The Infinity Gauntlet by chas
Well met!
The Gang of Four is playing chas' The Infinity Gauntlet on April 9th. This will be a Supers game, with units draftable from all of C3G, all of Sherman Davies' Supers, and chas' Quickscan Master Lists, which contain over 650 cards, most of which chas claims to have played at least once! From The Infinity Gauntlet:
This will be my very first "UNRESTRICTED" supers scenario, in that it not only mixes Supers with Classic/Custom Scape, but also allows supers from various sources. The idea is not that players have to flip through thousands of cards to make the best possible unit selections (although they can), but to be able to play some of their favorites by using cards available from the site or from my own very large private collection (see Chas Quickscan Master Lists in Custom Comic Creations).
I'm balancing this by having a known major villain the other (2-4) players can build against, and structuring the teams to limited guidelines.
The Gang of Four is playing chas' The Infinity Gauntlet on April 9th. This will be a Supers game, with units draftable from all of C3G, all of Sherman Davies' Supers, and chas' Quickscan Master Lists, which contain over 650 cards, most of which chas claims to have played at least once! From The Infinity Gauntlet:
This will be my very first "UNRESTRICTED" supers scenario, in that it not only mixes Supers with Classic/Custom Scape, but also allows supers from various sources. The idea is not that players have to flip through thousands of cards to make the best possible unit selections (although they can), but to be able to play some of their favorites by using cards available from the site or from my own very large private collection (see Chas Quickscan Master Lists in Custom Comic Creations).
I'm balancing this by having a known major villain the other (2-4) players can build against, and structuring the teams to limited guidelines.
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Each army totals 2,000 points in 24 spaces. The Thanos player may only use Evil figures. "Evil" is defined as Supervillains or Classic/VC army cards working for Utgar or Valkrill. (There are a few cards that I allow either side to use, such as Civilians, Bad Cops, and J. Jonah Jameson).
All other players may use both Good and Evil figures. Each army may be composed of one A Character (351-500 points), one B Character (241-350 points) three C Characters (201-240 points) and the rest D Characters (Up to 200 points). 'Characters' while usually Unique Heroes, may also be any type of army cards such as Uncommon or Common Heroes or Unique or Common Squads, as usual. Note that these are maximum strengths; you can take more characters/cards of lesser point values if you like. Supers can come from the DC, Marvel or other "Universes."
Supers: Superheroes, supervillains and their related support figures may be drawn from three sources:
1. C3G Customs
2. Sherman Davies Customs
3. The Chas Quickscan Master Lists (two lists; Heroes and Villains) These lists include all Chas customs, and also duplicate many C3G and Sherman Davies customs, as well as those from many independent designers; all have been approved as reasonably play balanced and costed (by Chas).
Classic Heroscape: All Classic and VC custom characters are eligible.
chas, having already constructed his army,suggested that we submit our teams for his approval early, as no duplicate heroes would be permitted, and to ensure that they were built according to the scenario's conditions. As a result, Taeblewalker and I have already submitted our armies.
Supers: Superheroes, supervillains and their related support figures may be drawn from three sources:
1. C3G Customs
2. Sherman Davies Customs
3. The Chas Quickscan Master Lists (two lists; Heroes and Villains) These lists include all Chas customs, and also duplicate many C3G and Sherman Davies customs, as well as those from many independent designers; all have been approved as reasonably play balanced and costed (by Chas).
Classic Heroscape: All Classic and VC custom characters are eligible.
chas, having already constructed his army,suggested that we submit our teams for his approval early, as no duplicate heroes would be permitted, and to ensure that they were built according to the scenario's conditions. As a result, Taeblewalker and I have already submitted our armies.
As chas' Quickscan Master Lists contain no links, I thought it safe to use A - Z Of Custom Created SuperHeroes (Comics, Cartoons, etc.). I was mistaken. chas emailed me, and told me I had chosen 2 GreyOwl cards, which he generally considers to be too strong or under priced to mix with C3G, etc.. I also chose a Troll Warrior card with which chas was unfamiliar. Rather than have me rebuild (constructing my army had taken most of a day ), chas determined that the cards I had chosen were not egregiously overpowered, and chose to allow my army, which appears in the spoiler below.
Spoiler Alert!
