Shadowking's Customs v.2 - 02/18/24 Bike Ninja!

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Blue Trails

For Shino Sayoshi, what if you made Shogunate Induction remove the affected Ashigaru from the battlefield and place them on Shino Sayoshi's Army Card? You'll avoid conflict with powers that activate on destruction, and—if you care about such concerns—C3V's Cal the Smuggler provides a precedent for this type of mechanic.

Hmm, yeah that could be a good workaround - clearing up the clarification between the "destroyed" aspect is smart.

I also forgot to comment on it but the bits for Abul al Shakar look neat, I will have a look at reworking them to incorporate some of those changes

[Shadowking]

Managed to finish off the figures for 2x Trojans and Penthesila - mostly stock with rebasing, but I applied some washes to get them a little closer to the original Heroscape look.



I also have what are hopefully the finalized cards before playtesting for them done too; I felt like the Irregulars without Penthesila still deserved to be 85 points each (mostly due to their power with Nilfheim and Braxas), and adjusted Penthesila back down to 100 but instead of touching her health, reduced her attack by 1 (she gets up to 5 from Irregulars dying anyway), and made her Spear Throw not work while she's engaged to make it both make thematic sense and also make it not "strictly better" than an unbuffed regular attack.




(I don't think I touched on this but in case anyone was wondering the Irregulars are supposed to be a mix of Trojan and Amazon troops, hence "irregular" in the name and the female figures in the mix - Queen Penthesilia was the leader of the Amazon forces at Troy. I would like to make a King Priam card who can also bond with them at some point in the future as well.)

[Maklar the Silver Prince]

4 figure common squad, Trojans and Amazons, cool! I like the idea of a squad that's really squishy until it gets into the thick of battle. An easy +2 attack for Nilfheim is worrying tho, even only using 2 of them, 2 attacks of 3/4 and an attack of 8/9 is a really serious can-opener, alongside the flexibility of getting more attacks with Ice Shards. One squad of these guys acts as potentially, um, 4 Finn's for 85 points (!??) for Kings and Queens, which is something to look out for. They are super-squishy and you're sinking 85 points per squad of a bonding squad you'd want to fill out most of your army with, but I just think the For Troy! ability has too much potential to be abused (imagine if you designed a future King or Queen that was ranged with double attack or something like that).

I like Queen Penthesilea's spear-throw a lot, and it's very cool that she can potentially boost the Irregular's defense with a strategic Challenging Shout.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Maklar the Silver Prince

4 figure common squad, Trojans and Amazons, cool! I like the idea of a squad that's really squishy until it gets into the thick of battle. An easy +2 attack for Nilfheim is worrying tho, even only using 2 of them, 2 attacks of 3/4 and an attack of 8/9 is a really serious can-opener, alongside the flexibility of getting more attacks with Ice Shards. One squad of these guys acts as potentially, um, 4 Finn's for 85 points (!??) for Kings and Queens, which is something to look out for. They are super-squishy and you're sinking 85 points per squad of a bonding squad you'd want to fill out most of your army with, but I just think the For Troy! ability has too much potential to be abused (imagine if you designed a future King or Queen that was ranged with double attack or something like that).

I like Queen Penthesilea's spear-throw a lot, and it's very cool that she can potentially boost the Irregular's defense with a strategic Challenging Shout.

Yeah, I had been wondering/worrying about this a bit as well but was struggling to find any clean way to put a better limiter - ideally I think you want more than one Trojan to have to die per attack boost (since one feels very easy) and I would also prefer it to mean multiple squads having an impact rather than just a single squad dying being able to fill out two different King/Queen cards by themselves.

Perhaps I should look at something along the lines of this (and then perhaps drop them back down to 80 - or even 70/75 - points per squad):

FOR TROY!
When a Trojan Irregular is destroyed, you may put its figure on a friendly Unique King or Queen Hero's Army Card. That Hero adds 1 to its attack die for every four Trojan Irregular figures on its army card.

That would make one squad = one Finn (but limited of course), and incentivizes you taking multiple squads to maximize their boost potential. Four does seem a bit excessive, but two is potentially a little easy - would three be a weird number in a 4-member squad? It feels like a sweet spot between the "too easy" of two and the "too hard" of four. Three squads could still dish out a total of four boosts when all dead. Removing the cap of two isn't really an issue here probably since you have to have 9-12 die and stack them all on one card to get over the old maximum bonus of 2 per Hero.

[Maklar the Silver Prince]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

Yeah, I had been wondering/worrying about this a bit as well but was struggling to find any clean way to put a better limiter - ideally I think you want more than one Trojan to have to die per attack boost (since one feels very easy) and I would also prefer it to mean multiple squads having an impact rather than just a single squad dying being able to fill out two different King/Queen cards by themselves.

