Enemy archers are doing a move and attack which the AI is always doing anyway. What it is not doing is move and a special action. For example, a black widow could move and then web, or it could move and beguile... Or an ogre move then throw bolder. The move then attack has always been available, with bows, and swords and such.

Or ruffians could use move then rush, as opposed to rush then move...

Taming, bribing (bandits or trained units) results in you winning the fight (defeating the enemy) and since the newly obtained unit took part in the conflict, everyone gets xp. Its an intended mechanic. You can only use those skills once per fight pretty much, and the rare occasions when you meet a single one (higher level ones) are so rare that they really don't add anything overpowered.

Yes taming early a grizzly bear or w/e is called, or a slag will give you a nice boost in xp and army power. But is a huge gamble (unless obviously you spam reloads until you get lucky rng on resist), and it could mean a bigger setback if it fails - which is a possible chance. After having a simple mite resist 4 blinds in a row with only 4 spell resist vs my 85 spell mastery, am really not taking anything for certain. It's the flavor of the factions who have the traits

You know, as evil as this sounds, and it does sound evil, this would be an awesome encounter just as it is described.   for you sir!

But firing a bow is a 'special ability' (spell).

Tarth are not weak. +50% atk is insane bonus, makes it clearing all the wolves / bears early game much safer, plus you can go for dangerous beasts earlier (like solo slags hunting etc). They don't have Beastlord, so they can't tame them, they kill em instead. Maybe give 25% armor pen to Tarth specific bows with last tier one retaining the 50% armor pen. This way they keep same dmg vs non armored opponents, but gain a bit more dmg vs armored ones.

50% dmg is always there, is not resisted. Tame beast can and will get resisted, especially vs higher level beasts, and even more if your hero attempting the tame is not a spellcaster with high spell mastery.

Beasts are just that, same with summons. They don't grow more units / group as they level. Their atk / defense don't increase either. More hp on a bear with 0 def means nothing past early game. He can't tank, nor will he be a beast dmg dealer with a 12 atk no matter of maul. Go try maul with a bear with 12 atk on a 10 def unit, even if you land 10 hits in a row I highly doubt you will do more than 12 dmg

Ah we add buffs into equation now? Buff the bear with everything you want, he still won't compare to heroes / trained troops / summons by the time you pick growth / shrink in life mastery.

Now imagine I cast that growth on any tarth unit attacking the bear. My unit has 10 atk for sake of simple calculation. So he sits at 15 atk now. Then we add 50% trait = 15+7.5 = 22 if you round down, 23 if you round up. Now add double strike. And I can pimp that units with upgraded armor and weapons, give it a mount so it will always go before your bear (can't care less if your bear is defending, 0 defense when defending becomes 5 defense), as well as pimp it with accessories (necklaces, rings etc).

Plus only beastmaster belongs to Kulan, which doesn't have access to life spells - so you are forced to rely on luck on getting a hero with life. Am not going to take into account custom factions since those obviously are not balanced (hard to do so really given the multitude of skills you have to chose from).

"Removed some unintended Soldiers Cloaks that were forcing crystal costs on some units (Pariden spearmen, etc)"

Are the cloaks removed from the soldiers, or from the game? Thanks for clarifying!

Actually, the real power of beastlord seems to be the ability to capture a Great Wolf.  It buffs all friendly units with + its level to attack for the duration of combat.  Not only does this make those bears more dangerous (+<wolf-level> to each attack of maul, and it can stack with spells like growth), but it also works on trained units.  So each figure of each unit gets an attack buff; if you have 4 spearmen, the unit basically gets 4 * <wolf-level> to attack.  The wolf itself is fairly fragile, but if you can keep it alive while you level it up, it's arguably the most powerful unit in the game.  E.g. with endgame tech, if a level 20 great wolf is in an army with 8 other units, each of which has 6 figures in it, the wolf can effectively buff the total offensive strength of the army by 6*8*20=960. 

Of course, this is balanced by the fragility of the unit; it's nearly impossible to get one to that high a level without save-scumming whenever it gets killed by magic/ranged units (and this will be even worse with the new shills).

When is this patch being deployed?

Removed form the units.  The soliders cloak is still in the game and available for unit design.

One other change- AI is starting to use strategic spells more- AI managed to freeze my army in place quite effectively just now.

 As for the Knights of Asok, by the time you get Alliances they are pretty useless.

Maybe they should be a group of 7 instead of 3.

THANK YOU. This is a very welcome tweak.