New Units/Abilities in Crossworlds

[BB Shockwave]

Update - please add to the beginning of the thread!

Skeletons now have TWO new Talents:

-Sow Bones: Scatters across the arena 3 piles of bones, which can then be used for magical movement.

-Undead Gate: Moves to the selected pile of bones. After arriving, 1 action point remains. Attack is increased by 10, but Defense is decreased to 1 for the remainder of the round.

Nice Talents, making the otherwise not-really-used Skellies more effective. This is essentially a low level version of Teleport. Still, the AI needs tweaking - when I faced them once, the two troops of Skeletons both used Sow Bones, instead of the second one teleporting to one of the gates.

The teleport animation is funny - it is the same as the Skeletons dying and being resurrected, so they simply fall apart and reintegrate at the selected spot.

EDIT: Also - New Guard Droid Talent

- Beam of Light: Droid produces a beam of bright light in any given direction, up to a 3 cell distance. Undead receive 5-20 Damage, soldiers with Night Vision and Beholders are blinded, all other creatures below level 5 have their defense reduced by 30%. The effect lasts for 2 rounds.

[Infiltrator]

Anyone think assassins will actually become useful with the new talent? Are there any new items to make them more viable?

For those who don't know, the Assassin, when he executes someone with a backstab or critical, gains a +5% damage bonus that gets carried over to other battles.

[BB Shockwave]

I plan to use them because these +5% not only stack, but stay for all units the Assassins have backstabbed... In my current game I only found 2 so far, but even those have now +15% against Goblins, +10% against Orcs and so on. Definetly worth using them, just have to take care never to lose them all.

[Zechnophobe]

Skeletons are crazy weird now.

Anyone consider saving some easy early fights, and going back with a 5 split stack of assassin's to backstab the heck out of them? Build up some damage bonus super fast.

EDIT: have added some more details to main post. There's so much stuff now it is getting hard to keep it all in place!

[Saiko Kila]

I think that many of new units and old units are kind of overpowered now. This makes fighting them harder. One example, which I haven't seen mentioned: alchemists can restore their potions now. At least enemy alchemists, because in my game they're unavailable in shop till late Montero

[Puce Moose]

I finally managed to convince a rune mage I was a fit enough leader to join me; so far I'm really enjoying this new mage. If you opt to leave talent runes sitting unused you can really turn the rune mage into a beast. Random summoning + resurrection + random debilitating spell + high HP makes for a fun 'one-man army' type of squad member.

[Kas]

Originally Posted by Puce Moose

I finally managed to convince a rune mage I was a fit enough leader to join me; so far I'm really enjoying this new mage. If you opt to leave talent runes sitting unused you can really turn the rune mage into a beast. Random summoning + resurrection + random debilitating spell + high HP makes for a fun 'one-man army' type of squad member.

The spell isn't random. It depends on how many magic runes you have available. At around 15+ runes, (I'm not sure exactly what the minimum is) they sheep the enemy, which is just stupidly good. I've had up to three enemy stacks sheeped at once, courtesy of my lone rune mage's basic attack--and that's on impossible with stacks in the hundreds.

With enough runes, this unit is by far the most powerful in the game, hands down. They've got the best resurrection skill, an astral attack that's as good as dragon fire or better, summoning power superior to royal thorns, they increase the morale of other casters in your army, and just to ice the cake, they're near-invincible tanks. I've never had to heal my rune mage once.

And if you're thinking the rune investment is too steep, consider the extra fights and quests in OOTM. You have extra runes to play with now, anyway. Also, if you're playing mage, it doesn't take long to rack up the magic runes for their sheeping attack. And that one thing by itself makes them the best unit in the game.

Overpowered much? I think so.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Skeletons are crazy weird now.

Anyone consider saving some easy early fights, and going back with a 5 split stack of assassin's to backstab the heck out of them? Build up some damage bonus super fast.

EDIT: have added some more details to main post. There's so much stuff now it is getting hard to keep it all in place!

Does it work that way? I mean, merging the stacks keeps all the find weakness skills and groups them?

Also, would you mind adding my descriptions to the first post? Sorry to say but they are more detailed (for example for the Rune Mage or the Beam of Light) then what you have added.

[BB Shockwave]

A new Orc unit no-one noticed so far, apparently - or, undestandably, confused it with the Ogre, as it is the Ogre model, colored in green same as it was in The Legend.

Orc Chieftain (Level 5, Orc)

Attack: 40
Defense: 35 (20% Physical, 10% Poison, 10% Fire)
Intiative: 4
Speed: 2
Crit: 15%
Damage: 59-83 (? not sure, only seen them in battle with increased damage)
Health: 850 (!!)

Abilities:
-Smash (damages any enemy troop which is standing behind the target)
-Commander (Orcs and Goblins in the Hero's army gain +1 Morale)
-Thick Skin (20% physical resistance, any attacker can get its attack reduced depending on its level - pretty much casts Weakness on the attacker)
-Recruiter (gives 1-2 Orcs after each battle, random type)
-Adrenaline (1. level: +10% damage, Sneer talent. 2. level: +20% damage, +1 speed, +1 charge to Sneer, Predator talent. 3. level: +30% damage, +2 Speed, +100% power to Predator talent, Spirit Strike talent.

Talents:

- Sneer: Provokes any Level 1-4 enemy to attack the Orc, except mind immune troops.
- Predator: Consumes a few units from a neighbouring Goblin or Orc troop, restoring 200-400 health, then continues the turn. Adrenaline is increased to maximum.
- Spirit Strike: does 35-45 physical damage around the Orc for all units (enemy/friend alike). Damage increases as per the numbers of Shaman the orc army has. Also knocks back enemies.