Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Okay, cool. Not 100% on if I want to go all the way down to 600 points as a power level, but we can tweak things if she doesn't feel thematically strong enough. Sounds like the general direction is a winner. :up:

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Thinking about it, Aerial Advantage could be a good option for Mothra, she's very rarely on the ground from what I've seen.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

I'm not actually that hot on Aerial Advantage as a power - I think it takes some of the fun out of positioning. Probably wouldn't spring for it on Mothra.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Got a doozie. Sorry I'm coming in late with this. I'll do a cliff's notes below each one. I'm sure there's a lot that could be done to trim these down as well.

The Shobijin, as noted in the top-left speech bubble in the picture above, are the ones who direct Mothra to rescue others.
Mothra's concerns typically flow in the order of:
Shobijin>Easter Island>Everything Else.
The empathy of the twins taking on the plight of humanity is what often drives Mothra to protect others. Mothra may more efficiently defend them and others with the twins, less so when independent of them, and being more aggressive if the Shobijin were destroyed.
Their famous song can make a Mothra Larva hatch or develop in half the time.
They aren't apart very often at all, so I don't mind them being a multi-person Hero, Ant/Rat Swarm style. Not sure if Priestesses is the best wording, even though that is their role.
Mothra's precious egg, which you dare not harm, even collaterally, lest you face an even worse punishment from Momma Mothra.

Allows the option of twin Larva. Can only hatch once per game. Can't get a the Larva before it's ready. And if one is ready, while the other is not, and you decide to hatch, you only get 1 Larva.

A Larva starts the game at 4 Life Cycle markers. It can start the game on the battlefield ready to Cocoon, but the Cocoon will not be as strong.
If it begins in the egg, it must shed 4 to hatch, and then regain the minimum required 4 to Cocoon over the course of 4 numbered turns. Or 2 with Shobijin.

It's possible a larva could revive a previously destroyed Adult Mothra, but only once. It could also bring about one of Mothra's many other Adult forms, if we ever decide to do them.

I revamped Queen of the Monsters to reflect her behavior both when fighting alongside and against Godzilla.
She can team up with a fellow Larva against Godzilla, as in Mothra vs Godzilla, or she can convince Godzilla and Rodan to help her take down Ghidorah, as in Monster Zero. (I also imagine Showa/base-level Rodan as Unique Hero level)
A double Larva Silk OM removal can really tie up a monster. I threw in the movement after the Silk attack because of her pop-in, spray, pop-back technique seen in 1964. That detail is not completely necessary though.

Reused my version of Queen of the Monsters. Kept Poison Scales and Stealth Flying.
I like keeping her Range at 1 so she doesn't just Kite Godzilla.

I went with Merciful instead of Benevolent, because even though she's not villainous, she puts her own priorities above the rest of Humanity, and is Merciful thanks to the Shobijin.
I'm not sure what's best, Protector, Guardian or Deity. My instinct was Deity.
Gamera is Guardian of the Universe, but not a god. King Kong is a Protector of the people of Skull Island, but not a god.
Megalon is a Guardian/Protector of Seatopia, I don't think a god though.
Manda, I've seen referred to as a Deity, but not sure how accurate that is, and I would go more with Guardian. King Caesar, kind of a God/Guardian combo.
If I had a hierarchy, I'd make it:
Mothra>Caesar>Manda>Megalon
And out of all of them, Mothra protects the whole Earth sometimes, and seemingly can't be fully killed. I think to distinguish her above more "Local Guardians," I would go Deity. Being a full blown Diety is what puts her in the league of Godzilla and Ghidorah.

Rebirth of Mothra allows you to make a Larva hatch. And if you have no Egg, you can put those Order Markers on anything else in her army. Because sometimes, the best thing she can do is put her spirit into one of her fellow Kaiju.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Cool stuff, toyhandle! Gonna share my thoughts starting from the Imago form and working backwards. (Mostly my thoughts on the Shobijin and the Egg just follow from my thoughts on the Imago/Larva)

Mothra (Imago)
I'm a little iffy on Deity as a class in general, but it's in the toolbox, so what the hey. Agreed that it's a solid fit on Mothra.

