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Dear CA,

As we have before, the Total Tavern and Vermin League discord communities, together with many talented players from all over the MP and TW community have compiled open source, peer-reviewed-and-tested balance and bug fix recommendations to enhance Warhammer III Multiplayer battles. We work with both the Domination, Land Battle and the new and emerging Conquest communities as well with the help and technical insights of our resident modders to suggest solutions that work across the game modes and improve balance for Warhammer 3.

We suggest buffs where needed to help underperforming units, and where we suggest nerfs, making MP price adjustments are always an option if other changes aren’t helpful for Single Player.

This list has been updated as we took in the helpful updates as well as the major new balance issues from patch 5.1.

Thanks for continuing to support Warhammer multiplayer! Our goal is to make balancing this game as easy and low risk for you as possible. On this point I’d also like to add a well-deserved shout out to Eumaies, who has created, moderated and guided this project since its beginning as the editor of this document. His effort has helped our community tremendously and with 5.1 being a great patch for our scene he has decided to retire and handed the reins over to me as the new editor for this community project.

-Catholic Alcoholic (editor)

Top (revised) MP Balance Issues for Patch 5.2+:

Across all Factions, Centigors/CentigorGW/Centigors of Tzeentch are overperforming significantly and need a nerf (e.g. +50g each to 750/950/1100).

Kislev still needs more nerfs: +50g to Kislevite Warriors, +50g to Heavy War Sleds, +50g to The Things in the Woods, Tzarina Katarin’s Ice Court Sled: -10 speed and charge speed, set radius ratio of her articulation profile from 0.3 to 0.85 OR increase cost by 150g.

Key Dwarf nerfs: 

Nerfs to Rune of Hearth & Home’s vigour effect: Remove it from MP or reduce it to 0.5%/s, 3% vigour reduction is still way too high.

Nerfs to Steam Gyrocopters: -16 WS, +50g & -5 missile damage and remove Fire Whilst Moving.

Nerfs to Dwarf Bolt Throwers: Reduce crew hp by half, reduce artillery piece health and set projectile penetration to “low” OR increase price by 250g.

Nerfs to Thunderbarge ammo.

Nerf to Dragon Slayer: +75g and Daemon Slayer: +100g.

Slaanesh tweaks: Fiends of Slaanesh: +100g OR reduce HP per entity to 508, Heartseekers of Slaanesh: Add attribute Frenzy, +14 CB, +4 WS or -150g, Exalted Seeker & Hellflayer Chariots: Increase WS.

Steam Tank is still overly strong in melee vs cavalry due to animations applying multiple hits, but also overly weak to cannon fire. If the animation cannot be fixed consider stat nerfs that reduce damage into non-infantry targets: (-10 MA for +10 BvI and reduce collision attack settings to 2/2, set size entity to “very large” to take fewer double hits and fix melee hit box to match articulation profile of visible model). They should also have a minimum firing range of 15, which prevents them from overperforming in duels versus other SEMs. Also consider removing the missile resistance from the Master Engineer when mounted on the Steam Tank.

Chaos Dwarfs still have key dysfunctional units: Hobgoblin Archers: -50g or +30 entities & -2MS, Zhatan the Black's mount costs: -200g each, K’daai destroyer: add collision attacks, Lammasu: +800hp or -200g and Orc Laborers: -50g, but still need a duration nerf to Chalice of Blood and Darkness: -4s to 9s.

Buffs to weak elite chariots and some outdated SE chariots by increasing their WS significantly (Cold One Chariots, White Lion Chariots, Black Coach, Gorebeast Chariots, etc.).

Full Balance and Bugfix Recommendations:

Recommendation areas that span multiple factions:

Spells:

Overly Strong Spells:

Lore of Vampires:

Gaze of Nagash: +2/+1 WoM to 9/15, does too much damage after the changes to homing missiles.

​Skaven Spells of Ruin:

Flensing Ruin: +1/2 WoM to 15/22, significantly more WoM effective than comparable spells. Alternatively decrease duration by -2/-5s respectively.

The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell: -50m range to 100m, a bit too strong overall with its very long range, damage, and summon.

Lore of Slaanesh:

Pavane of Slaanesh: +2/+1 WoM to 14/23, is a great spell that now needs more WoM cost, especially on the basic cast.

Spells that need buffs: 

Little Waaagh!: 

Night Shroud: -2/-4 WoM to 6/10, too expensive to be viable.

Big Waaagh!:

Foot of Gork: -3/-6 WoM to 15/20 or more AP damage, doesn’t do enough damage for high WoM cost.

Lore of Light:

Banishment: -2/-3 WoM to 15/21, costly to take and random in its effects for high WoM cost.

Light of Battle: Add Immune to Flanking attribute, unbreakable on its own isn’t a very appealing buff.

Lore of Heavens:

Wind Blast: Increase dmg to 20/30, damage is too low,  suggested values use Lore of the Deep’s Tidecall as a reference.

Chain Lightning: -1 WoM to 13, slightly too costly to take for random impact.

Lore of Death:

The Purple Sun of Xereus: -2/-3 WoM to 16/21, costly to take and random in its effects for high WoM cost.

Soul Blight: -2/2 WoM to 6/12, short duration and high WoM cost make the spell an unattractive choice.

The Fate of Bjuna: -2 WoM to 20, now that the one-shot dynamic has been toned down Bjuna should at least return to the old dmg/WoM effectiveness.

Lore of Vampires:

Curse of Years: -1 WoM to 10, change to +30s cooldowns, spell is redundant with the much better Vanhel’s Danse Macabre.

Lore of Shadows: 

Okkam’s Mindrazor: Add +12 MA effect, buffs to WS increase aren’t very effective without a hit chance increase.

Lore of the Wild:

Viletide: -3/3 WoM to 6/10 and increase cast range to 200m, low damage for the WoM cost.

Lore of Beasts:

The Amber Spear: -1/1 WoM to 6/10. Not very WoM effective since it doesn’t do well vs SEs.

Transformation of Kadon: -2 WoM to 18, expensive spell and manticores are weaker now; spell is rarely used. The Eagle version needs even more help.

Lore of Life:

Shield of Thorns: -3/3 WoM to 4/7 and -1s cast time, impact is too limited even in ideal situations for the WoM cost and takes to long to cast.

Lore of High Magic:

Tempest: -1/1 WoM to 9/17, could need a small nudge due to its specialist design.
Arcane Unforging: -2/-2 WoM to 14/18 and increase duration on the overcast to 30s.

Fiery Convocation: -2s cast time or -2/-2 WoM. The spell animation is too long for an additional 5s cast time on top, makes the spell too easy to dodge.

Lore of Dark Magic:

Doombolt: +250 ranged damage for the basic cast, +600 ranged damage for the overcast, not WoM efficient and a bit lacklustre for a rare spell.

Word of Pain: Remove accuracy debuff and add -8 LD, accuracy isn’t a very good debuff effect nor does it synergize with melee attack, a minor leadership reduction similar to devolve would be a better option.

Lore of Stealth:

Black Whirlwind: -2/-1 WoM to 13/19, easy to avoid the damage for the WoM cost.

Skitterleap: +25s duration to 50s.

