Back in blog post 94 we revealed the next four traits (the one-off events which trigger when a card is deployed) that we’re adding to the game: Poison, Regeneration, Scout and Fear. Poison and Regeneration went in a while ago and as the Fear and Scout traits came online yesterday I wanted to talk about them.
Fear:
This trait causes the opponent’s cards to deal less damage with their next X attacks (i.e. the damage reduction never changes but the number of attacks which are debuffed goes up as you keep leveling up this card).
As you can imagine, this trait can be useful in a wide variety of situations. If your opponent is set to inflict a lot of damage, or if they’ve been building up a big attack bonus, then deploying a Fear card means they either have to waste a load of potential damage or use different attacks first until they can get the Fear effect to expire. Even the latter outcome buys you time to maybe take out a critical enemy card or redeploy one of your own. Basically, this is a ‘disrupt’ trait which allows you to mess with the enemy’s plan.
Here are the cards which have swapped to the Fear trait:
Space Marines
- Brother Mhorkar, Legion of the Damned Legionnaire
- Brother Sirras, Ultramarines Reiver
- Interrogator-Chaplain Zachius, Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain
- Lieutenant Darrios, Ultramarines Reiver Lieutenant
Aeldari
- Irillith, Howling Banshee Aspect Warrior
- Lathrangil, Harlequin Solitaire
- The Spectre’s Smile, Harlequin Death Jester
- Kalistri the Huntress, Ynnari Howling Banshee Exarch
Necrons
- Virus Carrier, Flayed One Outcast
Chaos
- Gloguthrox the Foul, Death Guard Lord of Contagion
- Takrath Kulus, Crimson Slaughter Raptor
Servants of the Emperor
- Sly Marbo, The One Man Army
Tyranids
- Specimen: LV-808-WS-δ, Hive Fleet Leviathan Hive Tyrant
Scout:
Deploying a card with the Scout trait gets you an immediate boost to one of your attacks as this card Readies X times (with X increasing as you keep upgrading this card). Although less dramatic than Fear this can be an extremely useful trait, letting you unexpectedly boost an attack right when you need it.
The obvious tactic is to add to an attack you’ve already prepared a boost for, but you can also use it to make two boosted attacks in a row, or even to undo the debuff from an enemy card’s negative Readying.
Here are the cards which have swapped to the Scout trait:
Tyranids
- Traldak, Genestealer Cults Acolyte Hybrid
- Specimen: LV-883-ID-Θ, Hive Fleet Leviathan Lictor
- Leatherback Hanes, Genestealer Cults Atalan Jackal
T’au
- Shas’ui Vass, T’au Sept Stealth Battlesuit
- Shas’vre Tassar, Vior’la Sept XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit
- One That Rips The Flesh, T’au Sept Vespid Stingwing
- Kor’vesa #0014931, Vior’la Sept MB3 Recon Drone
Servants of the Emperor
- Old Strider, Catachan Scout Sentinel
- Aximillion, Loyal Canid
Space Marines
- Jetek Suberei, Deathwatch Space Marine Biker
- Neophyte Laemodon, Aurora Chapter Scout
- Brother Erastes, Ultramarines Infiltrator
- Brother Garros, Ultramarines Invictor Tactical Warsuit
Aeldari
- Zephyrblade, Craftworld Saim-Hann Autarch
- Karandras, Phoenix Lord of the Striking Scorpions
- The Skyknife, Razorwing Jetfighter
- Ceghallan, Craftworld Ulthwe War Walker
Necrons
- Carrion Flight, Sautekh Dynasty Tomb Blade Scout
Orks
- Bazza Da Blade, Blood Axe Clan Kommando
- Uzgob’s Dragsta, Bad Moons Clan Shokkjump Dragsta
- Bogrot, Evil Sunz Clan Biker
Chaos
- Karanak, Khornate Hound of Vengeance
Conclusion
If you’re suprised that a specific card didn’t swap to one of these traits don’t forget that we have plans for 10 more traits underway, and as we don’t want to swap a card from its placeholder to a different trait more than once some are remaining with the old trait for now.
In the meantime it will be interesting to see what effect these traits have on the game’s balance and which new deck builds they unlock (and waiting to see how these changes ripple out is why we aren’t adding a load of traits in one go).
Let us know your thoughts on the new traits. You can get in touch by leaving a comment below, through our Facebook page or by mailing [email protected]. Also, if you’d like to follow our posts through RSS you can use this link: https://www.combatcards.com/feed/
Thanks,
Stu
Thank you for adding features to the game!
Wow you took away shield from some of these cards (including Gloguthrox the Foul!!)…. noooooo….
Karanak gets to ready when he is deployed….. how useless…
Sorry I am just seeing some obvious nerfs to a lot of cards here.
Brother Garros gets a boost! Now his whole team gets an attack boost on his deployment instead of just him.
You guys literally changed popular deck builds for many armies. I will say it makes the game more interesting.
Oops sorry Brother Garros gets a nerf. I though his “Ready” was for a ranged attack boost. But it is for a Melee attack reduction to the opponent.
Hopefully the new traits will make some previously strong deck builds a little weaker (and vice-versa by making new deck builds feasible) and shake up the meta in that way. We don’t think a couple of new traits will cause radical upheaval, but as you say it should help make things more interesting.
this should have been done between campaigns, or at least not when pretty much every deck is counting on sly marbo to have a shield instead of the bat/fear thing. taking half damage is worse then taking no damage and his point value needs to be reduced to account for the loss in ability
Good point about future traits being released between Campaigns, so apologies for that. We wanted to get something cool out as soon as possible but should have considered the effect it would have. Rest assured we’ll bear it in mind next time!
Very interesting update….
my boy gloghluthrox (the plague lord) having a trait that can last longer sounds very cool
Zephirblade got buffed… Again… So my strongest deck is now stronger…
Still, im surprised there are no more scouts in servants of the emperor. Yarrick would love to use them
What I am curious about now is what the new traits will be … I mean ‘guardsman bergersen’ has a horse! If he is not a scout he is what?
Hey Stu. I am all for making the game more interesting. I must say after playing a bunch of matches, Fear is more useful than I thought.
My only concern and question is: would you guys ever change the trait of a Paid card? I remember you guys got a lot of crap for increasing the points cost of Longstrike (who was admittedly overpowered). I can only imagine what people might say if you change the actual mechanics of a paid card.
That’s an interesting point. Right now the answer is yes, we plan to swap each card to the trait it was always planned to have (just couldn’t until all the traits existed), but you’re right that we’d have to carefully discuss it before making that change!
Way to cripple the eldar, seriously whole faction don’t have many shields and you take it away from the walker who needs it so desperately…great move and sly marbo went from from good to meh mid campaign and no serious point reduction. Sarcastic golfclap on this round guys.
Hey! I am going to say what I have said in-game already : This is a great feature, nice work. I also had this idea (probably not new) of creating traits that are faction specific. Trait X only be used by cards from faction X, Trait Y with faction Y, etc… I hope this makes sense!
Thanks for the feedback. We don’t currently plan to make any traits faction specific, but when we went through the 10 extra traits we have planned we definitely themed them around factions that make the most use of them. I.e. Dark Eldar cards should use Poison, whereas not many Orks would use it.
Yes I understand your point. Indeed I thought about this when I saw loyal space marines with the fear ability and the inssuing bat animation. It barely looked like sorcery therefore heresy hahaha. I agree with you : some traits are more relevant according to the card’s faction.