help with unit concepts!

[Superking]

hey guys, I'm working on a nice Daemonic Cult faction that I'm trying to balance sensibly with the existing default wesnoth factions and I'm having trouble working out what to do with one of the L1 units:

Zealot



Concept
The Zealot is a fearless, fanatical cultist who has no qualms with dying a matyr.

Unit needs to Fill niche of anti-cavalry/drake pierce damage, and anti troll/undead/HI/Wose fire damage. I want it to be valued between 15-16 gold.

Unit needs to be good at holding villages (nothing else currently is), but can only have about 38 HP max & takes 120% damage from physical attacks (no armour, to be consistant with other unarmoured units). I think the best way to go about this would be an ability.

Currently it is a chaotic (but fearless) unit that has a 10-2 peirce attack from the glaive and an 8-1 ranged attack from the thrown torch, no special abilities, and this isn't working very well. I would also like this unit to be generally effective attacking and defending villages.

any suggests re: stats or ability? I can change the sprite to encompass new weapons if need be, although I'm pretty attached to the glaive/torch look

[Colouredbox]

"Unit needs to be good at holding villages"
Isn't fearless enough? 70% village defence?

"I would also like this unit to be generally effective attacking and defending villages."
Defending AND attacking from a quite cheap unit? Don't go all overboard.

[Dixie]

Also, mind that pierce + fire is a devastating combo, since almost every unit in mainline is weak to at least one of those. This unit will likely be your jack of all trades, and if you try to buff him too much in defense, it will likely be spammed to no end. I don't know what else you have, but maybe you should consider making this unit key in offense, but pick another for defense? Or give the fire attack to someone else. As it is, the unit looks plenty powerful enough for its cost, and buffing it further would require quite a non-cost-efficient faction to balance it out...

[Finrod]

The unit looks good! If you're not changing the resistances you should go for the terrain defenses like Colouredbox said. I think your stats are pretty good as is. There is always lvl 2.

[Superking]

The unit looks good!

Thanks man, I'm really happy with how the sprites are turning out!
also, you avatar has made me see a better way of doing shadows

mind that pierce + fire is a devastating combo, since almost every unit in mainline is weak to at least one of those.This unit will likely be your jack of all trades, and if you try to buff him too much in defense, it will likely be spammed to no end.

Yeah, I think you're right.

OK, new concept:

16 gold, fearless, chaotic unit

9-2 glaive (blade), weapon special 'Cleave'

8-1 torch (ranged fire)

The weapon special 'Cleave' causes the unit to ignore the blade resistance of the target, but only whilst attacking- kind of like an inversed version of marksman.

result:
zealot is inefficent against basic infantry that have no blade resistance (eg. vs pikeman, zealot takes 120% damage and only has 9-2 VS pikemans 7-3, while costing 2 more gold).

Zealot becomes an effective damage attacker vs resistant units, esp those without ranged attacks (eg. dwarves, woses, HI, clashers) and esp at night. However, zealot is ineffective at defending vs these units, forcing its use aggressively. Zealot cannot use fire attack and armour penetrating melee on same turn, forcing a decision between safe low damage from range and dangerous high damage in melee (and it wont make cost defending so it would be important to deal damage while attacking).

When defending a village, decent (if not great) melee & ranged attacks allow retaliation to all enemies, and while it takes extra physical damage it has the 20% magic resistance common to humans, making it more difficult to remove from 60% defence with mages. Fearless means it can defend at any time of day to some success.

thoughts?