Veil of Shadows: Add Silenced attribute, a vortex that does no damage isn’t a very useful spell archetype.

Lore of the Deep:

Vangheist’s Revenge: -2s cast time. The spell animation is too long for an additional 5s cast time on top, makes the spell too easy to dodge.

Runic Magic:

All Runes: Increase range from 100m to 130m, would help slow mages.

Rune of Oath and Steel: add +10/20 missile block to basic/overcast.

Lore of Hashut:

Hell Hammer: -1/1 WoM to 15/21, given it's long windup time.

Dark Subjugation: Increase duration from 17/35s to 24/44s.

Curse of Hashut: -2/2 WoM to  9/14, very low damage even for its long range.

Killing Fire (lore passive): Needs to do ~32-64 damage per tick rather than 15-30 to even be remotely viable.

Lore of Nurgle:

Curse of the Leper: -2/2 WoM to 6/9, impact is too limited even for ideal situations for the WoM cost.

Blight Boil: -2s cast time.The spell animation is too long for an additional 5s cast time on top, makes the spell too easy to dodge.

Lore of Tzeentch:

Glean Magic: Increase enemy power recharge effect from -40% to -100%.

Lore of Slaanesh:

Hysterical Frenzy: Increase duration from 22/44 seconds to 25/50, was over-nerfed for the rampage loss.

Slicing Shards: -2s cast time. The spell animation is too long for an additional 5s cast time on top, making the spell too easy to dodge.

Lore of the Great Maw:

The Maw: -4/-4 WoM to 16/22 or add more AP to overcast.

Toothcracker: -2/2 WoM to 5/10.

Lore of Yang:

Wall of Wind & Fire: -2/-2 WoM to 5/9, very hard to land.

Might of Heaven & Earth: -1/2 WoM to 10/18, compare to Frost Blades.

Lore of Yin:

Talons of Night: -1/1 WoM to 17/24, was over-nerfed over multiple patches.

Unit balancing that spans multiple factions:

(!) All low-armour type foot characters need to have higher % knockdown resist so that they can actually be killed rather than fall over (particularly mages). Should be at least at 40% across the board for foot characters.

(!) All Forsaken variants: +800 HP. Forsaken are too squishy for their price on Ultra unit size.

Gotrek: -50g. Is overpriced even for a multi-faction hero.

Ground based breath attacks on large monsters such as the Hydra, Elemental Bear & Toad Dragon should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise.

A lot of abilities and auras from lords and heroes would benefit from a 55m aoe when the effects aren’t particularly strong, since Ultra unit size has made it more difficult to keep multiple units in a 35m aoe. Examples of this include: Loremaster & Handmaiden’s auras, Waystalker’s Warrior Bane item, Necrotect’s Stone Shaper and Wrath of the Creator, Gunnery Wright’s Dead Eyes, Master Engineer’s Prospector’s Spyglass, Dreadlord’s The Guiding Eye & Shield of Ghrond and Gor-Rok’s Shield of Aeons.

Many of the old ranged Lords and Heroes have poor missile strength values compared to their newer counterparts and could require a ~25% increase in missile strength. This includes the Khainite assassin, Dreadlord (Sword and Crossbow), Master Engineer, Alith Anar, Handmaiden of the Everqueen, Princess, Master Assassin, Glade Lord, Waystalker and Gunnery Wright.

Spells/runes 3-4-5-6 (out of 6) should get progressively & significantly cheaper to encourage variety, the current -5% cost for each spell or rune taken is too small to be impactful.

Many abilities, contact phases and items that affect speed should also modify charge speed. Major examples for this are: Foe-Seeker, Poison, Barbed Net, Bironas Timewarp, Curse of Anraheir, as well as Terrain & Fatigue effects.

General Game Mechanics/Bugs:

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The damage value counter is often erroneous and doesn't count damage from certain sources, such as army abilities. This would help to properly assess the current balance of power. Individual unit damage counters seem to work properly, just the global/faction values are not working properly.

Add an "overall gold value on field" counter next to the army damage counter. This would give players an option to gauge current army strengths via a system that takes crumbling damage, shattered units, summons and healing into account.

The addition of a set of predetermined quick-reactions (such as gg, rdy, glhf, and so forth) would greatly alleviate the lack of a chat system.

Domination Game Mechanics/Bugs:

Unit cap weights in domination should value expensive infantry units a bit more so they are not a liability, e.g. +2 cap weight for infantry units costing 1150g and upwards.

Resummoned units should not retain abilities gained in past lives (e.g. Norsca’s Rage, Malus post-transformation, etc..)

Land Battle/Conquest Game Mechanics:

(!) Spell casters count too much towards the balance of power. Caster effects on the balance of power bar should be scaled down with WoM spent or just be lower from the start.

(!) In Conquest, contesting capture points with units in melee or standing still should pause the timer so that games don't end prematurely.

• In Conquest, units should capture capture points much faster than in domination. You often need to cap with small tattered units in the late game.

Faction-specific Recommendations:

Beastmen:

(!!) Centigors/Centigors Great Weapons/Centigors of Tzeentch: +50g each to 750/950/1100. Across all Factions Centigors are overperforming significantly and need a nerf.

(!) Pestigors: Reduce missile resistance by -10% and -20 armour. Unit is over-performing with many perks and strengths for price. Alternatively increase price by 50g. 

Gor Herd: +25g. Recent buffs warrant a price increase. Does not apply to the shielded variant!

Bestigors: +6 CB or -50g. Like other older GW units they are a bit lacking in performance for cost.

Cygor: Increase Projectile Explosion Radius to 8. Recent buffs were good, but the unit’s performance in WH3 is worse due to the switch to Ultra unit size. Increasing the projectile explosion radius would address the issue.

The Eye of Morrslieb RoR: Update the missile damage values to be on par with the regular Cygor. The RoR Cygor was omitted from the missile damage buffs the Cygor received in 5.1, and currently lacks behind the base unit.

Bretonnia:

Grail Knights, Grail Guardians & Royal Hippogryph Knights: -400 HP. Health pools remain slightly too large ever since the unit got a rework.

Questing Knights: +2 WS. Could still need slightly more punch.

Peasant Mob: +25g. Are too useful for the price.

Chaos Dwarfs:

(!) Sorcerer-Prophet: Decrease the duration of Chalice of Blood & Darkness to 9s or reintroduce a range in which the enemy spell has to be cast. An extremely effective source of healing on a strong character for a small price.

(!) K’daai Destroyer: Add collision attacks. Underwhelming damage for the price, collision attacks help to solve animation related damage application issues.

(!) Zhatan the Black: -200g on Great Taurus and Lammasu mounts. Mounts are overpriced compared to their unit version.

(!) Lammasu (base unit): +800hp or -200g. Still not competitive.

(!) Hobgoblin Archers: +30 entities, -1 AP missile strength, -1 base missile strength. Hobgoblin Archers fall more in line with other 120 entity archers like Skeleton Archers or Night Goblin Archers due to their low range and low missile strength. Alternatively decrease price by 50g.

Orc Labourers: -50g. Too expensive for their stats and role.

Drazhoath the Ashen: Dark Renown ability should also affect Drazhoath himself.

Oglah Khan’s Wolfboyz RoR: -50g. Was forgotten when the base unit got a cost decrease.

