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Hey all, I recently created a custom caster for circle to spice up my local groups gaming. He leans towards wolds and is shooty themed.
I was hoping you all could keep me from making something terribly OP but still good enough to compete with most of the current casters. I used one casters Stats, feat, weapons and abilities as a base starting point and chose spells I thought would give the army some board shenanigans and solid ranged punch.

Custom Circle Caster (Obyryn The Wanderer)
Baseline: Lord Arcanist Ossyan
STATS
SPD 6
STR 5
MAT5
RAT6
DEF 15
ARM 15
CMD 8
FUR 7
DMG 16
6 WBP

Sword: P+S 11 magic
Arcane Burst: RNG 12 POW13 AOE - ROF1 magical
(Magic Tempest – On a direct hit, place a 4" AOE on the enemy model. Models under the template suffer a -2 penalty to DEF and enemy models beginning their activation under it cannot run or charge. The AOE stays centered on the affected model when it moves, but goes away if it dies. Temporal Distortion lasts for one round)

Feat: Eldritch Storm
While in Obyryn's control area this turn, enemy models roll one less die on ranged attack damage rolls. Friendly models making ranged attacks against enemy models in Obyryn's control area gain an additional die on their damage rolls. Since it is an additional die it can stack on top of damage boosts.
Spell list ideas (5)
Cost 3 RNG SLF AOE CTRL Deceleration*** models currently in This models CTRL gain +2 to DEF and ARM
Cost 2 RNG SLF AOE CTRL UPMoving Shadows - Models in the caster's battlegroup and CTRL area gain Gun & Run. (Gun & Run - If this model destroys 1 or more enemy models with a ranged attack during its activation, at the end of its activation it may make a full advance.)
Broadside COST 3 RNG SLF AOE CTRL-When cast, models in the caster's battlegroup and control area may immediately make one normal ranged attack ignoring ROF. This spell may be cast only once per turn.
Earth spikes COST 3 RNG 10 AOE 3 POW 13
- ignores cover and defense bonus for elevation. On a critical hit enemy is knocked down.
Curse Of Shadows COST 3 RNG 8 UP
-target model/unit suffers -2 arm and allows your models to move through them. While moving through models affected by this spell, models don't suffer free strikes.

I run him at 35 with two woldwyrds, two watchers, a warden, a unit of wold stalkers two units of stones and a gallows. Last two games I had pin cushion and earthquake instead of CoS and Earth spikes and things got a little crazy on feat turn... My woldwyrd was rolling 6 dice damage dropping lowest and my wold stalkers and wold watchers killed a carnivean and a scythean no problem. Thanks all!

Broadside on this caster I would be against. It removes fury management as an issue in a big way, especially with his feat. The more I think about it yeah, it should really go.

any suggestions what I should replace it with? and yeah I agree on feat turn that spell gets pretty silly.

I mean on a turn you can have moving shadows upkept, have all those dudes move, kill something in the way, then move again, then activate your caster, feat, earth spikes their caster (boosted to hit) and then broadside and murder their caster. And it would be really really hard to stop, because that is so much gun with boosted damage/easy to hit.

At the moment, you have no less than optimal spells. Every single spell makes this guy excel at murdering at range. If you want him to not be overpowered, consider that, then have a look at the other circle users and their spells and think about one that might suit him. Purification is right out, as is Stormwall. But there has to be a spell that suits him in the Circle stable that doesn't feed into a one-dimensional "shoot shoot shoot" sort of mentality you know?

So let's say I get rid of broadside, Earth spikes, and replace them with spells that aren't damage oriented. Do you think Decel, Shadow pack, and CoS are okay as my "power" spells and then I'll take two sub-optimal spells? I was thinking Maybey energizer or Admonition. And Mage sight or mirage? Thinking along the lines of movement shenanigans


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit* mage sight isn't movement but it's a way to get around stealth and clouds as my army is pretty terrible in combat

Wait, are you talking about balance solely in the context of your model collection that you have right now? Or do you mean in general. Because if you are trying to say Circle is terrible in combat...

No no no. Haha I'm saying woldwyrds, wold watchers, and the warden arent that great in combat. (The warden is good against basic troopers and some multiwound guys) but overall my current list build isn't made for combat and I was trying to avoid a combat caster. Circle has some seriously nasty combat I know that

So my question is, are you balancing him for Circle as a faction and the game as a whole? Or just for the collection you have. Because those two things have really different approaches ha

I was trying to balance him mainly conpared to other circle casters. My problem is I want a fairly maneuverable army that acts as a harassment force. That's why I want shadow pack, but I also want to be able to kill or shut down 1 heavy or a handful of infantry and have a very aggressive feat turn. But just matching out my current list I can easily kill 3 heavies or go for an easy assassination and I don't want to be that broken.

Do you think I should make my casters only damage boosting be done during his feat?

If you want a Wold caster who allows a harassment force, maybe spirit door (wolds), so spirit door that only allows wolds to be moved. It'd be a fantastically useful spell, which would have to be balanced by other knocks to the caster, but it would allow the harassment that you want.

Hmmm i never thought of using spirit door. I'll tell ya what, I'm gonna try and see what other casters I can use as a baseline that won't be to OP with spirit door and wolds. I'll post a list of three I think might work.

I'd consider something like pKaya, spirit door (wolds), and instead of alpha give her Bradigus' repair/Balder's heal. I'll have a peek at her cards and see how she can be tweaked.

The only way I'd even consider paying against a custom caster is with plus zero points.

All said, you've made a caster with very little downsides. You said it yourself, you were rolling 6d6 on some damage rolls?

That's not op to you?

Front of card 1
pKaya for stats, weapons, etc.

Back of card 1
Elemental Mastery instead of Pack Hunters.

Front of card 2
Spirit door changes to "select a model in this model's battlegroup in its control area that is a construct model."

Back of card 2
pKaya's feat

This will lead you to a caster that has some solid spellslinging, solid shooting ability (activate him first and, no matter how hot you ran your beasts last turn you'll be at least able to boost hit or damage), some melee ability (free charges) and some hit and run ability (spirit door [construct]).

No idea if it is balanced, but it seems like a better place to start than a Ret caster who turns you up to overpowered from the get go