Astro's Custom Units [Update 5/26/21: WWII Medic]
 

As my list of personal customs expands, I've decided to take a page out of other creators' books and keep several lists of links that lead to posts in this thread for each unit. This should keep everything neat and easy to find, along with letting me maintain detailed synergy charts.

As always, I welcome feedback. Please feel free to scream at me that I'm making all of the wrong changes (but do make sure that caps-lock is enabled so that I know you're serious). Here is a highlight for one of the most recent additions:


In addition to more individual designs, there are some factions of units that I've been developing. These are mostly self-contained, so in order to make them easier to view than clicking the many synergy links, I'm compiling a faction overview post for each one. Here is a list of these factions:

:einar: Black Harts
:vydar: Iron Wolves

But without further ado, here is everything else that I've been working on:

BY NAME


BY SET AND PACK


BY GENERAL


BY POINT COST

In addition to the above, I am also involved in the Arena of the Valkyrie community-driven Master Set project. You should check it out to see more high-quality units, and we're always looking for additional help if you'd like to get involved.

CHANGE LOGS:

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

If you want Morgloth to boost the Tenhri Samuri, you may want to change their race from Humans to Demons. ;)

I'll try to think of more thorough replies to these units a bit later. Pretty neat set you've come up with though.

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

Thanks for the response! And yes, my original concept for the Tenri Samurai was to make them Demons (and call their Viking spirit-esque ability Curse of the Oni to further tie into that), but I soon discovered that there was a drastic shortage in availability of demonic samurai miniatures. :reapershrug:

The best suggestion was the HeroClix Samuroid miniature, but just a couple of days later, the vast majority of its stock at Troll and Toad and Miniature Market were sold. I was also having difficulty in finding another suitable mini to go along with the Samuroid to make a squad of two, but I did find out about the Silver Samurai sculpt, which was released in two poses. It seemed perfect, since I could retheme the ranged defense idea to be reflection... Unfortunately (and somewhat ironically), though, the availability of those sculpts is even worse than the Samuroid now, so I guess the change was kind of a moot point anyway. :lol:

If I can find two good minis to represent the Tenri Samurai as demons, I'll change them accordingly. I'll update my Thought Process behind them to include that explanation.

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

Cool designs!

Captain Konah sounds like a superhero name. I think it's the "Captain" part.

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

I love the idea of a dragon rider, but Eltris seems too fragile to be much help. With only 1 defense, she can be taken out pretty quickly. I also think it would be cool if the dragon ally helped buff her in a similar manner how she boosts the dragon. Eternal heartbrake is very fitting. All in all, a very cool design. Most other dragon riders are very complex, so the simplicity of Eltris is appealing

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

I can see what you mean. I never thought of him like that, but I guess that we do have characters like Captain Earth and Captain America that use captain before their names. I just thought that it was fitting for him to be the captain of Einar's forces, and structurally, using his class before his name follows the pattern set by Empress Kiova.

She's squishy because I'm afraid of making her too powerful, since she can increase the power of some of the best units in the game. I went back and forth on 3 life with 2 defense and 4 life with 1 defense for a while, and I ultimately thought that the second of the two would be more unique. I know that this makes her difficult to use well as a Warlord, though I felt like it was the better of the two options.

That was before I thought of using Sonya' Eternal Heartbreak, though, to nerf her a little bit (I'm glad that you liked its addition!), so maybe her defense could be upped to 2 to compensate.

I also really like your idea of making the dragon buff her as well while it is within range, though, as it matches perfectly with the theme of a dragon rider in my eyes. Giving her even just one extra attack and defense when within 2 spaces of her dragon sounds like it could make taking a surprise turn with her more tempting, especially since some dragons like Zelrig have a lower base attack.

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

Let’s take a crack at this, Astro...

Captain Konah:
I’m not sure how I feel about Einar’s Orders on this guy. Moving the EI and Konah could be pretty devastating in the right situation. But, since the EI are already rather expensive I can understand why it isn’t factored too much into Konah’s price. Strike Aura is a very strong power alone, rivaling Taelord’s. I’d give this guy some serious testing before settling on 130 points as his cost.

Tenri Samurai:
These two minis are really expensive for what they can do themselves. Ranged Counterstrike is a cool power to give them, though. I do worry they won’t help much against horde armies, as the heroes in those armies are generally not the focus of those types of builds. And Samurai builds have a hatf time against OM-strong builds. They really would need to be played by a good player to get their value.

Eltris:
A dragonrider is cool. I fear she may be nearly useless with both 1D and Eternal Heartbreak. Taking turns with her is already risky, since there won’t be many activations where she will be more effective than a dragon’s turn. You had mentioned bumping her defense to compensate for Heartbreak damage... that’s probably a step in the right direction. As she is right now, I’d rather have another squad of Greenscales or even a dedicated cleanup unit. Keep working on her! :)

Steel Ultimatus:
Beep boop beep boop. A cyborg who affects flyers in a strange way, by denying their key power. It’s a cool effect, but places him firmly in the counterdraft catagory. Cool unit overall, and pretty creative use of the leap attack. Just remember that Special Leaping Attacks ignore Gravity Well, like Kursus’s attack (special attacks are never modified).

