Introduction
Warcaster Remix Update 1 is now here! Eschatonic Well is now updated with the latest rules for Warcaster Remix, they’re also available here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_xulBLlZv7neCeRB_NssSRU8CHr9GdtOFzsI73lgcSk/edit?usp=sharing
We’ve made changes to a small number of models, weapons and cyphers to address problem models, as well as making certain under-utilized options easier to play with. We weren’t able to address everything we wanted to this time around, but we feel that Remix will be a better game for the changes we did make, and we’re excited to see what the community will do with them. Our deepest thanks to everyone who played Remix and provided their passionate feedback, this is a community effort, and without all of you, Remix would not be possible.
In addition, new to Update 1 is the public watchlist for Warcaster Remix. This contains a list of models we feel needs more testing, any feedback on the strength of these models will be greatly appreciated. Each section is colour-coded with how strong we feel the model is, ranging from Red (likely to be nerfed unless we see data to the contrary) to Blue (likely to be buffed unless we see data to the contrary). We’ll be updating this document as the community gets to grips with the changes in Update 1. Just because something is on the watchlist does not necessarily mean it will be changed in the next update, and something not being on the watchlist does not necessarily mean it won’t be changed either, but we will get to problem models (either too strong or too weak) as soon as we are able.
Changes
And now, without further adieu, the changes:
UNIVERSAL CHANGES
Winch
Change Winch to “When this weapon hits an enemy model with an equal or smaller base, immediately after the attack is resolved, the damaged model can be moved directly toward this model until it contacts a model, an obstacle, or structure.”
This update includes a universal change to Winch, triggering on hit instead of damage, unlike Warmachine, most models just don’t have that many hit boxes, and dealing even 1 damage is hardly guaranteed on top of hitting. Winch was already a very weak rule, and we felt it was overly punishing to also expect damage to make this rule function as intended. This should increase Winch’s utility against high ARM models.
UNITS
Marcher Worlds
Squads
Ranger Fire Team:
RAT to 4
We felt the Ranger Fire Team was still being outshined by the other Ranger squads and the new and improved Dragoon Cadre squads, so we felt that a bump to their accuracy was appropriate. This also has the side benefit of enabling them to use their new Havoc Engine added in Remix to its fullest.
Warjack Weapons
Flamethrower:
Revert COST to 2
POW to 4
Impaler:
Revert COST to 1
RNG to 1
These two changes go hand-in-hand, one of the problems that we didn’t anticipate with the original version of Remix was that many players have glued in their favourite loadouts, as much as we all prefer magnetizing our models, a large portion of Warcaster players either can’t or don’t want to magnetize. This means increasing weapon costs is just not a lever that we can use while not invalidating existing loadouts, so instead we’ve reverted the change to the Impaler making it COST 1 again, but reducing its range to compensate for the POW 3 it gained in Remix. This now meant that the Dusk Wolf was left with only one cost 2 arm weapon, the Particle Accelerator, so we reverted the cost of the Flamethrower back to 2, while bumping its POW to 4, to make it more worthy of its hefty cost.
Wildflower:
Change Eruption to “This model can choose to use Eruption when it makes its attacks during its activation. If it does so, all enemy models within 3” of it each suffer a POW 3 fire damage roll.”
We’ve noticed that simply decreasing the cost of the Wildflower, while providing new builds for the Dusk Wolf that were not possible before, was not exciting enough to make this lackluster weapon see play. A common complaint with the Wildflower is the possibility of accidentally blowing up friendlies, so we’ve made it only deal damage to enemy models, in addition, we’ve changed the damage type to fire, so it’s not so easily shut down by Compound Armor.
Cortexes
Void Gazer:
Change Void Gazer to “When an enemy unit is deployed within 8˝ of this model, immediately after the unit has been deployed, this unit can spike once to make one attack.”
