Players and Pledgers! Mr. Black here for the Wrath of Kings development team, and we’ve got an update for you! As you know we value player feedback dearly on this project, and since we posted the revamped stat cards for you online, myself and my team have been busy analyzing player feedback and further optimizing the cards to YOU, the players’, liking. That being said, here are the changes we’ve made:

MOTIVATIONS

• Motivations Updated
  All Motivations have been updated. Please see the linked printer-friendly version of the new Motivations. This was done as a rebalancing effort as the design team felt many Motivations were strictly worse or better than others. Additionally, we felt many did not scale very well in accordance to game size, so we have mitigated that by making all Motivations now scale based on the Ranks of Leaders in an army (which also scales with Game Size). Give us your feedback and tell us what you think!
• Morale Degradation REMOVED.
  In light of balancing the Motivations we currently feel there is no longer a need for degrading morale. We feel this gives players a chance to comeback from games that, otherwise, might have an opponent trying to “beat out the clock” against an army. Hopefully the new Motivations, along with this change, will mitigate that issue.

GAME SIZE

• Army Restrictions Reworked
  We’ve slightly (very slightly) tweaked the limitations on Game Sizes. See them in the attached link.

CARDS (COSMETIC)

• Card Fonts Updated
  As part of our ongoing effort to give you the highest quality cards we’ve spaced things out a bit better, reworked some fonts, and in general strived to improve readability and layout of the cards.

CARDS (GAMEPLAY) 

GENERAL

• Abilities Re-write
  We’ve gone through and trimmed the text of most every ability to both improve spacing on the cards but also remove some issues players were having understanding certain effects.
• “Sweep” Removed
  We felt “Sweep” as an ability just didn’t offer enough to gameplay that couldn’t be found in simply giving the model a longer reach. As a result, “Sweep” has been removed from the game. All models who previous had “Sweep” have had their Melee range increased on the attack in question.

NASIER

• Ashmen Swordsman 
  We tweaked the Ashmen Swordsmen a bit, giving them “Deflection” (the ability to Parry magic and ranged attacks) to better exemplify their raw skill. As a trade-off, however, we have reduced their Parry results from 4 to 3.
• Ashmen Hakar
  Like the Ashmen, the Hakar has also gained “Deflection” and lost his 4^th Parry result.
• Alyana Heska

GORITSI
**We are still currently re-working some Goritsi abilities and models. These are our current updates, but expect to see a small update for them in the near future.

• War Dancers 
  We feel the overall defensive power of the War Dancers is not proportional to the heightened offense they enjoy. To balance this, we have increased their hit percentage from 50% to 60%, meaning they will seldom survive a dedicated offense against them. Additionally, the limitation to “Deadly Flourish” was easily being removed by simple plays- not our intention. To fix this we have reworked their limitation as that they cannot use “Deadly Flourish” if they began the activation engaged, meaning a clever opponent can stop that onslaught by engaging them first. 
• Dancing Master
  The Dancing Master has, like the troops under her care, also had her hit percentage increased from 40% to 50%, as well as the “Deadly Flourish” rework implemented.
• Herald of Blood
  Minor rework in her Inspire ability so it now triggers off of the model’s maneuver, rather than its action.
• Skorza Skirmisher
  After player feedback, most felt that the Skorza didn’t have any basic weaknesses- having excellent mobility, offensive power, and defensive abilities. We never want a model to be just flat “better” than anything else, so we’ve removed Intimidating Presence, increased their hit percentage from 30% to 40%, and slightly reduced the power of their Brutal Savagery attack. We feel this puts them more in line with other Rank 2 Infantry, given their speed and board control.
• Skorza Alpha
  Like the Skirmishers, he also has had his hit percentage increased by 10% and his Brutal Savagery attack power reduced slightly.
• Korrad Ungarash
  We combined his “Pounce” and his “Rend” into one attack- “Rending Pounce” (we’re so clever) and, like the rest of the Skorza, increased his hit percentage by 10%.
• Shield Breaker
  The general “Sweep” change has increased the Shield Breaker’s threat range to 8 inches. Additionally, we have decreased his hit percentage by 10% (giving him another Armor result). We have also given his “Huge Axe” attack Follow-Through(1) at the trade-off of reducing Sundering(2) to (1) as well. Lastly he has gained the Skorza’s old Intimidating Presence, making him far more of a tanky threat than before.
• Scourge Hound
  We wanted the Scourge Hound to be an absolute glass-cannon, with high speed and damage output. Unfortunately, much like the rest of Goritsi, she just had too much raw staying power compared to her offense. We have increased her hit percentage by 10% and lowered her Wounds value to 2, as well as reduced the total models she can move by 1.

HADROSS

• Deepman Spearman
  His “Resonate” wasn’t triggering enough times for our liking- to fix this we’ve converted the Will Attack into a Will Check(1), meaning he is now less reliant on the enemy having an average or below average Will in order to give them Resonate.
• Deepman Kaxas
  Got the same fix as the Deepman Spearmen.
• Torvosh the Bannerman
  Got the same fix as the Deepman Spearmen. We’ve also slightly reworked his Toggled Aura, which is now simply a Special Action that imparts “Resonate” on all enemy models within range.
• Sevridan Gutters
  Gelatinous Shift has been reworked, hopefully making it easier to understand.
• Oorath of Sysor Deep
  We’ve removed the Sundering(1) from Tidal Crash, as feedback said this particular attack was a bit devastating for enemies to fight against.
• Deep Caller
  We’ve added a new ability, “Calling of the Voice” to this model in order to give it a unique way to give enemies “Resonate”
• Orsund Cavalier
  We’ve reworked their “Tentacle Grab” attack to now function off of allocated attack dice, rather than hits.

TEKNES

• Defender Linemen
  We’ve added an extra bit to “Rescue” which now allows the Linemen to move into contact with the enemy model you just pulled the ally away from.

SHAEL-HAN

• Dragon Legionnaire
  We felt these guys, while cool in concept, just didn’t serve a specific purpose in the army. As such, we’ve solidified their role as the defensive wall of the army by giving them the “Healing Vapors” ability, which allows them to ignore successful strikes against them as long as they are in contact with an allied Dragon Legionnaire. The trade-off is all this extra vapor makes it hard to block magic and ranged attacks, so they have lost “Deflection”.

For any questions, or just to join in on the discussion, please head over to the Wrath of Kings forums.