Hello! Michael here. Another speedrun of an article today, where I go over all the new balance changes found on Warhammer community that just dropped!
I will go over each change and summarize it real quick, as well as quickly think of some possible meta implications for the analysis. With that, let’s get right into it!
Spoiler – HUGE implications for the ping meta!
Aqua Ghyranis clarifications!
The fact that we must place them on all boards is nice. Unfortunately until some elites get nerfed we might need to box away Wreckers (I personally won’t cause damage is cool) but other than that it’s pretty neat change – players now actually have to learn to play around them and they can never be ignored.
Aquas being delveable is huge and a very good buff to PnP. Not much to say otherwise.
Fighter placement working as we have been playing for the past 3 or so months is a nice change – no need to change up token placement strategies. Unfortunately it does make you suffer more from placing down boards but oh well.
Finally, the last rule allows us to consider them as feature tokens, which is somehow another buff to PnP but also a sidegrade to Cataclysm – Wreckers is in shambles but the rest of the deck is great! This does force you to pair it with some more consistent scoring like PnP.
Elathain got nerfed which is kind of valid but also shuts down Hold Elathain as a strategy. It does kind of raise the skill ceiling of the warband even more which I like – because you have to actually think when using Furiann now. Still – a pretty good change, don’t know if the warband needed it but it shouldn’t murder the warband.
Shadow Ambush clarifications!
It being able to be used as part of a Charge action is very good! Getting a move and charge token is funny but not harmful – not much cards in the game care about that now. This opens up some more aggro possibilities for the Shadeborn.
Being able to charge without an initial target in range is a very strong effect, and something that helps cement Shadeborn as a glass cannon warband.
Being able to ‘double move’ is HUGE. You can reach literally any hex on the board with this ability now! Maybe we can play some hold Shadeborn…?
Finally, being able to Barge with Shadow Ambush being clarified caught me completely off guard. But it is a very welcome change for the 4 Shadeborn players who ever played Wrack and Ruin!
Velmorn got buffed! Very rare.
Jedran is now super accurate when inspired, this is a very welcome change.
The inspire has been clarified to actually be able to work, and also now more consistently inspire Velmorn himself. A very good buff to the warband.
Starbloods not catching a nerf is a surprise to me but that’s for another day.
Kixi-Taka got buffed, his melee weapon wasn’t changed but his Ranged attack is now more accurate – which also deprives him of his status of only fighter in the game to not gain anything on inspiration. It makes the Stalkers strictly better.
The Wurmspat got clarified but I have some potentially negative comments here so feel free to skip them if you are having a good day.
The ability now can actually be activated at a proper time to make it usable, which is a welcome change.
Negative comments/rant
However, there are still some issues here –
- first of all, this warband is still very minorly overtuned. By very minorly, I mean that they have a counter to literally ALMOST EVERYTHING IN THE GAME. The usual strategy of ‘running away’ is hard counter by Bile for some unknown reason reducing movement by 2.
- They can’t really be focused down as committing even one fighter is super risky as it accelerates their inspire.
- If you DO commit a fighter, there is a 33 or so percent chance your attack just DOESN’T DO THE DAMAGE IT SHOULD. Thricefold Discord were in a similar position last year (I have an article about it here!) and they got nerfed pretty fast. Not sure why Wurmspat, who are arguably more annoying to deal with as all three of them are strong compared to one threat in 3XD, aren’t nerfed yet.
- Finally, there is still the unanswered question of does this Grievous stack with cleave? A little annoying if it does and it would be great to be clarified!
I am actually about to go cry cause TUNNELPACK GOT NERFED BEFORE WURMSPAT.
This is some nice clarification about whether or not Krittakok Inspire Alt Art card actually is stronger or not, a welcome change! Though it was very fun to be able to have a ‘premium’ Krittatok. Anyways, this doesn’t have any major meta implications.
In Deadly Synergy, Battering Ram has been clarified to shut down Stand Fast as well. I don’t know if it needed to shut down the -1 Damage as well as guaranteed driveback but it is good clarification! This makes the card even stronger than before. This also kind of makes up for a lack of Grievous in Deadly Synergy (bar Coordinated Deathblow) by being a pseudo-reverse-Bladecatcher.
- Forget what I said about Stand Fast above cause guaranteed Stand Fast still works! As a Soulraider this is great!
- Closed Down got technically nerfed but in reality it’s more of a clarification which is very welcome.
- Brother-in-Arms now needs a Melee weapon on the ‘borrower’ of the weapon, a small nerf to the card.
- Brother in Arms no longer borrows upgrades from the person you are borrowing the weapon from.
The Closed Down changes make playing vs DS easier. The Brother-in-Arms changes is a slight nerf to the card but it’s still very strong on certain warbands, it’s just voltroning is not as effective with the deck now.
Yay Hunting Grounds changes!
Crippling Blow received some much-needed clarification about when the target receives a move token. This is a slight nerf but could be a buff in other cases too, as it’s not often you want to push an enemy out of your territory but now you can without feeling sorry for yourself.
THE BEST CHANGE IN THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
WE GOT PING BUFFS!!! Volcanic Eruption now NO LONGER PINGS YOU. I said this was the case before and no one believed me! So I am NO LONGER SORRY for anyone I ‘misplayed’ this card against! This brings CataWrack into a much more consistent spot in the meta, and just Wrack in general, as you will be less likely to kill yourself by playing the game!
And… that’s it!
This is a very small patch and it’s nice to get some official clarification on some important topics. If these sort of docs dropped more often i’ll be happy!
There are some issues with this doc that I have ahem wurmspat and there are some other balance changes that I would love to see but as a clean-up this isn’t bad by any stretch of imagination!
Volcanic Eruption being on this document literally saves the entire thing and makes up for everything btw. There is currently a raging debate happening on who is to credit for this change and we would love some official clarification on this too.
With that, thanks for reading! If you want to chat about any points made, feel free to find me on Discord! Hopefully this article was of help to you and I hope to see you again soon! 🙂
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