The Book of Beast

[Spidey'tilIDie]

Yea, move to playtesting.

[IAmBatman]

One more should do it.

[Hahma]

yea

[IAmBatman]

All right, Beast is officially in the playtesting phase! I'll move the pertinent playtesting instructions over here in a bit.

[Hahma]

Got 2 Squad tests done and one Heavy Hitter test done on him and I'll while I'll continue to test him at 150, I'd recommend other testers to perhaps test him at maybe 130. 130 might even be a little high though too. He's kind of like SOTM Raelin but with 1 better attack and 2 better defense. They both have the same life but she has much greater mobility. Negotiator is not guaranteed where as Defensive Aura is automatic.

Edit: Okay, now with 2 Squad tests and 5 matches each against 2 different Heavy Hitters, he's got to come down some. I have the two ranged army tests and two melee army tests yet to do, but don't think he'll sway me much.

[IAmBatman]

Good point about SOTM Raelin ... her defensive aura is much more useful than Negotiation and flying is better than leap. I'll test him at 120 when I get to him next year.

[Hahma]

I'm off work today, so before heading out to do family stuff, I got two melee army tests done with Beast as well, so now all I have is the two ranged army tests.

I'm more than ever thinking that 120 will be a better starting point for subsequent playtests. Negotiation hasn't been a factor, and I'd give it very little weight toward cost. You can't use it vs. commons, it's a waste to use it with the last OM of the round and you are giving up an attack and hoping that you remove the right OM if there are more than one on the card or that if there is only one that it's not the X.

[IAmBatman]

I wonder if we shouldn't let him remove 2 OMs from a hero for the Negotiation power?
I like the flavor on Negotiation, but I'm starting to think it's not all that useful ...

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I wonder if we shouldn't let him remove 2 OMs from a hero for the Negotiation power?
I like the flavor on Negotiation, but I'm starting to think it's not all that useful ...

It's not useful as is and not feared by opponents in my opinion, as it's very situational and giving up an attack of 4, or 5 with height, or even multiple attacks with Whirlwind, isn't really worth taking the chance to Negotiate all that often. Beast says, "I'll negotiate with my fists, as it's the only language these miscreants understand."

I can't chat long, but I guess removing 2 OMs would be more fearsome for the opponent and a bigger target from ranged attacks I would expect. While Joker can mess with OMs from afar, Beast would have to expose himself to attack to be effective. Perhaps you can bring it up with Griff and others can offer opinions.

[Hahma]

Perhaps giving Beast Stealth Leap could help his overall usefulness and allow more opportunity to use Negotiation. If anyone should have Stealth Leap, it's Beast, as he should be able to bound from opponent to opponent or group of opponents to others. This could help a little in allowing him an opportunity to leave an engagement to leap to an opponent to attempt to Negotiate.

Perhaps a friendly figure is a few spaces away and down on lives. An engaged Beast can opt to attack where he's at or Stealth Leap adjacent to opponent's figure next to your friendly figure in trouble and attempt to Negotiate and buy time for your other friendly figure.

Edit: Perhaps in addition to Stealth Leap, maybe as Bat's mentioned, Negotiation should remove 2 OM's. Then he might be solid at 150.

I don't know, just some ideas.

Regardless, considering I only have two tests remaining for him, I'll maybe test him in those tests at 120 points to see how that goes.

Edit: Finished playtesting him. Did both Ranged Army tests with him as is statswise at 120 points. I hope to get both his and Iceman's playtest sheet up on Monday or Tuesday. My daughter's coming in early from Albany tomorrow, so I won't be able to do anything tomorrow, but perhaps early before everyone wakes up on Monday or Tues.

[IAmBatman]

I look forward to that.

[Hahma]

Okay holiday slackers I spent a lot of time on this guy but it needed to be done with the first test I suppose as I found probably more issues with him than anyone I've done except Two-Face.

Here's his test sheet.