We were happy with the performance of the Void Gazer cortex, however it required a lot of setup to work, and being limited to a single attack made it all too easy for opponents to ignore. We’ve increased the range of its ability, lessening the need to slip displace to get into position. We also removed the clause limiting the effect to once per turn, as you already had to spike to get the effect, meaning your arc would be stuck on the Dusk Wolf until Void Gazer is triggered. We feel that this provides a fresh new way to play the Dusk Wolf as a gate denial model, sitting alongside models like the newly improved Fire Team and Voitek Sudal.
Cadre
Dragoon Strike Team: *
Remove Weapon Expert
Remove Sequence Dominator
Add Sequence Annihilator: “This squad can spike to use Sequence Annihilator at any time during its activation. For the rest of the activation, when a model in this squad destroys an enemy model with a melee attack, after the attack is resolved one model in this squad can make a ranged attack. Each model in this squad can only make one attack as a result of Sequence Annihilator this turn.”
Unfortunately, not all can be sunshine and rainbows for the Marcher Worlds, and we feel that the Dragoon Strike Team was just a little too efficient with both Weapon Expert and Scything Run, putting out a terrifying number of charged attacks in a single activation was too much for a DC2 squad. As a result, we’ve removed Weapon Expert. However, we’ve swapped out their original spike ability, Sequence Dominator, for a new one, Sequence Annihilator, so that they can still make both melee and ranged attacks during the same activation (in addition to scything run), but at the cost of losing their charge for the rest of the activation.
With these changes the two Dragoon Cadre squads are much more differentiated than in the vanilla version of the game, the Dragoon Assault Team are defensive scenario specialists, covering lots of the board with their long range attacks and with movement tech to make them hard to pin down, and the Dragoon Strike Team are offensive monsters, with a devastating number of melee attacks through scything run and additional attacks from Sequence Annihilator
Iron Star Alliance
Cadre
Regulator Reeve:
Arc Relay RNG to 10”
Purifier RNG to 10”
We were satisfied with the power level of the Regulator Reeve, but reducing his cypher range to 8″ had the side effect of now requiring 4 different range bands for the ISA player to keep track of, the 2″ Plasma Sword, 5″ Void Disruptor, 8″ Arc Relay, and 12″ Purifier, making him somewhat awkward to use on the table. To alleviate this without increasing his overall strength, we have changed both the Arc Relay range and the Purifier range to the same 10″.
Headsman:
Change Winch to “When this weapon hits an enemy model with an equal or smaller base, immediately after the attack is resolved, the hit model can be moved directly toward this model until it contacts a model, an obstacle, or structure.”
The Headsman benefits from this change as well, despite being a strong model already, though in our testing we didn’t find it to be too strong we are keeping a close eye on the Headsman.
Aeternus Continuum
Solos
Immortal Weaver:
Add Shadow Step: “When you channel a fury cypher through this model, after the attack is resolved, you may reposition this model anywhere within 3” of its current location.”
The Immortal Weaver, while a very strong weaver in her own right, was unfortunately competing for space in a faction absolutely full of either excellent or very cheap and available weavers, meaning AC players were typically spoiled for choices for slinging furies across the board, leaving the Immortal Weaver without much of a purpose. We’ve added a new rule, Shadow Step, which allows the Immortal Weaver to use her incredible range from Arcantrik Amplifier while still moving up the board and being a scenario presence. This also allows her to cast furies and teleport to the safety of cover, meaning her DEF 3 ARM 3 is less of a liability. While this doesn’t make her the best weaver in AC, we feel this gives her enough of an identity to see play and contribute.
Vassal Boss:
Add Compound Armor
We were already quite happy with the state of the Vassal Boss post Remix as an archetypal glass cannon, very powerful with both Phase Trajectile and Armor-Piercing, but unable to take any kind of direct firepower, meaning she had to use her tricks to stay alive. However we realized from playtest data that she was now extremely vulnerable to blast attacks, and if she was within 2″ of any other AC model without stealth she could be very easily sniped out by an errant rocket. Rather than just revert the change, we have instead given her Compound Armor to make her a little harder to scalpel out without committing to direct-fire weaponry.
