HelmAverse Supers - Reinforcements Arrive

[Matt Helm]

@Tornado - I like reading and discussing the history behind the designs as well. It really helps me get better as a designer to understand choices that are made. I'm glad you like the "forced fall" on Terrax as we thought that would hopefully bring out the theme in what he is doing with moving the ground up with his power.

And to give you a little more insight behind the curtains, I'll answer @A3n who is totally right in that Black Widow seems like her Double Attack should extend to ranged attacks. I mean the mini has two guns and thematically it makes sense. In truth, that is exactly how she started before play testing. To start, the Swing Line movement became something I didn't want to give up and if I let her have a flying moving and a double ranged attack, she would need a lower attack than Iron Man. I mean I don't think she should regularly be getting two attacks of 5 like he does with height. Anyway, that part was fine but what I found in style of play was that since she was a lower defense, lower life figure, she became more of a swing away and fire from range type figure. I didn't think that the best strategy for the card necessarily aligned with her theme as I wanted her to play more hand to hand style with the tactical switch being the unique aspect for her play. We then toyed with making her Swing Line not have the stealth component but even though it kept her engaged in melee, she then lost some of the stealthiness of her agent training and therefore players would refrain from locking her up in the first place. She still played like a ranged unit taking 2 shots at a time.

So long story short, the theme of tactical switch, hand to hand combat, a stealthy swing line to safety, but a return into melee fights seemed much more aligned with our vision if the double attack was limited to melee. We explain it to ourselves by saying while at range in the battle she has one hand on her swing line and therefore can only shoot once with the other hand.

And now you know the story of Black Widow and how she came to be.

We are now only hours away from my 15th anniversary on this amazing site. If you thought Terrax the Tamer was ground-breaking for the HelmAverse, the 150th card is coming and you may consider it to be earth-shattering.

[Matt Helm]

I cannot believe that it has been 15 years since I first logged in here at heroscapers.com. It brings a smile to my face when I think of all the different interactions I've had over the years with so many great folks.

Thank you for your feedback and your friendship @A3n , @Sherman Davies , @Tornado , @IAmBatman , @Taeblewalker , @tcglkn , @streaky2007 , @davidlhsl , @GreyOwl , @Spidey'tilIDie , @Garada , @Hahma , @NecroBlade , @Balantai , @whitestuff , @Griffin , @hi1hi1hi1hi1 , @Confred , and everyone else who I am sorry I didn't list individually.

~ Matt Helm is shamelessly calling out some old-timers hoping that they see the "scape signal" and stop by to let the rest of us know how they are doing.


Edit: I thought I'd list out a few milestones for old time sake...

2009 January - Matt Helm joins Heroscapers.com inspired by the NM24 thread.

2009 March - first attempt at a custom offering a very embarrassing "Nessie" card for Garada's Hellboy custom line.

2009 April - first attempt at a superhero custom with The Joker (again Garada art), but more importantly the first Matt Helm noir post was written (later to be called "The Amateurs").

2009 October - first official HelmAverse card with A3n providing the art on Lex Luthor... and a partnership was born.

2010 March - first custom terrain was offered with the Hummer vehicles from McD's. Also wrote my one and only blog laying out some early philosophies on customizing. I really need to write a new one of those.

2010 May - first attempt at a Star Wars custom with Darth Vader. Despite A3n's awesome custom template, I never really went down this path. Kind of like official 'scape I guess.

2010 July - A3n's Nightwing card becomes the first "official HelmAverse" card designed by someone other than the egomaniacal Matt.

2010 Nov - A3n designs the Havoc custom card template and a new branch of the HelmAverse is born in a different thread (thanks @1moreheroscaper ).

2019 October - Lil'Helm designs his first card in the HelmAverse (A3n does the art as usual) with Moon Knight.

2019 November - Helm Jr. designs his first card in the HElmAverse (art by A3n) with Vibe. Late in the month the Helm family plays in what became the 1st annual HelmsGiving tournament.

2019 December - The HelmAverse celebrates the 100th Supers card with Fin Fang From, the first double-spaced superhero figure.

2022 January - The first annual "Betty White Tournament".

2023 November - Lil'Helm produces the art for the first time with Captain Cold.

2024 January - The HelmaVerse celebrates Matt's 15 year anniversary with the 150th card...

#the150thcardiscoming

[Matt Helm]

The 150th HelmAverse Superhero Card is here

Honestly I never thought I'd ever get to this card. For starters, I really believed that Superman at 390 points would be the HelmAverse ceiling. I also never really thought I'd put 4 powers on a card. But we all must be flexible and should never say never. With my nephew able to 3D print the perfect figure and me feeling a little more confident that I could pull off a paint job, the Helm family unanimously agreed that I had to come up with a playable design. So here we are, Happy 15th Anniversary to me (what a narcissist I am).

[quozl]

Wonderful! But now I want a picture of the figure on Heroscape terrain!

[IAmBatman]

Happy anniversary, Helmsy! Glad you’re still around.

[Tornado]

Grats!
What a long strange trip its been.

Cool card. Looks formidable.

[Sherman Davies]

Happy 15th, Mr. Helm!

Nice Galactus! I doubt I'll ever do a Shermanverse Galactus, but if I ever decide to play a scenario with Big G I'll be happy to use yours.

[Matt Helm]

Thanks, Sherman, that's the greatest compliment we could ever ask for. To know that our Galactus is welcome in the Shermanverse is pretty darn awesome.

And yes 'Nado, he is formidable. We had to continue to whittle down his stats until we could finally get to a point where we felt he was balanced in a 1000 point army when teamed with Silver Surfer or Terrax. I'm a little biased but I think he turned out more fun to play with than I even anticipated. I knew he would be fun to play against as his Special Attack serves as a countdown of sorts.

And as for quozl's request, here you go.



And for anybody interested, here's the link to the 3D printed model on thingiverse. He came out a nice sale and so light in weight that his center of gravity is perfect when mounted on a double base.

[quozl]

Very nice!

[Tornado]

Very cool. That looks great.

[A3n]

Happy 15th Helmsy. What a great time it has been having you around and allowing me to be part of the HelmAverse. It's been an honour working with you for such a large part of that time.

Oh and Galactus is cool .

[Confred]

Cheers