Wish to learn about the new Hero types.

[Jeremy]

Talk to me about the new heroes. So far, from what I've seen, I'm pretty unimpressed. But then I'm into stack-boosting power. Which the original three heroes all have.

The new ones, as far as I can...

The Barbarian doesn't boost the stack at all.

The Horse Lord boosts speed and stack in plains, etc. -- but not where it matters, in cities.

Now the Assassin does help the stack, but possibly not enough.

What am I missing here?

(Also, if anyone has a synopsis of exactly what their stats are, that would be useful -- right now, I think I can only see that when I currently have a hero offer.)

[KGB]

Jeremy,

The Warpedia (links->Wiki) has the stats for the 3 new heroes.

If you like Stack boosting power then the 3 new heroes aren't for you. However I find the Barbarian and Assassin very useful for me but you need to experiment with them to see their value.

KGB

[LPhillips]

The Assassin is pretty powerful in stack boosting. He was the best stack booster, in fact, until just a few hours ago. Now he's 8 +8% per level ambush, 20% less than before. With a level 5 Assassin (50% stack ambush) and a fully leveled Paladin, I have managed a 45% chance taking 6 units into a 20+ unit city with a +15 Paladin and a red dragon in it. The units inside were all 42 strength or better, while mine were ~62 each. Had I 2 more Green Dragons, my chances would have been more like 75%.

First, let me say that Assassins stack, so it was recently possible to have 50% group ambush by turn 10, or 100% by turn 15 with some ghosts. Obviously the most powerful hero in the game for 8v8 battles. So the very best stack booster in every situation except assaulting heavily defended cities. We'll see what the rebalancing does.

The Horse Lord is a situational hero. He does some nice things, like protect stacks between battles. Here are examples of how he is useful:
1) He controls an area. Nothing can move in that area. Sure, he can't attack cities, but any stack that attempts to move in his territory is doomed.
2) He escorts powerful units. Need to get that stack to your opponent's soft spots? Just run it with a +15 or +25 Horse Lord.
3) He raids enemies and cannot be intercepted. I did this to Solo, though I accidentally separated him and lost him. Sandworm + Horse Lord quickly reaches level 4 (sandy takes cities with HL riding), and then you can reinforce with Light Cavalry and burn your opponent's entire civilization from behind with a fast-moving stack. You just stand in the Open after each razing. This specific example obviously only works during early expansion phases, but you can use the same tactic with GD's or whatever.
4) He defends open areas. This is particularly useful with a Tower. I gave KGB a taste of this recently. He couldn't move forward, because I had +25 from tower/HL/Mammoth in a chokepoint. Rallied enough forces and took him out. Otherwise he'd have two heroes running around in my home now.
5) He's a mobile city. Plant him in a tower with a stack of something nasty within reach of several of your opponent's cities. They must mount an expensive defense or expend many more units to take him down.

The Barbarian is the ultimate expansionist. I don't know why his strength was further reduced, and I disagree with it. But with the Assassin in play less, we might see him come back into his own. You can use this guy to rapidly expand without losing units. I took my side of Airstream in 6 turns because of this hero, then ashwalked him (thankfully impossible now) into the middle and began annihilating that. He carries his HP into ruins along with decent UL. A few UL boosts, and he's the ultimate ruin searcher. The difficulty has been that everyone is using Assassins and Ambush units constantly right now, so there is nothing for a Barbarian to do. I still wish Ambush only took 3hp, but that's probably not going to happen in this version.