Warjacks
Nemesis:
Add Displacement Roll: “When this model is targeted by an attack, it can spike once to move 3” after the attack is resolved.”
The Nemesis has been a big topic of discussion among playtesters as of late, and for good reason. Though the Nemesis can be an impressive DEF 3 ARM 6 with 5 boxes against ranged and fury attacks when fully charged, and still getting two power dice for defense against melee attacks, it has a critical weakness to any kind of flying model with melee attacks. Unlike other heavies that rely on arc for their defenses the Nemesis can be completely defenseless if their opponent brings, say, a Dragoon Strike Team, or even just Ascension Catalyst and a light warjack with more than one melee weapon.
We discussed many possible avenues of alleviating this vulnerability and we ended up giving it a new spike ability, Displacement Roll, to allow the Nemesis to spike to get out of melee when threatened, allowing its impressive ranged defenses to shine. This has the side effect of reducing its ARM bonus from Arc Field, but careful use of Displacement Roll can be the difference between the Nemesis going down all too quickly and surviving, continuing to be a menace on the tabletop.
Warjack Weapons
Reaper:
Change Winch to “When this weapon hits an enemy model with an equal or smaller base, immediately after the attack is resolved, the damaged model can be moved directly toward this model until it contacts a model, an obstacle, or structure.”
With the added range added in Remix, and the universal change to Winch weapons, we feel now that the Reaper is a solid weapon for the Scourge, allowing it to pull enemy models out of position more easily and chop them to ribbons with its wrecking claw.
Cortexes
Dragon:
Change Dragon Scales to “When an enemy model hits this model with an attack while within 3” of this model, this model can spike once to cause the attacking enemy model to suffer the Fire continuous effect.”
Although the Dragon Scales rule was a very cool idea, in playtesting, we found it to be somewhat ineffectual, since most models in the game that have melee weapons tend to not have more than two of them, and they can always just choose to attack in melee last, almost completely bypassing the MAT/RAT debuff of being on fire. To fix this, we’ve changed Dragon Scales to work on any attack from an enemy model within 3″, this should make a Dragon Scourge much more prickly when defending an objective.
Vehicles
Scythe:
Change Force The Engine maneuver to “This model gains +4 SPD this activation, but suffers a POW 4 damage roll at the end of its activation”
Change Wing Roll maneuver to “When this model is targeted by an attack, after the attack is resolved it can make an attack against the model that targeted it. Wing Roll expires at the beginning of this model’s next activation or immediately after this model makes an attack as a result of Wing Roll.”
Aenigma:
Add Arcantrik Amplifier
Change Force The Engine maneuver to “This model gains +4 SPD this activation, but suffers a POW 4 damage roll at the end of its activation”
Change Wing Roll maneuver to “When this model is targeted by an attack, after the attack is resolved it can make an attack against the model that targeted it. Wing Roll expires at the beginning of this model’s next activation or when it makes an attack as a result of Wing Roll.”
Vehicle Weapons
Hellfire Cannon:
Remove Arcantrik Amplifier
Add Fury Recipricator
Though we felt that the changes to vehicles in Remix did help the Scythe and Aenigma greatly, we did notice that their choices of maneuvers left much to be desired.
Force The Engine is a very powerful ability, but with the Scythe immediately taking 1 damage led to the vehicle feeling much more flimsy than it should, we didn’t want to remove the flavour of the rule, so we instead opted to make it a POW 4 damage roll at the end of the Scythe’s activation. Though there is a small chance of a catastrophic 2 damage, the Scythe now has a roughly 50% chance of taking no damage from using Force The Engine.
Wing Roll was another maneuver that was somewhat limited in usefulness. Missing a DEF 3 model that can never gain cover is a tough ask, and even with the Tune Up from the Remix version of Psychodynamic Infuser, it wasn’t enough. We’ve changed the trigger to targeting the Scythe, making the Scythe more dangerous to attack, and opening up Wing Roll as a credible defensive option on Aenigma over Evasive Action.
