Thread: Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion
View Single Post
  #3068  
Old April 3rd, 2013, 11:25 AM
vegietarian18's Avatar
vegietarian18 vegietarian18 is offline
Online HS Season 10 Champion
  
Join Date: September 5, 2011
Location: USA - IL - Peoria
Posts: 5,240
vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth vegietarian18 is a man of the cloth
Re: Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion
Shaitahn by Son of Arathorn

Theme- I like the theme behind Shaitahn. Rejected by Death is a thematic power for an undying skeleton. Undead March makes sense for one who is supposed to be the leader of an undead horde. The sculpt matches this theme well, especially since it doesn’t cater to the Death Knights that form his most obvious build. However, I found myself wishing that Undead March worked with all Undead commons, and that Shaitahn was a Lord. I liked what was there though, so it’s unfair to judge it based on what is not. PASS.

Creativity- Rejected by Death is an official power, but reusing it on a bonding hero makes it very different. Even Soul Weapons with three attack dice instead of two feels a lot different than the Death Knights' blades. But by far, the most creative part of this card is the tension that Rejected by Death and Undead March create. Do you rush Shaitahn into battle to play him over and over again, or do you leave him behind and have speedy Death Knights? I really like designs that force you to make decisions like that. PASS.

Balance- At a first glance, Shaitahn’s defense, life, and cost mirror that of two squads of Death Knights, which is cool considering that Sir Gilbert, Shaitahn’s closest parallel, does the same thing with one and a half squads of Weston. I found that very appropriate, and it creates choices for Death Knights builds; do you go for Shaitahn and sacrifice squads of Death Knights to get him? or do you load up on Skull Demons and forfeit your board control? It seems perfect.

However, as I delved deeper into testing Shaitahn, I began to feel like Rejected by Death was not properly factored into his cost. The nomination post for him even says “Rejected By Death is a factor in cost, but not so much as the other powers and stats”. Let's say Thanos was made without Rejected by Death. He's probably worth around 200 points, and that feels a little on the high side. That means that one power nearly doubled his point cost! And putting RbD on a bonding hero makes it so much more valuable. You can recklessly disengage with him, because even if he dies you don’t lose order markers. But more importantly, you have twice the amount of chances for him to come back! Shaitahn was intended to work outside of Death Knight builds, and I’ll give him that. But a Thrall build is just as potent with Rejected by Death, if not more. Each Thrall takes a separate turn, so you can get up to three chances to succeed your Rejected by Death roll. Besides the annoying hassle it creates to pick up the D20 up to three times every single turn, I found that if Shaitahn died early, you could almost count on him coming back from the grave at least once. And even without Undead March, that level of power is too much. FAIL.

Playability- When I first looked at the card of Shaitahn, something felt wrong about Undead March, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. But when I started testing him, I realized what the problem was: Undead March lets you move a Death Knight twice in one Order Marker. I found myself playing the Death Knights as a 9 move squad that was able slow roll reinforcements behind them. Whenever I didn’t need the move boost to get my two attacks, I’d work Shaitahn forward into a spot where he had better sight lines or a figure to attack. This just felt wrong to me. The Death Knights are not supposed to be a speedy squad with board control. This is their weakness; as FanScape we cannot just patch holes over the flawed parts of squads. It removes the nature of what Heroscape is.

Now, after thinking about Shaitahn for a while, I realized that Sir Gilbert did the same thing for the Knights of Weston. And so I thought about it for a bit more. But I realized that Shaitahn is better for the Death Knights than Sir Gilbert was for the Knights. Shaitahn moves two squads of Death Knights, while Sir Gilbert only moves one squad of Knights. Also, Shaitahn guarantees you four spaces of movement, while Sir Gilbert has the potential for four and more, but is often lower than that and also has a chance of failure. The chance of failure is something that Shaitahn is missing. The variance that Sir Gilbert brings it what kept him from being too much. You never knew exactly how far your Knights would be dispatched that turn, but with Shaitahn, you know exactly how far your Death Knights will be marching. Now, Shaitahn does require you to forfeit your attack with him. But think of how many times you have just sat Sir Gilbert on a perch in the early game, and just slowly rolled out your Knights! Unfortunately, I think that Undead March needs some variance or else Shaitahn will make Death Knight builds have no variance. FAIL.

Summary- On one hand, I think that Shaitahn is a thematic design full of tactical tension. On the other, I found Undead March to be a bit too low variance, and Rejected by Death too strong of a power to have on a bonding hero of this cost. I vote NO to induct Shaitahn into the Soldiers of Valhalla.
Reply With Quote