Personally I don't like her being Kaiju Professor X. That version of QotM does really evoke Ghidorah so it doesn't doesn't feel wrong, but it's not must-have either, and I think it really pigeonholes her, in terms of army builds. That was something my first draft got flak for, admittedly, but I think this one hits the all-Kaiju-huge-game-exclusivity way harder; Mothra's like the Superman or Batman of her universe and I really want her to be someone I can team up with other icons, y'know?

I thought about doing Rebirth stuff but deliberately avoided it for basically the same reason: I wanted to keep the Imago form as self-contained/crossover-friendly as possible, and leave the life cycle stuff up to larva/egg cards to carry.

Mothra (Larva)
I think you're hitting all the right theme notes in this write-up, but the implementation of the Coccoon is really involved. I'd simplify way down to:

I think the cocoon taking a little time feels more thematic, and having the window where it can be attacked counter-balances the ability to keep spawning Imago Mothra into the game.

I also probably wouldn't go full-on Queen of the Monsters on the Larva form; irrespective of what that power ends up looking like, I think it cheapens it a little if the Larva also get it. I want that Mothra transformation to feel like a big deal.

I do like having bonding on the Larva though. I'd just definitely give them a separate (probably simpler) power. Something more on the level of like:

On the SA, I don't think it feels right for the Silk to be cutting through defense - I don't think of it as something that actually really does damage ever. (At least against the other monsters) I might not even implement it as an attack. Probably just a "choose a figure and roll a d20" style thing. It'd be cool if it had some lasting effect for the rest of your player turn that the bonding power could exploit. It'd give you an incentive to have them running around and actually doing stuff instead of just being Mothra resurrection batteries.

Mothra Egg
I was really debating the other day whether or not the egg deserved its own card; psyched to see someone else is this crazy too.

Like with the Larva, though, I'm a little leery of the complexity of the Life Cycle Marker stuff. And I'm not sure there's really a benefit to having anything hatch out of the Egg at present. It's just delaying the arrival of key figures to the game. I'd:
-keep the general concept of Undisturbed Nest
-let the Egg start wherever on the battlefield
-do like a The Drop style mechanic where eventually it just hatches. Maybe have the odds ratchet up over time.

That way you're at least getting a free deploy out of it.

Mechanically I don't think the "you control the Egg" stuff is important. I'd make sure to clarify that the Larvae occupy the Egg though - occupied DOs get some exemptions from auto-destroy stuff.

Shobijin
I like the concept of them helping Mothra integrate with more figures. I wouldn't do the attack boost thing, though - I worry that it incentivizes getting them killed. (And again, I'd really ditch the Life Cycle Markers)

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Awesome, awesome awesome.

The Rebirth of Mothra can use a name change, but the power on Imago is just Batman’s Contingency plan, so her Order Markers can go to any figure you want. Should be nice and self contained/crossover friendly in that regard. That, with her possibility of returning makes her more active/frontline than Prof X at least.

:D Thank you for shaving it down. That looks much better. Though it does force you to have a Destroyed Imago with no option of waiting to bring her out later. Possibly Imgao may have something somewhere stating she may start the game off the battlefield, and Cocoon just switches in an Event Mothra on its card, removing any wound markers that may be on it? Not sure you'd want to save her for later, but it fits with her original film, and is kind of Raiden-y

Awesome! I was trying to avoid turns with Godzilla+1 since he’s so devastating, but limiting the bond to just 1 Larva mitigates that.

Yeah, I wasn’t too sure about the damage thing. It did defeat Godzilla though. I thought about how wrapped up he was, he might have suffocated if he didn’t drop into the ocean. But also, the force of the impact from something that huge jetting out a stream might kill something smaller. In King of the Monsters, the Larva kills/seriously injures a few soldiers with it.
Here’s a variation of Impact Webbing that injures small/med figures.

SILK STREAM
Start the game with 3 white Webbing Markers on this card. After moving, and before attacking with this figure, you may choose a figure within 5 clear sight spaces. Roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 12 or higher, and the targeted figure is Medium or Small, that figure receives a wound, and if it is a Unique or Event Hero, you may place a Web Marker on its card. Before taking a turn with a Unique or Event Hero with one or more Webbing Marker placed on its card by this special power, that player must roll the 20-sided die. If that player rolls 1-12, that figure may not move, subtracting 1 from the roll for each Web Marker on its card. If that player rolls 13 or higher, return all Webbing Markers placed on its card by this special to cards with the Silk Stream special power.

