Utgar Customs - Looking for advice, criticisms, etc.

[Faustus]

*edited to add number of units in each squad*
*changed "round" to "turn"*
*added "hard to see" and "climb" abilities to Kobolds*
*raised cost of Dire Rat from 15 to 40*
*added climb abilities to Dire Rat and Marro Pet*

I have created just over 20 new custom army cards. (Well, I actually haven't created the actual cards, just the stats...) This is my first time trying to come up with customs.

Rather than post all at once, I am going to post them by general. First, Utgar.

Please let me know what you think! This is only the first phase, so these have not been playtested. I would most like advice on how many points to ultimately assign each unit, but also how you think they would play out, if they're too weak, too strong...etc.

Thanks in advance!

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Kobolds
50 points

Kobold
Common Squad (4)
Warriors
Wild
Small 2

1 life
move 4
range 1
attack 1
defense 1


Scurry and Scamper: When attacked by an adjacent figure, subtract Kobold’s height from the attacking figure’s height. Roll that many more defense dice.

Pygmy Tribe: Up to two Kobolds may occupy the same hex.

Swarm: When attacking, each Kobold rolls an additional attack dice for
each Kobold that has already attacked the same figure this turn.

Too Small to Target: Kobolds may only be attacked by ranged figures that are 4 or fewer spaces away.

Climb X2: When moving up or down levels of terrain, Kobolds may double their Height.

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Dire Rat
40 points

Rat
Unique Hero
Beast
Wild
Small 2

1 life
move 4
range 1
attack 2
defense 3

Pestilence: Dire Rat begins the game with a pestilence counter. If Dire Rat is killed by an adjacent figure, place the pestilence counter on that figure. That figure loses all special abilities. If that figure is destroyed by an adjacent figure, transfer the counter to that figure. The pestilence counter may not be placed on a soulborg.

Climb X2: When moving up or down levels of terrain, Dire Rat may double its Height.

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Marro Pet
20 points

Wulsinu
Common Hero
Pet
Wild
Small 2

1 life
move 5
range 1
attack 3
defense 3

Loyal: Before taking a turn with any Marro Hero, you may take a turn with Marro Pet.

Climb X2: When moving up or down levels of terrain, Marro Pet may double its Height.

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Grut Guards
30 points

Orc
Common Squad (2)
Warriors
Wild
Medium 4

1 Life
Move 5
Range 1
Attack 2
Defense 4

Orc Champion Protection: When adjacent to any orc champion, Grut Guards receive 2 additional attack dice.

Defensive Strategy: Any orc adjacent to Grut Guards receives 1 additional attack dice.

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Rasputin
120 points

Human
Unique hero
Priest
Tricky
Medium 5

4 life
move 4
range 1
attack 2
defense 6

Hard to Kill: Rasputin is immune to all special attacks.

Mesmerize: Instead of attacking with Rasputin you may choose any adjacent figure. Roll 1d20. If the targeted figure is a squad figure and you roll 13 or higher, that figure is mesmerized. If the targeted figure is a hero figure and you roll 18 or higher, that figure is mesmerized. The mesmerized figure is under your control. Whenever you take a turn with Rasputin, you may first take a turn with the mesmerized figure. If the mesmerized figure is not adjacent to Rasputin at the end of the round, you lose control of it.

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The Mad Clown Posse
60 points

Human
Unique Squad (3)
Assassins
Precise
Medium 5

Life 1
Move 6
Range 1
Attack 4
Defense 3

First Strike: After rolling for initiative, roll 1d20 for each order marker on this card. If you roll a 20, remove that order marker and immediately take a turn with the Mad Clown Posse.

Double Strike: After moving and before attacking, roll 1d20. If you roll 1-10, you may make one extra attack with any one figure from this card. If you roll 11-17, you may make one extra attack with any two figures from this card. If you roll 18-20, you may make one extra attack with all three figures from this card.

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Nosferatu
130 points

Vampire
Unique Hero
Devourer
Relentless
Medium 5

Life 5
Move 6
Range 1
Attack 4
Defense 4

Vampirism: If Nosferatu has any wound counters and is adjacent to any figure, you may roll 1d20. On a roll of 11 or higher, you may remove one wound counter and place it on the adjacent figure. This ability may be attempted once per turn and cannot be used against soulborgs.

