Just by math alone it seems like Bane Chant is more often than not just better, if not as inspiring, as other spells. Surely it’s good to have a gold standard, and something newcomers can find joy and success in, but isn’t it just a bit too powerful? If practically any list benefits from it, maybe it’s a tad too universal (while I love that Halflings for example don’t want it).
A price hike: you could argue that each and every Bane Chant instance in the game could just go up by 10, even 15 points.
Unique: make it unique and thus you can try and mitigate its existence by hero hunting?
Remove the artefact: yeah we all take the banner bearer with Lute. Yes without Command dice it only works 75% of the time. But isn’t it time we were forced to diversify a bit?
I’m not hell-bent on this. But I do feel Bane Chant is a bit too universal. It’s good to have simple, gold standard stuff in a game. Surely. Bane Chant feel it is just a bit too golden in comparison.
Did you play in 2E? Bane Chant worked on shooting then And was (thankfully) nerfed going into 3E.
Anyway, no changes needed IMO. Sometimes I feel like Bane Chant is a crutch so I take it out of my lists, and sometimes I feel like it’s too unreliable so I take it out of my lists, but mostly I’m jealous of armies with Bane Chant (3+)
I think it’s a great spell that helps mediocre units compete, which is on the whole better for army comp than whatever spell diversity you’d get by fiddling with BC’s availability or point cost. The strongest argument for adjusting it might be that it adds to the high lethality of the edition, whereby De 5+ is kinda nothing and De 6+ doesn’t have the mileage you’d expect, but again, not everybody is running top flight ultra hammers so on demand CS feels more like a solid balancing lever than a problem.
I remember an idea that Bane Chant should not stack with other crushing strength. given the small design space of the D6 and the high lethality of many units, the bane chant is currently most used to give addional boost to units already packing crushing and thunderous.
alternatively, the bane chant could have been written as something different, like “the unit damages on 4+” regardless of the defenders defence and other modifiers", just another random thought.
I don’t know. Defense 6+ is already hard enough to get through, especially for armies that don’t pack a lot of crushing. Bane chant is one of the tools to get through these units.
On the other hand, damaging those units at 4+ may actually be a buff. (looking at you, goblin rabble). I’m curious how things work out. That said having some measure of CS/TC/BC is mandatory these days.
I just read, and really liked, the idea of Bane Chant instead of giving Crushing Strength +1 would grant exactly CS (1). That way it would not stack with other CS (which is increasingly prevalent in latest designs), but would with TC (which is overall much less powerful than CS).
Again, I’m not saying Bane Chant would be overpowered or unbearably hostile. But there’s the question of universality. Restricting its usefulness with other sources of CS sounds interesting.
That’s pretty cool! And also a buff to non-crushing cav, which are largely absent in the meta now (apart from Halflings, whose spellward makes BC awkward anyway).
Like the idea of default CS1 rather than stackable.
In relation to how much it gets used: From UK Clash last year - position and BC use.
1 - Dwarfs No BC
2 - SK No BC
3 - NA No BC
4 - Undead Lute, BC2 and conjurers staff, BC3 from LL
5 - TK BC3 from LL
6 - Basilea No BC
7 - TR Lute
8 - EoD No BC
9 - Basilea No BC
10 - Undead Lute, BC2 and Conjurer’s staff, BC3 from LL
85 Goblins no BC
86 AD no BC
87 Dwarfs no BC
88 Herd BC2 and conjurers staff
89 Salamanders Lute
90 FoN Lute
91 Undead Lute, BC3 LL
92 Undead BC3 LL
93 Ogres no BC
94 Salamanders no BC
176 FoN no BC
177 Ratkin no BC
178 Dwarfs BC2
179 Ogres no BC
180 NA no BC
181 Dwarfs BC2, BC2
182 NA no BC
183 FoA BC2 LL
184 Ogres no BC
185 TK no BC
And was (thankfully) nerfed going into 3E.