NAME OF THE TEST UNIT ____Beast @ 150 pts__

C3G CHECK LIST FEEDBACK FORM
- Theme/ Does it pass, if not, list your Theme Check observations. Pass (has things he should have, they just don't work right as is).
- Mirror/ Does it pass, if not, list your Mirror Check observations. Pass
- Bonding/ Does it pass, if not, list your Bonding Check observations. Pass
- Synergy/ Does it pass, if not, list your Synergy Check observations. Pass
- Power/ Does it pass, if not, list your Power Check observations. Pass
C3G PLAY TEST FEEDBACK FORM
(Be sure to list what official units you used and what BoV map you used per section below.)
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Squad/ Does it pass? Fail
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-Played on Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh vs. Mohican River Tribe x2 (140 points).
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-Beast was killed on turn 1 of round 2. He killed 2 of the Mohican River Tribe figures. Beast had won initiative in first round and spent his first two turns moving. MRT just moved their first turn but moved and attacked with their second turn and put 1 wound on Beast. Beast’s third turn moved him up adjacent to two MRT’s and he used Whirlwind to kill them both. On MRT’s last turn of round 1, they moved, attacked and put 1 more wound on Beast. MRT’s got initiative in second round and moved adjacent, the first one put 2 wounds on Beasts for (4) and the second MRT put 1 wound on him to kill him. Things might have been different had Beast won initiative in second round, but the bottom line is that MRT’s had range to get extra attack opportunities and in melee their stats bumped up to decent squad units.

I also played on the same map with Beast vs. Axegrinders x2 (140 points).

Beast was killed again on turn 1 of round 2. He killed 1 Axegrinder. Axegrinders got initiative and spent their first two moves getting to highest point on map. Four of the little guys moving 6 and having climb x2 gets them around pretty quick. Beast ignored the dwarves on height for the time being and went toward the others in their starting zone, an easier task. Axegrinders 3rd turn moved out of starting zone and 2 of them engaged Beast and smacked him around for 4 wounds right off the bat. Beast’s last turn of round 1 saw him using Whirlwind vs. the two dwarves, but he only killed one of them. Axegrinders won initiative for round 2 and after moving others near him, it only took one of them to smack him for 2 more wounds, more than enough to kill him. The dwarves were rockin’ their attack rolls with 2 skulls on each of their three attacks and Beast whiffed on all three defense rolls and clumsily got himself killed. Once again Beast only got off one attack and gets clobbered after losing initiative for second round. He rolled pitiful defense dice, but regardless, the numbers were against him and he didn’t have a very good showing. Negotiation played no part in either squad test as it only works against Unique Heroes.
.
-Heavy Hitter/ Does it pass? Fail
-Played against Major Q10 (150 points) on Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh.
-Test 1 Beast won with 1 wound on turn 1 of round 2.
-Test 2 Q10 won with 3 wounds on turn 6 of round 2.
-Test 3 Q10 won with 1 wound on turn 3 of round 2.
-Test 4 Q10 won with 0 wounds on turn 1 of round 2.
-Test 5 Q10 won with 1 wound on turn 1 of round 3.

Beast went 1-4 vs. Q10. He attempted Negotiation twice in those five tests and on one occasion he picked the ‘X’ OM and on the other try he picked OM 3, but it was on the first turn of the round, so Q10 still got to lay some lumps on Beast and while he (Q10) missed his third turn due to Negotiation, he got initiative for the next round and promptly killed Beast. For 150 points, while Q10 has 1 less life, he has multiple options for attacks, ranged and melee and has same defense as Beast and same attack within 4 spaces, but gets to attack twice to Beast’s single attack vs. a single opponent. I’d take Q10 every time over Beast.

Played against Cyprien (150) on same map.

Test 1 Cyprien won with 0 wounds on turn 3 of round 1. (he rolled 20 on Chilling Touch for 6 wounds).
Test 2 Cyprien won with 0 wounds on turn 4 of round 2.
Test 3 Cyprien won with 0 wounds on turn 5 of round 1.
Test 4 Cyprien won with 0 wounds on turn 1 of round 2.
Test 5 Cyprien won with 1 wound on turn 2 of round 2.

Beast went 0-5 and only put 1 wound on Cyprien. Beast attempted Negotiation only once in the 5 tests just for the sake of trying it (otherwise he was fighting tooth and nail for his life) and he removed the ‘X’ OM, not very helpful. Once again, for 150 points, Cyprien is much superior. He can fly far with Stealth Flying, has a lower attack and defense, but 6 lives and two chances to inflict wounds every attack, and Chilling Touch was a huge factor, bypassing any defense. Once again, for 150 points, I’ll take Cyprien over Beast every time.

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- Melee Army/ Does it pass? Fail
Played on Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh.for both tests.
Beast (150) had Knights of Weston x3 (210), Sir Gilbert (105) and Sir Denrick (100) in his army.

They went against Jotun (225), Anubian Wolves x3 (210) and Moriko (110).