Daemonsmith Sorcerer: -50g on foot. Is slightly overpriced on foot, mount prices are okay.

Blazing Body passive ability: Set max amount of seconds in combat required for full charge to 300. Intensity charging requirement is quite a bit too harsh for this ability to be impactful.

Daemons of Chaos:

Arcalux, Prince of Fury: -200g. Not competitive at his price point.

Daemon Prince: -200g. Not competitive at his price point.

Caress, the Darkling Prince: -200g. Not competitive at his price point.

Be'lakor: -100g. A bit too expensive, a slight price reduction would make him more appealing.

Herald of Tzeentch (Metal) gives the wrong army abilities, he should unlock TZ army abilities.

Dark Elves:

(!) Crone Hellebron: +50 WS on Foot, Dark Steed & Manticore, -150g on Manticore, -50g on Cauldron of Blood. Very fragile lord that doesn’t hit hard enough. Changes to her Cauldron of Blood below.

(!) Cauldron of Blood (Crone Hellebron & Death Hag): +100 WS, +20 CB, +10 BvI, set collision max targets cooldown and attacks to 4/4. Very weak chariot mount that does little damage.

(!) Cold One Chariots: +700 mass, +35 WS, +20 CB, set collision max targets cooldown and attacks to 2/2. Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Khainite Assassin: Add attribute Executioner or swap WS to majority ap; additionally increase missile damage substantially. Low damage values and high price make it difficult for them to fulfill their job as assassins. The missile attack is barely noticeable, consider improving penetration settings or making it armour piercing. Alternatively decrease the price by 75g.

Doomfire Warlocks: +500 HP. Still a bit squishy for the price. Alternatively decrease the price by 100g.

Cold One Knights: +480HP and +3 MA. Cold One Knights were nerfed in patch 4.2 with the primal instinct change and were already weaker than Lizardmen Cold One Spear-Riders.

Cold One Dread Knights: +4 WS. Could be a bit more aggressive after Primal Instincts was nerfed.

War Hydra: Fiery Breath should lose its out of melee condition and add collision attacks. Ground based breath attacks on large monsters should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise. Collision attacks solve animation related damage application issues.

Bloodwrack Shrine: +190 WS, remove In melee condition for Aura of Ardour and Aura of Agony and -200g. Currently just a worse version than the Bloodwrack Medusa that costs 500g more. Particularly the buff and debuff auras are largely inactive since the Bloodwrack Shrine isn’t very good in melee.

Dwarfs:

(!) Dwarf Bolt Throwers: Reduce crew entity hp + reduce artillery piece health and set projectile penetration to “low” OR increase price by 250g.

(!) Gyrocopters: -16 WS for both variants, -50g for brimstones, +50g & -5 missile damage to the steam version. Remove Fire Whilst Moving as well. Both gyrocopter variants should cost the same. The steam version deals too much damage per shot and is hard to shut down since it can keep firing while being chased. The weapon strength of the gyrocopters wasn't reduced after the model count increase, which has resulted in gyros dealing too much damage in melee if they are caught.

(!) Nerf to Rune of Hearth & Home’s vigour effect: Remove it from MP or reduce it to 0.3%/s, 3% vigour reduction is still way too high and promotes toxic gameplay). 

(!) Thunderbarge: Move cannons to the secondary ammo pool so that the primary pool only includes the bombs. Reduce the primary ammo pool to 5 & reduce secondary ammo pool (ie. cannons, grudgerakers, grenadiers) to 30. Ammo is still too high for Land Battle as the Thunderbarge almost never runs out of ammo, and particularly the bombs are almost unlimited.

(!) Daemon Slayer: +100g. Should not have had his price reduced in 5.1 as he is very good.

(!) Dragon Slayer: +75g, -100g to his unique items. Is a bit underpriced for utility but his items/abilities are all overpriced.

Flame Cannons: +40 range or -100g. Still worse than they were before 5.0.

Thane: +50g. Is very tanky could cost a bit more but the Silver Horn of Vengeance needs a buff (e.g. to +24 CB total) and Rune of Dismay (e.g. to 20% slow)

Quarrelers Great Weapons: -25g. Normal quarrelers are always better than the Great Weapons variant

Rangers Great Weapons: -50g or +30 range. So fragile they are rarely viable 

The Skolder Guard RoR: -50g or +10 range. Doesn't have much of a reason to be taken at their price point relative to standard Irondrakes right now.

Rune Magic: Should be designed with 130m cast range to enable the faction to play in a less boxy style in spite of having slow characters.

Grand Cathay:

Peasant Long Spearmen: Lose Expendable attribute & adjust domination capweight to 5. Weakens them in Land Battle but helps Grand Cathay in Domination.

Great Moon Bird: -100g on unit and mount versions. A bit too expensive currently.

Jade Lion: +20 WS. Could punch slightly harder for the price.

Jet Lion: +20 WS. Could punch slightly harder for the price.

Greenskins:

(!) Goblin Wolf Chariots: +7 base missile damage and +1 armour piercing missile damage. Used to double shoot but now that that bug is fixed their ranged damage is too weak.

(!) Grom the Paunch: +70 WS and set collision attack profile to 5/5. Impacted by the transition to Ultra unit size.

(!) Feral Wyvern: -300g. Great to see a unit from the Extended Roster to make its appearance in MP, but currently quite a bit overpriced.

Giant River Troll Hag: Swamp Breath should lose its out of melee condition. Ground based breath attacks on large monsters should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise.

Orc Boyz: -5g. Not being a flat 100/50/25 price is frustrating for army building.

Da Big Un RoR:  Increase Projectile Explosion Radius to 8. The unit’s performance in WH3 is worse due to the switch to Ultra unit size. Increasing the projectile explosion radius would address the issue.

Black Orcs: -50g. Could be slightly cheaper.

Da Eight Peak Loonies RoR: -10g. Not being a flat 100/50/25 price is frustrating for army building.

High Elves:

(!) Lion Chariots of Chrace: +30 WS, set collision max targets cooldown and attacks to 2/2. Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

(!) Eltharion the Grim: -200g on Stormwing. Mistwalker's Barrage: Add the wh2_dlc15_lord_passive_mistwalkers_barrage back to the projectile, and restore the previous explosion damage values to 50 AP detonation damage, 0 normal detonation damage. His griffon mount is still overpriced when compared to other griffon characters. Mistwalker's Barrage received additional stealth nerfs in 5.0.3, which entirely removed the explosion element from the projectiles and further reduced the explosion damage profile from 50 AP dmg to 10 base, 5 AP dmg. Both of these changes should be rolled back, just like the spread increase. Mistwalker's Barrage was perfectly balanced in its original release state in 5.0 and was sorely needed to make Eltharion viable in MP.

Flamespyre Phoenix: Increase WS by ~15% (+50 WS), increase damage of Wake of Fire by ~10%. A bit too weak on Ultra unit size, the bombs do not do enough damage.

Frostheart Phoenix & Arcane Phoenix: Increase WS by ~15% (+60 WS). A bit too weak on Ultra unit size.

Tiranoc Chariots: +4 base missile damage and +2 armour piercing missile damage. Ranged damage values are too low to make a noticeable impact and fail to set the unit apart from the competing melee chariots.

