Your ACS wrote:

Princes!


We come bearing news from the Throne, and as the world grows darker and our enemies abound, our leaders have not been idle. Many of our mighty forces which have been sharpening spears in preparation for eventual battle are ready to wade into the breach again and again...your feedback has been heard!

We have done significant analysis on the makeup and prevalence of our forces in the field and worked closely with the project leadership to implement some of our least-represented entries. We want to give a big thank you to all RT for hearing our concerns and working with us to find the best way to implement our goals. I know it is an often-levied complaint that leadership isn't listening but this patch should stand in stark contrast to that viewpoint. You should also be aware that many of your comments were posted to internal boards and looked at by leadership directly: so keep posting quality stuff!

A big thanks also goes out to @fjugin who, once we showed the legitimacy of our concerns helped find the best ways to address them, and to @Just_Flo who helped liaise. We appreciate the care they took in helping us arrive at our destination.

Through the review process, one additional concern was raised by the expert players and the RT, resulting in one additional change being made. Together, the changes together represent the finished result for the GOLD 2021 HBE Update:

GOLD 2021 HBE Update wrote:

Change Request 1: Internal balance between Prince, on-foot non-wizard honors. This was accomplished by increasing the cost of a few of the most used entries and decreasing it for a few of the least played ones:

• Prince down by 10 points and some Prince-options went up 10 points to compensate (i.e. mundane Spear; Griffon; Dragon; Lion Chariot), for a net-neutral effect to the common builds, and a slight point decrease to uncommonly fielded ones;
  
• Commonly fielded honors (Queen's Companion, Master of the Caenrig Tower and Royal Huntsman Chariots) went up 20 points and uncommonly fielded honors (Fleet Officers, High Warden of the Flame, Queen's Cavalier, Foot Royal Huntsman) went down 20 points;
  
• Several small adjustments were made to help preserve the integrity/intent of entries;
  

Change Request 2 (not counting towards limit, and as part of the above):

• Prince mundane Spear +10 (15);
  

Change Request 3: Flame Wardens Significant Underrepresentation (especially at small Sizes)

• Flame Wardens starting points: -30 (290); PPM increases by +1 (27), reverting the previous change;
  

Change Request 4: Non-represented Magic Items:

• Amethyst Crystal -10 (50).
  

RT Change Request:

• Ring of the Pearl Throne: Cannot be taken by Constructs or models with Towering Presence
  

The addition of the Ring of the Pearl Throne restriction hits one major build (a specific Royal Huntsman on Lion Chariot build) which has been deemed as too polarizing in certain matchups, and thus the restriction added. To be clear, this change was also not related to the original proposals made, but was separate and only implemented late in the review cycle. This is the least-restrictive version of what was proposed, and without any point increases or breaking other, unintended builds. We hope the impact will be minimal, even as we know this will be disappointing to some of you.

At the same time, we are eager and excited to see what new builds everyone comes up! These changes hopefully capture the spirit and the intent of the community in wanting to achieve a better internal balance for our book, and will provide new and interesting options to explore.

I want to thank again the RT for helping us work through these concerns, many of which have existed for years at this point (at the very least since before the 2.0 version) and which we have been pursuing avidly for months. It feels like a positive step forward that we have addressed some of these commonly-raised core concerns. Importantly, and especially to any non-HBE visiting, I want to highlight the scope and approach of what was undertaken: many tournament data was crunched, analysis made, drafts written by the HBE ACS before settling only a narrow scope and presenting it to the RT who helped us narrow our focus. It has been a positive marriage which I hope can continue going forward.

Thoughts, comments, questions? What will you guys be testing in a post-patch first?

Kind regards,

The HBE ACS