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This is a neater way of storing my playtests for my customs that I want other people to be able to see. I mostly intend on posting about units that I'd like to submit to the SoV.
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M.A.R.S. vs. Marro Drudge

Posted January 17th, 2021 at 11:28 AM by Astroking112
I've been somewhat lax in recording playtests for M.A.R.S. lately, but recent changes to his normal attack (4 range, 4 attack) have proven to be acceptable while avoiding the pitfall of Hoplitron Bonding. I'm not a big fan of how this makes it easier to avoid friendly damage, but 4 range and 2 attack was the main viable alternative, which would probably make him weak enough to need a further points decrease that I'd prefer to avoid.

As it is, M.A.R.S. has been regularly underperforming. That's largely intended, though, given that he is such a swingy figure with a lot of devastating potential. I wanted to test him out at least one more time on the relatively flat terrain of the AotV maps, which makes his 4 move much less crippling. The results follow below:

CUSTOM MAP:
Spoiler Alert!
No Glyphs
Astro: M.A.R.S., Sonlen, Asterios, Shiori (450)
Dawn: Marro Drudge x4, Re-Tak-Shi, Me-Burq-Sa, Krug (450)

VERSION OF M.A.R.S. TESTED
Spoiler Alert!


GAME SUMMARY:
I led by spreading out OMs a bit to make sure that both M.A.R.S. and Asterios would stand out as threats, with Sonlen behind them to offer support or fill in as needed. Dawn moved up Re-Tak-Shi and the Marro Drudge, but then decided to engage M.A.R.S. on the central height with Me-Burq-Sa to limit his targeting potential. She then surrounded Re-Tak-Shi with Drudges, shooting up at M.A.R.S. to try and break through his defense. This ate up a couple of turns, and I managed to get one more missile barrage off with a good number of targets but minimal damage dealt. M.A.R.S. fell the next turn.

Luckily, Asterios then went absolutely berserk and killed ~9 Drudges on his own. Sonlen followed to provide backup, healing as necessary and cleaning up the other Drudges and RTS. Once Krug was engaged, though, he swiftly ended Asterios, lumbered over to Sonlen with 1 life remaining, and then beat the Archmage into a pulp in one turn.

It was then Shiori against a fully angered Krug for the final battle. She managed to skirt around him for just long enough to kill him with a Shuriken, winning the game.

SURVIVING UNITS:
Shiori
60 Points Left

POWER USAGE:
M.A.R.S. got 4 OMs in total. One in the first round to just cross some ground. Then he pulled off a SA, normal attack, and then SA again.

His first SA targeted a Drudge + Re-Tak-Shi and Me-Burg-Sa for (1/3) skulls. Dealt 1 wound to RTS and killed the Drudge.

His normal attack was (2/4) when he was engaged by MBS on the central height. It was blocked.

His final SA targeted 3 Drudges, MBS, RTS, and himself for (1/3). Only dealt 1 wound to MBS (one more skull would have killed all of the Drudges).

He was finished off my the Drudges next turn.

Total Damage Dealt: ~50 Points, with 1 more skull would've been ~100

THOUGHTS:
M.A.R.S. is very swingy because of his reliance on one 3 attack roll. It's pretty evocative of Zelrig, albeit harder to set up and much harder to kite with. That said, the targeting potential is a joy to play with and terrifying to go against. I don't really care if he's a "good" figure competitively or not, so he feels like he's in a pretty good place to me. He feels distinct and memorable with a minimal tweak to a common SA archetype.

I'm planning to submit him again pretty soon.
Total Comments 2

Comments

Old
Shiftrex's Avatar
I didn't realize you recorded your test data in blogs too until I saw your post in SoV. Nicely done! I may steal your template because it looks like a good way to organize your thoughts.

It looks like you are having a good time playing him. If you want someone to run your unit against you sometime and give you additional thoughts I'll gladly volunteer. I kinda wish you had gotten that extra skull to kill your point's worth because that kind of tempo usually changes choices made by the opponent. Definitely appreciate seeing close games with a unit, it communicates that it was probably fun and fair for both people to interact with.
Posted January 17th, 2021 at 11:45 PM by Shiftrex Shiftrex is online now
Old
Astroking112's Avatar
Yeah, I found that this is a very convenient way of being able to sort playtests by relevant figures and easily collect the data. I'm glad to see that someone else had the same idea!

And thanks for the offer! If I had seen this comment before the submission of M.A.R.S., I definitely would've taken you up on the offer. Facing the missile barrages of M.A.R.S. can be pretty intimidating and help keep his potential in mind, especially when he underwhelms.

Since he's already been submitted, though, I'm planning to return to mostly Yokai testing until I get the next wave of them submitted (at least unless he fails the process relatively soon). If you still either want to run a game with him for fun or to test the Yokai sometime, just let me know!
Posted January 24th, 2021 at 05:03 PM by Astroking112 Astroking112 is offline
 
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