ACES

[Dad_Scaper]

ANNIHILATION COMPATIBILITY EVALUATION SERVICES

Welcome to the home of ACES, where we answer one question: Is this VC unit compatible with the AoA designs?

The VC units are all compatible with classic ‘Scape, as you, dear reader, already know. The revealed AoA units are also compatible with classic ‘Scape. But are they compatible with each other? Can you trust the AoA units and the VC units not to break anything when used together? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Who we are: the four Aces are myself, @Vydar_XLIII , @Anitar , and @Majora’s Incantation .

What we’re doing: Our goal with this project is to check the evolving VC expanding universe against the AoA expanded universe, and make sure nothing is broken.

We aren’t looking for power level differences, such as whether a hypothetical VC “captain” is more valuable in a VC+AoA tournament than it would be in a VC-only tournament. That kind of evaluation is for the players to discover for themselves. We’re just looking for brokenness, in the form of a unit breaking the competitive metagame, or having some unplayable rules interaction.

What is “brokenness”? It means a unit is either wildly overpowered - think S tier, noticeably above A tier - or it creates some weird turn-looping effect that is not compatible with the rules. Other than that, let the players figure out which unit brings the most value to each format. Let your games be the laboratories!

What we hope to accomplish: We want Heroscape players, both at tournaments and in their home games, to be able to take advantage of both what the VC offers and what AoA offers. Mix them and match them!

What we aren’t trying to accomplish: If you don’t care what we say because you have your home games and/or your tournaments and you can make decisions without any help from us, that’s great! Some people like to have a reference to a third party with its own standards. For those people, there’s us!

We also aren’t designing anything, or evaluating minis. There are plenty of excellent people doing that important work already. We’re just looking at VC units, seeing if they break (or are broken by) AoA, and if they’re compatible, then we’re saying so!

For example: The Crimson Widow has the power “Hire Crew,” which lets her turn a Unique Squad into “Pirates,” which then benefit from her “Pirate Commander” ability, giving a +1 to attacks against adjacent figures.

The Widow interacts with the Vulcanmech Incendiborgs! Very cool. Is it broken? We haven’t formally answered this (or any) question yet, but the answer is likely going to be “no.” Cool! Assuming no broken interactions, the Incendiborgs could then get the ACES stamp of approval.

What to expect: It’s my sense that there may be no broken interactions at all. Now, or maybe ever. But there is value in making sure, and that’s what we’ll do.

Because we aren’t a workshop making units or anything, we don’t have a whole subforum. We’ll just do our business right here in this thread, and I’ll use the post below as a handy summary of our work so far.

Welcome!

[Dad_Scaper]

Current Status of VC Units Compatibility With AoA

As of

10/18/23

ACES has given the ACES stamp of approval to

all currently released VC designs subject to the following exceptions:

Spoiler Alert!

no exceptions

Thank you for reading today's report. Do not go near the dog park.

[Anitar]

A few things that may be worth noting:

For our purposes, "AoA" consists of 32 Army Cards and 5 Glyphs, all of which I just so happen to have converted into classic-style cards right here.


If something does pop up that's inconducive to mixing these different sources of content, we're not here to edit things to make them fit. I'm sure there are people who'd want to do that-- I'm sure I'd want to do that-- but ACES is only for assessment and certification, not repairs.


This is, by its nature, an ongoing project. As new VC content comes out, it needs to be evaluated too.



Also, I made that logo. Each of the four Aces on the card represents one of the project members-- I'm the ACE of Spades, DS is Clubs, Majora is Diamonds, and Vydar is Hearts. I insisted.

[Zeldarck]

Thanks for the initiative

Will you do it the other way too? A stamp on AoA card which are compatible with VC ? (It's what interest me personnaly, I prefer to not introduce some AoA in my play than remove some VC).
And does VC will took in account AoA stamped compatible in their future designs?