Rangers: +3 BvI. Are still slightly underperforming in melee.

Phoenix Guard: +4 WS or add attribute Immune to Psychology. Have fallen somewhat behind in WH3.

Sisters of Avelorn: -1s reload time. Are not competitive with other elite ranged units.

War Lions of Chrace: +3 BvI. Are slightly underperforming as a specialist unit.

Omen of Asuryan RoR: Add minor vigour replenishment effect of -0.3% to the Omen of Hope ability.

Noble: Reverse WS ratio of the Ithilmar Chariot mount to 210 ap WS, 90 base WS. Swap WS values and increase price by 50g for the Great Eagle mount. Since the animation issues with the Ithilmar Chariot have been fixed, reversing the WS values to be majority armour piercing would be welcome. The Great Eagle mount is very underwhelming currently, swapping to armour piercing attacks in exchange for a small increase would make the mount more appealing.

Khorne:

Gorebeast Chariots of Khorne: +30 WS, set collision max targets cooldown and attacks to 2/2. Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Chaos Warshrine of Khorne: Increase AoE to 55m and set MA effect to +16 MA max for the Giver of Furious Glory ability. Is currently too weak to be viable.

Soul Grinder of Khorne: +50 WS or improve the utility of the precursor missile. Weakest version of the 4 Soul Grinders, as the special precursor missile weapon isn’t very useful due to the player not being able to target it.

Minotaurs of Khorne (Great Weapons): +50g. Overperform now that the rest of the roster is much stronger.

Minotaurs of Khorne: +50g. Overperform now that the rest of the roster is much stronger.

Bloodthirster: +40 WS. Needs to hit a bit harder to be in line with other newer SEMs.

Relentless Rage (Tier 2 Army Ability): Add +40 MA or replace effect with invulnerability. Is currently too weak.

See buff to Forsaken of Khorne above.

Kislev:

(!) Tzarina Katarin’s Ice Court Sled: -10 speed and charge speed, set radius ratio of her articulation profile from 0.3 to 0.85 OR increase cost by 150g. Can currently path through enemy units a bit too easily because of a small articulation profile.

(!) Kislevite Warriors: +50g or -4 MA. Are a bit too cost effective as a frontline unit.

Heavy War Sleds: +50g. Currently a bit too good considering their hybrid nature.

The Things in the Woods: +50g or -4 MA. Too strong for the current cost.

Horse Archers: +50g. Too strong for the current cost.

Kossovite Dervishes: -5 LD or +25g. A bit too brave with By Our Blood.

Ice Witch: +50g on all mounts. A bit too cheap.

Oath-Brothers of Tor RoR: +50g or increase the cooldown of the Call of Tor ability to 120s. Gains a lot of upsides over the regular unit for a very small price.

Elemental Bear: Elemental Breath should lose its out of melee condition. Add collision attacks. Ground based breath attacks on large monsters should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise. Collision attacks solve animation related damage application issues.

Frost Wyrm: Add collision attacks. Increase total cost of the mount to 1650 (+100g on the Ice Witch, +50g on Katarin when mounted on the Frost Wyrm). The Frost Wyrm struggles with damage application due to its animations, collision attacks would solve this issue. Also include a cost increase to the mount versions for both Tzarina Katarin and the Ice Witch, so that they both cost 1650g in total.

Hag Witch: Change projectile trajectory to fixed or fix accuracy issues and add some explosion damage. Currently misses far too often due to its trajectory sight setting. The projectile also lacks explosion damage of any kind, making it exceptionally poor against infantry.

Ice Guard (both variants): +6 WS. Have little reason to be taken; high price for decent ranged attacks and poor melee stats.

Boydinov’s Brawlers RoR: Set Splash Target Size to 0. Suffer from the old splash attack issue that regular Streltsi had.

Tzar Guard Great Weapons: -2 WS. Trades a bit too well into similar or higher priced elite GW infantry units.

Lizardmen:

(!) Coatl: Add collision attacks. Collision attacks solve animation related damage application issues.

(!) Shredder of Lustria RoR: +100g. Could stand to be a bit more expensive after the recent buffs.

(!) Gor-Rok: -100g and increase duration of Mace of Ulumak to 30s, increase aoe of Shield of Aeons to 55m. Not a very impactful character for the cost.

Nakai the Wanderer: +30 WS or -50g. Needs to hit harder to be relevant.

Lord Kroak: -100g. A bit too expensive to be more than a niche pick.

Skink Oracle: -50g. A bit too expensive to see more widespread use.

Bastiladon Solar Engine: Reduce the vigor effect of the Solar Engine passive ability from -1% to -0.3%. The vigor reduction value is too aggressive, as it outpaces the fatigue gain of most actions by a significant margin.

Bastiladon Ark of Sotek: Increase the vortex damage from the Ark of Sotek ability or increase radius to 25m. The damage is currently very underwhelming but shouldn’t be too aggressive either since the ability has unlimited uses.

Chameleon Stalkers: Increase detonation radius of the precursor missile to 3 or +6 MA. The damage of the precursor missile is rather underwhelming, considering it is one of the unit's standout features and cannot be aimed. Alternatively increase the unit's MA if the unit is too supposed to be more melee focused.

Saurus Warriors (both mace variants): +3 MA. Could be a bit more aggressive after Primal Instincts was nerfed.

Cold One Riders: +3 MA and 336 HP. Could be a bit more aggressive after Primal Instincts was nerfed.

Cold One Spear-Riders: +3 MA and 336 HP. Could be a bit more aggressive after Primal Instincts was nerfed.

Feral Cold Ones: -25g. Were nerfed a bit too harshly, at 475 they’d be fine.

Norsca:

(!) Marauder Ice Wolves Chariots: Increase missile damage to 200 or higher, +400 mass. Currently the missile damage is far too low to have any impact.

Marauder Berserkers: +10 CB and +3 speed (and charge speed). A bit underperforming compared to similar units.

Brutes of the Hound RoR: +10 CB, +3 speed (and charge speed), +20 armour. Doesn’t gain the armour effect from the Mark of Khorne.

Feral Mammoth, War Mammoth, War Mammoth (Warshrine), Soulcrusher RoR: -100g and increase acceleration to 6. Mammoths are still a bit too expensive for their performance and get stuck too easily.

Wulfrik the Wanderer: -100g on the War Mammoth. Currently a bit overpriced on the Mammoth Mount. The acceleration buff to 6 that is listed for the regular Mammoths should also apply to Wulfrik’s Mammoth mount.

Marauder Chieftain: Add armour piercing WS effect to Flaming Axe of Cormac and increase the value to 35%. Potion of Foolhardiness should imbue Immune to Flanking. Buffing the Chieftain’s items should help make him more viable.

Throgg: Add +24 MD effect to The Wintertooth Crown. Copious Vomit should lose its out of melee condition. The Wintertooth Crown is not a very appealing item. Ground based breath attacks such as Copious Vomit should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise.

Marauders Great Weapons: -25g. The cost increase over the basic version is a bit too much.

Fimir Balefiend: +8 MA. Currently a bit lacking in his hybrid role, a higher hit chance would help him apply armour sundering.

