit the role the warden is meant to fill with geomancy, at the same time as not allowing bigger and better spells to be cast (cost 4 spells) through it. But being able to cast the cost 3 spells and lower just fine, with boosts.

Megalith should have an ability simlar to the Deathjack,

Deathjack has Necromancy and Skulls of Hate - thusly allowing it to cast cost 2 spells for free untill one of it's ARM systems is disabled.

Megalith with Geomancy and a similar ability to either discount the spells by 2 or remove one fury from the model for each of two aspects untill their destroyed.

A rule like:
Runes of Earth - Geomancy spells cast are discounted 1 fury for each spirit and mind aspect that is not disabled. (this seems the most stable and fair)

or more Deathjack like:
Runes of Earth - At anytime during this models activation it can remove 1 fury from itself for each spirit and mind aspect that is not disabled.(this seems very effective and worth the 11pt cost of the model)

This would make the Megalith unique in comparison to the Warden and ease the fury intensity of geomancy.

If Spell Slave is too much than keep geomancy but give it a rule like the megalith. and then there is little differentiation between the two, and truly pointless to field one over the other except one can heal itself.

I feel these changes to be the most fair and workable to alleviate the issues at hand.

[DonJean]

Geomancy
Sorry but I keep seeing this "Reduce their Fury to 3" or "Limit it to a 3 Fury Spell" and if we do that it actually makes this ability useless with some of our casters. Yes I want to see if fixed but don't want it to only function with one or two casters.

Sadly I think our constructs especially the heavies suffer from hybrid syndrome. They can do both range and melee but aren't allowed to noticably be better than our dedicated units or be comparable at a cheaper cost. As such I think we should move towards having them actually bringing some utility to the board rather than raw damage.

I've been testing and so far haven;t found a workable solution.

[Zyrael]

A forest isn't utility?

Leaving them the ability to juggle upkeeps for a cost of 1 fury burden isn't utility?

not sure what u want then.

[DonJean]

Actually being able to cast spells that cost 2 or 3 for one fury is a little bit too much I've found. This is what I meant by testing since a few of the options I've seen is either a step too far or only workable with some casters.

I'll test the forest component in my next few games because I have to admit that so far the adnimus has been pretty much usless for me.

[minust]

I'm a big fan of Zyrael's suggestions, but I think I would prefer Geomancy to stay as it is.
Stick with me.

Geomancy stays as it is in the field test rules.
Give the Woldwarden and Megalith a rule that reduces the cost of any spell they cast by 1 fury.
Reduce the fury stat of the Woldwarden to 3.

This means that they can still make one boost with FURY3 offensive spells, but still cast FURY4 spells (which I think is something really nice to come from Geomancy).

I understand that this makes the stay very fury intensive, but I think it gives them a little more flexibility than they have now, but retains they're new found arcane abilities.

Just a thought, really.

-t.

[Zyrael]

you realize that Megalith would be an option if you wanted access to Fury 4 spells right? I think adding the extra fury burden to all wardens so that u don't have to take megalith is an extreme suggestion.

As written, I believe megalith is worth 11 pts especially for casters like Mohsar and Morvahna who really want extra mileage out of their 4 fury spells.

But putting this capability on the character beast makes it limited, which is intentional. Eruption of Life, Crevasse, and Tornado don't need to be spammed.

[minust]

No, I understand what you're saying, but you shouldn't have to take a more expensive, character version of a beast just because you want to use a spell with certain warlocks.
Mega is still better, and noticeably so (with the other changes you mentioned), allowing boosting of fury 4 spells, but what I propose allows Wardens to operate in that regard to some extent.

Not being able to boost that spell at all, and filling up the Warden is a pretty big burden IMO, and hardly makes spamming it a viability (at least, no more than it is now... How many people are spamming Tornado?).

It's another option to consider, I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it gives the warden more flexibility in spell options than your suggestions allow.

-t.

[Mosstooth]

I'm not in favor of the warden losing the -def with his animus. That is important to have if you want it to melee at all. His chain attack is still great and I'd rather use undergrowth to pull it off than boosting three times. Plus if the target is immune to kd there is a really good change it will still be effected by the animus after the slam move. So now other things can have an easier time.

Would it be enough to make it cost 1 or give concealment back? Also if it was changed to a 2'' forest effect would he even count as being in the forest himself?

[Zyrael]

Count as being in? as worded, no. But forests grant concealment to models within 1" and with their bases even partially obscured by the forest. I guess a line would have to be added saying he is considered to be in the forest to make sure there is LOS.

another idea is simply centering a 5" forest on the model. Makes it a smaller more manageable effect, and cleans up the wording.

[LEJKaya]

I don't think we'll get to centre a forest that can hide the casting model from LOS.

EDIT: Oh, and forests are 3" visibility. Ignore me.

