Workbook of Uruk-hai Scouts - Design (Fellowship B)

[Chris Perkins]

NAME = Uruk-hai Scouts

GENERAL = UTGAR
UNIQUENESS = Unique Squad (4 figures)
CLASS = Scout
PERSONALITY = Merciless
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM/5

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 2
POINTS = 100

URUKS OF THE WHITE HAND
When an Uruk-hai Scout rolls an attack against a human figure add 1 additional attack die.

TRACKING
While moving, the Uruk-Hai Scouts may add 2 to their Move number. If they do, the Uruk-Hai Scouts cannot attack this turn.

URUK SCURRY
When an Uruk-hai Scout you control is destroyed by a normal attack from an opponent's figure, you may move all remaining Uruk-hai Scouts you control up to 4 spaces each, and all Uruk-hai Scouts you control no longer have any visible Hit Zones for the duration of the attacking figure's turn while they remain unengaged. Uruk-hai Scouts will never take any leaving engagement attacks when using Scurry.

-- OTHER CONSIDERED POWERS --

FIND THE HALFLINGS
Before moving Uruk-hai, choose a small or medium non-Orc figure adjacent to any scout. Uruk-hai Scouts do not take leaving engagement attacks from the chosen figure. After you move them, place the chosen figure adjacent to them on an unoccupied land space, if possible. A figure moved by Uruk-hai Scouts never takes any leaving engagement attacks.

[Chris Perkins]

[reserved]

[Chris Perkins]

This is probably our most controversial card for fellowship b. I suspect it will end up looking the most dis-similar to it's initial state, but we'll see.

[Shiftrex]

Yeah, I get the points of controversy.

If I'm going to pick out parts of the card that I like / think should stay. It would probably be the statline. I Favor the 3 attack power, just to keep them as strong/stronger than Orcs in every situation though if we are going to consider them trackers and scouts, that type of military unit would be less heavily armed because they focus on speed and mobility. In that case I'm totally ok with dropping to 2 attack but we need to put some power here to warrant the Unique Squad tag.

ISENGARDERS and TRACKING should probably stay. Should we just drop to 2 powers?

[Chris Perkins]

This is a bit of a different take on the figure, but what does the fellowship think about these changes:
- Increase move to 6
- Decrease defense to 2
- Set attack at 3
- Add 'Scatter' as a power (perhaps letting you move all remaining figures 4 instead of limiting it to 2 figures)
- Keep Tracking & Uruks of the White Hand.

This makes them highly mobile and they fill a role as glyph grabbers and/or assassins of any given human figure. The effect on gameplay is that the army of humans has less time to get set before the Uruks first hit them, which thematically matches what happened @ Amon Hen.

Scatter is quite strong, but since they're unique they won't last forever and with the lower defense I don't think it's overpowering.

Thoughts?

[Shiftrex]

They are also a unique squad so scatter is going to be hamstringed. The main reason that scatter is so potent as it is on deathreavers has to do with army development. That won't really happen if you are limited to 4 of these guys and they really lose effectiveness after the first one drops, and lose any pull to put order markers on them.

I am good with the direction of making them more mobile, assasin/glyph grabber styled though. If we went with scatter then I think there is an argument for dropping the Unique Squad designation which would make for overall higher diversity in army builds. I could see an argument for 2 defense, 3 attack, 6 move and scatter with Uruk's of the White Hand and Tracking. Makes them highly mobile glyph grabbers, board controllers, first wave attackers.

They could make for an interesting play style with the standard scatter mechanic on a common squad because they would be an aggressive version of the death reavers instead of a defensive screen. They remind me of a favorite B ranker the Durgeth Ravagers at that point.

[Chris Perkins]

I think it's important that we keep this squad unique, since that was the high level goal of the card. If we wanted another common squad, we should propose it in the main brainstorming thread.

What about scurry instead of scatter? The movement bonus is limited, but it makes it harder to kill more than 1 at a time due to no visible hit zones for rest of turn. Still lets them grab glyphs via bonus movement and gives the unique squad a little better survivability.

[Shiftrex]

I think scurry is a valid option too!

Ok, I'll keep the thoughts oriented in the Unique direction, base set figures and all that. Scurry might be more interesting, and I don't want to kill the conversation on scatter. I just see scatter as being infinitely less useful after the first Uruk goes down which sucks as these guys are very sharky and offense oriented with a potential to knock out human figures.

The no hitzones thing could communicate guerrilla tactics, speed, quick hit and run stuff that a first contact sort of squad would be good for.

[Chris Perkins]

I think I like scurry (with moving all left instead of just 2) better than scatter, because it allows them to have a bit better survive-ability (via no hit zones).

@MasterScaper1 thoughts on this change of direction with the card?
(sorry for tagging you on so many threads at once, but I'm trying to get these discussions jump-started and I don't want to lose any fellowship members along the way).

[Shiftrex]

To be clear on our discussion we are thinking of having tracking and scurry correct? Not opposed to 2 movement powers, it will communicate their mobility quite well, just confirming since we haven't talked on this unit in a bit.

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

To be clear on our discussion we are thinking of having tracking and scurry correct? Not opposed to 2 movement powers, it will communicate their mobility quite well, just confirming since we haven't talked on this unit in a bit.

Correct, along with keeping the White Hand (+1 attack on humans) power.

I went ahead and updated the OP with the version of the card I proposed before the --Other-- section. Besides the 3 powers, I also changed:
Defense from 3 -> 2 : scurry is their defensive power now
Attack from 3/2 -> 3 : the idea being they can hit and run back with only 1 casualty per round
Move from 5 -> 6 : fast movers
Personality set to Merciless : I didn't like the overlap with auras from classic scape for 'relentless'

[Shiftrex]

Understood, I agree with those edits. I think we are getting closer to an ideal product with those moves.