My friend introduced me to Arena of the Planeswalkers back when it first came out. I dismissed it initially because I felt the production quality was inferior to Heroscape, and I felt the game was not as fun as Heroscape. However, I came across the game and its two expansions on discount for $5 each, and realized that it would be silly not to pick up a copy. At $15 total, the game is definitely worth it. It’s a steal really.
I also figured that at I could use the tiles and cardboard for extra terrain, and I could easily make custom Heroscape units using the figures. Plus, the game also rekindled my interest in Heroscape which is a good thing!
I started looking around on Heroscapers again and found that there is an interest in having the AotP units converted into Heroscape units. I also wanted Heroscape compatible versions of these units, so I made custom cards for all of them. Now I share them with all of you.
There are also rulebooks included in the Downloads section that convert the contents from the AotP rulebooks (the glyphs, cryptoliths, scenarios, etc.).
I wanted to make a version of the Eldrazi Ruiner that appears in the “Take Down the Eldrazi Ruiner” scenario in the “Battle for Zendikar” expansion. AotP does not have autokill and mind control special abilities like Heroscape does. These abilities would be too powerful against such a powerful unit in Heroscape. Luckily, C3G already has rules for exceptionally powerful units. There are two versions of the Eldrazi Ruiner that use the Event Hero rules from C3G.
When playing with Squads with more than one Life, follow these special rules:
Only Unique Squads may have more than one Life.
Unlike Squads with only one Life, you must keep track of which wound markers belong to each figure in the Squad.
When a Squad figure with more than one Life has as many wound markers as the Life number on its Army Card, it is destroyed.
Tracking Wounds Suggestion: To track wounds for each figure in a Squad, it is recommended that you stack wound markers on the image of the figure on the Army Card or on the image of its hit zone when it receives wounds. Alternatively, you can follow the rule in AotP that says to place the small square hit markers on the figure’s base.
Design Principles
I have included the design principles I followed when making these cards. If you are curious why a unit is the way it is, you can probably find the answer here.
Spoiler Alert!
Main Rule: Keep all units as close to their AotP counterparts as possible when converting them to the Heroscape ruleset.
Special Abilities:
Reword special abilities to use Heroscape terminology but remain functionally identical.
For AotP abilities that reference AotP-only rules, rework the special ability to be thematically and mechanically similar and be about as useful as the AotP ability.
Going along with #2, if a special ability referenced a colored planeswalker, generalize the special ability to work with any Hero figure that was thematically similar to the planeswalkers of that color.
For auto wound abilities, change them to only affect small and medium figures (a standard in Heroscape unit design), and require a die roll to determine if a wound is dealt.
The Lava Resistant special ability was added to figures where it made sense to include it.
Theme:
I am not well versed in Magic the Gathering lore, however, I tried to give each unit a personality and assign them to a general that was as close to their theme and lore as possible.
Valkrill needs more units, so many units that could have gone to either Utgar or Valkrill went to Valkrill.
I could see Gideon Jura being disciplined and going to Einar. However, I decided to go with valiant and Jandar for him because in my first draft of assigning units to generals, the Kor went to Einer, and I could not see Gideon Jura working so closely with Nahiri. Plus Jandar had no AotP units, and I wanted all generals to have at least one or two units.
Avacyn and the Avacynian Inquisitors were tough to assign. Again, I do not know a lot about the lore, but I read that Avacyn was initially a protector and force of good then went mad. Since Jandar had so few units, I assigned them to Jandar. I reasoned that Avacyn aligned with the ideals of Jandar at least initially, but even good people can mess up bad. It also seemed more interesting that Jandar would summon a unit that he felt was a good fit for his army but later might regret that decision.
Hit Zones: I did not feel like recoloring hit zones since it is aesthetic only. Count the dark grey area as red for hit zones.
Planeswalkers: The point value on planeswalkers was reduced by 200 points because the general consensus is that the 200 point spell deck is factored in to their point cost. I would also argue that the ability to summon is factored in to their high point cost.
Unique, Common, and Uncommon: I left all squads as Unique Squads and all heroes as Unique Heroes. From a Heroscape design standpoint, I can certainly see the argument to make some squads common and some of the heroes common or uncommon especially since many of them have generic names. Here is why I left them all Unique:
Following my main rule, I wanted to keep all units as close to their AotP counterparts as possible.
Common units play differently than Unique units.
If I made them Common or Uncommon, I would need to reprice them.
Special abilities would need reworked in some cases to prevent them from being broken on Common or Uncommon units.
Heroscape has enough Common Squads. It does not need more. And it has few relevant Unique Squads.
Life: The Life values in AotP seem to be inflated by 1 compared to Heroscape units. This may be to account for many of the AotP special abilities assigning automatic wounds rather than rolling for it. Since the auto-wound abilities were modified, all units' Life values were reduced by 1.
Squad Life and Point Values: After reducing all units' Life by 1, all remaining multi-Life squads were reduced to 1 Life and their point values reduced accordingly (-5 Points per Life removed for standard units, and -2 points per Life removed for "weak" units). I originally intended to keep multi-Life squads, but after reducing all units' Life by 1, so few Squads had multiple Life that it no longer made sense to include such a meta-game altering rule. It made much more sense at that point to have them match Heroscape standards.