[Zyrael]

if he was centered in a 5" forest. he would be appx 1.5" from the edge of the forest in all directions... that doesn't block LOS to the casting model.

[Razhem]

So you are propocing that Wardens are better then MKI then? Because being able to use geomancy and melee and not tax your fury except for one seems like a bad joke to me. Also, Krueger with chainlightning on his card makes this downright abusive. Unless you turn Geomancy into a special action of course and it would still be absurd with chain lightning.

Just accept it, the warden was too damn useful with some warlocks and a waste with others because of how he worked and he was only used as a glorified arcnode that made difficult terrain and made the opponent want to shoot himself. Now instead he gets to be more versatile thanks to extra fury and geomancy not being an action at the cost of having to pay for the full cost of the spell, don't expect a better deal than that.

[Mutton]

So you are propocing that Wardens are better then MKI then? Because being able to use geomancy and melee and not tax your fury except for one seems like a bad joke to me. Also, Krueger with chainlightning on his card makes this downright abusive. Unless you turn Geomancy into a special action of course and it would still be absurd with chain lightning.

Just accept it, the warden was too damn useful with some warlocks and a waste with others because of how he worked and he was only used as a glorified arcnode that made difficult terrain and made the opponent want to shoot himself. Now instead he gets to be more versatile thanks to extra fury and geomancy not being an action at the cost of having to pay for the full cost of the spell, don't expect a better deal than that.

I think he's making Geomancy once a turn. So now you have to force for it, unlike in mk1 when it was free.

[Razhem]

Yeah, but you are still getting what was pretty much Megalith in MKI for the cost of 1 fury. That is just too much. Yes, the warden is too expensive at 9 points, but if you want to make it better, fight for a cost reduction and a mat/power buff, because I'm pretty sure you aren't going to get MKI megalith in generic form and with an ironically better animus.

Stop thinking of him has geomancy first and a beatstick second, try to send feedback to turn him into the opposite thing, he beats face and when it is useful or necessary, he throws a spell at you. Hell with an extra point of mat he can even try to chuck a 3 fury spell, get stuck in and beat some ***.

[Bakemono]

I've pretty much had my say about Geomancy. I'd be fine with it as written as long as the Animus is addressed and brought up to some kind of real use (i.e. actual forest). In regards to the Megalith, I think he should get to cast one spell a turn (like a Skarlock) at no cost whatosever, leaving it free to go about its other business and fight with its Fury. The Megalith is, after all, our only "character" Warbeast thus far. Getting to toss off one spell for free would make it distintively different and more powerful than a normal Woldwarden.

[Zyrael]

How PP costs abilities has always been and will always be mysterious and completely unfathomable.

That being said if we even leave Geomancy as it is now (disused and disliked), but increase mat and pow bringing the Warden line with Fuzzies... you'd see it's cost increase over an already unacceptably high level.

And then if you have MAT 6 PS 16 warden's with chain attack smite.... isn't he displacing the Gnarlhorn? What you say has repurcussions. The Warden is supposed to increase the spellcasting potential of Circle and provide melee assistance as needed, with a utility animus. In MK II... most players have deemed his spellcasting weak, and the fury burden it creates detrimental, they think his melee assistance is laughable, and the utility of his animus has been drastically reduced... all combined with an increased price. So what if we want a happy middle ground for the Warden? Playing with a Feral, Gnarlhorn, and Gorax is getting old FAST.

Krueger aside, having a 3 fury warden use 1 fury once per turn to cast a spell is not anywhere approaching broken. And if we start down-balancing entire factions based on what is useful with their most powerful caster then the game becomes a nerfy slap fight.

pKrueger now has chain lightning cause the pow 12 of forked lightning made him too dangerous to too wide a range of models and that was beyond his intended purpose. the more numerous pow 10s accomplish his true goal of eviscerating light infantry. If he casts it once, or he and a warden cast it 3x total, or he just uses his feat, lightning leaps with his gun, or uses Lightning Tendrils ... Krueger IS going to murder your infantry. He is a bulwark against infantry machine, INTENTIONALLY lopsided to break up a metagame. Ask what he does against heavy armor now that tornado can't even keep heavies away....thats right nothing.

Why don't we take corpse tokens away from Ravagers because when you combine it with Lightning Tendrils it provides just too many pow 10 leaps! Or lets lower the armor on the Lord of the Feast because with Deflection he's too hard to kill at range (irony intended)!

If ur argument against everything in Cricle is "Krueger slaughters my infantry because of X, Y, Z!" Then maybe u should stop and realize no matter what you do to the rest of the faction Krueger will STILL slaughter your infantry.

