Kromac changes on the way?

[petegrrrr]

Soles left a hint that we will see changes to everyone's favorite Tharn later today.

I for one am extremely psyched, as he is probably my favorite model in the entire game.

[Dantes]

Though I will be glad to see him improved he's not really up my alley for casters.

I do however look forward to a Tharn Female Warlock. Hopefuly with a sacral blade and javelins to boot. Whee!

[bushman101]

hope so
I'm also hoping for some other updates, such as our pityful heavy constructs

[Drillermaniac]

He has become pretty good now.

[Bakemono]

I am pleased with the changes. Granted, I need to test him to make sure he hasn't gotten too powerful, but my guess is he is just about right now. Many of my suggestions were implemented, albeit in a slightly different format. The ones that weren't implemented were understandable cuts because of the improved Spells to support his army. I see this Kromac as a VERY competitive . He is mobile, supports his army well, and hits hard.

[Razhem]

Pretty scary melee assassin now to tell the truth. Being able to cover 14" with reach is quite scary with his beast form. His feat is cool as hell also. He also got an awesome battlegroup spell which I hope Morghoul notices. Pretty cool over all.

[Menoth's Gambit]

He went from zero to hero. Or at least, zero to maybe fun! I am now wanting to try out the new Kromac.

I like the Havoc spell.

[sepher32]

Is Havoc having no range stat a typo, or can the Woldwarden and Megalith cast it while he's in Beast Form?

[blue loki]

Definitely a typo. All battlegroup spells are RNG: SELF.

I'm doing a little happy dance on the inside.

[Brandubh]

This is amazing. I'm seeing all sorts of potential for him now. He no longer loses spells when in Beast Form (just can't cast them)...which means Wardens will work well with him (casting Rift & Inviolable Resolve). IR & Havoc are both respectable spells. IR makes Ravagers a better option. But casting IR on something like Morraig could also be great as Morraig is hard to kill anyway.

Anyway, I'm definitely very excited that my Kromac should be here soon. He's going to be very fun to play, I think.

[Bakemono]

Yep. The new Kromac is definitely swinging some pipe. I'd go so far as to say, theorymachine only until tonight, that he is our most balanced Warlock, i.e. a perfect contender for an All-Comers competitive list. He can support his army, has magical suppression, and fight extremely well. Unlike P-Kaya he can win in more than one way. I see value in fielding him with all sorts of Warbeasts, including Constructs. My hat goes off to Mr. Soles and those who made the changes.

Now we need to start talking about Autumnblade. My view is that the following Warlocks are solid (or too good in P-Kaya's case):

P-Kaya *Too strong and limited in function. She is certainly competitive but I would like to see her with a broader range and toned down slightly in the one thing she does over the top.

E-Kaya *I don't have any problems wit E-Kaya. I think she remains a balanced, competitive Warlock, suffering only for the fact that P-Kaya is so dominant.

Stormwrath - He was a solid Warlock before. He is a solid Warlock now.

Baldur - With the return of the Woldwardens to functionality, Baldur is competitive, although his Feat still needs some work. I plan to start a thread about that to discuss it and brainstorm with the rest of you. He is playable as is, but I don't think he is quite done yet at least in regards to his Feat.

The Warlocks that still need work are:

Autumnblade - She is interesting but there isn't a snowball's chance in hell she is competitive.

Epic Stormlord - He was awful in MKI. He is just as awful now.

Mohsar - He isn't bad but he isn't quiet there yet either. I have to keep playtesting him. To be honest I think he could probably go in the list of solids above, but he just don't feel right. It isn't that he is weak. It isn't that he is overpowered. He is awkward, and thus not quite competitive ready.

[Blaque]

Mohsar
Mohsar I feel needs two things and then he's good:

Firstly, a cheap offensive spell. Something that costs 2 and does a small side-effect. Examples include soemthing with Erosion or ignoring Tough. Others include control spells like Sunder Spirit or Malice. (Malice is my personal suggestion.)