That’s awesome. Really like it starting anywhere, and The Drop mechanic.

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA
You may start the game with up to 2 Unique Mothra on this card. Destroyed Unique Mothra may be placed on this card.No more than two Unique Mothra may be placed on this card at any time. If there is a Unique Mothra on this card, at the start of every round, roll the 20 sided die. If you roll # or higher, remove the Mothra Egg from the game and place any Unique Mothra on this card on or adjacent to any space previously occupied by the Mothra Egg.

Agreed on the Attack Boost and Life Cycle markers. How about they increase your roll for the Egg Hatch? And maybe extra defense for a Cocooned Larva?


On a related note, check out what was announced today!
https://i.imgur.com/JUOxMNU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wDMoipL.jpg
Coming out Q421/Q122. Kind of pricy at $85 per set of 4, but that's pretty comparable to the asking price of any figures we're already looking at.

They list Godzilla as 4.5in tall, making him a bit taller than the Heroclix Giganto whale figure.
There's no shots of them all standing together, but you can get an idea of how they size against one another.
https://i.imgur.com/HXE0Sd3.jpg

The Showa era Kaiju were smaller than the Heisei kaiju. This shows how 90's King G and Godzilla stack up against Rodan, Anguirus and Gigan.
https://i.imgur.com/U1Vu1nk.jpg
I think the Playmates/Bandai Godzilla, Destroyah, King G figures could look pretty good relative to scale with these upcoming figures.

These figures might be a chance to do some fun Showa centric versions of the characters, like a sillier Godzilla. I also don't think we'll get Gorosaurus any other way either.

One shame is that the King Caesar figure I nabbed will be way out of scale with these, but I have a feeling these will be very popular, and we'll likely see a huge range of monsters coming out of this, including him, and others like Titanosaurus.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Oh, that figure line is cool - might provide some more figure options for some of the ones that are supposed to be a little smaller.

More thoughts on the designs later! (Maybe tomorrow) Trying to knock out some playtests tonight.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Godzilla finally proved vincible with Ericth74's X-Men taking him down for a clean kill tonight. He's still in the tourney, though. :-D Figured I'd toss that in here as Godzilla-relevant news.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Thought about it, and you're right, Mothra Imago doesn't need bonding. Being a leader/team player is more of a Larva thing.

I might go for:
QUEEN OF THE MONSTERS
Add 1 to Mothra's Attack number for each figure in your army with wounds on its card and each destroyed Destructible Object, up to a maximum of +#

Going for that aspect of her that protects life on Earth, including trees, but also avoids wanton destruction when possible. Might compel Godzilla to be less destructive, until later in the game when it no longer matters.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

Imago
Hmm, fair point on the Rebirth power having generalist applications - there definitely is something thematic in having a Mothra who's always ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I could get behind that take on QotM.

Larva
The main reason I didn't try to do a "you may start the game with a Mothra Imago off the battlefield" type effect was that I just wasn't sure anyone would bother to take that option? Like if you have the choice between either running her out once and letting her die, then bringing her back, or just never getting that first run, you're gonna take the first run, right?

So we'd need to have something to incentivize holding off instead. But I didn't really want to push players toward just holding Mothra back and strictly building egg -> larva -> coccoon -> imago every game, because that "parent Mothra goes down early and gets replaced by its offspring" arc does feel really iconic to me. And on top of that, doing more to try to make "hold Mothra back" a viable option is inherently gonna add complexity.

One thought I had on this front was that we could maybe go the route of a Mothra Leo card to be like the "Mothra that really wants to join the game late" version of Mothra?

I dig that reworked approach to Silk Stream. Wounding smaller figures but obstructing big ones feels right.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

I picked up a Bandai Mothra and like the scale next to our other monsters.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen..._214030780.jpg

Wings are of course enormous, but the footprint of the body is a reasonable size (about two hexes long). May need a flight stand or something to make it work on the battlefield.

Re: Godzilla and friends
 

So jealous.
How much was it?
Amazon?