I like the contrast between the Lion and Unicorn versions, higher influence here, versus more Province Strength for the Lion version.

That said the ability is far easier to activate for Unicorn, and with the improvement they've had in character pool this season I'm predicting this will help boost them above Lion in the competitive standings so my poor cats will now be the Garbage tier till next cycle starts.

I dunno. The Lion one can be achieved with conflict cards, while for the Unicorn one you're going to have to have more characters in that conflict, which gives you fewer to use for the bonus conflict. Plus Lion have a lot more tricks for spike Military than the Unicorns do for spiking numbers of characters. And then, it has to be a cavalry you kill, not just any chump.

Re "the higher influence" I think that's misnaming it, as we should be comparing to the baseline here, not each other. The lion version has a lowered influence and this stronghold has a lowered province strength compared to the baseline, so both those attributes are drawbacks.

The only thing that tempts me at all to this stronghold is that the core set Unicorn stronghold is even worse.

I love that the two clans got different forms of the same Stronghold, to show the results of a battle in the storyline. The artwork shows that really nicely. The Lion form is tougher, and encourages proud Lion warriors to stand tall, while the Unicorn one is more willing to work with plenty of other to achieve their goals rapidly.

So cool.

Strengthwise, I think it will work well. I'd be tempted to go back to Unicorn now, but I feel a lot of others will too, so I'll wait for the new-shiny-ness to fade off again before I do.