Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Yeah, thinking about it, I'm not really sure what a Sports Car is providing that Hawkeye can't in that regard (aside from carrying up to 2 figures at a time and being functionally uncommon - maybe that's it?)

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Bailey driving into the enemy and exploding sounds pretty awesome. :)

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

They provide really good protection - figures in vehicles aren't on the battlefield and they can't be targeted for attacks or most special powers. (That also impairs a lot of bonding powers, so you can lose some efficiency by piling into vehicles)

They also don't take LEAs.

My first test exploited that, with Conan effectively hiding in the car (forcing the enemy to punch through it before they had a shot at him) and doling out auto-wounds.

Conan isn't that slow, but he's a rare figure who, if he takes an auto-wound when the car is destroyed, actually benefits.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Sounds like Wolverine would like a car. Should we up the wounds received from crashing your car to balance the advantage some?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Maybe. Could be a reasonable measure, but I don't know that it's necessary yet.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

OK. Sounds good. :up: Thanks for tackling this.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Just curious because of the Rip Hunter discussion, are you allowing figures in vehicles to use special powers?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Slightly more significant tweak to the existing rules, but I'd be in favour - it's thematically justifiable and it might help balance it more.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I wasn't in the first two games. It would have been a non-factor in the two games I played (because I planned armies around not being able to), but I might plan some slightly different armies for future games, with special powers on the table for figures in vehicles.

"Zombies driving cars" strategy gets a boost from figures in vehicles using special powers, since Lurkers can chill in cars and command Walkers outside the cards.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

This line will need to be changed:

You can't take a turn with a figure not on the battlefield.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Yeah, I noticed that some of the language needs tweaked. You wouldn't control a figure occupying a vehicle.

Let me know if you catch anything else that needs an update.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Lost my notes on my first three games, but my basic impression was that the Sports Car was fine at 150 and went 1-2. I'll run two more and formally type those up and then we can move this along.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Sports Car

Army Test
Map: Green Lantern (Mogo)
Units: Sports Car @150, Mantis, Zombie, Larfleeze, Alien Drone, Atom (1000) vs Captain America, Bucky, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Iron Man Mk IV (1000)


Army Test
Map: Mountain Spring
Units: Sports Car @150, Star-Lord, Mantis, Nebula, White Tiger (1000) vs Fantastic Four (1000)


THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: The Sports Car feels okay to me at 150 - it went 2-3 counting the games that I lost my notes for.

Its greatest tactical advantage is probably the protection it offers for its occupants, but the mobility and auto-wounds ain't bad either.

I think further testing should probably focus on ways to leverage figures in the Sports Car being able to use special powers - that was used a little bit in the later games here, but I didn't set up the armies to really try and juice that. Also, more multi-car games and games with squads driving cars would be interesting to see.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Great job on the tests! :up:

Any tips on figures that might be good for abusing the car with special powers?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Not immediately. I wasn't looking for that when I was initially looking for figures to test the car with. Any thoughts from @dok ?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Awesome stuff! Glad to see this moving.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Where do I look at the actual designs of the vehicles?

If you are allowed to reveal OMs as usual, can you use "instead of taking a turn" powers while on a vehicle card? Can Nick Fury or Mad Thinker use their bonding powers (which do not have clear sight requirements) from inside the vehicle?

The same questions apply to figures on Kang2's card, as I noted before. But Kang2 is expensive and demands a certain sort of build. The "hide your Joker/Ozy/Silk Spectre/Destiny/bonding hub/etc" strategy works a lot better when you're hiding them in a relatively cheap vehicl, that spits them out when they die, as opposed to an expensive Kang that doesn't.

Basically, I think the biggest competitive use for vehicles will be as a suit of armor for figures that don't currently need to be in the fray.

But that's without seeing the vehicle cards themselves.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Sports Car and Mole Machine (untested as of yet). And the current vehicle rules.

Agreed on the 'car armor' point.