Secondly is have his feat effect focus allocation. And that would pretty much be it from my gathering.

eKaya
One suggestion I'm pretty warm to is giving her Flank with her battlegroup, similar to with Dawnlord Vyros and his warjacks. He's just as fast, hits harder and has a bit more battlegroup-wide support. I think this would make her more assassiny and would help a lot.

Returning Calm is another. Besides that, I feel she is pretty close to being pretty much perfect.

eKrueger
I think replacing Windblown with Quicken would be nice. WInd Blown always felt horribly ineffecient and undrpowere din MkI. Its no better now. I have absolutley no clue what else to give him though.

Morvahna
My main complaint is her anti-synergy. SHe needs a cheap offensive spell like Wurmwood back. Harvest probably should be an inate ability, not a spell. And she should be able toe xceed her Fury cap or she's never going to be nearly as effective at ressruection as she use to be.

Her feat and Eruption of Life need to be able to target not-living models. Hell, even if it were just warrior models, it would be an improvement, but as is, it just doesn't work against too many other forces.

On units and solos, I think we are pretty solid on having to tweak some UAs, stone units and War Wolves. But not much else to go folks.

We got a week lef. Make it count.^_^

And stuff.

[DudeOfOrboros]

His new spells are great. One for warbeasts that delivers more damage potential helping with our taking out high ARM jacks and beasts and Invioble Resolve granting Fearless really helps with certain opponent army builds.
I believe our only Fearless unit is the Ravagers.

[Blaque]

Well, Ravagers and the rocks. But yeah, extra Fearless to go around is a pretty strange experience for Circle.

And stuff.

[fildrigar]

Epic Stormlord - He was awful in MKI. He is just as awful now.

I had great success with him in MKI.

[Buddhanutz]

I had great success with him in MKI.

Someone had to. I agree with the previous post. He was not good, and is still not good. Quicken would be a good change. However, he is a model that just needs to be reworked.

[Sinsation]

Pretty scary melee assassin now to tell the truth. Being able to cover 14" with reach is quite scary with his beast form. His feat is cool as hell also. He also got an awesome battlegroup spell which I hope Morghoul notices. Pretty cool over all.

16" with reach. Pounce for 5, charge 9, reach for the last two. With the gnarlhorn animus you're looking at 18". If the gnarlhorn casts it and you get on a caster within that 18", you're swinging away with 15 fury (8 before, 7 from feat). That's a bit rough.

There's also the option of charging in Kromac, killing your target, then pouncing back 5".

[Mutton]

And the Blackclad for another 2". 20" threat.

[Masero]

Kromac is completely awesome now.

I love how havoc can let him run the beasts he needs to support 9 fury.

[PUFNSTUF]

Kromac is completely awesome now.

I love how havoc can let him run the beasts he needs to support 9 fury.

not going to lie but now I think he shifted too much the other way. 16" basic threat with being able to leap a line, leaving 8 fury to beat face at mat 9 pow 14, and feat for more fury?

don't get me wrong, he is awesome. but TOO awesome now sadly

[Critical]

Finally he can charge a target, beat it up and then pounce to another or to safety.

I can see a Kromac Sacrifice list where he takes some stuff to buff him and some stuff specifically to transfer damage to and then rushes the enemy 'lock. Take whatever hits they can deal an then (recover) charce adn kill. Perhaps more no-brainer than Krueger woldspam. If it was a rush (Make a full advance, once at any point in his activation for an increased threat range then it would be a bit more balanced and would require a bit of patience.

Cheers!
Critical

[PG_Electric Seal]

the consensus is that he is pretty unbalanced. I can forgive the threat range, and even the near-infinite attacks, but the fact that he can Pounce AWAY after doing so is really overpowered. I player Khador, and I personally cannot find a way to beat this caster without heavy heavy meta-gaming, and even then the odds are against me. Kromac at this point takes very little skill to play.

At least make Pounce a spell that can be cast in beast form, so there is a chance to deny it, otherwise he can charge anywhere, destroy every single thing within REACH without any risk to himself. My two cents.

