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Old February 27th, 2014, 02:53 PM
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Ixe Ixe is offline
 
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Re: Ixe's Custom Units

I recently went through miniatures that I own and found that I had a number of ones that are more or less reasonably available. One such figure I found was the Aspect of Hextor from War Drums of the D&D minis.



Seeing this figure, I can immediately start piecing something together. While he doesn't have his extra eye and arms sets him apart from Gurei-Oni, he can easily be taken for a Japanese Oni and makes me want to label him as a Feylundian Ogre. He stands on height with Gurei-Oni and puts him to Large 7. I'd also lean to making him follow Einar. He could easily be a guard as well, and I wouldn't blink if he was tormenting or terrifying or a large number of other possible personalities.

Since Gurei-Oni only has 4 life, I wouldn't be inclined to take his much higher than the otherwise more heavy set ogre. He definitely has some armor on him, but I think raising him to 5 defense may even be a bit of a stretch. He lacks the cyclopean eye that apparently has become the standard for some form of ranged counterstrike, so he may very well require some form of life or defense boost to last long enough to range since Evil Eye Defense acts as a deterrent if nothing else. I see little reason for him to be any faster than Gurei-Oni (if only that he is seemingly more fit).

That brings me to his attack, and the main point of this post, what do you do with the six-armed man? Multi-headed and limbed figures in Heroscape have been handled in a variety of different ways. Dual Weilding is typically a fast road to earn Double Attack, with examples such as the Einar Imperium and Guilty Mcreech, though not exclusively. Figures such as Syvarris and Agent Skahan earn the power with only one weapon while figures like Cyprien Esenwein and some of the unique samurai lack it despite clearly having two weapons. Meanwhile Moriko and Q9 both have two weapons but instead get a dice pool ability. When it comes to biting heads, it seems that cements you into multiple attacks, be you the Fen Hydra or C3V's Racheim.

So how about 6 weapons? Clearly, it is going to feel like some sort of theme break of if this figure lacks some sort of multi-attack. He could be given a Whirlwind Assault type ability, but that would seem weird when he couldn't multi-attack the figure in front of him. Giving him multiple attacks any fewer than 6 would be strange, so you could simply give him Sextuple Attack, which may work but would also force him to have a low attack to compensate (I'm thinking 2). He would then couple particularly well with any attack boosts, which isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. That, or you could give him a higher normal attack (say 6), and some special attack to cover his theme (say a blade storm pool of 12 dice that he can't exceed two on, or simply a special attack of 2 that he can then do 5 additional times).

6 attacks is quite a bit of rolling to do in one turn, but we've already seen comparable numbers to that with units like the Imperium or even exceeding that with Kato backed Ashigaru. The fact that he only makes melee attacks may suggest that he could even do attacks higher than 2, but I fear him being able to throw 18 attacking dice in a round proves too much.

If his multi-attacking power remains concise, such as Sextuple Attack or a special attack that allows him to attack 5 additional times, it leaves his card with plenty of room to spare for an additional power, most likely one to aid his survivability. He could have an intimidating aura that acts as a 1 die reduction to adjacent normal attacks of small or medium figures against him, or he could have something more familiar like a One Shield Defense type power. If we have a lot of space, we could even try something creative and more wordy like him being to use all those weapons to deflect attack. Imagine, once per turn or even once per round, he may instead use his normal attack instead of rolling defense against a (adjacent?) normal attack, treating only skulls rolled as shields for the purposes of blocking. We could even tie a counterstrike into this limited power, where excess skulls counts as unblockable damage dealt and connect him further to Gurei. That or just give him straight counterstrike.

Any way we slice it, this may very well be a monster in melee with so many attacks available to him. As opposed to my other units so far, this is much more unpolished brainstorming than something a little more refined and playtested. Of what I have listed so far, this is what I am currently leaning towards:

NAME = ROKU-ONI (Roku apparently means 6 in Japanese)
GENERAL = EINAR
PLANET = FEYLUND
SPECIES = OGRE
CLASS= GUARD
PERSONALITY = TORMENTING
SIZE/HEIGHT = LARGE 7 (Double based)

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 6
DEFENSE = 4
POINTS = 120?

TORRENT OF STEEL SPECIAL ATTACK

Range 1. Attack 2.
When Roku-Oni attacks with Torrent of Steel Special Attack, he may attack 5 additional times.

COUNTERSTRIKE
When rolling defense dice against a normal attack from an adjacent attacking figure, all excess shields count as unblockable hits on the attacking figure.

Last edited by Ixe; July 7th, 2014 at 11:25 AM.
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