Skin Wolf Werekin: Add attribute Strider. Lacks the strider attribute that the other skin wolves units have.

Nurgle:

(!) Pestigors: Reduce missile resistance by -10% and -20 armour. Unit is over-performing with many perks and strengths for price. Alternatively increase the price by 50g.

(!) Nurgle army abilities: Charge-up should be a bit faster and Rot Glorious Rot should get +6s duration to 24s, as it is currently too weak.

(!) Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord: -400g and +30 turn speed on Bubebolos. Pays a massive tax over the regular Toad Dragon, while not being significantly better. Changes made to the Toad Dragon should also apply to his mount. Also did not receive the turn speed buff that was given to the Toad Dragon unit in 5.0.3.

(!) The Rotting Riders RoR: -200g and +5 LD & +300 mass. This RoR is overpriced compared to a basic Rot Knight.

Rot Knights: +5 LD and +300 mass. A bit underperforming for the price, could stand to be a bit more brave.

Exalted Hero of Nurgle: +50g. A bit too strong for the cost.

Toad Dragon: Unspeakable Foulness should lose its out of melee condition, add collision attacks. Ground based breath attacks on large monsters should be usable while engaged in melee, as targeting becomes very frustrating otherwise. Collision attacks solve animation related damage application issues.

Exalted Great Unclean One: Reduce splash max attacks to 5. Splash target values are too high to properly fight infantry.

Great Unclean One: Add Acid Ichor ability, reduce splash max attacks to 5. Splash target values are too high to properly fight infantry, Acid Ichor helps with dealing damage.

Rot Flies: +14 CB and +5 WS. Needs a bigger charge bonus to deal meaningful damage to infantry.

Plague Drones of Nurgle, Plague Drones of Nurgle Death’s Heads: +24 CB and +5 WS. Needs a bigger charge bonus to deal meaningful damage to infantry.

Bilious Thunderguff RoR: -100g. Too costly for what he provides.

Marauders of Nurgle Great Weapons: -25g. The cost increase over the basic version is a bit too much.

See buff to Forsaken of Nurgle above.

Ogre Kingdoms:

Greasus Goldtooth: +5 speed, +20 charge speed, reduce Splash Max Attacks to 6, increase Splash Target Size to large. Greasus needs more agency on the battlefield, which could be achieved via a moderate speed buff. His splash values should be matched to his WS, and an increase in target size would allow him to fulfill his anti-large role better.

Firebelly: Remove use caps from Flame Incarnate. Melee damage reflection for just 48s is not very useful, especially when the reflection values aren’t particularly high.

Stonehorn Harpoon Launcher: Add 100 Bonus vs. Large to the missile damage. The harpoon missile is rather underwhelming and doesn't justify the cost increase over the regular Stonehorn.

Skaven:

(!) Doom-Flayers: Reduce damage output vs cavalry and large units (-5 MA, -15 WS, +10 BvI). Some of the damage should be shifted into BvI to prevent them from overperforming against their counters.

(!) Throt the Unclean: +25 BvL on Brood Horror and +5 LD on all variants.  Pays a lot on the Brood Horror mount for limited gain while losing his anti-large. Granting him his BvL on the Brood Horror or a price reduction of 100g would make him more viable.

(!) Ikit Claw: +100g on Doomwheel. Underpriced on the Doomwheel.

Doomwheel: +100 WS. Poor performance vs infantry for the price. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Plague Monk Censer Bearers: +3 MA & +3 MD or -75g. Bad performance for price.

Warp-Grinders: Increase Unit Cap to 2. Currently limited to 1, which seems unnecessarily constricting.

Poisoned Wind Mortars: -50g. Still a bit too expensive considering the poor accuracy.

Wolf Rats (both variants): +4 LD. A bit too cowardly (even for Skaven), their LD should match with Chaos Warhounds.

Mutant Rat Ogre: Increase knockdown resistance chance significantly. Suffers from massive stagger issues that prevent it from being an effective combatant.

Slaanesh:

(!) Fiends of Slaanesh: Increase cost by +100g OR reduce HP per entity to 500. Performs a bit too well after the model increase.

(!) Heartseekers of Slaanesh: Add attribute Frenzy, +14 CB, +4 WS or -150g. Doesn’t really gain meaningful stat upgrades over Seekers of Slaanesh.

(!) Exalted Seeker Chariot: +110 WS. Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Hellflayers: +20 WS, +10 CB and +500 mass.  Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Hellstriders of Slaanesh: -25g. The basic variant needs a bit of help compared to the Hellscourge version.

See buff to Forsaken of Slaanesh above.

The Empire:

(!) Steam Tank is still overly strong in melee vs cavalry due to animations applying multiple hits, but also overly weak to cannon fire. If the animation cannot be fixed consider stat nerfs that reduce damage into non-infantry targets: (-10 MA for +10 BvI and reduce collision attack settings to 2/2, set size entity to “very large” to take fewer double hits and fix melee hit box to match articulation profile of visible model). They should also have a minimum firing range of 15, which prevents them from overperforming in duels versus other SEMs. Also consider removing the missile resistance from the Master Engineer when mounted on the Steam Tank.

(!) Land Ship (and variants): Reduce secondary ammo pool from 180 to 100. The secondary ammo pool is a bit too large to run out during most battles, and allows the Land Ship to accrue value too easily.

(!) Volkmar the Grim: +155 WS. Older SE chariots need more WS to be viable, as damage output is quite low. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

(!) Elspeth von Draken’s Coruscating Blast: Fix damage spikes or make the breath somewhat dodgeable. Coruscating Blast is still very frustrating to play against. The issue here is not the base damage, but outlier situations with extreme damage spikes (especially against horse characters that are targeted in the back or flank). If this were to be fixed the recent price nerf should be reverted (i.e. -250g for the Carmine Dragon).

Handgunners: +3 missile strength or -1s reload time. Need a small buff to be worth their fragility and cost.

Helblaster Volley Guns: -50g. Still a little too weak for the price point.

Reiksguard: Add attribute Guardian. Too expensive and lack a clear role compared to other cavalry in the roster.

Mortars: Buff accuracy slightly. A bit too unreliable currently. 

Crossbowmen: -1s reload time. Slightly underperforming.

Archers: -1s reload time or +10 range. Slightly underperforming.

Arch Lector: Add +10 Bonus vs. Infantry or -100g. Overpriced compared to the stats gained over a regular Warrior Priest. His dual hammers could justify some Bonus vs. Infnatry to give him a niche.

The Tattersouls RoR: -75g, +1 MA. Are too pricy and miss one point of MA compared to rank 9 Flagellants.

The White Wolves RoR: -100g. Increased melee stats are not worth the significant upcharge.

Tomb Kings:

(!) Settra the Imperishable’s Chariot of the Gods: Add attribute Terror, +50 WS, +500 mass. Is a downgrade compared to the warsphinx mount, gets stuck too easily and doesn’t deal enough damage.

Tomb Scorpion: +20 WS and add collision attacks. Still struggles somewhat in melee against inf because of his animations and low WS, which collision attack would help to solve.

Casket of Souls: Increase Calibration Distance to 360, decrease Calibration Area to 55. A bit too inaccurate for an expensive artillery unit. Also apply to Khatep’s mount version.