[Razhem]

Seeing how the warden cannot benefit from a lot of your buffs since he isn't a furry, he isn't really displacing anything. What you can't expect is to have MKI megalith at 1 fury cost running around fighting for you. Also, the logic behind undergrowth being bad just boggles my mind. Yes, against reach charges it isn't doing as much as before, but against non reach, they are taking a horrible hit when moving and that def debuff is really damn useful for anybody. Seeing how Soles was thinking of that suggestion but changing into an 4" forest AOE with no def debuff should tell you that you are better off with what you have now, since 1" of rough terrain won't stop anything and the def debuff is very useful.

Don't expect to bake your cake and eat it, think of it being able to do 2 of 3 things most times (spell or fight, fight or animus), not that it will be able to do all 3 semi-reliably. Buff the fight in him (mat 6 is enough to let him hit heavies with a certain reliability that would let him use the rest of his fury for spells if needed), give him a discount and he's golden. Anyway, I'm in the camp that most heavies are overpriced right now, so that is really my solution to most problems.

The other idea I've been thinking is to give it a gun along with Geomancy and keep the cost the same, but I have no idea how the gun would have to be so it's powerful, but it doesn't get too blasty when stacked with an extra offensive spell.

[Bearded Dragon]

Here's an idea I thought of last night. I put it in the thread in the general section also:

First, geomancy is changed to once per activation. Then add the following rule:

Blood Magic: You may reduce the fury cost of geomancy by 1 for each damage point placed on this model's controlling warlock.

This is both fluffy and will provide a way to keep your warden from being full all the time. This will also appease those of us who would like them to be channelers as the warlock could spend fury to heal up the damage (so it would be like the warlock is casting the spell). Also, this would make Megalith's current affinity with Baldur pretty good instead of pretty boring.

[odinsgrandson]

The current fix that they've tried out is to make the Shifting Stones pull fury off of the Wardens.

I actually think this works quite well, but I'd like to play more games before submitting feedback.




Blood Magic: You may reduce the fury cost of geomancy by 1 for each damage point placed on this model's controlling warlock.


Hm... although I like this idea, in the end the spell will either cost its full Fury to cast, or it will cost nothing at all. Our warlocks don't normally take damage, really.

Also, I would definitely cut for four fury on turn two- just so that I can then cast all my spells for free.

You could put in caveats about the warlock being damaged by enemy attacks, but my Circle warlocks tend to either be at full health on my turn, or dead. Once in a while, my opponent has a failed assassination run, but that's not all that common.

[WarJack Prime]

I was actually happy with the Warmachine MKII changes mostly because jacks got way better. I'm not all that thrilled with the Hordes changes to Circle, probably because there wasn't the dramatic change to beasts that jacks saw. I mean, a few models got tweaked but overall it was give and take, but take enough to make me go, "meh." I think I'd prefer the old Circle at this point.

[ImpactVector]

Am I the only one who thinks the Wolds should be bigger beatsticks in melee? I mean, you've got big stone dudes as tall as my house running around and all they put out is a couple of P+S 15's?

Here's my take on it: Since the Wardens have Chain Attack: Smite you've only got 3 attacks to do your damage before you send your target flying. So make them P+S 17 or so. They're still not capable of fontline warjack damage without buffs, but it makes them respectable in combat. If you want to ditch the -2 DEF from the animus you need to up their MAT by 1.

Megalith could use P+S 17 or 18. That puts him roughly on par with the Feral Warpwolf in the melee damage department. Megalith costs 2 more but he also does some more interesting stuff (though don't discount Baying of Chaos - that's a pretty sweet animus). You can muck around with his MAT if you want but it's not a big deal since he always has Weight of Stone.

Keep the Geomancy thing expensive. It's a useful thing to have, but you guys have to admit that the spell spam from MK1 was a little over the top. Here we can still do it, we just pay for it. And if they give us a little more punch in melee at least we get something back.

[Bladestorm]

I think they need a point of mat if they ever expected to land the chain and especially if they do change the animus in such a way as to remove the def penalty. I wouldn't complain if they had a higher P+S on the fists, but I really doubt they will get one given it has implications across a wider number of models due to stone skin for a start and because the window for changes and testing is pretty narrow.

[Critical]

Here's my fix to the Warden/Megalith.

Warden:
1) Critical Smite on each Claw
2) Animus makes a Forest (agree with Z!)
3) Geomancy: Special Action: Does 3" Radius, B2B POW 14, otherwise POW7 autohit.

Megalith:
1) Add Combo Strike to Rune Claws
2) Animus cost -1 (Agree with Z!)
3) Greater Geomancy: Once per turn does Does 3" Radius, B2B POW 14, otherwise POW7 autohit. Not a special action/attack.

There, now the wardens are distinct from the other beasts we have. They are specifically for thinning the ranks of infantry rather than beating up on heavies like the living beasts.

The real problem with the Geomancy is that it has to consider all the Casters which sets the limitations. Eliminates the Chain lightning spam that will be so common in MK2 if it stays the way it is.

Cheers!
Critical