Perhaps I should look at something along the lines of this (and then perhaps drop them back down to 80 - or even 70/75 - points per squad):

FOR TROY!
When a Trojan Irregular is destroyed, you may put its figure on a friendly Unique King or Queen Hero's Army Card. That Hero adds 1 to its attack die for every four Trojan Irregular figures on its army card.

That would make one squad = one Finn (but limited of course), and incentivizes you taking multiple squads to maximize their boost potential. Four does seem a bit excessive, but two is potentially a little easy - would three be a weird number in a 4-member squad? It feels like a sweet spot between the "too easy" of two and the "too hard" of four. Three squads could still dish out a total of four boosts when all dead. Removing the cap of two isn't really an issue here probably since you have to have 9-12 die and stack them all on one card to get over the old maximum bonus of 2 per Hero.

I think changing it so that 1 squad=+1 attack would be an improvement, and would probably start testing them at 80/85.

What is the rationale for giving them an ability to boost their bonding hero's attack? It seems like their bonding heroes are competent in battle as it is (Queen Penthesilea isn't just a passive cheerleader, with her ranged special and defensive ability, which is quite a nice touch. Heck even take away the defensive ability and her range gives her some more offensive potential than your standard bonding cheerleader.). I would think that a power named For Troy! could be used for any of a multitude of mechanics, if you're not deadset on the destroyed attack boost.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Maklar the Silver Prince

I think changing it so that 1 squad=+1 attack would be an improvement, and would probably start testing them at 80/85.

What is the rationale for giving them an ability to boost their bonding hero's attack? It seems like their bonding heroes are competent in battle as it is (Queen Penthesilea isn't just a passive cheerleader, with her ranged special and defensive ability, which is quite a nice touch. Heck even take away the defensive ability and her range gives her some more offensive potential than your standard bonding cheerleader.). I would think that a power named For Troy! could be used for any of a multitude of mechanics, if you're not deadset on the destroyed attack boost.

Gameplay-wise I liked the idea of a squishy squad that your opponent might have to think twice about just trying to mow down en-mass with ranged attackers/that you don't mind losing a few pieces of to push certain engagements ("whoops, now my Nilfheim has 8 attack, good luck Q9"), and thematically I liked that defenders of a city dying would inspire their leaders to fight even harder to push back the attackers.

I was wondering about Last Stand earlier too actually and whether it was suffering from a bit of "ability creep"; not entirely sure Queen Penthesilea wouldn't just be better off without it? That is a change I think could be sensible to make. I felt like giving her 4 defence dice might be a little high (although something like 4 defence and 4 life could work here) but also wanted to give her a little more survivability to encourage you not to be scared to push her up into engagements, unlike a lot of cheerleaders (like you mentioned) - but a 4 life 4 defense hero is still decently survivable.

[Maklar the Silver Prince]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

Gameplay-wise I liked the idea of a squishy squad that your opponent might have to think twice about just trying to mow down en-mass with ranged attackers/that you don't mind losing a few pieces of to push certain engagements ("whoops, now my Nilfheim has 8 attack, good luck Q9"), and thematically I liked that defenders of a city dying would inspire their leaders to fight even harder to push back the attackers.

This is a compelling argument, but I worry it won't be much of a deterrent against ranged squads while being overly punishing to melee and single-hero builds. Seems like you've got a standard core of 2xIrregulars, Penthelisea, and Nilfheim right now. I'd be curious how that performs against a 450-500 point army of KoW and Gilbert, Heavy Gruts, Romans, Quahon and Spiders, Nilf and Greenscales (certainly builds you'll want to test against). My gut-feeling is that the attack-dice output and flexibility of this army will outweigh its low numbers. For Troy! strikes me as a power that has an odd intersection of when it's useful: Getting Nilf with 8 attack isn't going to do a ton against an army of 4th Mass etc, whereas Nilf with 8 attack is going to just be further insult against weaker, hero-based or expensive squad-based armies that are going to struggle against the Irregulars 4 attacks per turn anyway. I guess the real question is how it performs against strong melee bonding armies. They're spot as a potential Q9 counter is commendable tho.

I was wondering about Last Stand earlier too actually and whether it was suffering from a bit of "ability creep"; not entirely sure Queen Penthesilea wouldn't just be better off without it? That is a change I think could be sensible to make. I felt like giving her 4 defence dice might be a little high (although something like 4 defence and 4 life could work here) but also wanted to give her a little more survivability to encourage you not to be scared to push her up into engagements, unlike a lot of cheerleaders (like you mentioned) - but a 4 life 4 defense hero is still decently survivable.