I think unlike Kang (II), vehicles could allow you to use 'instead of taking a turn' powers. I started testing before we flipped that Kang (II) ruling, though, so I wasn't really hitting that at first.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Sports Car
Mole Machine


We don't have any others yet.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

We have some flexibility in that we're gonna be updating the Vehicle Rules to make em draftable anyway - if you think it would be worth specifically shutting down special powers for figures in vehicles, in order to keep them from just being Joker Armor or whatever, I think that would be a reasonable tweak to keep their costs from being inflated too much.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Yeah... this needs to get addressed. When it was just Kang2 and a few opponent's abilities, it didn't really matter from a competitive perspective. But if we allow "instead of taking a turn" powers, or even more general synergy powers (e.g. Destiny Probability Manipulation, Joker(I)/Ozy OM stuff, etc) to be done from inside the vehicle, then it's a very big deal.

I believe the ruling is still that you can't take "instead of taking a turn" powers from Kang's card. See the Nick Fury ruling:

You can reveal the OM on a non-destroyed off-battlefield figure, but you can't take a turn, is the way I interpret it.

Possible solutions in the next post.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

If we don't want the costs of these things to be driven by the ability to provide armor to support/bonding/passive power figures, then here are my suggestions:

• Go through the the relevant powers of passive non-LOS support figures like Destiny, and probably Joker(I) and Ozy, and add a "while you control Destiny" to powers like probability manipulation. This sets it such that they can't use the powers unless the figure is physically on the battlefield.
  
  
• Change the way OM reveals on figures in vehicles works so that it's clear the figure doesn't take a turn in the normal way. There's a lot of ways to do it, but the gist of it is you need to cut off the ability to use "instead of taking a turn" powers.

Nulling all powers while in vehicles would obviously work, although it might be overkill (I think it's OK for Healing Factor X to work inside a vehicle, for example).

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I don't mind healing factors not working in vehicles, if only because it means there's that much less reward for turtling inside them.

(And no special powers really simplifies testing)

Obviously you'd need some kind of carve-out for powers like Lady Blackhawk's that are specifically meant to work inside vehicles, but that's not a ton of language or anything.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

If figures can't use special powers at all while in vehicles, will that really dull the desire to draft them? Or do you feel they bring enough else to the table?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I was under the impression that figures in vehicles couldn't use special powers back when I started testing - the Rip/Kang stuff didn't come up until mid-initial - and they definitely still felt draftable. It makes them inherently a little more niche, but it puts more focus on the mobility aspect and the vehicle's powers as opposed to the protection aspect.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I think that works. More of a sanity check than anything. I wanted to make sure that if we go in this direction we aren't tanking the whole VDO thing in general. :-)

Sounds good, though. If y'all can figure out just the right wording for this and if I retain time and sanity once I have my first set of papers in tomorrow, I'll put this next up for testing after I finish Psimon's initial.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

The goal in my mind would be to make it so that vehicles can be priced for competitive drafting based on these aspects. If we have to price them based on the assumption that Ozymandias and Mad Thinker are chilling out in the sports car, then those sorts of builds end up being the only way the vehicles are useful. If we dismantle that sort of combo then we let them be vehicles instead of a stationary containment pod.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I'd do this... it eliminates the ability to exploit them with Joker, Ozymandias, Destiny, while causing the minimum of collateral. I'd rather not gut too much - it kills a little too much theme and too much strategy to me, makes the game less interesting. I vote for using a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Pretty sure dok meant that you'd have to implement both of his bullet points there, not either/or.

I'd rather have simpler vehicle rules that didn't hugely affect design space than make a bunch of card updates so that in the future we always have to work around vehicles when designing support powers.

That said, sure, let's poll it out.

A. Make card updates and vehicle rule updates necessary to allow figures to use special in vehicles
B. Bar special powers from being used by figures in vehicles

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I'd lean towards B there, but would like a better idea of what the exact rules text would look like to see if there would be any unintended consequences and to see how clear and elegant it would be.

Since we'd be adding these to the existing designs as an augmentation, I'd rather the rules set bear most of the burden of eliminating competitive concerns.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

B for sure. I don't see vehicles being used so often that they should need to be worked around for every card.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Quick Question, I thought one of the reasons for doing this was for figures like Lady Blackhawk? If we negate Special Powers while they are in the vehicle...doesn't that sort of negate the reason for doing this? Would it be easier to just update her card to allow her to start with a VDO in her start zone?

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

A - lets not harm the richness of the game and options for strategic possibilities by keeping everything too sealed away. Scalpel, not sledgehammer.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Wouldn't be a hard negation, just a "figures occupying vehicles may not use special powers, unless otherwise specified." sort of thing. Same as how destroyed figures can't use special powers... Unless they can.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Nothing in here specifies that it is otherwise allowed...

If it's negated then it's useless and if we are going to edit her card to make it not nullified then wouldn't it be a easier process to just allow her to start with a VDO in her startzone? This just seems like a lot of hoops to jump through just to have figures that thematically use vehicles getting to use vehicles. Shouldn't those figures just start with that thematic vehicle the same way other figures start with regular DO? I'm starting to see why this hasn't happened sooner.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I guess I'm not seeing the big obstacle that you are. That's super-trivial wording stuff.

Tanking this and just going for figures that start with VDOs would be a much more painful process, and it would limit the ability to design VDOs that don't have some thematic figure that would start with them. (Which is part of the reason I'm doing this in the first place)

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I had forgotten about Lady Blackhawk's intent with all of this stuff (funny since I designed her). I would mind allowing her to start with a VDO or some other method of saying she gets a boost when a VDO is in your army.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Personally, I don't care one way or the other about Lady Blackhawk. I was doing this to open up design opportunities.

Redesigning and reevaluating her into a 300 point design that starts with a VDO sounds like a pretty comparable amount of work to what we have ahead of us at this point testing the two extant vehicles, though. Not a reasonable alternative to fiddling with some wording.

I'll try to get something official together on the wording front in a little bit, though.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

The whole reason we're giving points to VDOs is so they can start in your startzone. We do not need to add starting VDOs to cards if we give VDOs point costs.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I believe japes was suggesting we scrap the whole thing and just update Lady Blackhawk instead.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I'm completely aware that it's possible I'm over reacting. However, I don't want to have to worry about testing future designs with a car. VDO are cool and we occasionally use them but I don't want them to be necessary.

so looking back to this...

Yes simple and not limiting is better.

A. What specific updates. How do we decide what can and cannot be used from a car. Thematically it sounds weird that Wolverine can't heal while in a car and Professor X can't use his telekinetic bonding from inside the car and I personally don't want to update a ton of cards just to allow some things to work in a car.

B. If we bar special powers then the people that are upset about Lady Blackhawk now have reason to be more upset since her power can't be used at all now since it's specifically for driving VDO yet when she's in a VDO the power is negated.

I'm just not understanding what's being proposed anymore.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

As much as I don't like B, I think it's fairly clear that Lady Blackhawk's power will be an exception to that rule. Special powers are stated in the rulebook as ways to break the rules of the game, after all, and if it's clear a rule is being ignored for a power to work, that's a power doing its job. Powers aren't supposed to work after a figure is dead, but that doesn't stop Grundy, or Thanos, or Jason.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

A. A lot of updates, probably. You wouldn't be updating things to let them work in cars, you'd be updating powers like Reorganized Chaos and Destiny's d20 boost to keep them from working in cars, because a lot of powers get really juiced if you can use them from the safety of a vehicle. (And 'should this be usable in a car' would be a concern for all future support powers.)

B. I've said from the start that we're talking about a general prohibition, not hard-and-fast negation. Same as destroyed figures. Destroyed figures can't use special powers, generally, but when special powers tell you to do something after the figure is destroyed, you can do it. Vehicles rules would say you can't use special powers, generally. But when a special power says a figure occupying a vehicle can do something, they can do it.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

I thought we had already ruled that figures' powers do not work when they are off the battlefield (except of course when their powers say they do). To enter a VDO, the figure is removed from the battlefield. So there's no change needed.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Maybe I missed something in the Rip/Kang discussion, but I (and seemingly dok) came away with the opposite idea.

I certainly wouldn't mind that ruling, though. I'd thought that was the case for a while before the Rip/Kang discussion, and that's how I was testing the Sports Car initially.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Yeah, I was noticing some confusion there. We need to settle that first.

A point to consider: if Joker and the like are overpowered in a vehicle, they would also be overpowered (perhaps even more overpowered!) as Nick Fury's drop team.

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Nick can only Drop Agents, though. Kang (II) is the generalist version you need to worry about!

Re: Draftable Vehicles Discussion Thread (Initial Testing)
 

Good call. I forgot about it being restricted to just agents.