Speaking of Aenigma, he has had his Arcantrik Amplifier moved to his base model, with the Hellfire Cannon losing it, while gaining Fury Reciprocator instead. This should make Aenigma less chained to his signature weapon, though it does provide a unique option in the faction for slinging furies.
Empyreans
Solos
Factotum:
Revert DEF to 3
Despite being the single most durable DC1 solo in the game in vanilla Warcaster, we found that the Factotum did not have much else going for it, being a fairly standard mechanic in a faction with Kinematic Reassembler. We’ve reverted the Factotum’s DEF from 2 back to 3, which should hopefully make the Factotum more useful overall as a scenario piece and blocker.
Warjack Weapons
Gravitronic Lash:
RNG to 8”
Change Winch to “When this weapon hits an enemy model with an equal or smaller base, immediately after the attack is resolved, the damaged model can be moved directly toward this model until it contacts a model, an obstacle, or structure.”
Like the Reaper, the Gravitronic Lash was not performing in its intended role; we’ve increased its range to 8″ along with the universal change to Winch triggering on hit instead of damage.
Heroes
Aurelion, Aeon Weaver:
Revert RAT to 5
We noticed that Empyrean players were not charging Aurelion to gain access to his powerful Negative Energy ability in Remix. We’re happy leaving Negative Energy as-is, as out of turn order attacks can still be extremely strong. Instead, we opted to restore his elite RAT of 5, up from 4, to make keeping him charged a more appealing option.
Wild Cards
Solos
Voitek Sudal, Bounty Hunter:
Add Energy Vortex: “When this model ends its activation within 10” of an enemy void gate, you can immediately charge this model.”
Voitek Sudal was not seeing much play before Remix, and despite getting DEF 4, he was still quite difficult to use effectively. To make the most of his Stun Module required spiking on a model that didn’t have any other ways of charging other than the charge phase. Typically, Voitek would get charged early on and move into position, but wouldn’t accomplish much besides being a somewhat static Gate Jammer. We’ve given him Energy Vortex, which allows him to charge when he ends his activation within 10″ of an enemy void gate. Now, as long as he can get into position, he’ll always be a threat to enemy deployments, and if left alone, can become a real nuisance with his null grenade and Stun Module.
Cyphers
Geometrics
Force Barrier:
Change text to “Target a friendly squad. Affected models gain cover. When a model in this squad is targeted by a ranged attack, the attack suffers -4 RNG. Force Barrier expires at the end of the Pulse round.”
While the other pulse round defensive cyphers are seeing regular play, Force Barrier continues to be underused even after the Remix change to cypher rules (new cyphers of the same colour replace existing cyphers). We’ve strongly suspected that Force Barrier was in need of a bump for a while, since cover can be ignored by so many common rules in the game (Smart Lock, Spray, etc etc) that other defensive cyphers such as Plexus Densifier, Tachytelic Metamorphosis and the like do not have to worry about. Cover is a very strong effect and getting that anywhere is still valuable, so we decided not to touch that aspect, instead giving it a secondary effect of reducing the range of incoming attacks, representing a telekinetic shield slowing down projectiles that enter it. This should allow a Force Barrier unit to be extremely hard to scalpel out at range, which can be particularly strong in spread out scenarios such as Escape Velocity and Decay Constant, and will be a valuable addition to any rack, especially in Special Issue.
Furies
Paralytic Disruptor:
Change text to “Target an enemy model in range. Make an attack roll against the target model. If the attack hits, the model hit suffers a damage roll. Additionally, all models in the targeted unit suffer the Lock Down continuous effect. This Fury causes force damage.”
Lock Down is a situational effect at best, and this cypher basically not working against squads was a huge mark against it. To address this, we’ve made the Lock Down continuous effect apply to all members of a squad on hit, so this now will have additional utility against slow but strong melee-focused squads, such as Regulators or Exalted Paragons.
Pyrokinetic Surge:
Change text to “Target an enemy model in range. Make an attack roll against the target model. If the attack hits, the model hit suffers the Fire continuous effect in addition to suffering a damage roll. Additionally, the two closest models within 2” of the target suffer the Fire continuous effect. This Fury causes fire damage.”
