Warning: this turned into a bit of a rant, don't mean to offend people, just my opinions. Honestly as a chaos player everything about ku'gath makes me sad, I can't see any reason to take him over Zarathur. As I understand it his ability cannot be shielded since it is moving damage not dealing it (could be wrong about that) but that is still only going to be 1 extra unshielded damage a round if you can get some damage on him. Compared to all the extra damage you get from Zarathur that doesn't seem that great. Of course this also heals your warlord, but most people will just not bother attacking him in the first place so that again isn't that great (the only dedicated anti-warlord deck right now is Ragnar and most people I've seen using him don't play him that way anyway). What's more since you need to attack to use his ability you can't exhaust him to pay the cost of cards (to be fair there is only one card that needs you to exhaust your warlord available to chaos right now, but it is an awesome one, no mercy!). Playing with him is going to be a game of finely balancing the amount of damage he and other nurgle units take, similar to Nazdreg with his brutal but without as good damage balancing support. And also (so far) without any good nurgle units to put damage on outside the signature squad. The obvious response to ku'gath is either to ignore him or one shot him which means you are probably not going to have more than around 2 damage on him at a time from effects like nurglings, warp storm, and ork cannon. Thus I don't see fetid haze being as good as it sounds on paper. I could see some psychological benefit to holding 3 resources and being all ' you best keep away from my ku'gath, cuz I got three resources here with your name on em' but I really think 3 resources is a lot to ask for a combat action that will usually only do 2-3 indirect damage. Especially since you are most likely going to want to combine ku'gath with orks, a combination which I've often found in play testing to have a difficult time in the command struggle. Not to mention your going to want that 3 resources for chaos' other combat tricks like warpstorm or firestorm, which are not themselves cheap. Vile laboratory is good it will definitely win planets and command, but there is only one of it and the opponent gets to choose both which unit will be moving and to where. You can probably only rely on it to win you 1 maybe two battles a game since you likely won't see it until the mid-late game and it's effectiveness is mitigated by the opponents choice. Nurglings are decent, if you can hold on to them till a big fight they could be great, but since chaos has no way to move or redeploy its units (so far) they are a one time deal. As for the banner, well I didn't think ku'gath's ability was that great in the first place and this is just a copy of that. The best choice right now is to put it on ku'gath which to be fair makes him much better and still useful when bloodied. But again there is only one of these and if ku'gath requires it to be good, well that's not great. I'll still take chaos to tournaments, but I'll be taking Zarathur not this guy. I give him a 2/5, would have been lower but I actually think Ragnar is slightly worse. That's a rant for another time though.

A long and heartfelt analysis, and I feel your pain here.

 

However, I'm witholding judgment until I've played him a few times.

 

Weaknesses are as you mention: less efficient than Zarathur on paper, a worse signature squad. However there's a broader picture to look at here.

 

With Dakka Dakka entering the meta, there's a lot to be said for damage reallocation, and the changing meta also seems to be making life more dangerous for Warlords in general, making exceptional resilience a much bigger thing. Fetid Haze will mean its always risky for opponents to asssign anything less than bloodying damage to the Warlord - attrition to wear him down over time just carries too much risk.

 

To be fair, no-one rated Ragnar when he first appeared, and even now many claim Cato is better, while I've been a vocal supporter of Ragnar > Cato, and for the duration of the Blackmane meta at least believed him to be the stronger pick.

 

Ku'gath is a similar proposition: different enough in deck style that we have to play to see how he pans out. He looks weaker on paper in isolation, just as Ragnar looked weaker than Cato on paper, but subtleties may emerge.

 

No rating here yet for me, more research required.

When comparing Warlord to Warlord Zarathur often is seen as the better in the initial stages of the game. Depending on the match up AND line up of the Planets I would say both of these Warlords have their strenghts and weaknesses.

 

Ku'Gath however, unlike Zarathur has the ability to survive for extreme ammounts of time, making him much more suited for an attrition game that Zarathur can't replicate (mainly due to the lack of 2 Shield Icons on many of the Chaos cards). Zarathur also often is getting hunted down because of his incredible ability which would be less the case with Ku'Gath, as many players still seem to think of him as the inferior Warlord.

 

Looking at Ku'Gath's ability and signature cards do show an Synergy to the extreme, allowing you to make Ku'Gath more and more powerfull as the game goes on, which seems to be his strenght allready.