Hierotitan: Add collision attacks. The Hierotitan still suffers from poor performance into infantry because of animations, this would fix the issue.

Carrion: -5g. Not being a flat 100/50/25 price is frustrating for army building.

Skeleton Archer Chariots: +6 base missile damage and +3 armour piercing missile damage. Ranged damage values are too low to make a noticeable impact and fail to set the unit apart from the competing melee chariots.

Skeleton Chariot mount (Arkhan the Black, High Queen Khalida, Tomb King, Tomb Prince & Necrotect): +50 WS. Single entity chariot mounts need higher WS to work properly.

Tzeentch:

(!) The Changeling: Should not pay for items, which he doesn’t get. Reduce cooldown of Formless Horror ability to 60s. Is prohibitively expensive, reduced cooldown on his transformation ability would promote using his changeling form, allowing his spellcasting side to shine.

Chaos Lord of Tzeentch: +50g on all mounts. The recent price decrease wasn’t needed, as he is already one of the best generic melee lords.

The Sourguts RoR: +50g. Sour Discharge is an incredibly good passive ability and warrants a price increase.

Burning Chariot of Tzeentch: -100g. Overshadowed by Changebringers and the Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch.

Iridescent Horror: Increase radius of Locus of Change ability to 55m. His only unique ability is mediocre and doesn’t distinguish him from other hero choices.

See nerf to Centigors of Tzeentch above.

See buff to Forsaken of Tzeentch above.

Vampire Coast

Aranessa Saltspite: +40 WS. Damage is a bit too low for Ultra unit size.

Necrofex Colossus: Increase calibration distance to 275 and decrease calibration area to 8.5. The Necrofex Colossus is too inaccurate to be worth its price.

Gallows Giant RoR: Increase spread of the projectile, so that it hits more entities per shot. The Gallows Giant currently fires a very compact beam, which can often lead to just a few entities being hit. Queen Bess RoR: +300 HP to the artillery piece (not the crew!) and +23 accuracy. The artillery piece itself can be destroyed too easily. Queen Bess is also missing the usual accuracy increase that RoRs get, having only 10 accuracy base, compared to most RoRs having 33.

The Tide of Skjold RoR: -50g. Was forgotten when the base unit got a cost decrease.

Fell Bats: -25g. Slightly overpriced.

Vampire Counts:

(!) Black Coach: +130 WS and lower kill requirements for the abilities. Damage is too low for a single entity chariot to work and abilities are hard to unlock. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Fell Bats: -25g. Slightly overpriced.

Skeleton Spearmen: -25g. Slightly overpriced.

Crypt Ghouls: -25g or +8 CB. Do not perform as well in combat as they should.

Necrarch Vampire Lord: Add Greater Arcane Conduit as a purchasable ability. The Necrarch Vampire Lord should match his campaign counterpart and be allowed to use Greater Arcane Conduit instead of the generic version.

Verek's Reavers RoR: +8 CB. This RoR is missing 8 CB compared to the base unit.

Warriors of Chaos:

(!) Gorebeast Chariots: +30 WS, set collision max targets cooldown and attacks to 2/2. Elite chariots need a WS increase to set them apart from mid-tier chariots. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

Chaos Warriors Great Weapons: -25g or +2 WS. Have been powercrept by other units.

Marauders Great Weapons: -25g. The cost increase over the basic version is a bit too much.

Kholek Suneater: +40 WS. Could stand to hit a little bit harder.

Sarthorael the Everwatcher: Add The Rock of Inevitability to his item selection. After losing his resistances during the transition to WH3 Sarthorael lacks a clearly defined role, as he overpays for the stats of a regular Lord of Change with a worse item selection than the Exalted Lord of Change. Tzeentch currently lacks characters with a debuff aoe, so The Rock of Inevitability would open up a niche for Sarthorael. The ability should cost 200g, matching the rare uniqueness score of the base item.

See buff to Forsaken above.

Wood Elves:

(!) Wild Hunters of Kurnous RoR: +50g. Need a slight cost increase after their switch to armour–piercing attacks.

(!) Arrow of Kurnous (ability): Set penetration to medium_magic. Currently a bit too strong vs cavalry, but should keep its damage vs infantry, artillery and single entities.

Glade Guard Starfire Shafts: +50g. Overperforming after the recent model increase.

Wildwood Rangers: Add attributes Stalk and Vanguard. Are outclassed in their unit role and need more differentiation from other units in the roster.

Deepwood Scouts Swiftshiver Shards: +25g. A small nudge to improve internal roster balance.

Ariel: +15 armour piercing explosion damage to Acorns of the Oak of Ages, +150 ranged damage to Dart of Doom. Both Acorns of the Oak of Ages and Dart of Doom aren’t very strong items, especially since Ariel is already very expensive.

Treeman: -100g. Too expensive for the poor melee performance.

​I'm surprised this time the suggested changes do not address the most obvious and out-of-line balancing issues. 

1. Rot Knights are by far the worst elite cavalry in the game. Their survivability is bad, their offensive potential is also bad. +300 mass will change nothing, they need -200g or significantly buffed offensive capabilities (e.g. Frenzy). They are by far the most vulnerable elite cav with low armor, no shields, no missile resist.

2. ROR Rot Knights are not worth 2000, making them $2400->$2200 will do nothing.

3. Toad Dragon is absurdly terrible, it really needs -400g as a bare minimum to be usable or significantly reworked design (like BvL instead of Bvi or +150 AP WS) or +3K HP to match the Dread Saurian.

4. Oath-Brothers of Tor are by far the best AL cavalry in the game, their ability is too strong and has unlimited uses. They need +200g not +50.

5. Fireborn overperform significantly. Need +200g.

6. Rot Flies with +14 CB and +WS will get nothing, they will still be "worse overpriced furies". They need like +80 armor instead...

7. Landship

8. Skullcrushers of Khorne are too good for price. Need +100g

9. Exalted Seeker Chariot of Slaanesh is a nightmare to manage with its low mass, it needs 3000 at least.

10. After the nerf Medusa is quite bad now, the explosion range is so low that she is unable to deal significant damage to loose units. Constantly having issues with Black Orcs for example.

11. Lore of the Deep: Spiteful Shot gives magical damage and +90 accuracy to ranged attacks. Useless spell. +90 accuracy changes nothing. Necrofex Colossus sometimes hits and sometimes misses, with this spell active its still the same RNG - sometimes hits, sometimes misses, no real difference. With guns they mostly hit even without buffs, if you buff them with +90 accuracy they still mostly hit so nothing changes. Magical attacks are OK but nowadays everything has magical attacks. Change to give +30% missile dmg and +30% ap missile dmg and +1 or +2 WOM

Some stats:

Time require for an AL cavalry unit to kill a unit of Grail Guardians:

​

% HP lost during killing Grail Guardians on average:

​

How much volleys from Peasant Bowmen a unit can survive before routing:

​

Rot Knights cost $1800. Fireborn cost $1800. Rot Knights need 3x more time to kill the same target, they lose more % HP in the process, they can survive 3x less volleys from missiles.... how comes 300 mass is supposed to solve it? Rot Knights are decisively worse than all other similarly priced cavs in every single aspect. They are sometimes better and sometimes worse than $1500 demigryphs.