Disengage.

Bloodthirst: If an adjacent figure has a wound counter on it, Nosferatu may attack one additional time.

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Marro Guards
45 points

Marro
Unique Squad (2)
Warriors
Wild
Medium 5

1 life
move 6
range 1
attack 2
defense 3

Shield: when attacked by an adjacent figure, one shield will block all damage.

Hard to Target: Marro Guards can only be attacked by an adjacent figure.

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That's it for Utgar! I have my own reasoning for some of the decisons I made, and I might state it if there's a discussion, but I'm curious to see what others think without hearing my side first.

[reapersaurus]

First off, I have to ask you - Why would you make 20 customs before posting even one, or making a card for any of them?

It just doesn;t make sense to me to put that much creative energies into something working in a vacuum with no feedback, when you could have posted any of them here and gotten creative advice.

Historically, posting stats without cards gets less feedback.
Also, posting many at a time, or many in rapid succession, gets less feedback.

So you have a couple things working against you getting feedback.
Don;t give up - you look to have promise, since many of these are pretty well put-together.
I don;t have time for an in-depth review, but :

the Marro Guards are too good - can't be hit be range (better than Drake!) and adjacent stealth dodge? (BTW - probably should use the Warriors of Ashra ability for that).

Dire Rat is too good. 15 points to turn off a unit's powers? :shock:

Can you do reverse bonding like on Marro Pet? I'd think that ability would have to be on the MArro Heroes' card...?

Grut Guards are TOUGH to balance out that ability - to add anything to orcs (or marro for that matter) you really have to be careful not to unbalance things, but I applaud the attempt.

You can't seperate squad figures easily like you have with Rasputin.

please list how many figures are in your squad units.

I like Noferatu the best out of these - what figure do you have in mind?

[robaula]

Kobolds
50 points

Kobold
Common Squad (4)
Warriors
Wild
Small 2

1 life
move 4
range 1
attack 1
defense 1


Scurry and Scamper: When attacked by an adjacent figure, subtract Kobold’s height from the attacking figure’s height. Roll that many more defense dice.

Pygmy Tribe: Up to two Kobolds may occupy the same hex.

Swarm: When attacking, each Kobold rolls an additional attack dice for each Kobold that has already attacked the same figure this round.



Hi Faustus. Out of the things you listed, I really like the Kobolds. Scurry and Scamper is really original - a great idea - I like the fact that large, towering figures would find it more difficult to hurt the tiny Kobolds as they run around beneath them.

....do you have any particular models in line to use as your Kobolds?

[Faustus]

First off, I have to ask you - Why would you make 20 customs before posting even one, or making a card for any of them?

Well, I just purchased a bunch of heroclix figures and some d&d figures and I sat down one night and came up with stats for each of them. Why do it w/o getting advice first? Because it was fun. I figure that at most I'll need to tweak cards, and much of that can be done through point value, and changing the numerical stats (life, defense, attack, etc.)

Your other points about posting cards and getting feedback are well taken. I didn't make any cards b/c that would be a lot of work before getting feedback, but I may throw a couple of cards together and post one at a time in order to garner more feedback. And I will pay more mind to list the number of units in a squad. I thought that was all there, but now that I look back I see it isn't...

I'll definitely relook at Dire Rat and the Marro Guards.

Can you do reverse bonding like on Marro Pet? I'd think that ability would have to be on the MArro Heroes' card...?

Is there a reason why I couldn't do reverse bonding?


You can't seperate squad figures easily like you have with Rasputin.

What problems would you forsee if I did this?

[Faustus]

For the Kobolds I used the four kobold figures from the D&D Basic Game: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/966470000

I found it at TRU for 8 bucks and thought it was a great (and at that price, cheap) source of figures for customs. It comes with 16 figures! They aren't of the highest quality, but 8 bucks for 16 isn't bad.

The cool thing about the Kobolds is that they are small enough so that 2 can fit on one hex.

For Nosferatu, I used the heroclix "Morlock" figure.

[reapersaurus]

For Nosferatu, I used the heroclix "Morlock" figure.Oh, I think the best fig I know of to use (a natural) would be the vampire from HorrorClix.
He's a dead ringer for Nosferatu.

