Faure's comic customs

[faure]

New: 4-2-2011: I really liked the concepts of the Event Hero and Anti-Monitor, so I designed this cross-over figure, that just seemed a natural foe from an alternate dimension.

Event Hero: Ultimate Eye Tyrant

Spoiler Alert!

I've rearranged my other customs here between figures and glyphs.

Gotham Friends & Foes
One of the things I really enjoyed in the old Batman TV series and comics was the range of devices & plots the villains would come up with. For some characters such as the Joker and Penguin I've felt that while their C3G capture a good essence of the character, there hasn't been as much thematic support, so that's what I targeted with my first foray here into comic customs.

First, for the Penguin, is the Penguin Bot -- large robot penguins to aid him vs. Batman & Robin. With a couple Safari Emperor Penguins around home, they seemed the perfect size to serve as either guards or attackers. [And reminded me of the giant penguin in Monty Python's Scott of the Antarctic episode].

Penguin Bot

Spoiler Alert!

I modeled their abilities on Deathwalker 7000, but gave them more opportunity to move through a Crime Lord activation and a ranged attack, though with a slower move and no dodge.

Gotham Undercover Cops Updated: 3-22-2011
One additional unit for my Gotham related theme. These are the Gotham Undercover Cops--a pair of figures who can infiltrate and potentially inactivate the minions of various Crime Lords.

Spoiler Alert!

Joker Glyphs
Second, for the Joker, are a couple of Equipment Glyphs allowing him a couple different options to attack, or escape. In games so far, we've allowed Joker to start a game equipped with one hidden glyph of the player's choosing, giving some unpredictability and uncertainty to the opponent as to what the Joker will spring upon them.

The Glyph of Calling Card allows the Joker to play the glyph when someone engages him, and immediately escape.

Spoiler Alert!

The Glyph of Bang! Gun came to mind as the classic Joker 'toy'. It may come to nothing, or it may be quite lethal.

Spoiler Alert!

The Glyph of Razor Cards is a different variant of a ranged attack, again with some probability of fumbling the deck. I liked the idea of integrating the "Dead Man's Hand" here, which is why I made it 4 attacks to represent the 4 cards of the hand.

Spoiler Alert!

I have one other Joker glyph in the works based on the Joker miniature figure we use: Glyph of Joker Fish Bombs.

Interested to hear thoughts and comments on these.

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

I like the Penguin Bot, its a pretty neat little support unit for any Crimelord. 7 defense seems kinda high, but I suppose they are robots and he only has one life. Do the penguins have guns? What's the range symbolize?

[Balantai]

Any penguin that can take out Superman in one blast is a SCARY penguin.

[faure]

I like the Penguin Bot, its a pretty neat little support unit for any Crimelord. 7 defense seems kinda high, but I suppose they are robots and he only has one life. Do the penguins have guns? What's the range symbolize?

Yes, I kept the defense high to compensate for lower mobility and the one life--otherwise it seemed like they'd be quickly blown out of the water. The range symbolizes guns mounted in the robotic wings.

Any penguin that can take out Superman in one blast is a SCARY penguin.

That is part of the idea. After all, the Penguin would hardly want a useless toy. In my playtests to date, it's been an interesting unit. The Penguin + 2 Penguin Bots has run pretty equal to Batman + Robin. Sometimes the Penguin Bots prove to be duds, quickly dispatched by the Dynamic Duo. Other times, one or the other of the Penguin Bots takes out one of the pair, leading to a culminating battle with the Penguin. In larger games, the Penguin Bot has wounded or knocked out a key foe at critical junctures.

[faure]

New Unit added: Gotham Undercover Cops

[faure]

I really liked reading about some of the battles against Anti-Monitor, but since I don't have that figure, I figured I'd create my own Event Hero. The Ultimate Eye Tyrant Beholder seemed like a good fit: a huge figure from another dimension, something that looks totally bizarre and terrifying to normal people and just screams out to fight the most powerful superheroes.



I wanted to capture the multiple eyes blasting rays out at multiple targets, the central eye potentially dazing or paralyzing foes, and then eating those bold enough to stand face to face with it.

After tinkering with the stats, I had some good close battles against a number of combinations: Fantastic Four + Iron Man [when Mr Fantastic stays alive long enough, that generally tipped the advantage towards the Fantastic Four]; Hulk + Abomination + Silver Surfer [Eye Tyrant triumphing]; Thor + Hulk + Thanos [Thanos returned from the dead in time to help Hulk finish off the Eye Tyrant, though Hulk had 6 wounds]. I also threw an entire Vydar ranged army against it [soulborgs, gorillinators, agents] which ended in the Eye Tyrant finally taking down Q9 standing alone at the end [Eye Tyrant with 17 wounds].

[Devil's Advocate]

I like the Eye Tyrant. I might consider making his Gaze work more on Heroes but cool figure.

[faure]

making his Gaze work more on Heroes

That's a power I went back-and-forth on considerably, finally deciding that it shouldn't totally cripple the superheroes fighting the Eye Tyrant -- it does enough damage to them as it is -- however, I did feel the Eye Tyrant should really impact lesser common figures. Another option was to have limiting effect based on Personality, but with a few figures using that recently I just went with the Common vs Unique.

[badgermaniac]

Anytime we have more epic villains (something I have been interested in for years), I think it is a good thing.

My only advice is that it takes a LOT of playtesting to narrow down that cost range.

[faure]

Anytime we have more epic villains (something I have been interested in for years), I think it is a good thing.

It particularly suits the superhero theme, and I've certainly found it a nice change of pace.

My only advice is that it takes a LOT of playtesting to narrow down that cost range.

I couldn't agree more.
What I ended up doing was to target the approximate cost range I was after -- something that would severely tax the Fantastic Four, and likely require another superhero who could bond with them. And I knew what powers I wanted for the Eye Tyrant--and then it was on to playtesting!

FF + Iron Man did a lot of the initial battles as I tinkered with the attack levels and HP. Then a lot of different Marvel groupings got into the mix. I found that SpiderMan and Venom along with The B.I.V.'s Carnage paired with a couple others to make ~1200 pt army made a pretty good team against the Eye Tyrant. Their Spider Sense proved very useful in avoiding Eye Rays, getting just out of range, and then coming back in to attack again, though usually just one (typically Venom) was left standing at the end.

The Vydar army was a good test against ranged attack, but I still want to run it up against more armies and the DC heroes I have. To date it's been a fun epic unit, though.

[badgermaniac]

What you are going to find with such a high cost figure is that as soon as you have a couple consistent tests to narrow things down, you will have a couple of tests that drastically contradict those results, which leaves you trying to figure out which tests were aberrations and which were valid.

With the high cost figures, there is a LOT of variability.

If you playtest them the same way that you do a regular unit, I can pretty much guarantee that you haven't come close to doing enough.

Patience is a virtue.

[faure]

If you playtest them the same way that you do a regular unit, I can pretty much guarantee that you haven't come close to doing enough.

Yes, quite true, and definitely have more combinations I want to continue to run through.