One of the few unequivocally good magic changes; minor wizards no longer need to compete with Nagash and Kroak's massive unbind bonusses. Significantly reduces the dominance of those godlike wizards when it comes to magic.
How have you found Manifestations this edition so far? I'm assuming they're definitely a lot more prevalent now that they're free.
For the sake of discussion, there's a bunch of warscrolls floating around here which includes both bastiladon variants and the Hunters of Huanchi w/ Bolas (but not the dartpipe version). I think the bastiladon have been discussed before, but i'm kind of into the new HoH in particular, that +2 range is very nice when they swap out the -1 to hit on a 6 debuff for a more reliable 3+ roll to inflict -1D6 on their charges until your next turn that you only have to hit them to attempt, it being stackable if they have 3d6 charges is sweet too. I think swapping out the 5+ save for a 5+ ward is also nice, even if them being a 5 man unit of 1 health models means they'll still kind of explode if hit. The removal of bravery also means Terrawings need a new niche, so they might find some useable place in the army if they get some kind of glow up. Even if its the same ability and just nerfs control score, that could still actually be really nice to combo with deepstriking for back objectives, just to steal them easier. I'm hopeful the dartpipe guys get a similar boost to their usefulness too, they're such a fun unit. Its kind of weird that they didn't give the spell the Unlimited keyword, and instead just printed in the spell that you can just use it as many times as you have casts for in any given phase, but I think the damage output isn't something to write off if he's available for a reasonable amount of points. 9D3 to to 3 units isn't bad, and anyone in range for the spell is in range for his shooting attack to fairly likely toss out another d6. He is a lot squishier than he used to be with Dead for Innumerable Ages being per turn rather than phase, but you also have counterplay because it only procs if he has damage allocated to him at the end of the turn, rather than if he took damage, so any kind of healing can mitigate some level of the chip (even if that is a lot of investment to keep him around- but at the same time, i think he's probably the kind of centrepiece you end up building around in some way or another). He also innately gets the -1 to hit on shooting attacks targeting him if he's parked next to something that isn't a hero, which seems fairly easy to do
Unlimited doesn't let the same wizard cast multiple times. Damage output on kroak is down and no fight last. If he's a lot more than slann it feels hard to include him imo
I've seen the Dartpipes warscroll, and while they're technically better than they used to be, they're still not as good as the bolas imo. They have the same base stats and a 10" range, and their Star Venom ability says that if you damage a unit with their dartpipes, they have -1 to wound rolls but only if you roll a 2+. Again, better than they used to be imo, but it'll be a bit tougher to pull that off. I'll be going with the Star Bolases and making use of their teleport to pick up some early battle tactics. I concur, especially because he doesn't even have the recursion rules that a normal slann does. That makes Kroak a very successful caster, but he has to focus primarily on either his frankly short-ranged damage spell or casting buff spells that a normal slann could cast. For however many more points Kroak ends up being, I don't think it would pay for the extra +1 casting over a normal slann and the unique warscroll spell.
The dartpipes suffer too much from range being reduced in 4th. The bolas on the other hand benefit from the range reduction in 4th. They're no longer massivly outranged by proper dedicated ranged units. .... please don't tell me that we've somehow ended up with half the rule of one. Nevermind strong; how did you end up using them? Did they regularly get destroyed, or only unbound? Where you regularly recasting them or only cast them once per turn? Did you actually using the entire lore, or where you only ever interested in one spell ignoring the others? etc.
I don't think the dartpipe chameleons are as hurt by the range reduction as by the fact that their special rules is not as potentially helpful as the bolas chameleons. Unfortunately, neither set of chamos can re-hide after being revealed. So, neither unit will likely live past the turn they ambush, unless they are far out of the way.
Their special rule isn't amazing. But more importantly at 10" range a unit like chameleons with dartpipes just doesn't function. They're basicly jezzails without the range, and that -1 to wound & ambush do not make up for the lack of range. Bolas are probably going to live surprisingly long simply because they're fairly easy to forget about. They don't do enough damage to be a threat, and their special rule is surprisingly situational. Unless you really don't want to deal with that anti-charge rule, they're often just not going to be a priority.