Hoplitron by Dok
Balance
I know there was lot of concern that he was priced to low with the given stats. I have found this not to be true, and feel he is priced right at 35 points. He is a common Hero and that puts him in basically the worst category in the game…1 life and really just used to fill up those extra unused points. However, I would say that his stats would make him the best common melee Hero in the game.
Theme
I like the fact that he looks like he fits in with the Soulborgs and is not recognizable enough to know that he belongs to Star Wars. I also really like the Shield Push ability…it fits perfectly with the sculpt.
Accessibility
His availability is still quite high…but it takes some time to find them. My count as of today is 123…with 36 of them having to be purchased in a 12 pack…which sucks unless you can go in on it with someone.
Playability
The Hoplitrons play a lot like the wyrmlings, and are in the same price range as well. Because of this I found myself comparing them as I played. I also compared them to the Minions at first, but the Minions are much better after testing and the Hoplitrons play an entirely different role.
I was really hoping that they would be great filler for Glad/Blast builds and give you a reason to take X17…but in that type of build the Glads/Blasts do all of the work and the Hoplitrons and X17 just sit in the back forgotten about…and you just wish you had more Glads instead. I also found it frustrating that X17 prevents them from using their Shield Push on figures he is engaged to, but on the flip side you can use it to push figures into him. But they do give a Large figure to go with the build and the Blasts benefit from them being engaged to enemy figures too, so they are good filler.
I did however find using them with Deathwalker 7000 to be quite fun. Using them to clear a path to allow 7000 to run in and explode. However, this still was not very competitive, but it was fun to get 7000 out and watch him take out a squad of Minions.
Because they are disciplined I also gave them a go with a Sacred Band build as filler. And again they were simply just filler, but they do help to get the disciplined defense bonus for the Sacred Band. In these builds they saw even less to no playing time when compared to the Glad/Blast builds.
The last viable option is to use them as the core of your army instead of just filler. I too found this to not be competitive enough to give me reason to want to play it and it requires at least 6 of them to do this.
Summary
Because the Hoplitrons are a common Hero figure they gain the role as filler and as a filler unit they do very well in the right numbers…in fact I would say they are the best common melee Hero in the game. My only real problem with them is the needed/wanted number of them is high IMO at 4-6 of them. Which means that only 30-20 ‘scapers can acquire the need numbers of 4-6, respectively. However, I don’t see most people really playing more then 2-3 of them so this helps my one concern.
The Hoplitrons are a great filler unit in a variety of builds and do rather well in a very weak unit category. They also open up synergy to future melee Soulborg Heroes, and even help get the official ones of the shelf from collecting dust.
I vote
YES to induct the Hoplitron into the SoV.