Scaper of the week #44 - Dignan

Here we are again. And on time, too! Apparently, Dignan is the yin to DrLivingston's yang, or vice versa depending on which one (yin or yang) is the more manly symbol.

Dignan is punctual, quick to the point, and - as I just found out - doesn't think I'm cool at all.

In my defense, though, I have seen bits and pieces of Bottle Rocket when it first came out in the movie theatre, but not the whole movie (used to work there, if you're wondering).

Hope that makes me kinda cool. Probably not.

Wanna know what the heck I'm talking about? Read on below to find out.

I present to you:


Dignan
-Scaper of the Week # 44!




Who are you?
I'm Jason Jullie.

My wife and I on the beach in Galveston, TX.

Who, or what, is your avatar and how did you come up with your username?
My avatar is a Laglor with a little photoshop to add my college's logo (Go Wildcats!). Laglor is probably my all time favorite unit and one of the main reasons I really got into the game. I played in a big match one time at my borther-in-law's place and this guy had Laglor and Gorillinators in a castle. They were tearing everything up. I thought they were the coolest thing I had ever seen. He's a freaking pirate, cyborg, monkey for crying out loud!

My user name is from an early Wes Anderson film called Bottle Rocket. The main character in the film is a guy named Dignan (played by Owen Wilson). While the character is nothing like me, I think he's freaking hilarious and awesome. Also, the username has served me well as a device to determine if someone is cool. When people online recognize the reference, I know they have an excellent sense of humor and are probably awesome like me.

The Wilson brothers in Bottle Rocket. Owen plays Dignan.

Age: 30

Occupation?

Architectural Engineer. I work mainly on hospitals. I design the electrical systems throughout the entire building. Essentially my design starts from the utility transformer outside the building, includes every switchboard, generator and panel in the building and brings power to everything in the hospital that needs it. It's a pretty rewarding and interesting job if you are a geek.

Allegiance and why?
Vydar. Laglor lead me to them and there I found Glads/Blasts (my favorite army). At my first tournament (NHSD 07) I saw IMax playing a Glad/Blast army and I thought it was the coolest looking army ever. The sculpts are great and the color scheme is nice and clean.

When did you get into HeroScape and why?
Heroscape wasn't love at first sight for me. I am an old school minis gamer (I got into Warhammer 18 years ago) and in college I got heavily into boardgaming. A boardgaming friend of mine got Heroscape when it first came out and we played a few times. I thought it was OK and we both really never played it again. Strike one.

Fast forward a few years, I was at a game night at my brother-in-laws (the aforementioned Laglor sighting) and a guy brought over his collection. He had probably two or three master sets and a castle set and one of every unit out at the time (no duplicates). I thought it was an insane amount of Heroscape to own. Little did I realize that a few years down the road my collection would dwarf that.

Anyway, we played a few games and had a good time, but I never thought I'd invest enough in the game to really get into it. It seemed like it would be too much to get into. So I passed again. Strike two.

Finally, a buddy of mine was getting married out of state. For his bachelor party all he wanted to do was hang out, drink, and board game. Problem was, my collection was a few hundred miles away and he wasn't in his home town. So, I ran to the local Toys R Us, bought an RotV, Racknar's vision and some other small booster.

We had a freaking blast drinking and playing in my crappy hotel room in Topeka. The next day I picked up some more packs and I was well on my way to Heroscape addiction.

Favorite aspect of HeroScape and why?
Two things: No blind purchases and pre-painted minis. I've gone down both roads. Obviously I started with Warhammer (and Warhammer 40k). I've spent hours upon countless hours putting together and painting hordes and hordes of figures. When I was a kid, I had tons of time to devote to that sort of thing, but now, I simply can't commit to that.

In my college years I got into Mage Knight. It had prepainted minis and solved my time issues with miniature painting. However, the rarity balance and chase issue eventually resulted in me petering out with the game.

Heroscape is a great minis game that comes pre-painted and lets me buy exactly what I want and need.

Favorite Hero and why?
Laglor. Like I said before, it's tough to beat a cyborg, pirate monkey. Especially one with rapid fire guns.

Favorite Unique Squad and why?
Tagawa Samurai. These guys are a blast to play. I love the bloodlust ability combined with counterstrike. It's great to get these guys going and start tearing up the map.

Favorite Common Squad and why?
This is a close one, but I'm going to go with Zombies. I love these guys. Once they roll up into your opponent's start zone it's all gravy.

Favorite Special ability and why?
Zombies Rise Again. Simply one of the coolest things ever is to kill your opponent's unit and have a zombie pop up in it's place. Aside from it being cool, it's pretty powerful

Tournament play, or casual style?
Tournament play. While I don't mind a casual, anything goes, build a giant map game, I'm much more into smaller maps with two people facing off at around 500 points. We have a casual environment at my place, but we play tournament style maps.

Anything you'd change about the game - a unit, rule, or mechanic?
Top on my list would be changing tough on Gorrillinators to work against special attacks. They are a great unit that gets unfairly handicapped due to a surge in special attacks after their release.

How did the Competitive Unit Congress come about, for those that may not know?
I started the competitive unit congress in response to a thread I made. I had created a thread mainly to list all the minor changes to units I'd make so that they would be more competitive in a tournament environment. The thread generated a decent amount of discussion and I wanted a way to get the community involved in making a list of changes (as opposed to it being just my list).

The Competitive Unit Congress is just a system for a group of like minded 'scapers to test out various "fixes" to units. Our goal is to create a community list of changes to under-used units that have been tested and that we feel are balanced.

