The 16 Card Pool Thread

[kolakoski]

Well met!

The Faceless Ones! will be played in Jamaica more generically than in kolakoski's Impressionistic Battle Report, i.e., the free-built maps will have a lot of Swamp Water throughout, but not neccesarily with a central Pool, and I'll have a plethora of replacement units. I'll try Scarlet Witch and Mandarin (in for Dr. Strange and Silver Banshee) right away. Over a number of games, any or all of the other original units (except the Hand Ninjas) could be subbed out. All my C3G units are below:

Original Cast:

Spoiler Alert!

Iron Monger



Chameleon



Silver Banshee



Scarlet Spider

Abe Sapien



Ragman



Tempest



Sub-Mariner



Aquaman



Parademon




Black Knight




Puppet Master




Hyro-Man




Dr.Strange




Malekith

Replacements:

Spoiler Alert!

Swamp Thing



Blade



Moon Knight



Iron Fist




Mandarin




Lady Deathstrike




Captain America




Batman




Fantomex



Scarlet Witch



Diablo

Night Thrasher, an excellent proxy for Deathstroke,
and sufficient for Deadpool, Red Hood,
Red Robin, etc., as these characters' desirable sculpts
are too expensive or unavailable.




Psylocke

Mr. Hyde




(A Female) Hawkeye

Typhoid Mary

Hand Ninja
x 6

[Tornado]

Nice minis.

Great call on Night Thrasher. That is a really nice figure.
There was a design floating around in the public.

International Heroscape!

[kolakoski]

Well met!

So . . .

If you were to sub in units from those I have, including the various Captain Americas, Batmans, and Night Thrasher proxyings (Deadpool, Deathstroke, Red Hood, etc.), for balance and interesting gameplay, what 16 Cards/Choices would you come up with?

[Tornado]

Those are pretty much all solid designs IMO, you could do a total swap.

I like the Replacements better than the original.

[Dysole]

Real brief poke in here. Less in depth elsewhere, but I'd open Acerbatus in AYP's draft (with Meteorite as my backup) and Zemo in the most recent draft (but I think other draft picks taken would be more important for my backup).

~Dysole, not sure how in detail she wants to go

[kolakoski]

Well met!

From my blog:

In my Codex Article, I laid out the fundamentals of the 16 Card/Choice Draft. The most recent, and fairly successful example of one is The Faceless Ones! (a Battle Report featuring this scenario can be found here). The point range (140-300) of the Draft is fairly narrow (a good thing), yet contains a huge number of great Cards. The name of the scenario lends itself to using it as an evolutionary template for a future series of Faceless Ones! games, in that it implies that there are no fixed characters. The first of these will be that visualized in The Heroscape Traveller, The Sunken Temple - A Faceless Ones! Adventure. The Map will be a bit different, and feature Swamp Water (rather than Water), and there will be a couple of substitute units from my recently acquired kollection. Over time, different maps and substitutions will change the context, but the cast (barring additional purchases) will remain the same.

A comment by Tornado referencing possible substitutions got me to thinking . . .

Those are pretty much all solid designs IMO, you could do a total swap.

I like the Replacements better than the original.

Although there might be unintended consequences affecting balance, I could make additional cards available in the Draft. For instance, in a regular Draft, if you draft Silver Banshee, you draft Silver Banshee (duh!), but, in an augmented Draft, you might be given a choice between Silver Banshee and Mandarin, with the Card you rejected being removed from the Draft. An Expanded 16 Card/Choice Draft The Sunken Temple - A Faceless Ones! Adventure might look like this (sans Dr. Strange, Aquaman, Parademon, and Black Knight):

1. Scarlet Witch (285) or Deadpool (285)
2. Silver Banshee (290) or Mandarin (280)
3. Fantomex (260) or Mr. Hyde (260)
4. Psylocke (250) or Submariner (250)
8. Lady Deathstrike (240) or Swamp Thing (235)
9. Blade (230) or Malekith (220)
10 Tempest (210) or Scarlet Spider (190)
11. Batman (220) or Hydro-Man (190)
12. Iron Monger (230) or Abe Sapien (150)
13. (Female) Hawkeye (150) or Moon Knight (150)
14. Ragman (140) or Diablo (140)
15. Iron Man (150) or Puppet Master (140)
16. (Typhoid Mary (120) or Chameleon (100)) plus Hand Ninjas x 2 (190)

[Tornado]

Nice. That adds a nice extra layer of strategy.