Test 1- Denrick (0 wounds), Gilbert (1 wound) and 1 KOW survive for victory. Beast killed 1 Anubian and put 1 wound on Moriko before getting killed on turn 3 of round 5 by an Anubian. He had 3 Whirlwind attempts vs. 2 opponents but not much luck. He never got to use Negotiation. While his team won, it was largely do to Denrick the Jotun killer, Gilbert the Knight mover and the KOW with their bonding and superior numbers in commons (12 vs. 9). He (Beast) is kind of like Moriko in a way that the multiple attacks are nice in certain situations, but they get killed kind of easy for their points.


Test 2 – Beast (150), Drake (110), Retarius (90), Crixus (90) and Saylind (80) for 520 points went against:
Cypriein (150), Ke-Mo-Shi (130), Ne-Gok-Sa (90), Iskra (50), Recchets (50) and Sonya (45) for 515 points.

Cyprien with 5 wounds, Ne-Gok-Sa with 3 wounds, Iskra with 3 wounds, Sonya with 0 wounds and Ke-Mo-Shi with 0 wounds survive to take the victory. Beast’s opponents had good die rolls, especially Cyprien all the way around. Ke-Mo-Shi Mind Shackled Crixus on turn 2 of round 3 and that kind of turned the game around somewhat. Saylind failed to Summon Drake at one point when he had the next OM on his card and that cost him being able to engage an enemy that turn. Beast put 3 wounds on Iskra and the final 2 wounds on the Mind Shackled Crixus who whiffed his defense roll. Negotiation doesn’t come into effect as he didn’t get activated until round 4 and then he would rather use Whirlwind vs. Crixus and Iskra than waste a turn to take a chance in removing the right OM. That ended up being his only attack (3 wounds on Iskra and final 2 on Crixus) as he was killed shortly after by a 2 wound attack from Iskra and a 3 wound attack from Cyprien. While Beast’s team didn’t have the best of luck with Crixus getting Mind Shackled, they still started out with 5 more points than opponent and the Recchets never even got Summoned after several attempts, had they been Summoned, that would have been even nastier.
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-Ranged Army/ Does it pass? Pass only because he was tested at 120 points, allowing for better team build around him. Fail theme-wise.
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-Played on Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh for both tests.

Test 1 had Beast (120) Silver Surfer (320), Iron Man (240) and
Venom (150) for 830 points. They went against Thanos (360), Captain America (220), Spiderman (160) and Atlaga (90) for 830 points.

.
This one went to turn 4 of round 11. Spiderman with 3 wounds,
Atlaga with 2 wounds and Thanos with 3 wounds survived for the victory. Thanos came back from death twice to really help pull out the victory for his team. While he was dead the first time, Captain America got killed, but each time Thanos came back thereafter, he was a force to be reckoned with and earned his 360 points. Beast put 2 wounds on Atlaga and 2 wounds on Thanos with Whirlwind. He had first attempted Negotiations with Spiderman who had last 3 OM’s on his card for his team for that round, but Beast removed the ‘X’ OM and wasted an attack opportunity. Lowering his cost to 120 points helped build a better team around him that might have won if Thanos didn’t come back twice, so he gets a Pass for point reduction, but Fail for theme as is.


Test 2 –had Beast (120) 4th Mass x3 (210) and Zelrig (185) for 515 points. They went against Nilfheim (185) Stingers x3 (180) and Q10 (150) for 515 points.

This one went to turn 1 of Round 7. Nilfheim with 3 wounds survived for his team’s victory. Beast put 3 wounds on Q10 before getting killed. He wasn’t activated until turn 2 of round 5 because he’d get chewed up by range early on. He didn’t waste a turn with Negotiations. He couldn’t use Whirlwind because by the time he got into the action, there wasn’t multiple groupings for him to attack. Zelrig had gone out early to get the multiple groupings with his Majestic Fire. Again, I’ll give Beast a Pass for this one when tested at 120 points because the game ended close and he did put 3 wounds on Q10. His point reduction certainly helped once again in getting a better surrounding cast.


Analysis: Beast is in no way worth original costing of 150 points IMO. When tested at 120 points, it allowed for a better team build and he was better suited point-wise in expectations on the field, however he was uninspiring theme-wise.

Possible recommendations for him before further testing would be to perhaps have Negotiation be able to remove 2 OMs, and/or give him Stealth Leap, and/or have a line in Negotiation allow for him to use Stealth Leap if he removes the ‘X’ OM.

Regardless, I think Beast’s special powers and cost need to be revisited before proceeding with further playtesting.