Can we expect an errata'ed unit tournament anytime soon?
Well, the CUC is a slow process. We have to spend time testing out all the changes that get proposed. Playtesting is something that you don't want to rush. However, I will be running an event with CUC units once we get some changes made.

What do you enjoy most about Heroscapers.com?
It's a great community of people. The posters on this board listen to each other and have earnest and civil (for the most part) debates. The level of respect and civility on the boards is unparalleled.

Favorite HeroScape moment:
Well, like everyone here, the list of great Heroscape moments is a mile long. I'll recount the most recent great heroscape moment.

It happened this weekend at the DFW team tournament. Longheroscaper and his brother were playing RevDyer and Rÿchean. Obviously, with two heavyweight teams the game was extremely close and well played. Ry and Rev were able to put pressure on Long's brother and take him out, but Long had Q9 in a dominant position over Rev's 4th Mass.

Rÿchean moved his stingers across the board in an effort to help Rev and his dwindling 4th. Q9 took two wounds but Rev was finally taken out. Ry was eventually left with just a stinger sitting on a wound glyph well out of Q9's range. He smartly decided to sit back and let the wound glyph tick off another quarter of the major's life.

By this point in the game, nearly everyone at the tournament had gathered around the table. Everyone knew this was a big battle. At the end of the round Rÿchean picked up his D20 and was ready to place another wound on Q9. Of course, he rolled a 1. The game was over and the place erupted in roars of laughter and disbelief.

It was a truly awesome game and encapsulated everything that is great about Heroscape.

Can you give us any insight into what it's like being a BoV judge?
Well, I won't lie, it's pretty freaking awesome. I mean, the cars you get, the babes, the free tickets to Cowboy's games, invitations to the white house, etc, etc. The job has it's perks.

Joking aside, I love being a BoV judge. For a long time on this site I was a mapmaker trying to reach the goal of getting a map into the BoV. Now that I'm a judge I try to view each map from that perspective. I try my hardest to give each map (and the associated mapmaker) the respect they deserve.

The trickiest part of the job is saying "NO". We see good maps submitted all the time. But we have to vote some of them out because they aren't the best of the best. When I was sitting on the outside, I thought it's be easy to vote NO, but now that I'm a judge, I want to avoid discouraging good mapmakers.

I think that the community as a whole is getting better every day at making balanced maps. I browse the events section and am often surprised by the number of unique and balanced maps I find at each tournament. There are a ton of great maps on this site.

Favorite map you enjoy playing on (not counting your own)?
I know it's a worn out map and everyone and their brother is tired of playing on it, but Highways and Dieways is my favorite map to play on. Before I got into competitive Heroscaping, I saw a picture of it linked into a boardgamegeek.com thread. I was blown away by it. It was completely different than anything me and my friends had built.

It's literally the map that got me into Heroscapers.com and mapmaking. I love what it does for balance and speed. And it looks great.

Favorite map of yours?
I'd have to say "If you can't take the heat..." is my favorite. I'm not sure what it is about that map, but I really like the way it plays. I always have a good time playing on this one and I really like the look of the lava and jungle set together. It's not perfect, but I feel like there is a lot of "game" to be had on this map (if that makes any sense).

Did you attend NHSD '07, and if so, how did you fair?
Yeah, it was my first event. I had no idea what I was doing. My friends and I had never played in a tournament environment. Hell, I only one a few common squads with more than one set. I showed up with 2xRomans, Marcus, New Drake, and the AE. I went 2-3.

I probably would have gone 3-2 but in a match against gruts, New Drake got chomped on the first roll. I still almost pulled that one out. But we had a great time at the event and have been attending DFW tournaments ever since.

Shaolin Monks or Macdirk Warriors?
Come on! Macdirks all the way. I love those guys. They have been known to put the hurt on some people.

Another board game you enjoy and why?
Gah! That's a tough one. I have a wall of games at my house all of which I enjoy. Right now, my favorite is probably StarCraft. I love epic multiplayer war games. StarCraft has tons of fighting, great looking bits, and is always a great way to spend an evening with some friends.

Three true things and one lie about yourself:
1. I was the lead designer on a Bungie computer game expansion.
2. I was the ring leader of an Atlanta bombing crime ring (not something I'm proud of).
3. I was on the practice team for K-State basketball and rejected Michael Beasley one time.
4. I starred in the direct to VHS crime drama The Boys Downtown.

Other interests?
I'm currently training to go to the national tournament for whirlyball this year. It's a bizarre game where you have two teams of 5 players in bumper cars. You play on a court the size of a basketball court and you drive around with these odd scoops shooting a whiffle ball at goal.

It's the craziest thing going. I first played it 5 years ago at a company event. Ever since, a few friends and myself have been hooked. This year, the guys who run the place invited us to train with them for the national tournament.

It's just like Heroscape in a way. For most people it's just an odd way to pass time for an hour or so, but for a small group of people, it gets taken to a whole new level. My friends and I having been practicing for weeks and we still don't have the basics of tournament level whirlyball down yet.

So this year, I'm going to actually take vacation from my real job to attend a fake sport national tournament AND a children's board game national tournament. It's a wonder I ever found a wife.

Any Heroscapers member you'd really like to play against?
I would love to play a game against fellow BoV judge nyys. He's seems like a cool guy, despite being a Patriots fan. At least he knows that the Yankees suck.

What message do you have for the community?
In the immortal words of Bill S. Preston esquire, "Be excellent to each other."

Who do you pick for the next 'Scaper of the Week?
Matthias Maccabeus