The potential for game breaking unbalance, not just with my army, but in general, was a real concern to me, given that Supers cards are generally designed to be compatible with only their own creators', and/or, in many cases, C3G's, cards. But I concluded that the political aspects of this particular game, where chas' army is advantaged from the get-go by possession of the Infinity Gauntlet, and that it is a 4-Player Free-For-All (FFA), amply mitigate this issue. In fact, I figure that a FFA format is the format for mixing Supers from different designers in a single game for just this reason.
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Comments
K,
The C3G logo is that on the first column of the left hand side (above "Human,") identifying it as theirs. This means that if you have any questions about it, you can go to their Book of The Joker thread. Chas, Supers Card Archivist Extraordinaire The full evolving text and discussion of this scenario, groundbreaking for our group as it for the first time allows both Supers from many sources as well as Classic/VC, can be found onsite at: Marvelscape/Maps and Scenarios/The Infinity Gauntlet (thread by Chas). The link for which is in the blog above. ~ K |
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Posted March 21st, 2014 at 04:58 PM by chas
Updated March 21st, 2014 at 05:23 PM by kolakoski |
Thanks, chas!
I was hoping to spark a conversation about a lack of balance in armies being mitigated by FFA. |
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Posted March 22nd, 2014 at 01:03 AM by kolakoski |
By "lack of balance," do you mean broken individual customs, player teams being overly advantaged by their own internal synergy, or something else?
Broken individual customs would be extremely unlikely, but unanticipated, way over powered, synergies, such as those in my army might be , are clearly possible. I'm not sure about FFA being the only way to go, but I do think that Supers require a good scenario even more than a Classics/VC game. An important element of this in my own scenarios so far has been the use of a Character Level system by card/character points, as you see in The Infinity Gauntlet as well. The extreme use of this has been in "Pulp Adventure" games, where the maximum points allowed is only about 240 points per character for the strongest allowed, with a lesser limit for most. The basic idea it to allow each team a quota of each character level allowed. The quota system is undoubtedly good for getting the lower priced (weaker) characters into the game. But that's a different issue. Scenario writing is another way. It is also a way to get around the balance issue. Both are similar to ploys we used to use to deal with pricing issues in Classic 'Scape before we discovered Delta+. Note the excellent internal synergy K. has come up with on his team for "Agents," and that this actually crossed over between different designers! (I can't discuss this until after the game on my own thread, as the teams are still secret). Its a really interesting exploitation of the scenario's team building rules. "Exploitation" is a nice word. It really feels almost like cheating! With a very large personal collection of Supers cards, I've been interested cross designer synergies--to the extent of adjusting specific synergies in my solitaire games to make teams work better, especially with a Commander card type. Since a game team is a mission team, shouldn't most leaders be able to advantage their own team mates (or vice versa)? Shouldn't a character with a power that helps others be able to bonus more than just a single type which is perhaps only existing for a few other cards made by a particular designer? I wouldn't change any of the cards. I'd use scenario writing to achieve the same end. |
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Posted March 22nd, 2014 at 02:47 AM by chas
Updated March 22nd, 2014 at 11:25 AM by kolakoski |
See AboveWell met! My comments are edited in above. |
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Posted March 22nd, 2014 at 11:26 AM by kolakoski |
chas' latest commentWell met!
chas posted this in Other Board Games: THIS IS THE BIG ONE, FOLKS! The huge (32 x 23 space) Super Scape board for The Infinity Gauntlet is set up for tomorrow's game, with almost every type of Heroscape terrain known to humankind. See discussions on Marvelscape threads including the basic scenario just revised again (and now with Map Discription) in Maps and Scenarios, and discussions about combining Super and Classic/VC Scape in Comic Custom Creations, plus 'Who Will Win' predictions for this innovative scenario. The three player teams are up, with both Good and Evil team members-- including 2,000 structured points by character class each of "Mixed Supers" from all different designers according to player choice/whim by the very creative and possibly insane New York City Gang of Four--yes, the very Topmost Secret Team Thanos will be revealed this Thursday for the first time after the game! Dum Dum DUM!!! "And let the Multiverse tremble! For my time has finally come! Oh Death, Where Is Thy Sting?" --Thanos, Mad Titan, Infinity Gem Collector, And All Around Nasty Guy |
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Posted April 8th, 2014 at 01:55 PM by kolakoski |
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