[Defunct] The Book of Hired Hit (Re-Hiring in 2.0)

[IAmBatman]

Defensive or healing or healing/extraction all make sense to me as uses for their hard-earned cash.

[MrNobody]

Was thinking on this for a bit, but Archie's LD is moving so fast that it's making me look bad. How does this feel? It's intentional that the Pro can access the unblockables even before they kill their Target, I figured that could be a fun hook for designs to tap into.

NAME = HIRED HIT
STORY CARD

POINTS = XXX

STORY PROLOGUE =
-There must be at least one Unique Hero that is an Assassin or Mercenary in your army.

STORY SETUP =
-Choose a Unique Hero that is an Assassin or Mercenary in your army to be the Professional and a Unique or Event Hero in your opponent's army to be the Target.

STORY RULES =

GETTING THE JOB DONE
The Professional adds 1 to their Attack number and Defense number when attacking or defending against the Target.

PAID IN FULL
When the Target is destroyed, place 3(?) Investment Markers on an Army Card you control. You may then place the Professional on any empty space on the battlefield. When placing the Professional this way, ignore any leaving engagement attacks and they cannot be placed adjacent to any other figures.

BRAND NEW TOYS
After an opponent's figure within 5 clear sight spaces attacks the Professional or defends against the Professional, you may remove an Investment Marker from the Professional’s card to roll an unblockable attack die against that figure.

[IAmBatman]

For Story Setup, if you're not going to require the opponent to have a Unique or Event Hero (and I don't really want to add that either) then I think you should just choose an enemy figure to be the Target. That way in the off chance that you're facing an all common army or something, you still get at least one figure you can target.

For the pay off, I think 2 markers is probably plenty, as some of those markers can have pretty good effects and you don't want to have so many that you block design space or unbalance things.

The timing on Brand New Toys is a tad confusing. Can they use it before defending the attack?

[MrNobody]

2 markers sounds good.

If your enemy has both squads/commons and Unique Heroes, is the "reward" of Brand New Toys worth just choosing a squad figure for the easy payoff?

A bit lost on how to add clarity to Brand New Toys. "After this figure attacks" is pretty commonly used to indicate that the action happens after defense dice are rolled and wounds are placed, but I see how this usage could be confusing.

Sorry for the slow pace here, folks. Holidays have been slowing me down a bit.

[IAmBatman]

Maybe something like this?

BRAND NEW TOYS
After one of the Professional or an enemy figure within 5 clear sight spaces defends against an attack from the other, you may remove an Investment Marker from the Professional’s card to roll an unblockable attack die against that enemy figure.

For the other question, my thought was that having a +1/+1 against a select Unique Hero would usually be more valuable than going for the quick kill, especially if you're down to 2 Investment markers as a reward, though in certain cases going for an easy kill could work if you are matched up against figures like that and if you have a partner who knows how to use an investment well.

[Splash]

You could pick an army card and get the reward when every figure for that army card is destroyed.

[IAmBatman]

Yeah, I could see that. Having to destroy all the figures for that squad, etc. would make that option more difficult.

[Yodaking]

I think that works well for something like the Hired Guns. Hunt down and kill off those 4 figures and get the payment.

[Splash]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

One thing I know came up when this was workshopped was if Inventions and Artifacts felt like a good pool for the Reward. I definitely feel like Deathstroke getting some Experimental Medicine or Elektra wanting a Tome of Ancient Secrets makes sense, but I can see the theme not feeling universal to all Mercenaries and Assassins. Here are some alternate ideas:

1) Have the Reward be limited to a specific pool of 3-4 Glyphs. Like maybe Flashbang, Bolas, Experimental Medicine, and Teleportation Belt, just as a random example.

2) Have the Reward be a Glyph of Loot, and while the Professional is holding that Glyph they get some sort of bonus. That'd create a kind of second minigame of trying to knock the Loot away from the Professional.

3) Instead of a Reward, place a number of Investment Markers on the Professional's card that can be spent for an effect.

Not trying to backtrack too much, but if this went the Loot route, could that Glyph have like 2 Investment Markers on it, then the Merc could have a choice between using the money to get upgrades/toys or doing like a hand off to the Crime Lords.

[Splash]

Some ideas.
Not sure how it would work wordwise to have the Investment Markers on the Loot glyph, I would hope you are able to move them onto your card already without specifying, but maybe not.

The best move might be to get the Loot to a Crime Lord, so they can do their money hijinks, but then if your Crime Lords are gone or you don't have any you can still use your toys.

NAME = HIRED HIT
STORY CARD

POINTS = XXX

STORY PROLOGUE =
-There must be at least one Unique Hero that is an Assassin or Mercenary in your army.

STORY SETUP =
-Choose a Unique Hero that is an Assassin or Mercenary in your army to be the Professional and an Army Card's figures in your opponent's army to be the Target.

STORY RULES =

GETTING THE JOB DONE
The Professional adds 1 to their Attack number and Defense number when attacking or defending against the Target.

PAID IN FULL
When the last remaining figure on the Target's Army Card is destroyed, place a Glyph of Loot with 2 Investment Markers on its card on the Professional's Army Card. You may then place the Professional on any empty space in your Start Zone. when placing the Professional this way, ignore any leaving engagement attacks and they cannot be placed adjacent to any other figures.

BRAND NEW TOYS
After an opponent's figure within 5 clear sight spaces attacks the Professional or defends against the Professional, you may remove an Investment Marker from the Professional’s card to roll an unblockable attack die against that figure.

[MrNobody]

I kinda want to avoid the double hardware whammy of a glyph and then markers on top of the glyph, if we can.

[MrNobody]

Okay, I updated the SP.
-I didn't go with the version where you choose a squad. I feel like having this design be inconsistent with every other Bounty Hunter thing we have in 1.0 feels pretty weird. It's definitely a bummer if you're facing an all-squad army and can't use the whole card...but are there even any good squad-only armies in our game right now?
-Hoping we can work out the wording on Brand New Toys to assuage the concerns Bats expressed.

Let's go to Initial, unless anybody wants to workshop further.