Yeah, I certainly don't think it would hurt the design to remove Last Stand, but keeping it wouldn't be egregious either. 4 life 4 defense mimics the viking heroes, another possibility is 6 life 3 defense like MDG. One other thing I thought I'd mention is her attack boost from Spear Throw - an aura of 4 spaces or less might be an appropriate constraint.

You've got a neat design here, and I think you could probably start testing and tuning the abilities (range of aura, number of destroyed Irregulars per +1 attack) as you test. That being said, I'd definitely keep an eye out for how For Troy! works out and whether or not you want to keep that mechanic on the card. Would personally love to give these guys some play, maybe in a week or two.

[Shadowking]

OK, I think with these changes we're now at a good starting point (3 Trojans per card needed for +1 attack die, 4 life 4 defense for Penthesilea and dropping the Last Stand power) - and yeah, any playtesting by anyone else interested would be super cool:




I also have a new card I've been working on (the start of my Wave 3) that's attempting to both offer some diversity to the way you can play Spiders, and bring some new dynamics to the mix in terms of the typical difference between a Common Hero and a Common Squad - the Taranta Stalker:

[yamissflash]

For the Taranta(s):

I think skitter would be better worded as:

Skitter
When moving, a Taranta Stalker ignores the first level of elevation.

But I’m not 100% sure.

Also since you can technically have multiple of a common card rather than just keeping them all on one card, it would probably be good to specify that it doesn’t count revealed OMs on other Taranta Stalkers (assuming I’m understanding it correctly).

The strong incentive to use them only on turn 3 is very interesting, especially since they are fast enough to still be relevant with only one OM a round.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by yamissflash

For the Taranta(s):

I think skitter would be better worded as:

Skitter
When moving, a Taranta Stalker ignores the first level of elevation.

But I’m not 100% sure.

Also since you can technically have multiple of a common card rather than just keeping them all on one card, it would probably be good to specify that it doesn’t count revealed OMs on other Taranta Stalkers (assuming I’m understanding it correctly).

The strong incentive to use them only on turn 3 is very interesting, especially since they are fast enough to still be relevant with only one OM a round.

Yeah the wording on Skitter is tough - according to Flying it should maybe be something like "When counting spaces for a Taranta Stalker's movement, ignore the first elevation per space moved."?

And you're right, it's not supposed to work on other Taranta Stalker cards (I think AoA was attempting to standardize the use of a single common card in its updated rulebook?); I can specify if it seems helpful. The general design idea is that the Predator Bonding of Spiders allows you to move up single Stalkers into favorable positions - potentially positions that allow the weak Spider attacks to benefit from their Swarm Attack Aura. Then with your OM 3 on the Stalkers themselves instead, you can set up a big assault with three/four of them stacking their buffs onto each other in a staggered fashion - in the right position the last activated Stalker can benefit from all the other Swarm Attack Auras. Basically hopefully a different but still fun way to go with Spiders instead of plus Quahon and/or Wyverns; it also encourages you to include a way to "spend" the X and reveal it to get a 4th Stalker activation on your OM 3, which I think is kinda neat. At 500 points under VC Delta maybe something like:

8x Taranta Stalkers 200
4x Fyorlag Spiders 200
Evar Scarcarver/Siege (X "spender") 95/100

You can also go with Van Nessing but he's awkward at 500 specifically due to costing 105 and both the Stalkers and Spiders costing multiples of 25 each.

[Blue Trails]

If you're looking for playtests for the amazons, you might want to try the playtesting exchange thread.

I think Skitter's wording might be well-suited by borrowing elements of powers like Climb; it would then state "when moving up levels of terrain, ignore the first level of elevation."

[Shadowking]

I was able to try a few games with the Irregulars and the Queen (no dragon), and the results were essentially thus:

1. Challenging Shout is really good/fun to use.
2. Spear Throw being ranged seems like it fights against the interesting uses of Challenging Shout, but the attack boost is fun.
3. For Troy! is a neat power, but Trojans having a base defense of 2 really sucks into almost every unit.

I think the results point to cutting the Queen’s Spear Throw, baking her attack boost to the squad into an ability of her basic melee attack which would then also work with the buffs from For Troy! (and just making it trigger on a wound rather than destroy - I also think a range cap might be sensible), and trying to get the Trojans to 3/3 base rather than 3/2. Their Hold the City boost is fun with Shout but not actually very good; perhaps there’s another fun position-based power they could use instead?