Black Harts:
Hey, it’s a bunch of Valguards! Neat way to make a momentum based squad, but this squad will probably have a sweet spot where they’ll be the most effective and will then be dead weight against ranged beyond that. Not an issue if your group isn’t the most competitive, however. With armor like that though, I’m shocked you only gave them 2 defense. I guess you can reason that sports equipment isn’t quite as useful as platemail.

Cool stuff Astroking! I’ll try to poke in and out from time to time. Keep it up!

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

I thought that the ability would be stronger when used to keep Empress Kiova in position, but I'll test him out more aggressively when I get the chance. If need be, I'll scale down Einar's Orders to only apply to Einar Kyrie Heroes, since I'm specifically aiming for 130 points for him.

As for Strike Aura, I'm considering drawing back the aura to only 4 spaces or the like. Since the only beneficiaries of it are Kiova (who doesn't get much use out of it) and the overpriced Einar Imperium, I purposefully left it on the strong side. Given how much the increased mobility of Einar's Orders could help the Imperium alone, though, I definitely understand the concern.

I'm hoping to be able to get in more concrete playtests at some point after the DFW Tournament this weekend, and Captain Konah is very likely the figure that I will focus on first. Ideally, I'm hoping to get him passed through SoV, so thanks for your feedback on him!

My Samurai bias is a curse. :lol: I'm sadly aware that these guys are worth much more than their points, especially if their Reflective Armor lets them function as standalone units. I was considering cutting their movement to go as low as 4, which could significantly hamper the mobility of Samurai armies using them, but I'm not sure if this would be enough.

I may cut out Reflective Armor's use on them entirely, making them only able to protect the other Samurai. Since they're essentially protecting your other Samurai units, I'm hesitant to increase their price too much, and I feel like 80 points is a good balance for the faction in order to add some new point totals to choose from and create more army options.

I considered dropping either their attack or their defense to 3, but I felt like that would be too low for a Unique squad of two members. I'll probably test them out with the Reflective Armor applying to themselves with only 3 defense first, then see about changing it to only work on adjacent Samurai if that's still too powerful.

I am fine with them being difficult to use to their full potential, though, since the Samurai never struck me as a conventional army, especially when focusing on potential Order Marker nightmares like the Unique squads. I'm slightly surprised that you feel they won't be effective enough in horde armies, as that was one of the army compositions that I worried they would be too strong against. Units like the Arrow Gruts and the Ashigaru could potentially be slaughtered by the now inescapable Counterstrike, especially since they already have a low base attack.

Thanks for the encouragement! I went ahead and upped her defense to 2 so that she'll be able to take a few more hits. I'm also leaning towards giving her an extra +1 attack and defense when within 2 spaces of her dragon to evoke a more mutual bond, which would make her significantly stronger when paired with a durable heavy-hitter like Charos.

Yeah, I can see Steel Ultimatus falling into the counterdraft role. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to toy around with gravity after reading the backstory behind his strange piston legs. He does have some potential synergy with preventing flyers or the monks from going over screens, but I doubt that he'd revolutionize the meta or anything.

I also completely forgot about Kursus' Special Attack, but I'm not sure about how to properly block it without getting too wordy or also limiting his own leaping attack. I mostly used the Glyph of Rannveig as an inspiration, blocking Flying/Stealth Flying and throwing in Leap in a similar fashion, but units like Kursus and the Wolves of Badru may have to slip past him, unless I figure something else out.

My group actually wanted me to up their defense to 3, but I'm still not completely sold on it yet. These guys can be pretty devastating, albeit it does require ganging them up on a target and they're extremely fragile. I wanted them to feel pretty different from other melee armies like the Knights or the Cathars, so I felt that putting more of an emphasis on speed than defense was the way to go (along with pricing them slightly cheaper than the more common melee common options).

These guys are another group that I'd like to get through SoV at some point, so I was reluctant to make them too powerful and then have to cut back later (unlike what I'm doing with Captain Konah ;)). Since they've been pretty public at aiming for the B range in Power Rankings, I didn't want these guys to be too powerful.

Thank you for the detailed feedback; it's helped get the gears turning for how to better balance these guys, and I'll keep it in mind as I free up more time for playtesting!

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units
 

Finally updated this thread again with Arboris from the most recent Custom Contest:

Arboris :ullar: - Unique Ent Clean-Up Hero, Winner of Dr.Goomonkey's Springtime Custom Competition
https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...s_original.jpg
Miniature:

Traits and Abilities:

Thought Process:

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units [Update 5/2/18]
 

I really like Arboris! I have a few of those figures around and I might use one for this guy.

What figures are the samurai?

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units [Update 5/2/18]
 

Thanks! I've been looking around a little bit for a miniature for him when I've had the time, but unfortunately most seem to be rather rare at this point.

The Tenri Samurai miniatures are HeroClix minis for the Silver Samurai. He was released in two different sets, each in a different pose.

Re: Astroking112's Custom Units [Update 5/2/18]
 

Arboris does seem a little overcosted, though. I'd put him at like 50.