Apart from that his ability also triggers more and more often, it's effects only visible in the mid to lategame, allowing you to savely deploy this Warlord against a planet that has little ammounts of units (something Zarathur also can't replicate).

 

I do feel that his body plus ATK are quite medicore as his effect only triggers once he has recieved damage.

 

So my rating is 3/5 (which becomes 4/5 with signature cards if the game allows for a long game to be played)

 

Warning: this turned into a bit of a rant, don't mean to offend people, just my opinions. Honestly as a chaos player everything about ku'gath makes me sad, I can't see any reason to take him over Zarathur.

 

Hope my above comment helped you a bit to understand the function of this Warlord, it's all about allowing you to freely commit your Warlord to planets where you have no other units around (something Zarathur can do but can't do like Ku'Gath) and building up to the lategame (something Zarathur can have massive problems with when key pieces are gone).

 

I also feel that Zarathur is better positioned against SM, Eldar, Orks and AM however at the same time I feel Ku'Gath is better positioned against Tau and Dark Eldar. The advantage of the mirror I would give to Zarathur as Chaos is very able to smack down any Warlord.

Hmm dead set looking forward to playing this hero, i think his ability and the nurgles will work out better then you think it will.

First game with him tonight and goddamn he rocks.

 

Ok, I lost, but that was through no fault of the Warlord or his sig cards. Every one of the sig cards I drew was useful, and Ku'gath himself was a one man wrecking ball, with the Banner on him he was putting out 2 unpreventable damage every turn. Can't be understated how useful that is, and how much better than just dealing 2 damage.

 

Then he got to 7 damage, and I was all ready to Fetid Haze, but damnable DE choke kept me off 3 resources. It would, however, been amazing, and choke was the only decktype that could have prevented me from holding back 3 resources

 

This Warlord is by far the most resilient one we've seen yet. Some practice and work is needed before I work out how to use him best, but do not dismiss him. Initial testing suggests he is easily as good as Zarathur.

^This.

I figured after reading the first few comments that people were REALLY underestimating him from the get go. It's one thing to read a card and assume it's bad/good. But, until you actually sit down and with it or against THEN you'll see  that card's potential.

 

This Warlord is by far the most resilient one we've seen yet. Some practice and work is needed before I work out how to use him best, but do not dismiss him. Initial testing suggests he is easily as good as Zarathur.

 

Haha, told ya

 

Altough my 3/5 rating remains, as he becomes a 4/5 not by himself but because of it's non-Nurgling signature cards.

 

As for the comparison, both Zarathur and Ku'gath are very different. But Ku'gath does have the advantage if the game drags on as Zarathur still only profits when he commits to a planet where units are present. Ku'gath on the other hand can go to town by himself.

 

As mentioned on his banner, he becomes 5/5 if you have that in your opening hand. Which is worth to mulligan for.

You and me agree on this guy's power, but I'd disagree that the Banner is worth mulliganing for. Doing so increases your hit rate from 14% to 26%

 

Thats not at all worth having a mulligan rule for.

Questions:

 

1) Someone mentioned the damage he transferes is unpreventable. Why is this? Because the damage is not dealt but just transferred?

 

2) The transferring and attack is counted as two separate things right? In case the first is wrong and you can shield it, they'd have to shield both the attack as well as the transfer right?

Questions:

 

1) Someone mentioned the damage he transferes is unpreventable. Why is this? Because the damage is not dealt but just transferred?

 

2) The transferring and attack is counted as two separate things right? In case the first is wrong and you can shield it, they'd have to shield both the attack as well as the transfer right?

1) Page 10 of the Rules Reference Guide: "Moved damage bypasses all damage prevention an reassign opportunities".

 

2) Correct, they're separate instances of damage.

1) Page 10 of the Rules Reference Guide: "Moved damage bypasses all damage prevention an reassign opportunities".

 

2) Correct, they're separate instances of damage.

Ahh cool, thank you so much for the speedy response!

After tonight's three games against him, I must say: the moving damage regularly is a nightmare. If you can't out hit him he quickly heals and kills. The only winning move is not to play. . . or use a Heldrake to one-shot him. 

One shotting is an option, but another thing to do is to keep an eye on his resource totals. If he hasn't the resources for Fetid Haze, you can generally safely beat him down with 2 mid-size attackers rather than one mega-size one.

 

Generally, he's quite a high risk warlord to play with and against. Often the combats where you seek to bloody him either annihilate him, or annihilate you.