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/images/figures/Rotating/HRHR/HRHR_081.jpg

And I don't know about the granting bonding thing - I guess I do it somewhat on my involved Mount customs (Chariot, Ferry, Oliphaunt)....

As for the squad thing - it's pretty involved - think it thru.
You take the squad fig (will it work on commons?) - how do you activate it? you have no card to put Order Marker on, or refer for abilities and the like.
You could easily have 3 or 4 different squad figs that Rasputin controls - when do they move? Do you have to use an entire order marker just to move one figure? etc etc etc.
If you want a very similar idea, look at the (damn, it's not posted here yet) Preacher King from the BizarroScape project, that gets a royal guard combined of the squad figs.... heY! I'm not doing THAT much work for you - that;s MY idea - the only one I know of to fix this controlling-of-squad figures problem. :lol:

[Grungebob]

BTW Bob Naismith sculpted some Nesfratu for Deadlands the Great Rail Wars some years ago. Remember that he is the sculptor for Heroscape. They look really cool. I have three of them.

[robaula]

BTW Bob Naismith sculpted some Nesfratu for Deadlands the Great Rail Wars some years ago. Remember that he is the sculptor for Heroscape. They look really cool. I have three of them.

Got any pix, Grungebob?

[Faustus]

As for the squad thing - it's pretty involved - think it thru.
You take the squad fig (will it work on commons?) - how do you activate it? you have no card to put Order Marker on, or refer for abilities and the like. You could easily have 3 or 4 different squad figs that Rasputin controls - when do they move? Do you have to use an entire order marker just to move one figure? etc etc etc.

Ah, I see. Perhaps my card text is not clear. My idea behind Rasputin is that the only way you get to move the controlled figure is by placing an order marker on Rasputin. Whenever you take a turn with Rasputin, you first take a turn with the controlled figure. You can NEVER take just a turn with the controlled figure, and you do not get the army card to place order markers for that figure or anything. So basically, it turns Rasputin into a mini-squad, where you activate him and the mesmerized character with Rasputin's card.

As far as multiple figures, I left that open purposely for this discussion, but I am leaning toward adding: "Rasputin may only have one mesmerized figure at a time" or something like that. I figured being able to take multiple figures would be overpowered and confusing, as well as slow down gameplay, but I wanted to see if other people picked up on that or if they thought it was cool.

[Faustus]

That Nosferatu does look cool. I think Horroclix is going to have some potential in providing plenty of cool customs for heroscape. At least for Utgar's army!

Here's the one I'm using:

http://www.cardagora.com/itempics/4397.jpg

[ChaosChild]

Great Ideas!

Kobolds - These guys are going to get chewed up by any ranged figs. With a move of 4 and defense of 1, they just aren't going to get to their target. Add in height of 2 and they can only go up 1 level at a time. Also, they will rarely have height advantage. I like scurry and scamper but , they just won't get close enough to use it. For Swarm, I think it should be "turn" instead of "round". Otherwise, you have a lot to keep track of.

Dire Rat - What Reaper said. Move 4 and height 2: see above.

Marro Pet - Marro Hero Bonding: Before taking a turn with Marro Pet, you may take a turn with any Marro Hero you control. Again, height 2.

[Faustus]

Wow, I didn't even consider the height disadvantage for going up levels!

So, some potential changes:

Give the dire rat, marro pet and kobolds the ability to move up more levels than their height.

You are right about the changing "turn" and "round." I interchange them in my head. I did mean for it to be turn...

And it appears people don't like the way I've worded Marro pet. My idea was that if you take a turn with a marro hero (ie, you have an order marker on them and reveal it) then you get to move the marro pet for free. However, I'm beginning to see the reason people may not like this...generally for a card to use it's ability, it needs to be made active that turn. I'm kinding breaking that rule, I guess. I suppose, in the end, just giving it marro hero bonding as has been suggested will really just make things simpler and still provide my intended effect...

Oh, and with the kobolds: should I give them a greater movement? Or, should I make them harder to target with ranged attacks? Either stealth dodge or something else?

[ChaosChild]

Since you already have 3 abilities and you plan to add a climbing ability, I would increase their move to 5 maybe 6. Of couse play testing would be required.

As for the wording on Marro Pet, that is my thinking. However, if you need the pet to move first, you might be able to get away with your wording. Not sure though.