New Command Cards

[Kevin]

In addition to rule revisions, A number of command cards have been Officially revised.

At some point, pretty new command cards will go up, but at the moment I have made a .pdf file which contains all of the new cards in a rather mundane form.  You all can download it here.  

In all cases, there is one proxy per card in the respective faction's deck, so just download this file once and, assuming your command cards are sleeved, just the proxies on top of the current corresponding cards and you're all set!

Here are the cards which were changed and the reasons why:

Hawkshold Attack Formation:  a
Hawkshold Defensive Formation:  a
Hawkshold The Plan:  b

Orc Frenzy:  a, c
Orc Battle Lust:  b, d, e
Orc Rampage:  b, d

Undead Flesh Rot:  f
Undead Vampirism:  f
Undead Wave of Terror:  b, e

Lizardmen Saurian Fury:  a

Dark Elf Arrogant Spite:  g

Dwarf Rune of the Warrior:  a
Dwarf Rune of Skill:  a
Dwarf Rune of Power:  a

Code:

a = These had been too weak; faction cards should be at least as good as generic cards (e.g. Might).
b = These now are no longer "dead cards" in certain games.
c = Better flavor.
d = Pitching a card rather than using a command action allows the card to be played on the opponent turn, and reflects what was done later with the Umenzi Devosion of Endurance.
e = These no longer get stupidly overpowered when played in a massive (3000+ point) game.
f = The Undead needed some help with their attack skill, as their only skill-6 unit is the 500-something point Death Knights.
g = This fix happened last year, and is included in the .pdf for your convenience.  The card had previously been overpowered by wording which had not matched the designer's intent.


----------------

Players are certainly welcome to continue to use the printed cards, though anyone going to a tournament should expect to see the new ones, and in general the new cards should make for a more balanced, fun game.

One other thing:  It's also possible that one or two other cards will change in the near-to-intermediate future...or maybe not.

[Kevin]

Updated the document linked above with new Dwarf Command cards.  The three red Dwarf cards each got slightly upgraded to +3 courage (up from +2), while otherwise remaining the same.

[Kyoden]

Hi,

is there an option to get those new cards with decent graphics? I don't really want to put those proxies infront of my "awesome" looking cards. Kinda spoils the fun for me.

[Kevin]

Good question.  I hope there will be at some point in the near-ish future, but at the moment, no.     (Somone with the graphics files, and the ability to change them, would have to put those up.)

Some of the cards easily could be changed with a pen.  e.g. the Dwarf cards are the same except that the courage bonus went from +2 to +3.  For the others, your best bet for now would be to print out the proxies and keep them on the side while you play.

[NegativeZer0]

I think after the current production army is put on shelves a hold should be put on further army development and a concerted effort put into looking at the old armies and the revisions made.  Make a FINAL pass over all the old armies and release an errata pack that contains all the changes on official new cards in one box.  If there's room maybe we can give each of the armies one new unit so that players gain something new as well from buying this pack.  Players that own multiple factions will have no problem picking these up.  For those that only own one or two factions they can try an work with other players to collectively buy 1 pack and split up the cards they need.   I really think this needs to be done at some point because the list of errata has gotten a little big now.

[Kevin]

I think after the current production army is put on shelves a hold should be put on further army development and a concerted effort put into looking at the old armies and the revisions made.

I agree that an errata deck would be good.  But it's not an either-or thing.  At the moment there are three active development groups.  Corey & co., Niko-Seth, me-Jaime.  Errata--if we stick with things that are unambiguously wrong, would be extremely quick and easy to do and could be done by one of those three teams, with the others (& Chad) there for final sign-off.  No need to stop the other stuff.

If there's room maybe we can give each of the armies one new unit so that players gain something new as well from buying this pack.

That's a nice thought.  Oh man, I can taste how badly I want Swarmling Spearmen!  

[elgin_j]

I made a similar proposal back in '09.  The older factions would benefit from an injection of new units to stimulate interest - perhaps with some new command cards to make the decks more useful for larger battles (4,000pts+).

Of course, the total absence of any advertising and the dated state of the publisher's website do not do a good job of attracting new players...

[Chad_YMG]

I like this idea.  It wouldn't be cheap -- I'm pretty certain that we'd lose money on it -- but it's the sort of thing I like to do to make sure people understand how serious we are about providing a high-quality product.

Of course, if we do it I'm going to draft damn near everyone for final proof-reading...we do NOT want to have any typos in that final product.  (Or missing cards.)

[Exploding Ant]

I know I would buy a set.  Its hard enough to get some one to try a new army game. They see the errata sheet or proxies and it just gets worse.

[NegativeZer0]

I like this idea.  It wouldn't be cheap -- I'm pretty certain that we'd lose money on it -- but it's the sort of thing I like to do to make sure people understand how serious we are about providing a high-quality product.

Of course, if we do it I'm going to draft damn near everyone for final proof-reading...we do NOT want to have any typos in that final product.  (Or missing cards.)

Do it as a special order kind of thing.  I would be more then happy to prepay for one as I'm sure a lot of others would as well then you can base your production on these numbers.
I think there's a small enough number of changes needed where all the armies could be done in a single pack (esp with the new double pack in one) and still have room for some new additions to the armies to make it feel like I'm not just throwing my money at a "fix" but rather I am actually gaining something new as well.

And for those with only one or two armies perhaps cracking a few of these open and selling singles to appease those that would feel ripped off because they only get let's say 10 cards out of the entire pack that are for their armies.

[rog5]

I'd also buy a set.

[leemie]

You could run a small kickstarter for it to advertise and get preorders. http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/tabletop%20games

[Jatha]

I'd buy a set.

[Chad_YMG]

Actually, this might be possible after all -- but as a POD product rather than something that gets offered commercially.  The card stock/finish wouldn't be the same so it would only work for people who sleeve their command card decks, but I suspect most serious players do that anyway.  (And hey, if you don't then your command card decks are showing wear so new ones would be easy to tell apart anyway.)

Has anyone done a count on the total number of cards that would need to be changed?

[Kevin]

Has anyone done a count on the total number of cards that would need to be changed?

We have a thread of all of the cards here.

It's coming to 19 card types.  I'm pretty sure that's 35 cards (Most cards are doubles, but a few are singles.), but would need to double check that.  Also, a player suggested reprinting the faction ability cards when a faction ability has changed; that would add another 4 or 5 cards if done.


The other nice candiate for PoD is units which have  unambiguoulsy changed from the printed version.  Listed here.  12 units in all, though 4 of those are relatively minor (e.g. forgetting to state that an Auto-Close unit can't be Direct Controlled).  New unit cards would of course need multiple copies.