Sherman's Lord of the Rings customs - Balin's Tomb

[Sherman Davies]

Yeah, I had an earlier draft of Yoggo at 90 points, but I adjusted it to 80 for now after comparing him to Sir Denrick, who has a Delta cost of 85, and Sir Hawthorne at 90. We'll see how he feels after a few games. I look forward to hearing how your playtests go!

[Knox]

@Sherman Davies do you have pics of these guys on Heroscape bases? that's been my biggest hangup with purchasing him

[Sherman Davies]

Sure, here you go (Yoggo looks best on a skinny peanut base):

[gatormustang]

@Sherman Davies these look really good and match up perfect with the size of other Heroscape figures. I am currently 3D printing my proxies for them, but hope to have that done and some playtesting in the next couple of weeks.

[Sherman Davies]

In advance of some playtests chas and I should be running soon, I made a slight tweak to Gilden Stormstone, allowing his powers to affect medium figures as well as small ones, changing "you control" to "friendly" and revising his class and personality:





I still suspect his mounted version will play fine at 150 points eventually.

[chas]

Hah! Come at me! Whoever I am...

[Sherman Davies]

Chas and I ran some playtests of the various Gilden Stormstone/Yoggo combinations last week and the results of the games were satisfactory enough that I'm pretty secure with these versions of the cards:








By sheer coincidence, one of the maps chas set up for us to play on was a Tundra map, which was pretty cool (sorry) for a polar bear custom. One of the games was one of those real Heroscape nailbiters, coming down to a battle between Isamu and a lone Arrow Grut.


Gilden Stormstone leads an Axegrinders/M-43 Resistance Fighters army against Captain America, Krug and their Arrow Gruts






The armies clash amidst the frigid glaciers






The last Arrow Grut finds his target for the win




Yoggo, Quahon and their Fyorlag Spiders battle Captain America, Marcus and the Roman Legionnaires

[Shadowking]

The one thing I don’t like about this is that the Flagbearer effect is pretty close to that of Hatamoto - I think it works here too but in my opinion it’s a bit of a shame to overlap like that given all the others have unique effects. The mini is neat and it looks pretty fun though - likely quite strong with the Axegrinders!

[Sherman Davies]

I think of the power as a hybrid of Hatamoto's and Ornak's, but yeah, it's a defense power that uses flagbearer dice. I originally considered doing something that boosted d20 rolls, given that Aquilla has her fair share of units with d20 powers, but we already did that in C3V with Myrddin. I also felt it would be unsatisfying to have Gilden boost d20 powers when the Axegrinders wouldn't benefit from that at all.

[Son of Arathorn]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

I think of the power as a hybrid of Hatamoto's and Ornak's, but yeah, it's a defense power that uses flagbearer dice. I originally considered doing something that boosted d20 rolls, given that Aquilla has her fair share of units with d20 powers, but we already did that in C3V with Myrddin. I also felt it would be unsatisfying to have Gilden boost d20 powers when the Axegrinders wouldn't benefit from that at all.

The decision of whether to include a d20 power or not is something I've struggled with when putting together drafts for an Aquilla flagbearer. It always struck me as appropriate to include, because so many Aquilla units feature a d20 power, but difficult to justify on a dwarf flagbearer (since the dwarves are the standout Aquilla faction that really doesn't rely on the d20). And more often than not, a suitable dwarf figure is what's available; certainly more available than a suitable tribesman or insect.

With that struggle in mind, I like how you blended mechanics and theme together on Gilden. Banner of Agility looks like a really useful piece for tons of Aquilla-centric builds, and the Fortitude Aura is rock-solid, IMO. Comparisons to Hatamoto might be inevitable, but so what? There are only so many ways to boost an army, and it's cool how the power encourages a "rally to the flag" dynamic. Come to think of it, so do most of the existing flagbearers.

One of these days I might post my own take on a d20-centered Aquilla flagbearer; at a certain point, "lack of suitable minis" gets to be a tired excuse.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Son of Arathorn

One of these days I might post my own take on a d20-centered Aquilla flagbearer; at a certain point, "lack of suitable minis" gets to be a tired excuse.

You really should; I think a dwarf flagbearer with a d20-boosting power is a perfectly legitimate direction, considering the fact that Mogrimm Forgehammer and Darrak Ambershard have d20 powers. I didn't go that direction because I didn't want a player to feel too steered into drafting units with d20 powers when using Gilden Stormstone, but it wouldn't have been a bad decision either.

[Sherman Davies]

I decided to go back to working on actual Lord of the Rings customs for my ostensible LotR customs thread:




I tend to avoid terrain related powers in my designs, but they are a part of Heroscape's traditions so the occasional one is fine and I thought it fit well enough for these guys.

I also revised an old card with a name change and other small changes: