Customs Creation - April 2016

Tandem Designs Part 2:
The Practice
by Son of Arathorn

Last time around, I discussed the theory of Tandem Designs. To recap, when you design a faction, or even just two units with synergy, following the Tandem Design principle means that you settle on the relationship between the two (or more) units before hammering out the hard details. That relationship can consist of bonding, buffs, or having each unit cover the other’s weak spots. For instance, Grimnak gives the Blade Gruts a much-needed boost to their attack and defense, and, in return, they give him multi-attack potential via bonding.

Today, I’m going to take us through a rough sketch of what designing in tandem looks like. For my example, I’m going to use two of my own customs: Grondos the Mighty, and Allahar the Swift. Mind you, these guys aren’t finished yet (play-testing needs to be done and what-not), but this should give you an idea of what it’s like to follow the Tandem Design theory.

So when sitting down to design this pair, I asked myself: what’s the relationship they can have that is mutually beneficial? I decided to go very simple—one should be able to handle masses of common squads, and the other should be able to handle more powerful heroes. But where’s the link between them? Can’t call it a faction if they can’t help each other out, right? We aren’t looking to create two isolated heroes, one good against squads and one against heroes (for instance, Zelrig and Crixus do not a faction make). My answer to this was straight-up bonding.

This brings up a question of theme when designing in tandem. It can be tricky to pull of a relationship that fits the miniatures you’re working with, or to find miniatures that fit the relationship you want to design. This goes double when working with bonding—if it’s between a hero and squad, the hero’s leadership has to be believable. In this case, it must be plausible that these behemoths could work together. I decided that making the characters related personally (through backstory and a neat power name) would give sufficient justification for highly specific bonding. And so the special power Brother’s Bonding was born.

Now that we have a way for our faction to work together, how do we express the mutually beneficial relationship we set out at the start of the design process? How do we make Grondos good against squads, but not heroes, and Allahar good against heroes, but not squads? Again, we need to keep our expression of this relationship in line with the theme of the miniatures.

Taking Grondos first—what does the miniature express? Right away, it’s a very big, bulky mini, with a very large weapon. And of course, it’s an anthropomorphized rhinoceros (kinda hard to miss that). Now, I tend to think of rhinos as slow and ponderous, but very tough to take down. So in order to make him better against squads than heroes, right away I thought that the special power Tough was a good way to express his ability to shrug off weaker attacks dished out by squads, but leave him vulnerable to heroes with higher attack values, or special attacks that can get by Tough. For his third and final power, I needed a way for him to take down squads, not just resist their attacks. That’s where the miniature’s weapon comes in. That huge battle-axe made me picture a warrior cutting a wide swathe through a crowd of enemy mooks, sometimes two or three at a time. So why not tweak Cleave, an anti-squad power, to make it a little scarier, and more in line with the scale of the miniature? Thus, Great Cleave was created.

Turning to Allahar—again, what does the miniature remind us of? Standing next to Grondos, it’s easy to see Allahar is slimmer, carries two smaller weapons, and wears less armor. As a lion, he evokes the idea of a big cat—fast, deadly against one figure (like his prey), and able to dish out a ton of damage with a single blow. Anyone who’s seen their house-cat hunt knows what I’m talking about. In order to bring that idea of high damage against one target, I turned to VC’s Varkaanan Quickblades, and the First Strike special power. That gives him a way to throw a lot of dice, as desired. It also bumps his move, allowing him to reach his target. To me, this power really fit the idea of a cat pouncing on its prey. So Allahar can reach his target and do some damage, but what if there’s a screen in the way? Allahar is naturally faster than Grondos, so waiting for the rhino to catch up and clear out whatever’s between Allahar and the big hero doesn’t make a ton of sense. But giving Allahar a way to wipe out those screens doesn’t fit his theme, and would do Grondos’ job for him. So instead of letting him clear the screen out of the way, I gave him a way to move through it with the Long Stride special power.

So now that their special powers are hammered out, we can turn briefly to base stats and left-box stats. As we’ve discussed, we’re trying to emphasize that Grondos is slow, but tough, while Allahar is faster, but more fragile. So Allahar gets a higher move value than Grondos, and a higher life value (though Grondos will be tougher to kill since he’s, well, Tough). For their left-box stats, I made them both fighters to avoid synergy with other units. Their personalities stem from their play-styles and intended background theme. Grondos is slower and able to take more punishment, so he’s stoic. Allahar runs through the crowd, going for a cheerleader or high-cost hero, but is more vulnerable, so he’s bold. The contrast between the two plays up the buddy-cop dynamic I had in the back of my mind when creating these two.

So now we have a rough draft of the two, designed from their relationship to their special powers and base stats, instead of the other way around.

Images courtesy of Ninja Status

Now, reflecting on these two, there are a couple things I’d change. First off, I’d probably switch their attack values, so that Allahar can get an even bigger shot at heroes, but Grondos isn’t so solid against them while still being able to put the hurt on squads. I would also consider lowering Grondos’ life to 5, and bumping his defense to 3, to reinforce the “tank” idea—big armor, less endurance. Finally, depending on how Allahar performs in testing, I’d consider dumping First Strike, raising his move and attack to 7, and giving him Defensive Agility, so he can survive longer against high-attack heroes. If he struggles to take out even cheerleaders behind enemy lines, I’d probably make this change. However, if he’s capable of assassinating figures like Raelin, Marcus Decimus Gallus, Agent Skahen, etc. (but not the biggest of heroes like dragons and soulborgs), I might keep his original set of powers.

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