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Zeldarck

Thanks for the initiative

Will you do it the other way too? A stamp on AoA card which are compatible with VC ? (It's what interest me personnaly, I prefer to not introduce some AoA in my play than remove some VC).
And does VC will took in account AoA stamped compatible in their future designs?

This is one way approval: checking VC units against AoA. The good news is, you'll end up at the same place, and the even better news is, I think it's going to be a pretty rare unit that isn't approved.

[Majora's Incarnation]

Ace of Diamonds reporting!

My current role is adjusting documentation on the Heroscape Wiki and helping present the lore of AoA, VC, and Classic in a way that provides opportunities to learn about it all and inspire future customs in both departments.

And on top of that, I plan to provide reviews and test out potential situations with my small group of gamers down at my local FLGS

It's been a long time since I've been a frequent Scaper, but I'm super hyped to help work with this medium in the future!

[Captain Stupendous]

I'm a bit confused by the OP. The first post doesn't mention anything about reconciling the lore of VC and AoA, yet MI's post above seems to imply that their primary role has to do with lore-related issues. This leaves me somewhat unclear regarding the exact nature of what you're all doing and trying to accomplish. Is the scope of this project limited to evaluating the mechanical designs of VC against AoA to ensure there are no broken mechanical interactions, or is the actual scope of the project larger than what is stated in the OP to also include some level of lore review and evaluation? If lore is part of the project, what exactly are you doing and hoping to accomplish in regards to the lore?

[Dad_Scaper]

I think you might be misreading MI’s post. He is doing a lot of the heavy lifting with the wiki and lore stuff. This work fits in neatly with that in that both keep his hands on the expanded lore of the game.

I don’t expect lore will break anything but if he says it’s something worth discussing then we will discuss.

[Captain Stupendous]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

I think you might be misreading MI’s post. He is doing a lot of the heavy lifting with the wiki and lore stuff. This work fits in neatly with that in that both keep his hands on the expanded lore of the game.

I don’t expect lore will break anything but if he says it’s something worth discussing then we will discuss.

Ah, I may indeed have misread MI's post then. When they said "My current role is adjusting documentation on the Heroscape Wiki and helping present the lore of AoA, VC, and Classic in a way that provides opportunities to learn about it all and inspire future customs in both departments" I understood that to mean "my current role [as a member of ACES]...". However, it sounds like they may have actually been talking about what they do outside of ACES, rather than their specific role as an ACES member?

[HeyItsDuke]

Very excited about this project. The prospect of having some reference of compatibility is a huge step towards AoA content becoming more widely adopted. I'd love to see some VC+AoA tournaments. Will be keeping an eye on this as I move to integrate AoA with the rest of my table.

[chas]

Just discovered this thread, and want to wish you luck! I'm more or less documenting my own work with AOA down in my signature thread, with a few comments in my Playing The New Factions thread here in this site section in Discussion. And I've posted my own Customs here for Zed Nesbitt and the 7 SOTM Heroes.

So far I've played four games with Taeblewalker using only all the AOA "normal" faction cards in 600 Point 'demonstration' armies, without any previously issued Classic/VC cards. These include the AOA Revealed cards (issued during the Hasbro/Avalon Hill offering) and the few Unrevealed cards (customs by Anitar). This month I'll be hosting a session with more than two players using those armies again. This is just to introduce the cards and lots of proxy figures to my gang. In upcoming months I'll be opening games up to all Classic, Custom, and AOA cards. I expect my other local group members will follow suit also in the games they run here. (We rotate Game Master chores in presenting our own custom scenarios among our four core members).

Anitar's post seems to say that your ACES plan does not include the few Unrevealed custom cards, the 5 SOTM Heroes, and the 7 Kyries (all now customs by Anitar and a few by myself). I'll be making them all available in our local games too. We don't usually play tournament style here, but have all our players on one Medium sized map for each game session in Free For All or Team games.

Either way, I'll report any serious anomalies we bump into for your consideration!

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, all!

We're still privately discussing how we want to go about starting the big lift, which is weighing all current VC designs against the AoA body of work. I hope to have an announcement soon.