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXc1DY8ZWYLQgk3u6kYJY-7AqfGAKEka2LQr1fVwgNk/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0

​

eumaies#1128 wrote:

- Rot knights generally agree they are a little weak but there are those who argue they are strong and they do see some use in competitive play.  I think an appropriate buff for them would be smaller than what you're suggesting.
- Glad you appreciate Oath brothers are absurd.  They fell out of the competitive meta and there's resistence in some circles to recognizing how great they are but their ability is insanely strong and they only pay 200g to get all that.  
- Fireborn are an interesting one - they are pretty weak to bjuna/melkoths and not really better than grails for a similar price point, right?  200g seems like a significant over-nerf 

- Landship is a big one that needs nerfs and should be ont he list, agree.

- I don't have any problems getting value out of Medusa; nor do I find skullcrushers too good with their slow speed. On spiteful shot i feel like it's mostly to help Bess?

Rot Knights

They are not useless, they are fast and they do hit well. They can beat ranged units or decimate backlines. They just do it worse than other $1800ish elite cav so they either need to do it better or cost less.

Honestly you can get 2500 damage-value from them without problems but it doesn't show anything. If your opponent is not properly protecting his high-value targets you can get 2500 from Realm Knights which cost 950. This is more related to how the unit is used, not how good it performs. You can even win with Blessed Field Trebuchets.... but the fact that you can use a unit and win with it does not automatically make it a good unit per se.

So in order to abstract away the unit application conditions I've started measuring key performance indicators https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-warhammer/forums/15-multiplayer-battles/threads/6408-rebalance-cavalry-based-on-units-benchmarking?page=1#post-81283

The idea is to create a suite of situations that a unit can find itself in and measure performance for all the similar-role units. Just like CPU benchmarking. 

I tend to agree the choice of Grail Guardians may not be the best illustration so I'll probably pick a few more units to test against and publish the results a bit later.

We also need to test how fast they can beat a ranged unit like Shades or Sisters of Avelorn since this is one of their main use cases.

Fireborn

Need to test Grail Knights. Will update the results soon.

Medusa

I have a feeling that sometimes she misses loose units completely. Like she is shooting a unit of Black Orcs or Waywatchers and deals 40 damage in total as if the explosions wouldn't hit at all. May be there is a bug with her aiming, not sure yet.

Spiteful Shot

Bess shots are way too easy to dodge so I wasn't playing it much since TW2. Whenever I use Spiteful Shot on something else - there is just no difference. Guns always hit (with or without spiteful shot), artillery like mortars/necroflex colossus can hit or miss (with or without spiteful shot). I want to believe that their chance to hit with spiteful shot is higher but its still too much RNG.

I'll try to convince my teammate to play EMP + VC and use it on Sunmaker & Hellstorms. May be its just VC doesn't have units that benefit from their magic.

Skullcrushers & matchups logic

bohrain#4784 wrote:

Skullcrushers I find really strange to complain about, because in practice I never see the unit perform well or know a particular matchup where they would be worth taking over minotaurs.

First, Skullcrushers are part of the WoC roster as well, where they still get 35% spell resist for free (less bjunaing) and get Nurgle mage support. Minotaurs are only on Khorne roster.

Second, matchups logic in its own is flawed. In 1v1 you are always trying to cheese your opponent by blindly gambling on his build. Like you see Dwarfs - you know you dont need antilarge. Dwarfs dont have cav, dwarfs dont have monsters and you 100% know it. In 2v2s this all makes no sense because you always face everything on the battlefield - cav, missiles, monsters mixed with dwarven infantry and healed to caps by life mages. So skullcrushers are generally a better choice when you dont know what exactly you are going to face. And ranked (where the game is played the way it is balanced without mods/rules) is totally fine with 2v2s. 

Dragon princes and HE BvL

White-Paladin#3008 wrote:

​And dragon princes should have BvL. HE need it. Currently only the Fireborn have it and they are only a RoR unit. 

Even silver helms should have BvL. 

Makes sense. I would agree with this. 

Faction asymmetry

bohrain#4784 wrote:

Faction asymmetry is a thing. Other races don't get spearmen with 50MD and 180 range archers either.

​Everyone has everything. 

Don't have spearmen - ask your teammate to bring them. Don't like dwarfs healed by life mages and Luminarcs buffed with +30% range by kislev spells? - you can do nothing about it. Those players who find this balancing inconsistencies related to assumptions that "some faction doesnt have XYZ so we allow its units to overperform" will climb ranked faster than you can by doing 1v1s. 

Don't assume factions have gaps in the roster because everyone can avoid this assumption by simply switching to 2v2. Balance units, not factions.

​

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

(!) Volkmar the Grim: +155 WS. Older SE chariots need more WS to be viable, as damage output is quite low. Collision attack profile should be adjusted accordingly.

I'd rather not give the War Alter more weapon strength. I think you're also using the wrong comparisons here, you should be using Mother Ostankya who's certainly not an "older SE chariot". It should be a support unit like the War Drum, that's what the War Alter was in the tabletop. A passive buff like an aura of Frenzy to represent the aura of Hatred the tabletop version had would be good, just make sure the buffed units lose Frenzy if they go under 50% leadership like other Frenzy units in-game. 

So what I'd do:

- Add Aura of Frenzy. 35m effect radius. Target self and allies in range. Duration is constant. Effect turns off when unit is below 50% leadership. 

- Increase Speed to 60. Same as War Wagon. 

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Handgunners: +3 missile strength or -1s reload time. Need a small buff to be worth their fragility and cost.

I probably wouldn't mess with reload times. That could start an arms race as 13 seconds is pretty much standard for handgun units. See Thunderers, Streltsi, Gunnery Mobs, etc. 

I'd rather see a cost reduction to 575. 

​

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Helblaster Volley Guns: -50g. Still a little too weak for the price point.

I'd also like to see a very small range increase to 300. To put it in line with Organ Guns. 

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Reiksguard: Add attribute Guardian. Too expensive and lack a clear role compared to other cavalry in the roster.

I'd rather see Knights of the Black Rose get nerfed than buff Reiksguard. Drop Black Rose health to 116 per model and remove Immune to Psychology. If they still have no place then Guardian.

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Crossbowmen: -1s reload time. Slightly underperforming.

Same issue with Handgunners. I'd rather not touch their reload time. Creates an arms race between Crossbowmen, Jade Warrior Crossbowmen, Quarrellers, etc.

What I'd do:

- Reduce Gold Cost to 450. 

- (Optional) Increase Melee Attack to 16 from 14. This is a consistency change to match Handgunners. 

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Archers: -1s reload time or +10 range. Slightly underperforming.

I'd go +20 range to 140. Puts them in line with Cathay Peasant Archers. 

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

Arch Lector: -100g. Overpriced compared to the stats gained over a regular Warrior Priest.

There's some strange inconsistencies between the 2 characters. I'd probably just give some buffs to the Arch-lector to match the Warrior Priest.

- Increase Speed to 34 from 31. Same as Warrior Priest.

- Increase Charge Speed to 41 from 39. Same as Warrior Priest.

- Increase Weapon Strength Base Damage to 270 and AP damage to 120. AP damage is same as Warrior Priest, base damage was just a consistency change. All other Empire lords have weapon strength in factors of 10.