[Conviviacr]

the consensus is that he is pretty unbalanced. I can forgive the threat range, and even the near-infinite attacks, but the fact that he can Pounce AWAY after doing so is really overpowered. I player Khador, and I personally cannot find a way to beat this caster without heavy heavy meta-gaming, and even then the odds are against me. Kromac at this point takes very little skill to play.

At least make Pounce a spell that can be cast in beast form, so there is a chance to deny it, otherwise he can charge anywhere, destroy every single thing within REACH without any risk to himself. My two cents.

So he can perform similarly to e-butcher then? Funny how they both have the same rep so that doesn't seem to odd to me.

[Corpazious]

the consensus is that he is pretty unbalanced. I can forgive the threat range, and even the near-infinite attacks, but the fact that he can Pounce AWAY after doing so is really overpowered. I player Khador, and I personally cannot find a way to beat this caster without heavy heavy meta-gaming, and even then the odds are against me. Kromac at this point takes very little skill to play.

No it's not overpowered, or anywhere close to it. It is versatile, it is useful, it allows Kromac to attack things on his turn without getting himself killed the next. Useful.

At least make Pounce a spell that can be cast in beast form, so there is a chance to deny it, otherwise he can charge anywhere, destroy every single thing within REACH without any risk to himself. My two cents.

Well, I guess PP could make Pounce an Animus that Kromac could cast in Beast Form..... yaaaaaay the same thing, almost!

[otakud00d]

Sigh. Just turn Pounce into Bounding Leap. It'll fix so many problems with him. That way, he can either charge up to 13" in an ideal situation -or- simply walk up and Bounding Leap for a total of 11", 13" if you cast Bounding on him first.

Still a pretty nasty threat range, but nowhere near the potential 20" of madness he used to have. That's acceptable, right?

[Bakemono]

Sigh. Just turn Pounce into Bounding Leap. It'll fix so many problems with him.

If this will satisfy people I will gladly start beating this drum. I don't believe for a moment it will.

[Blaque]

I think all that is needed to do is make it Bounding Leap as well. I saw the issue so fmaking Pounce as Pounce was into an inate ability when I first did some thinking. Wtih Boundign Leap, its 15" charge or 11" leap. Not 20" charge with everything together. This is a big shave-down and still faster then say, the Butcher or Terminous.

But yeah, as you note Bakemono, the *****ing from others just theorymachining is going to be pretty grand. But I look at how much Soles tends to stick to his guns on some things and it shoudl probably not be too bad.

And stuff.

[Strange_Eric]

No it's not overpowered, or anywhere close to it. It is versatile, it is useful, it allows Kromac to attack things on his turn without getting himself killed the next. Useful.

I can't disagree with you more. Its extremely close to overpowered. Its even more than useful since charging a front line, then completely bypassing it to hit a caster/lock is more than worth it.

One suggestion would be to keep his Pounce ability as Beast form only. This would mean he can't set up his turn to cast some preparatory spells and he'd have to commit to going all Attacks.

My other suggestion, not related to that is to make sure he loses his spell list when in Beast form.

[zulu81]

the consensus is that he is pretty unbalanced. I can forgive the threat range, and even the near-infinite attacks, but the fact that he can Pounce AWAY after doing so is really overpowered. I player Khador, and I personally cannot find a way to beat this caster without heavy heavy meta-gaming, and even then the odds are against me. Kromac at this point takes very little skill to play.

At least make Pounce a spell that can be cast in beast form, so there is a chance to deny it, otherwise he can charge anywhere, destroy every single thing within REACH without any risk to himself. My two cents.

Against any khador jack he is dice -6 for damage at minumum. Shocktroopers in shield wall are dice-7 (with 8 pips). Against p-vlad with blood of kings up his needs a 9 to hit and is dice -5. Against kharchev he is dice -6. Camp focus and your warcasters are going to survive his assaisnation run. Stay 7 inches behind you front lines. Hit him while he is in his shaman form or make him stay in beast form and not get full utility on his abilities. Shoot him. Avoid him and destroy the rest of his army. attrition him down. He is not going to make it easy on you but you can do it.

