Mk2 Caster Design Redux

So I was rather excited about the casters from Reckoning.  PP previewed some great character concepts and models.  The more recent caster releases had really been knocking it up a notch too.

Sadly, for the casters from the factions I play it was right back to the Mk2 caster doldrums.  While it is great that they have a battle plan for a caster that isn't enough.  Your caster is the focal point for resource allocation and decision making, when they run on autopilot your list runs on far more autopilot.  This leads to boring gameplay.

Zerkova 2 really drove this home.  She has a single spell, the combos with her feat that is rather powerful.  Beyond that she suffers from having a clunky arcnode with nothing to arc outside a paltry selection of two combat nukes.  There is very little decision making going on, even in order of activation, and you better hope your arcnode has survived(or hasn't been dispelled).

Now, it is easy to criticize but much harder to follow through in design.  The goal here would be to make both an interesting and balanced caster.  For that it could be interesting looking at another arcnode generating caster who suffers from some similar issues:


From some reason I've always liked Hexeris.  In the story, he is my kinda of bastard but in both Mk1 and Mk2 his rules have had issues.  He also falls directly into that niche of caster who can generate an arcnode but who doesn't really have much to arc.

Now his special rules and feat have stayed fairly consistent in both Mk1 and Mk2 so those should stay the same.   As a Mortitheurge he should have access to some debuffs, and sacrificial buffs.  He has also shown a proclivity towards fire based magic.  With that in mind how would I change him?

1. Obliteration is a bad replacement for Deathbringer.  It's not fire based and is mostly  used in janky attempts to cast it into the enemy deployment zone on the first turn.  Thankfully there is a spell that matches Deathbringer far closer in implementation:  Blazing Effigy.  It is fire based, gives him a positionally dependent troop clear and returns some more of his classic character.
2. Psychic Vampire is just a bad spell.  Far too often it does nothing, while in very specific obvious conditions it completely shuts down caster single wound troops.  This is boring gameplay.  What he needs is a debuff that doesn't let his feat chain out too effectively.  Three spells come to mind: Rebuke, Parasite or Deadweight.  Parasite is the most appropriate choice here.
3. Finally a minor tweak to Death March:  +2 MAT and vengeance is a great buff but it is tied only to infantry which makes it a bit flat in application.  Allowing it to target a model/unit instead of just a unit means where to place the buff is a harder decision and the opportunity cost in not moving it would be far greater.

With the above I have some slight worries about balance.  Even at 4 cost you can technically cast two Blazing Effigies in a single turn.  Combined with the feat this may be a little much.  I also worry that the feat may chain out far too much with Parasite thrown in the mix, but single wound infantry struggle far more with hitting than killing.(Honestly, a custom weaker debuff would be better here, but I've tried to stick to spell reuse).  

The end result is a caster who is far more interesting in play.  He has actual decisions on how to spend his fury and some of these require him to correctly pre-position members of his battlegroup.  This does remove some of his skornegy, but it keeps his core character the same.