Applying Fire at long ranges is always going to be valuable, but as a fury, there were always better cyphers competing for this spot as most factions have plentiful ways already to apply Fire to enemy models (e.g Blazers in Marcher Worlds, Immolators in Iron Star Alliance, Nova Cannons in Empyreans). Even in Aeternus Continuum, where fire is rare, they have extremely powerful, unique furies in the form of Atrophic Decomposer and Nihilation Vortex that would tend to push Pyrokinetic Surge out of consideration. To make Pyrokinetic Surge more valuable, we’ve added a secondary effect similar to blast that applies Fire to the two closest models within 2″ of the target. Unlike Instability Equation, this does no direct damage but can be extremely valuable to blunt an incoming assault and potentially deal damage at the end of a pulse round. Note that this does affect friendlies, so be careful when throwing around fireballs!
Psychonomic Lash:
Change text to “Target an enemy model in range. Make an attack roll against the target model. If the attack hits, after the attack is resolved your opponent must show you their hand of Cypher cards, if the target is damaged by this attack you may additionally randomly select one of your opponent’s cypher cards to discard. This Fury causes force damage.”
Although we were happy with Psychonomic Lash, its secondary effect was a little too reliable, leading to some negative play experiences, especially when paired with Harlan Sek’s Penumbral Agitator to remove 2 cards of your choice from an opponent’s hand in a single turn (potentially 3 when paired with Fury Reciprocator!). To reduce the reliability of Psychonomic Lash while preserving the flavour and some of its power, when you damage a model with it you now discard a random cypher instead of a cypher of your choice. This should limit the oppressiveness of this fury.
Cacophonic Declination:
Change text to “Target an enemy model in range. Make an attack roll against the target model. If the attack damages an enemy warjack, the warjack damaged suffers the System Failure continuous effect. When applying the System Failure continuous effect, instead of rolling a d6, choose either melee or ranged weapons to be affected. This Fury causes force damage.”
While Empyreans have several impressive weavers at their disposal, they only have the one unique fury to flex that potential power. In its original state, Cacophony Declination was a Warjack specific fury, with a random effect, that may or may not yield the results you were hoping for. Overall, it wasn’t too competitive with the generic furies all factions can employ. Adding a unique twist to this fury means it will see more play and offer more control over the battlefield to Empyreans, in the form of reliable, Warjack specific debilitation.
Harmonics
Dominion Imperative:
Change text to “Each friendly solo and vehicle can immediately move up to 3”.”
As part of our efforts to improve vehicles, we allowed them to benefit from this card, meaning the only harmonic that doesn’t affect vehicles as well as other types of models is Eschatonic Well, as vehicles lacked an option to get extra movement like Displacement Index for squads or Ascension Catalyst for warjacks, this seemed like a natural fit. In addition, we’ve increased the distance moved to 3″ up from 2″, this should increase its utility and matches with the distance moved from Displacement Index.
Encrypted Command:
Remove “then place this card in the discard pile” from the second sentence.
This was redundant wording left over from the original version of this card, we’re taking the opportunity to clean this up now.
Hallowed Desecration:
Change text to “Target a friendly unit. The unit gains +2 ARM against Fury attacks. When the affected unit is hit by a Fury attack, after the attack is resolved, you can charge this unit or a friendly unit within 5” with up to 1 Arc. Hallowed Desecration expires at the end of the Pulse round.”
As a very specific defensive cypher, this was a somewhat marginal card for Aeternus Continuum; it’s difficult to compete with the likes of Recurrent Apotheosis or Canker Bane at the best of times. As a result, we’ve changed Hallowed Desecration to allow charging friendly models within 5″ instead of just the unit with the Cypher, much like the Aeternus Continuum mantlet. This opens up new plays such as putting Hallowed Desecration on a Divine Tempest and daring your opponent to try and damage it with a cypher before trying to finish it off, charging nearby Synturions for Self Sacrifice.
