Dev Journal: Frostling Queens and Royal Guards

Well, Polar Bears are now a possibility as a mount for Frostling Heroes.

And interesting, the Ice Queen may be a racial unit that will not work well in mixed-race armies.

Love it, they look very cool (Though I do hope the Royal Guard style is not going to be how Frostling Male Leaders/Heroes looks, cool as it is)

So the Royal Guard are tier 2 or tier 3 then?

I’m assuming both of these new units are tier 3?

That’s pretty awesome :).

Sacrificing itself to spread terrain is a great idea, and Ice Nova is going to come in very handy.

I’m excited!

Ice Nova sounds devastating! Also, to be clear, is the Frost Nova on the strategic map passive or can you choose to cast it each turn? I can see really cool aspects to both ideas.

The Royal Guard seems like an cool unit and fits in nicely with the Frostling theme.

The Ice Queens are definitely something I didn’t expect. Polar bear chariots seem a little out there but it is an awesome idea. The whip should be made of ice in the animation though. If you can put in some ice particle effects that would be cool too. Sparkly blue particle effect should be everywhere on these Frostling units

Garresh wrote:

Is this not the coolest thing ever?

Cool, FROSTlings….. I see what you did there.

Is the Guard T3 or T2? abilities sound T3, but could be T2. Also, their’s is the only ability so far that differentiates by gender in 3(we had seduce in 1/2…).

I think it’s gotta be a T2 Guard/Martyr. Otherwise, there’s no other T2 beside the Mammoth Rider.

So as to summarize;
T1:
Irregular: Icescaper
Infantry: Raider
Archer: Harpoon Thrower
T2:
Cavalry: Mammoth Rider
Pikeman: Royal Guard
Support: Ice Witch
T3:
Frost Queen (Mounted + Support? just Support? Cavalry?)

Dome of Frost sounds remarkably like Disgusting Stench, but a bit more aggresive.

———–
As a side question, can we expect Frost Elemental getting awesome with a few new, cool abilities(pun intended)?

keeps getting better and better
and the wait gets harder

Lennart Sas wrote:

Their active ability is Pledge of Protection, which can only target Frostling women, gives the Guard +2 defense and redirects any damage done to his charge to the Royal Guard, mitigated by 35%.

Is it intended that there be no synergy between the def bonus and damage absorbed? Because if it works like the Martyr ability the +2 def on the guard is not going to have any effect on the damage absorbed from the Queen/Witch. It would if it was the woman who received the def bonus rather than the guard.

Lennart Sas wrote:

…which can only target Frostling women.

Does this mean unit gender is being re-introduced or does it simply target a specific unit list? What about leaders/heroes? If they can be affected by the Pledge does that mean all Frostling leaders/heroes will be women (otherwise there’d be no point in choosing male heroes/leaders).

Garresh wrote:

Does the ice nova freeze water?

I hope it does or will if it doesn’t.

The frostling units look lots of fun to play. From the sound of his description, does the guard have physical weakness, being ice and all?

Gamling wrote:

I do think it is fun if she has an big area attack that she can use after charging the enemy. I think its best if the nova cost her like half her hit points. Then you will indeed need some skill or a bunch of those guards to keep her alive. If the nova cost her whole life I think I would hesitate to much to use it since I do tend to try to keep my units alive and level them up. I think its better to use sheep units and not the most expensive as kamikazes.

I think you are confusing things here. The battlefield ability Ice Nova wont cause a loss of life (at least it isn’t mentioned here) but the strategic ability Arctic Nova that spreads arctic climate (which I hope isn’t optional since it clearly shows how Frost Queens are bound to the cold – with all it’s pros and cons).

Really looking forward to the Royal Guard as well. Pillar Stylites will be much more interesting after this expansion. Also I’m wondering if every Race will get a 2nd T2 instead of 3 T1’s (so far Goblins have Butcher and Frostlings Royal Guards (assuming they are not T3)).

One other thing about the Guards though .. I hope they will eventually look a little less like fantasm warriors. A somewhat darker blue would be welcomed 🙂

Very nice.
I would love to see race specific tier 4 units though.
I want a big Doomwolf breathing frost on my enemies and Icing up the land.

– So does the Royal Guard ability target any Frostling woman? Sayyy, the Bard?

– Does it work similarly to racial tags?

– Do all races get them?

– Do Dragons do less damage to Women? (Maidens are for kidnapping, not squishing!)

– Does the Frost Queen sound super powerful when used as a Sorcerer, or is it just me?

This is really making me wonder, does Necromancer have Infantry/Archer support? Those two types have really gotten the least exciting upgrades, especially when compared to stuff like pistols, teleportation and healing powers (which all alter the play-style of the units in question). Handy upgrades, sure, but not exciting.

EDIT:

Eomolch wrote:

One other thing about the Guards though .. I hope they will eventually look a little less like fantasm warriors. A somewhat darker blue would be welcomed

This is a very good point, in my opinion.

Garresh wrote:

Looks more powerful and arrogant than anything…which kind of fits since she’s a queen that can control the *weather* and bring winter wherever she goes.

And the description specifically mentions that royalty wear less clothes. Being super cold resistant is a status symbol.

RMZ, the other races are getting some reworks. Like goblin pikemen are getting bumped a tier and given life stealing and stiff.

Also yeah now that you mention it the royal guards are showing a ton of skin. I get the feeling they’re probably lesser lords and nobles who select to become part of the “queensguard”? Kind of like in game of thrones. I can’t see a single unit of theirs which isn’t awesome.

You know. I’m not sure what’s more terrifying about the ice queen: That she can unleash cold novas which break guards and really mess stuff up, or that she wears high heels made of ice. That’s gotta be hard as hell to stand like that, but she just honeybadgers it up like she just don’t care. High heels are hard enough to balance in anyways! Not that I’d know anything about that…