I used an 'or' option in many of my random d20 lists. Mostly for grouping less appealing figures.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

I also have Kingpin (220) and 9 Intergang Agent figures (again from the prize) (two squads +1 figure) (220), and Captain America (220 or 240), but they're not quite a fit here, I fear.

P.S.: Just now found my Marvelscape figures. I had forgotten about so many of them! I have a real Iron Man sculpt, as well as Spiderman, Venom, Doctor Doom, and Red Skull (Thanos, Silver Surfer, Hulk, and Abomination likely being too powerful for the rest of my kollection) to factor in . . .

[kolakoski]

Well met!

The scheme in post #54 is OK, but for a more focused sense of theme, and a more balanced selection at both ends, I'm going with . . .

The Sunken Temple - A Faceless Ones! Adventure.

The Map. A large relatively open space, flooded with Swamp Water.

Heroscape Traveller Map . . .




. . . With Glyph of Wannok (Wound)

Glyph of Wannok (Wound): At the end of every round, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1, the figure on the Glyph receives one wound. If you roll a 2 or higher, you may choose an opponent who must give one wound to any figure he or she controls on the battlefield.

Other possible Glyphs to use:

Ring of Protection (Defense +3):
This figure may use this ring after an opponent has rolled attack dice for a normal or special attack against it, and before rolling defense dice. When rolling defense dice against that attack, this figure adds 3 additional dice.

Talisman of Defense: This figure adds 1 additional defense die when defending.

[Glyphs are optional, but recommended for this Map.]

Note: The Map above can handle two and three Player games as well.

The Setup. Two Teams of two Players each for a standard kill-'em-all. A Snake Draft from the 16 Cards (pictured below) will result in each Player having four Cards. [For a three Player Free For All: 12 Cards. Remove the last four Cards.]


Sherman Davies Team Rules (Optional). Instead of players controlling their own individual armies, players share all the heroes on their team and can place their order markers on any of the team's cards, with the only rule being that no card can have more than 2 order markers on it. When a team is down to 3 heroes, a card may have up to 3 order markers on it. When a team is down to 2 heroes, a card may have up to 4 order markers on it. When a team is down to 1 hero, that hero may have all 8 order markers on its card.

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[kolakoski]

Originally Posted by kolakoski

The Sunken Temple -
A Faceless Ones! Adventure.

The Map. A large relatively open space, flooded with Swamp Water.

Heroscape Traveller Map . . .




. . . With Glyph of Wannok (Wound)

Glyph of Wannok (Wound): At the end of every round, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1, the figure on the Glyph receives one wound. If you roll a 2 or higher, you may choose an opponent who must give one wound to any figure he or she controls on the battlefield.

Other possible Glyphs to use:

Ring of Protection (Defense +3):
This figure may use this ring after an opponent has rolled attack dice for a normal or special attack against it, and before rolling defense dice. When rolling defense dice against that attack, this figure adds 3 additional dice.

Talisman of Defense: This figure adds 1 additional defense die when defending.

[Glyphs are optional, but recommended for this Map.]

Note: The Map above can handle two and three Player games as well.

The Setup. Two Teams of two Players each for a standard kill-'em-all. A Snake Draft from the 16 Cards (pictured below) will result in each Player having four Cards. [For a three Player Free For All: 12 Cards. Remove the last four Cards.]


Sherman Davies Team Rules (Optional). Instead of players controlling their own individual armies, players share all the heroes on their team and can place their order markers on any of the team's cards, with the only rule being that no card can have more than 2 order markers on it. When a team is down to 3 heroes, a card may have up to 3 order markers on it. When a team is down to 2 heroes, a card may have up to 4 order markers on it. When a team is down to 1 hero, that hero may have all 8 order markers on its card.

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Many revisions since first published. Besides the addition of a Map, and the option of two, three, or four Player variants, I can't believe I didn't notice for so long that there were only 15 Cards!

Added Silver Banshee.

P.S.: What's your draft order, top to bottom?