[Corpazious]

No, no, NO Bounding Leap, please!!!
To my new Circle brethren, as well as others, please no.

It will limit the versatility of Kromac's jumping. Simple as that. He will be far more boring to play. Find another way to limit his threat range, IF it is currently too much, but keep the versatility of Pounce.

(In case it was missed, versatility is the key word here.
Thesaurus - adaptable, flexible, all-around, multifaceted, multitalented, resourceful; adjustable, multipurpose, all-purpose, handy; rare polytropic. )

[Bakemono]

I can't disagree with you more. Its extremely close to overpowered. Its even more than useful since charging a front line, then completely bypassing it to hit a caster/lock is more than worth it.

One suggestion would be to keep his Pounce ability as Beast form only. This would mean he can't set up his turn to cast some preparatory spells and he'd have to commit to going all Attacks.

My other suggestion, not related to that is to make sure he loses his spell list when in Beast form.

The rules already restrict him to only using Pounce in Beast Form. He cannot cast spells in Beast Form either. Or are you trying on the sly to make sure that Woldwardens would not be able to cast the only two of his legal spells for him?

[Achiles]

No, no, NO Bounding Leap, please!!!
To my new Circle brethren, as well as others, please no.

It will limit the versatility of Kromac's jumping. Simple as that. He will be far more boring to play. Find another way to limit his threat range, IF it is currently too much, but keep the versatility of Pounce.

(In case it was missed, versatility is the key word here.
Thesaurus - adaptable, flexible, all-around, multifaceted, multitalented, resourceful; adjustable, multipurpose, all-purpose, handy; rare polytropic. )

A lot of people seem to think if we complain and beg enough on the forums and in our feedback this will get us what we want. That if we never call attention to the broken things they will not get noticed and we will come out better. The first has been stated as being flatly untrue. Soles and DC have both said they flat out ignore 99% of whining from the community. The second idea is against the spirit of the fieldtest. Also DC has said he tends to throw out the feedback of people that show a pattern of only asking for buffs.

In summation operating out a greedy self-interest rather than honest altruism will likely be counter productive as your feedback will simply be ignored and thus the things that need fixing in the faction won't get addressed if the largest volume of our feedback is thrown out. So Circle players please do call for the fixing of Pounce. It's "versatility" is really just another name for broken. I am glad though most of the community seems to recognize this fact.

[Strange_Eric]

The rules already restrict him to only using Pounce in Beast Form. He cannot cast spells in Beast Form either. Or are you trying on the sly to make sure that Woldwardens would not be able to cast the only two of his legal spells for him?

Restrict Pounce to Beast form if he was in beast form all turn. Is what i'm saying. Basically deny him from using bestial and havoc on a turn he wants to pounce.

And I'm not being sly, Woldwardens casting Rift at Fury 9 is retarded.

[Bakemono]

Restrict Pounce to Beast form if he was in beast form all turn. Is what i'm saying. Basically deny him from using bestial and havoc on a turn he wants to pounce.

And I'm not being sly, Woldwardens casting Rift at Fury 9 is retarded.

So unlike the other people who just want Pounce curtailed not to combo wiht charges, you want prevent him from every having any synergy with his Shaman form? In your view Kromac should be entirely one-dimensional, i.e. either Shaman to cast, or Beast to fight?

[Voltimor]

Is a choice but a warden spawn with Kromac? :P is like Kromac wanna crossdress in Coven.
I think there are beter Beasts he can support with Havoc.

[Strange_Eric]

So unlike the other people who just want Pounce curtailed not to combo wiht charges, you want prevent him from every having any synergy with his Shaman form? In your view Kromac should be entirely one-dimensional, i.e. either Shaman to cast, or Beast to fight?

I think if we are going to give him a pounce ability, that its going to dovetail in with charging regardless

He _should_ operate like two wholly different models. Otherwise why should I ever put him in human form if only to cast Bestial and Havoc and then go right back into Beast form?