- Increase Charge Bonus to 30 when on foot. Same as Warrior Priest.

- Increase Charge Bonus to 50 when on barded warhorse. Same as Warrior Priest. 

- (Optional) Add Frenzy as a gold upgrade in army selection screen to represent Hatred and the new skill that was added in ToD update. Warrior Priests should get this too. This would cost 150 gold. 

These aren't really massive changes, but should equate roughly to 100 gold.

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

The Tattersouls RoR: -75g, +1 MD. Are too pricy and miss one point of MD compared to rank 9 Flagellants.

What I'd do:

- Increase MA by 1. Matches rank 9 Flagellants. You've made a little typo there.

- Increase Leadership by 10. Matches rank 9 Flagellants This won't do anything, but it should at least match for consistency sake. 

- Increase MD to 17. I would do this for both regular Flagellants and Tattersouls. 

- Decrease Gold Cost to 800. The only difference between rank 9 Flagellants and Tattersouls is 33% extra models, so 33% extra cost seems appropriate. 

- (Optionally) Add -4 Fatigue Modifier. Seems strange no RoR unit gets this and I'd like to see CA slowly roll this out to every RoR unit. 

​

CatholicAlcoholic#6232 wrote:

​

The Empire:

The White Wolves RoR: -100g. Increased melee stats are not worth the significant upcharge.

What I'd do:

- Increase Leadership to 70. If they're going to be portrayed as a melee hybrid unit then they should get a slightly higher leadership than regular Huntsman. 

- Add 8 Bonus Vs Large in melee. I think this is thematic as Huntsmen are portrayed as an elite monster killing ranged unit with The White Wolves also being trained in melee. 

- Increase Total Accuracy to 47. While I don't exactly know how much this stat impacts missile accuracy it is quite a massive disparity between rank 9 Huntsmen and The White Wolves. 

- (Optionally) Add -4 Fatigue Modifier. Same reason as above, I feel this should be given to all RoR units. 

Of course this would need testing to see how much of a difference the Total Accuracy change would make. If it's not significant then a gold drop could be justified.  

* * * * *

I'd also like to see some changes to:

​- Empire General:  

- Buff leadership to 75 from 70. Empire General's were Ld9 with a 3D6 discard the highest in the tabletop. It seems strange they have lower leadership than Arch-lectors Ld9 and Master Engineers with Ld 7 on the tabletop.

​- Buff armour to 95 when on foot from 85. Same as Arch-lector and Greatswords.

- Buff armour to 120 when on barded warhorse from 105. Same as Arch-lector, Reiksguard, and Knights of the Black Rose.

- Buff charge bonus to 70 when on barded warhorse from 65. Seems very strange that Empire Captains have a higher charge bonus than their lord counterparts. 

​- Buff charge bonus to 85 when on imperial pegasus from 80. As above. 

- Empire Captain:

- Buff leadership to 70 from 65. Same reason as Empire General's except with Ld 8 instead of 9.

​- Buff armour to 95 when on foot from 85. Similar to the above, doesn't seem right that a hero with full plate has less armour than Greatswords. 

- Buff armour to 120 when on barded warhorse from 105. As above.

- Huntsman General: To put things into a tabletop perspective Huntsman Generals should have the Empire General statline. Only their equipment and special rules differ. Empire Generals would have full-plate, hand weapon, shield, hold the line, and several mount options. Huntsman Generals would have light armour, hand weapon, longbow, hatred (monsters), monster hunter, and scouts. In WH3 terms Huntsman General's should have the same health, melee attack, and melee weapon strength as Empire Generals. While Empire Generals have more armour, missile block, melee defence, and diverse mount options.  

- Buff health to 4068 from 3908. Same as Empire Generals. 

- Buff melee attack to 55 from 43 and splash max attacks to 8 from 5. Same as Empire Generals. 

- Buff weapon strength (melee) to 290 base damage and 140 AP damage from 270 and 90. As above.

- Master Engineer: 

- Leadership nerfed to 65 from 75. Slightly higher than their hero counterpart. Won't matter if they take the steam tank mount. 

- Nerf health to 3688 when on foot from 3854. Same as Empire Captains. 

- Nerf health to 4176 when on barded warhorse from 4300. Same as Empire Captains.

​- Nerf armour to 45 when on foot from 50. Same as Huntsman Generals and Witch Hunters. 

- Remove missile resistance when in steam tank. I agree with your suggestion on this. 

- Engineer: 

- Leadership nerfed to 60 from 70. Engineers are more of a stand-in for the actual tabletop Master Engineers who were heroes not lords in 8th edition. They were Ld 7 the same as State Troops, so I've lowered the Engineers Ld to match the many State Troop variants in-game. 

- Nerf health to 3420 when on foot from 3548. Same as Wizards. 

- Nerf health to 3848 when on barded warhorse from 3986. Same as Wizards.

​​- Nerf armour to 45 when on foot from 50. Same as Huntsman Generals and Witch Hunters. 

- Swordsmen:

- Buff melee defence to 34 from 32. It's pretty disappointing seeing this unit lose to chaff. Especially when they share the same tier, cost more than, and perform worse than Spearmen (Shields). This small buff should help them perform better. On the tabletop you were paying that extra point compared to Spearmen with shields for the increased WS (weapon skill) value and parry saves. Which meant you hit better and were harder to hit in close combat.

Also a couple of notes:

1. Okkam’s Mindrazor: Add +12 MA effect, buffs to WS increase aren’t very effective without a hit chance increase.

I would rather buff its primary effect. It's indeed an overpriced spell for what it offers right now, so let it give +65% WS instead of +50 current. There are enough +MA spells/abilities in the game already, so no need to transform this one to the niche already filled with plenty of other spells.

2. Lord of Change - $1500 unit but it has quite crappy stats and I've never seen it picked for the whole month. Would be good to increase the number of bound spells to help it a bit. Blue fires of Tzeentch uses 1 -> 3.

3. The golden griffin of Theurgy (ROR Lord of change) - just a very bad ROR. It has worse spells, especially gehennas golden hounds is a random vortex which is utter garbage in MP. ROR Lord of Change has marginally better stats but costs +350 and the advantages it has are not worth the pay. So, further increase its defenses if its supposed to be more resilient, like +20 armor, +15% missile resist. Replace gehenna's golden hounds with glittering robe or plague of rust. Increase number of uses on searing doom bound spell 1 -> 2. 

4. Exalted pink horrors - haven't seen them for a while. They are not a bad unit in general but they don't have sufficient advantages over normal pinks and their +20% WOM recharge ability is just not really good to pay for it. May be +20 range or contact effect Warpflame on their ranged would help them a little bit.

5. Blazing Squealers (ROR Exalted pinks) - never seen this one used. It does have warpflame contact but it should have something more useful to justify the price. Sundered armor could help. It's ammo replenishment ability is not really too useful to justify the price.

6. Sarthorael the Everwatcher is not in a good shape right now. He is definitely not a bad unit, but he is literally no different from an Exalted Metal Lord of Change. It may be a good idea to change his spell kit to be 3 tzeentch lore spells + 3 metal lore spells to differentiate him from Exalted Lord of Change.