He’s going to get nerfed because of it. We don’t have much that is super good in our book and it really bothers me that Order players are going to ruin one of the few things we have going for us.
They are just going to increase his points and honestly they could probably bump him up 50 points and he would still be completely worth it. It would make picking between a slann and kroak more of a decision. 320 right now but we are willing to spend 140 for an astrolith to buff him and 100 for guards to protect him. If we are willing to devote 560 to out list for him we will devote 600 too.
He's going to get nerfed regardless... eventually at least. I also don't really agree with the "few things we have going for us." There's a lot of really good stuff in the book.
Here is the thing though. Kroak really shines when he gets the Sacred Astromis buff and the Saurus Astrolith Bearer. So sure, other armies can use him. But you want to be Seraphon to get the most out of him. Spell Portals could help him though. You can expect a lot of the same with the Light Eltherion poping up in other order armies.
Honestly Kroak is really damn good. CP generation, boardwide unbind, Comets Call being boardwide, especially with tripple CD with increased range, is extremely bonkers. Looking at Kroak isolated, he is certainly broken. When looking at the rest of our warscrolls, we have nothing else in the magic department even remotely close to Kroak. Nothing with the same kind of oompf/impact. Slann kinda suck (no real powerful traits or artefacts) and anything else is just a one cast Wizard. Even the Starseer is surprisingly weak from a casting point of view. Maybe if Astrolith radius was tuned down and Comet’s Call was made same radius as CD it would be better overall.
Only SCE, Sylvaneth and mixed order can take him, so I doubt we will see a lot top non-seraphon lists with him. But he is definitely getting a nerf of some sort.
Alliance doesn't work both directions. So Sylvaneth can't currently ally Seraphon into their army. At least until an Errata or GHB update. So it is just SCE and mixed Order.
It’s mostly mixed order lists that I am seeing. Kroak, a SCE hero with comet. Frostheart Phoenix and shooting.
I'm really hoping that Lord Kroak doesn't get nerfed. We just got a rework, and nothing is blatantly OP, especially compared to GW's other factions, especially their newer ones. Lore wise, he's supposed to be stronger than any other spellcaster expect *maybe* Nagash and Sigmar himself, and a lot of us would argue that he's even stronger than Nagash in his current god state. Sure, he's good now, but we should be allowed to have nice things just like everyone else seems to get
From what I gather he just isnt that enjoyable to play against, especially for armies that rely on smaller and squishy heroes to bring important synergies/buffs. Comet’s Call is kinda broken being boardwide, since it ensures there is no way to play around it. It is even worse in Seraphon where his Celestial Deliverance can have up to 40” reach from Kroak, which again is “almost” boardwide and so, no real way to get around it. Matt in the 16th May TTS took the above to the next level by allying in a Celestant-Prime, which means you can deepstrike anywhere on table and pick any point within 24” of that location and ensure a model takes 3 MW, potentially more units depending on how close together they are. Alot of armies have no answer to this if they rely on the buffs/synergies from squishy heroes.
How are you getting 40” without an oracle? The default range is 10”, vassal adds 12” (plus a part of the base width), balewind vortex 6” and Astrolith bearer 6”. So most likely 35”? Still a huge threat bubble, but it depends on the vassal being positioned well and surviving one turn (given that our teleport now happens in the movement phase).
I think I counted one of them twice.. Yeah its 34” reach (technically more when you set up the balewind, but yeah) but thats still the majority of the table, else your opponent has to hide whatever in a far corner = not doing anything = might as well be dead.