Heroscape: Legacy

[CornPuff]

Maddog, your customs look fun! The minotaur warrior is my favorite.

If you want to price your customs to be compatible with Heroscape: Legacy, just price them so they are at the same level as the units with a 'B' power ranking. The units should be powerful but not dominant, and are only favored when they synergize or complement your main force. Of course their your customs, so if you want to price them like a B+ or an A- I won't tell anybody

Your custom's prices look good, but without extensive play test I can't say whether they are right or not.

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I did get a 500 legacy point game in over the weekend with Q9, 3 squads of 10th and Marcu vs Kiova, Raelin RotV and 3 squads of Einar Emperium on Badru Valley by GameBear. The first round was all about positioning, the 10th moved up across the valley and the EI moved toward one of the hills, fully protected by dual auras.

When Raelin and Kiova moved up to protect their soldier's advance, they were promptly slaughtered by the attack-glyphed 10th who rolled all skulls continuously. Actually Kiova stood up to it a bit with Raelin's aura, but once Raelin fell it was over. To give you an idea of the punishment dished out, Q9's Queglix rolled 8 skulls of pain to Raelin in a single attack.

The noble EI did kill off a fair bit of 10th and hit Q9 with 4 attacks of 4, but it didn't scratch the soulborg giant. In the end, the remaining 3 EI surrendered against overwhelming odds.

To me this says Q9 and the 10th are still completely draftable at 220 and 85 Legacy points respectively, and that dice can always win. I hope a different matchup will show the EI in a more favorable light.

[Typhon2222]

Great stuff, CornPuff! Many thanks for your work on what is clearly a labor of love.

Glancing over your list, it seems to me that the D&D units on average have seen more price decreases than increases — particularly those from the most recent Wave (D3). I've heard people complain that the D&D waves suffer from the opposite of power creep. Am I right in thinking that your repricing supports that view?

EDIT: Nevermind. I must have been looking mainly at the heroes when I wrote the above. Because it's definitely not true of the four common squads of Wave D3. Of those, I see three have increased in price: two by 5 points (Horned Skull Brutes and Mezzodemons), and one by 10 points (Death Chasers). Only one squad, the Death Knights, have decreased in cost (by 5 points).

[Typhon2222]

CornPuff, I'm just curious: if a squad such as the Venoc Vipers have a power ranking of B (which, if I understand correctly, serves as base-line for your calculations), why does the Legacy system increase their cost from 40 to 45?

And I know this has already been raised in this thread, but I really wonder how making certain units more expensive will affect others. For example, it seems to me that a large part of the Venoc Warlord's relatively strong power ranking was due to his synergy with the Aubrien Archers. If he synergized only the Venoc Vipers, he'd be rated less highly. But by synergizing a highly regarded ranged squad, he's more valuable, so his power ranking (and thus his Legacy price) goes up. But with Mittens now costing more, this has the ripple effect of making the Vipers themselves less attractive, and less viable. At the very least, I would expect Legacy would keep the Venoc Vipers priced at 40, or even reduce their cost.

Or take Raelin. If her price goes up, this hurts low-defense units more than high-defense ones, since the former gain more relative benefit from two extra defense dice. Hurts Arrow Gruts more than Granite Guardians, for example.

So complicated. Guess the only thing to do is play extensively according to the Legacy prices, and then reevaluate from there.

[CornPuff]

The Venoc Vipers, D2 and D3 price adjustments were based on ther power rankings, its just that the main post in the power rankings thread needs an update. If you look at the bottom of the power rankings main post you can see some links like "Gencon Ups" where he bumps the Venocs to a B+, or "D2 and D3" where Jexik lays down his feeling about the new units after his time playtesting them. That was really valuable to me because I trust Jexik's judgement, and when Legacy was created nobody had even received their D3 yet.

You are totally right about the ripple effect. It really makes it impossible to get everything perfect. That's why I want to re-evaluate in the Spring, but leave the system fixed until then so people have can play and have a good time in the current system.

I think that Raelin judgement is really astute. I think raising Raelins cost again in the spring wouldn't be too crazy, but I think the only way to cost units like Arrow Gruts that benefit from Raelin is to keep on playing. Then again, if the arrow gruts really need Raelin, they can just draft her. Raelin RotV is only 100 Legacy points.
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I just played a Legacy game with 3x Death Chaser's, Nerak, Ogre Warhulk, a Swog, MBS and a Dumutef vs that "Einar's Deathwings" army I wrote about above. If the all my 3 defense figures assume that Raelin will be there to boost defense, its no wonder they got slaughtered by dual aura'd EI. (well, that and my army needed more range)

One of the things I've noticed is that there is still a lot of reason to play with units like Q9 and the Fen Hydra even though there price has gone up considerably. I'll put out an open challenge for anybody to submit a competitive Legacy army that can beat Q9, Marcu and 3 squads of 10th. That's 500 Legacy points, but only 425 printed points.