You make him _more_ one dimensional if you give me less reasons to run him in Human form. And right now there's 0 reasons to run him in human form ever.

And yes Kromac with 2 Woldwardens is scary. Chain Attack smite is nothing to sneeze at. 2 castings of Rift at Fury 9 are amazing.

[zulu81]

but he is still only a P+S 14 with no way to buff it. and to charge your caster 20 inches away he needs a straight line of at least 15 inchs and have had bounding cast on him and have had the blackclad within shot range to hit the charge target. If you run your force in any sort of waves then that charge lane is denied. If you are behind a forest that range is now 18 inches (he would have hunter on him instead so no bounding) is the black clad misses or you killed it the previous turn to deniy such shanagins it is now 16 inches. and if you are 7.1 inch behind you lines he can't get you at all. Where as is you start you turn with in 18 inches of eCaine you are dead (unless you are camping focus or fury which you could aslo do against Kromac). He is not the end all be all.

[zulu81]

I think if we are going to give him a pounce ability, that its going to dovetail in with charging regardless

He _should_ operate like two wholly different models. Otherwise why should I ever put him in human form if only to cast Bestial and Havoc and then go right back into Beast form?

You make him _more_ one dimensional if you give me less reasons to run him in Human form. And right now there's 0 reasons to run him in human form ever.

And yes Kromac with 2 Woldwardens is scary. Chain Attack smite is nothing to sneeze at. 2 castings of Rift at Fury 9 are amazing.

That is not true. He can only go from his human to beast form during his feat turn or at the begining of his turn. So if he wants to cast havoc or bestial he would need to be in his shaman form. And havoc is a solid enough spell to be in shamn form for.

[Corpazious]

A lot of people seem to think if we complain and beg enough on the forums and in our feedback this will get us what we want. That if we never call attention to the broken things they will not get noticed and we will come out better. The first has been stated as being flatly untrue. Soles and DC have both said they flat out ignore 99% of whining from the community. The second idea is against the spirit of the fieldtest. Also DC has said he tends to throw out the feedback of people that show a pattern of only asking for buffs.

In summation operating out a greedy self-interest rather than honest altruism will likely be counter productive as your feedback will simply be ignored and thus the things that need fixing in the faction won't get addressed if the largest volume of our feedback is thrown out. So Circle players please do call for the fixing of Pounce. It's "versatility" is really just another name for broken. I am glad though most of the community seems to recognize this fact.

Before I make my statements, to be clear, I'm not taking your comments personally, because you clearly did not mean them personally.

I will say though that when I use the word "versatility", I really really do mean exactly the definition of versatility.
Versatile - able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities
I do NOT mean broken, or overpowered. Also, I (we) am not asking for him to be buffed. I am asking for the opposite, for new Kromac not to be nerfed.

So, I think my Cygnar friend ar2 and I came up with the answer:


Pounce (Suggestion) - Once during its activation while in Beast Form, this model can spend a fury point to be placed anywhere completely within 5" of its current location. If this model Pounces before advancing, then it cannot charge. If this model charges, then it cannot Pounce until after its combat action is completed (after all attacks).


That is it. It still allows for all the versatility, but takes away Pouncing with the 3" from charging, the 2" from the Gnarlhorn's Animus, and the 2" from the Blackclad's Hunters Mark. That's 7" less threat on a Pounce.

I think I'd be happy with that. Would you?

[LEJKaya]

Pounce at the end of a charge move is interesting for 2 reasons:

1: I played a player who easily got close to Kromac with no danger by leaving no room for his base to land. Pounce is like trample: Easily countered.

2: You cannot interrupt movement to pounce and you can't charge your full distance, pounce over some stuff and then use your charge attack on the squishy warlock behind.

If a charging model ends its charge movement without its
charge target in its melee range, then it has made a failed
charge. If a model makes a failed charge during its activation,
its activation immediately ends.

So it increases his range but he can't charge and then jump over stuff to reach his target because at the end of his charge move he has to be in melee range of his target.