Unique Squads with more than one life: This was another tough decision that I put a lot of thought into. I let Unique Squads keep their multi-life value. While this does break a staple of Heroscape, here are my reasons for including multiple life on Unique Squads:
Uncommon Heroes broke a staple of Heroscape too (essentially allowing multiple of the same Unique Hero), but they worked out fine.
I calculated how the survivability of a figure changes as life, defense, and attack values change. My initial solution was to make each squad have one life and increase their defense by the amount of life reduced. For example a Life 3, Defense 3 squad became a Life 1, Defense 5 squad. However, high defense figures with a life of 1 always suffer from Deathwalker rolls, and their survivability is much lower. The odds of being destroyed in the first attack are just too high.
The effectiveness of a Unique Squad is reduced each time a figure in the squad is destroyed. If they have a Life of 1, their survivability drops and their overall effectiveness drops.
Their point values would need readjusted.
#2 and #3 would break the main rule of keeping them as close as possible to the original unit.
Giving Unique Squads multiple life is a great way to set them apart from other types of units and give them a competitive edge. It fixes the problem with their reduced effectiveness by increasing survivability.
Change Log
Spoiler Alert!
3/24/2018
Spoiler Alert!
Arlinn Kord: "Archmage’s Assault" – Removed "small or medium" restriction. Squads automatically receive a wound. Heroes receive a wound on a 16 or higher.
Avacynian Inquisitors: "In Avacyn's Name" – Fixed typo.
Blighted Reavers: "Necrotic Stench" – No longer affects Soulborgs or Constructs
Eldrazi Ruiner: "Lash of Tentacles" – Removed "small or medium" restriction. Squads receive a wound on an 11 or higher. Heroes receive a wound on a 16 or higher.
Goblin Javelineers: "Volatile Hedron Javelins" – Removed "small or medium" restriction. Squads receive a wound on a 4 or higher. Heroes receive a wound on an 18 or higher.
Goblin Javelineers: Replaced “Climb X2” with “Scale” to match the Goblin Cutters.
Lantern Geists: “Flicker” – Added clarification that you move Lantern Geists that you control.
Liliana Vess: “Snuff Out” – Removed condition if squad figure is wounded.
Mad Prophet: "Haste" – Simplified wording and usage.
Malakir Bloodchasers: “Lifelink” – changed ability to heal adjacent, wounded heroes you control since the Malakir Bloodchasers only have 1 Life now.
Nahiri: “Pass Through Stone” – Changed to “16 or higher”.
Necro-Alchemist: “Geist-Powered Apparatus” – Removed Magic and Undead and added Illusion and Spirit to keep all items in the list based on class. Cannot add a Charge Marker when taking a turn with Necro-Alchemist.
Ob Nixilis: “At Any Price” – Takes place after taking a turn with Ob Nixilis instead of after moving and before attacking to prevent turn interruption. Clarified the action is to move normally and then attack normally. Changed “alive” to “in play”.
Pummelroot Elementals: Changed Species to Elementals.
Restless Zombies: “Darkness Arises” – Fixed typo.
Dropped all units’ Life by 1 except for Restless Zombies, Flamewing Phoenixes, Eldrazi Ruiner (20 Life), and Eldrazi Ruiner (36 Life).
8/19/2021
Spoiler Alert!
Blighted Reavers: “Necrotic Stench” – Does not affect Undead, Soulborgs, Elementals, or Magic.
Ghoul Vanguard: “Wake the Dead” – Does not affect Undead, Soulborgs, Elementals, or Magic. Redesigned to use Ghoul Vanguard Zombies unit.
Ghoul Vanguard Zombies: New unit to use with Ghoul Vanguard.
Malakir Bloodchasers: “Lifelink” – Does not affect Undead, Soulborgs, Elementals, or Magic.
Path Wardens: Modified graphic.
Sorin Markov: “Vampiric Thirst” – Does not affect Undead, Soulborgs, Elementals, or Magic.
Nahiri: “Pass Through Stone” – Nahiri does not take leaving engagement attacks when using Pass Through Stone.
8/22/2021
Spoiler Alert!
Eldrazi Ruiner (20 Life): Reduced points from 1000 to 950.
Eldrazi Ruiner (36 Life): Reduced points from 1500 to 1450.
9/6/2021
Spoiler Alert!
Added rulebooks.
9/19/2021
Spoiler Alert!
Updated rulebook credits.
Updated all card graphic images and hit zone images.
10/6/2021
Spoiler Alert!
Corrected the cards' print sizes so that printing at actual size prints at the size of a standard Heroscape card.
9/24/2022
Spoiler Alert!
Necro-Alchemist: “Geist-Powered Apparatus” – Reworked the ability so that Necro-Alchemist receives a charge marker at the start of each round and the player can reveal an “X” order marker after taking a turn with certain types of figures (including Necro-Alchemist) to receive an additional Charge Marker. This allows Necro-Alchemist to receive Charge Markers more consistently and to not be reliant on having certain figures in your army to receive Charge Markers.
Necro-Alchemist: "It Works" – Limited to 3 Charge Markers instead of 1. This allows for more strategy when using Necro-Alchemist and is how the ability works in AotP. With “Geist-Powered Apparatus” reworked so that Charge Markers are gained steadily and consistently, the ability remains balanced.
February 4th, 2018, 06:50 PM
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