ThrasherDarkrai's Customs Thread!

[ThrasherDarkrai]

Ever since getting back into Heroscape a few years ago, I’ve had a bunch of ideas floating around my head for potential customs. While my timing is remarkably poor – the first new official ‘Scape products in more than a decade are releasing soon, after all – I figured that if I don’t get them out on the forums now, I’ll probably never get the motivation to do so. Besides, every other member of the NYC Gang of Four has gotten into designing customs at some point, so I can hardly count myself a member of the Gang unless I throw my own hat in the ring, right?

Let’s start with Overlord Malicia. I was browsing Miniature Market for other reasons when I chanced upon her figure (Efreeti, Pathfinder: Bestiary Unleashed #26). I’ve long wanted more female figures in Heroscape – especially offensively-oriented ones – so I immediately began devising a potential design. While doing so, it also occurred to me that Heroscape does not really have a “traditional” Demon in the game yet; Heroscape has long functioned with kind of a “toybox” aesthetic, taking clearly-defined archetypes and smashing them onto a battlefield together, and Malicia provides an opportunity to put an archetypical, “big red horned devil” type of figure in the game. With all this in mind, here’s the draft I’m going to start testing:



And here’s the card in text form, for those who would prefer it:

Spoiler Alert!

General = Valkrill
Planet = Arctorus [Same as Corvor]
Species = Demon
Uniqueness = Unique Hero
Class = Overlord
Personality = Merciless
Size/Height = Huge 9 [Same as Frost Giant of Morh]

Life = 6

Move = 6
Range = 1
Attack = 4
Defense = 4
Points = 160

Searing Sword
Overlord Malicia adds 2 to her Attack when attacking figures without the Lava Resistance special power.

Minion Toss Special Attack
Range 5. Attack 1 + Special.
You must destroy an adjacent Small or Medium Common figure you control who follows Utgar or Valkrill to use Minion Toss Special Attack. Choose a figure to attack. Any figures adjacent to the targeted figure are also affected by Minion Toss Special Attack. Add the destroyed figure's printed Attack value to Malicia's attack dice. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense dice separately. Malicia is not affected by her own Minion Toss Special Attack.

Life Absorption 13
Before moving, choose a figure within 4 clear sight spaces of Malicia. Roll the 20-sided die. Add 11 to your roll if you control the chosen figure. If you roll a 13 or higher, it receives 1 wound and Malicia removes 1 wound from her Army Card.

And, as a final courtesy, some pictures, to show you how she looks on the board! One picture to show what she looks like; the rest are in the spoiler below.

Spoiler Alert!

A size comparison between the Frost Giant of Morh and Overlord Malicia. They're roughly the same size, though Malicia isn't quite as bulky as the Frost Giant is.



Here she is on the board, alongside my Acolyte proxies! She's even come carrying an Acolyte to throw.

Thematically, the design is intended to convey an archetypical Demonic Overlord: great power, lots of fire, and callous disregard for their minions. Searing Sword is obvious – Malicia imbues her sword with fiery magic (which also demonstrates her magical prowess) – while Minion Toss Special Attack, drawing inspiration from the (pretty bad) Wii game Overlord: Dark Legend, involves the Overlord grabbing an ally, imbuing them with evil magic, and then throwing them to make them explode. Rounding out the package is Life Absorption, which furthers the theme of assessing the risk/reward inherent in sacrificing your own figures. Malicia can suck the life out of opposing figures, but draining life from someone who’s already resisting you is more difficult than it seems. Draining someone more unsuspecting – like, say, that tasty-looking Acolyte over there who helped summon you – is so much easier; but will this come back to bite you when you don’t have enough dudes left to close out a game?

Ultimately, that’s the kind of question I want this figure to pose. Malicia offers a lot of power, both offensively and defensively, but much of it comes at the cost of destroying your own Squad figures, which is inherently very risky territory. Acolytes are an obvious pairing: because the Acolytes of Vorganund move before their bonding hero, it’s possible to move an Acolyte up, have it attack an opponent’s figure, and then move adjacent to that same Acolyte with Malicia to throw it at the enemy. But Acolytes already tend to drop like flies – you have to kill one just to summon Malicia into the game – and a failed Minion Toss can potentially lose you two Acolytes due to their Blood Pact. You could also use Malicia as a second wave when used with non-bonding Utgar and Valkrill squads; many confrontations end with a few stragglers still on the board, and Malicia can use them as cannon fodder for Minion Toss Special Attack. This is less risky, but I suspect it might be less powerful on the whole than inserting Malicia into an Acolyte army.

(As a side note: the much-maligned Tomb Skeletons are, at 40 points, the cheapest 3-Attack squad per figure in the game, making them a solid option for disposable cannon fodder. A good use for Tomb Skeletons, finally?)

Balance-wise, Malicia is comparable to Morgoloth, with both being big Demon bonding heroes with similar statlines. Morgoloth is better offensively – attacking twice with 4 dice is better than attacking once with 6 most of the time – but Malicia has better survivability due to Life Absorption, along with other offensive tricks in Minion Toss and Life Absorption. That said, Malicia doesn’t have Morgoloth’s two support powers, and much of her potency revolves around killing your own squad figures, which is always extremely risky. 160 Points seems like a good place for her, at least for initial testing purposes.

Well, that is entirely too many words for a figure I still need to test. In any case, I'd welcome comments of any kind. Praise, withering criticisms, befuddled expressions of neutrality, you name it: I'd love to hear it!

[Hex_Enduction_Hour]

I saw your images while browsing the gallery. That figure is incredible.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by ThrasherDarkrai

Minion Toss Special Attack, drawing inspiration from the (pretty bad) Wii game Overlord: Dark Legend, involves the Overlord grabbing an ally, imbuing them with evil magic, and then throwing them to make them explode.

When you ran this custom by me earlier, I thought the Minion Toss was a pretty funny ability, and I assume this demon card is not going for comedic effect, but I didn't mention it because it's possibly just a subjective "me" thing. Now that I realize that the minions are also exploding, it's even funnier to me. Again, not a criticism per se; if I played the video game you're referencing, I'd probably spam that move all the time just for laughs.