i'm sorry but most of the time i have tried to understand and support wizkids in what they have done. but wizkids as just messed up one to many times and as for as what i think about this time, wizkids has messed up big time. i can understand changing storm maul. lets face it storm maul needed to be changed and as for what they did to the raging hammer that was just plain stupid. i mean come on the riders really needed the hammer to help make up for their low defence and short dials. don't get me wrong riders can still be good to use. but lets face the facts, the riders just took a big hit. and has for the k-bow, i have used k-bow a few times and i have seen it used a few time by other players and it was never such a big threat that it needed to be changed. i did not think i would ever say this, but if wizkids keeps this kind of stuff up, then my money will be spend somewhere else. i know not everyone feels or thinks the same way i do. but this is how i feel about some of these new rulings from wizkids.

you obviously do not play in a competitive environment if you think that riders are no longer useful because of the loss of the hammer. I for one have NEVER used the hammer in tourny play and have used countless cav units. And about KBow, that was the reason i lost a Throne Key event. ISNT THAT RIGHT FARCHYLD!?

Uh... only like 5 riders can even use the hammer, so how does the change really give the riders a 'big hit' on their usefulness? :confused: I doubt anyone is going to all of a sudden stop using their Neph Pike or Lady Gliasti or whatever else it is...

K-bow isn't a huge problem, but for the points it was definitely quite a bit overcosted.

Don't you mean... undercosted...?

I believe they took that into account by excluding deep water terrain features from recent scenarios...

I am extremely pleased about the changes. I have played against K-bow/Storm Maul/ Rage Hammer armies and while they are very difficault to play against, they are not impossible to beat. These changes allow me to return to the fun/exitment which intitially drew me into the game (can't speak for everyone...) without having to work through someone's broken army every second game I play...I also enjoyed a rules clarification on revenant which states that a revenanted figure which is brought back to life through the revenant special ability is removed from the game regardless of whether it is eliminated the same turn it is brought back...

hey it's just my opinion. just like everyone else has they opinions and as for k-bow i lost the gate of shadow, because of the k-bow. but you win some and lose some and even if i lost to a k-bow army every other week, i would still say wizkids should have left it alone. because there are ways to beat the k-bow army and i feel that it should have been left alone and the raging hammer come on it has a -2 speed. the best figures for it was the :sword: wielding riders and i feel like they need it, because of that and also for the reasons i said in my post above. heres a good question for you then. if you were to use the raging hammer, what reasonable point cost figure would you put it on? know that it will give the wielder a -2 to it's speed value. honestly i would not use it because of that. but thats just me.

Actually, its 11 riders who previously could use the Hammer:
Morathai
Prince Warden
Ironwolf
The 4 Avatars
Lady Gilasti
Tymora os Korgas
Crox
Nepheria Pike

Of all of these, Morathai is hurt the worst by this ruling, because outside of sealed, I've only ever seen him played with the Hammer to try to pull off a heavy-hitting, sneak attack manuever. But Morathai has bigger problems than losing the ability to use the hammer (his choice of mounts). I've never seen Warden played outside of sealed - he's not really worth his point cost and hes not very playable. Ironwolf is easily the best Unique, non-LE, non Avatar rider and he is very playable without the Hammer. I'm not going to get into the Avatar's, as using relics on Avatars is outside the standard 300/3 build.

So that leaves us with the 4 LE riders. There were better relics than RH to put on Lady Gilsti to start with, so she is largely unaffected. I've seen Crox fielded one time (no Hammer) so I don't really know how he is affected. Which takes us to 2 riders - Tymora and Pike. Of these two, Tymora is actually hurt worse, due to her lower damage on the dial. But in no way are either of these figs (my two favorite figs in the set) crippled by this ruling as some people would have you believe. There are lots of VERY effective relics to put on either of these two (or any other rider) if you know where to look.

The shallow dials of the riders in general are offset, in my opinion, by the tremendous Cavalry proficiencies which they can utilize. Some of them being able to use the Hammer as well was just icing on the cake. There are many quality riders who couldn't use the Hammer before (because of attack type or the fact that they were nons), and none of those are adversely impacted at by this ruling. In fact, it makes them even more playable now that "death on a dragon" is not waiting for them across the field.

Now here's the flip side - I truly believe that the death of the Maul brought about the change to the Hammer. Previously, these two relics were caught in a balancing act at the upper end of the MK power scale - Maul because of what it could do, Hammer because it gave great power with no drawbacks to a very small class of figures. Once Maul was killed, this left Mounted Rage Hammer in a power class by itself. And had Hammer not been changed, it would likely have become the next "cheese" item.

I liked the Hammer. I played it a lot (probably 95% of my armies had Pike, Tymora or Ironwolf with the Hammer). And I'm glad to see it be taken away from riders, because with no other high-powered relic to balance it, it would have gotten out of control.

With the changes to Maul, Hammer and K-Bow, the power leve in the game has come down and I think we can get back to building interesting and competitive armies again.

I believe that it was in the June scenario "Holding the Line", that the players got to set the battlefield (with no restrictions on terrain types) and there were no Domains. In one of those I played in, one player had a Ghostformed, Aquatic Kieren splashing around in deep water, shooting anything that came within range, and he was within range of 2 objective tokens in every game he played. Suffice it to say, everyone he played found this annoying. In a game with Domains, you might be able to stop this behavior (by shutting down range or taking away his water), but without Domains, there is a very small range of figures that will help you against such a threat.

Until deep water is removed as a terrain type, I fully expect to see Ghostformed Kierens and Ravas hydrobounding. Just my $.02.

If you fail to break away, you may still change facing. Apparently you may change elevation as well. This is only relevant to cavalry units or mounts, of course...

now that storm maul has been neutered, i think it would be best if they lower the point cost a bit.

overall, i am glad that changes have been made. i guess it will help more people realize that it is not the arms race (that endless hunt for the uber relics) that makes the game worth your while. it is simply the manner with which one utilizes what figures one has and then actually have fun in the process.

Good job, Wizkids. :)

Next: you cannot revenant while in base contact with opposing figure. And all golems' point value will be reduced by 10% in order to be practical.

With all the Golem killing relics now out, I think this should be more like 25%.

They nerfed that one also. When played effectively that amounted to alot of attack rolls. Somewhat not tin the spirit of things.

Well...less than 3 weeks to Worlds and back to the drawing board....

I also noticed the change to MB/overwatch. This tactic made those riders with overwatch very useful and helped compete with MB/B. I thought it was a bit strange that MB/overwatch was changed but MB/B and MC/C were left untouched.