Godtear Community Playtest Packet: Lorsann and Maxen

Hello Champions!  As I’m sure you all know, the community is working on a balance pass for Godtear.  In this playtest packet, we’ll be presenting proposed changes for two champions: Both champions that will get buffs as the original slayer article contained nerfs of two champions.  First, we’ll give you the changes themselves.  Then for each champion we’ll explain why we chose these champions, how we have interpreted the community's perspective on their issues, and how we arrived at the change proposal.

Lorsann Experimental Buffs

Rangers Dodge: 3 → 4

Fire: Accuracy 3/4/5 → 5/5/5

Piercing Shot: Accuracy 5 → 6

Maxen Experimental Buffs

Piercing Round: New wording “This skill has -1 accuracy for each hex between Maxen and his target. Hit effect: The targets gets 1 wound and amor blight”

Shrapnel Shot: Accuracy 6* → 6

Shrapnel Shot: Damage 6* → 7*

Shrapnel Shot: New wording “ This skill has -1 damage for each hex between Maxen and his target. After this attack resolves, if target is not KO'd, move target up to one hex away from Maxen”

Note that the accuracy's for Shrapnel Shot and Piercing Round are reversed on the Clash side of the Maxen card. Piercing Round should be 6* and Shrapnel Shot should be 6.

Why these champions? What were their issues? Why’d we make the changes we did?

Let’s start with Lorsann. She is regarded as one of the weakest slayers when looking at the warband all together. She is squishy, but fast and great at crushing banners. Good against high dodge and low armor targets, she struggles into higher armor opponents. Her Rangers are squishy and usually need to stay together to roll any decent attack, making them ideal Maelstrom fodder.

Increasing the Rangers' dodge to 4 makes them harder to kill, especially with the dodge bonus from Blur.  Increasing their Fire accuracy to 5 means that you don’t always have to group them together to stay effective, especially combined with Lorsann’s Field Instruction. This should help them avoid being fodder to Maelstroms that target 3 models in a hex. Increasing Piercing Shot accuracy to 6 ensures that Lorsann also has a decent chance of hitting dodge 5 targets or triggering Shoot and Scoot when targeting an enemy with 3 armor or more. After all, the warband should be the symbol of elves with bows that hit whatever they set their sights on.

Maxen is another “ranged” slayer that the community felt is on the weak side, based on the community survey. Originally he wasn’t planned to be part of the balance pass, but we decided that since the community has spoken, he should be part of it. Maxen’s issue is that even though he has ranged attacks, to be effective he really needs to be next to his target, which doesn’t align well with being a rather slow dwarf. 

All of the changes for Maxen focus on making him a viable ranged slayer by increasing his lethality while still keeping his identity. Increasing the effective range but also tweaking the damage of his attacks.

How to playtest these changes?

If you want to playtest these changes, simply play a game with one or more of the champions being playtested. Make sure that your opponent agrees on which version (original or community balance pass) of the champions you are using. If you play on TTS, use the changed cards provided by MightyFinePants. The Godtear Community page will also have an online version of the cards that you can use as a reference or if you are playing a live game:

[Images of the cards in TTS and on Experimental]

How to contribute to the project?

To provide feedback, which is essential to the success of this project, you can submit THIS FORM (note, if you are new to playing online, you can learn more from this article).  

If you want to discuss these changes with the community at large, please post in the #playtest-feedback channel of the unofficial community discord server.

If you want to help brainstorm directions for balance changes, please post your ideas in the #homebrew channel of the unofficial community discord server.

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That’s it for this playtest packet.  Check out Objective Hex in two weeks when we publish the playtest packet for Helena, Durthax and Halftusk v2!

Wooloolool,

The Council of Eldritch Judgement