[Therion]

I'm curious as to why you made a few of these changes:

Spartacus is already really, really expensive; why raise his cost further? The only place anyone would use him is with Capuans, and you already raised their cost by 5.

A similar situation is with Me-Burq-Sa; he's only good because the Roman Legionaries are good, but you raised his cost as well.

This can also be found with Sonya (who, by the way, now costs less than Iskra), Nerak, Ne-Gok-Sa, etc.

You raised the cost of the units that make these units good; why make the beneficiaries worse? It could be compared to raising the cost of all units in an army with Raelin; just 'cause she's good doesn't mean they should cost more.

EDIT: Also, you have way too many quotation marks with Johnny "Shotgun" Sullivan.

[CornPuff]

All of those changes were made strictly by the power rankings. The changes were centered around B units, so B+ units, like Spartacus, had their points changed. The reason Spartacus has a B+ is because the classic 500 point "Steamroller" army (Spartacus, Crixus, 3x Capuans) is pretty good. Without Spartacus, that army falls apart.

Spartacus went 200-> 210 (5% increase)
Crixus went 90->95 (about 6%)
Capuans went 70->75 (about 7%)
Retarius went down 90->85 (about 6%)

Steamroller costs 530 Legacy points. Swap Retiarius in for Crixus and it only costs 520.

Overall I think this is right. Steamroller is a high performing army, so its cost should go up a tad so other armies can shine.

Now could Spartacus be lowered in cost, and crixus raised? That might be a good idea. There are a lot of different ways to reprice Steamroller to have it cost 530 Legacy points. What if Spartacus was 150, Crixus 80, and each squad of Capuans cost 100? That might be a lot better then how it is now. This makes Crixus and Spartacus a lot more draftable without the Capuans, which is interesting. Would that be better?

There are a lot of questions like this. Say Iskra+Retchets should cost 80 Legacy points. Should Iskra cost 35 and the Retchets cost 45? This would make Iskra a good filler pick without the retchets. Obviously costing Iskra at 10 and the Retchets at 70 is wrong, but there is a good middle ground.

Me-Burq-Sa is trickier. MBS bonds with the Grok Riders, Death Chasers and the Romans. The question is how do you make it so the MBS is an OK pick in all three armies? Maybe you can't, or shouldn't. Now its a 3 way problem. Even if you just look at the Romans, MBS got more expensive, but Valguard had his cost lowered. That should make anyone take a second look at that crazy underrated viking.

Raelin is probably the most trouble of any figure. Everybody plays Raelin in practically any army, but she isn't essential to anything, like Iskra is essential to the retchets or the Venoc Warlord is essential to the Armocs. I think both Raelin's should probably be bumped another 10 to 20 points in the Spring revision, because I've found Raelin is still an auto-include in many armies even at 100 Legacy points.

For nearly all of the figures I just used a formula to adjust unit cost based on power ranking. That's the simple answer why Spartacus and Raelin went up and Iskra went down in cost. It was a very simple way to take the first step, but I think discussions like this prove that no formula can do a complete job in recosting everything. That's why there will be a spring revision where all the changes will be driven by discussions like this.

Thanks for the interest. If you have any proposals on how to modify a group of units like human champions, vampires or warlords let me know. Build a couple armies and see how they play. Its amazing how all the little changes effect how you build the armies, and then it puts the figures in a whole new light.

-regarding Johnny Shotgun, yeah, some software decided to add the extra marks as I copied the table around. I'll fix it in the main post, but I'm not going to change the pdf yet.

[Therion]

At the very least, make Iskra cost more than Sonya.

[CornPuff]

How would you price Iskra, Sonya, Cyprien and the Retchets within Legacy?

I think Cyprien + Sonya should stay at 215 and Iskra + Retchets should stay at 80, but that still gives plenty of options.

[Therion]

Well, keeping them at 45 and 50, respectively, would solve some problems. If you cut Iskra's cost to 40, that's a problem. She's obviously more powerful than Sonya, and having Iskra at a lower cost just doesn't work. Or, you could make Iskra 45 and Sonya 40, and increase Cyprien's cost to 175. However, I don't think Cyprien without Sonya is worth that. But raising Sonya's cost doesn't work either.

Honestly, keep Iskra and Sonya at their normal costs, and raise/lower the companion unit costs.

[Typhon2222]

Necro-posting here.... I'm thinking of organizing a tournament here in the San Francisco Bay Area in late February, and making Legacy pricing the theme, to ensure a totally different tournament experience. So I'm curious to hear from those with recent thoughts on or experience with it.

[kolakoski]

Originally posted this in the Improved Army Costing Thread, but really belongs here.

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...0&postcount=21

[CornPuff]

Typhon2222:

Awesome! I hope it works out for your group. Make sure to post a tournament report so we can see what type of armies your crew came up with

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Kolakoski started a thread about competitive Legacy armies in the competitive armies forum. Check it out and add your army ideas!

Heroscape - Legacy Competitive Armies