The Book of Beta Ray Bill

[marrowick]

The Book of Beta Ray Bill

C3G MARVEL PUBLIC EXCLUSIVE COLLECTION 13
CHAMPIONS AND ILLUSIONISTS


Comic PDF


Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Critical Mass set.
Its model number and name are #094 / Beta Ray Bill.

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Character Bio - When Surtur destroyed the Burning Galaxy on his crusade to destroy Asgard, a race of beings called the Korbinites left their planet in a massive fleet. Before the journey, however, their scientists created a guardian who would travel with the fleet and protect them during their journey. The Korbinite Bill was selected after various tests and challenges and was turned into a cyborg.

When the Korbinite fleet neared the Milky Way Galaxy, it was detected by a SHIELD satellite and Nick Fury asked Thor to investigate. Thor boarded Bill's ship and they fought. During the fight, Thor lost his grip on Mjolnir for more than 60 seconds and was transformed into Donald Blake. Curious, Bill picked up the hammer and was deemed worthy, instantly giving him the powers of Thor and a costume of similar design.

Sensing this, Odin transported both Thor and Bill to Asgard, where Bill demanded he be allowed to keep the hammer because he had beaten Thor. However, Odin said that the contest was not fair because Thor had an artificial limitation, so he temporarily restored both of their powers and arranged for them to fight to the death in the realm of Skartheim, a lava-filled wasteland. After a long and grueling battle, both combatants succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed. However, Bill's race was naturally enhanced by warm climates and he awoke before Thor but refused to take his life, thus passing Odin's final test.

Odin then created a new hammer, Stormbreaker, imbuing it with all the powers of Mjolnir, but none of the limitations. Thor and Bill became friends and they, along with Sif, returned to save his people from the armies of Surtur.
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-Rulings and Clarifications-

• N/A

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• As a Warrior, Beta Ray Bill has these Warrior Synergies.

Outgoing Synergy:

• Beta Ray Bill may attack with his Back to Back special power after you take a turn with an Asgardian Unique Hero. Current Asgardians.

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-Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses-

Immunities

• N/A

Benefits

• N/A

Weaknesses

• N/A

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• N/A

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: (Trollbrute)
• Second playtest: (Ronin)
• Third playtest: (midgieboy3)
• Fourth playtest (Yodaking)
• Fifth playtest: (fret_gurglo)
• Sixth playtest (Asterius)
• Seventh playtest (Zettian Juggernaut)
• Art: Comic, Figure, Background
• Art by Japes

Card Updates:
7 March 2021 - Class changed to Warrior

[marrowick]

NAME = BETA RAY BILL

SPECIES = KORBINITE
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = WARRIOR
PERSONALITY = VALIANT

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 8

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 7
DEFENSE = 7

POINTS = 420

STORMBREAKER SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 4. Attack 4 + Special.
If Beta Ray Bill attacks an adjacent figure with this special attack, he may attack another adjacent figure, adding 1 attack die. He may continue attacking adjacent figures, adding another attack die for each subsequent attack, up to a maximum of +2 dice. Beta Ray Bill cannot attack the same figure more than once per turn.

BACK TO BACK
After revealing an Order Marker on an adjacent Unique Asgardian Hero you control and taking a turn with that Hero, if Beta Ray Bill is still adjacent to that Hero, you may immediately attack with Beta Ray Bill.

SUPER STRENGTH

FLYING

[IAmBatman]

Some wording tweak suggestions and a question:

STORMBREAKER SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 4 + Special. Attack 3 + Special.
If Beta Ray Bill attacks an adjacent figure with this special attack he may attack any or all figures adjacent to him, one at a time. When attacking a figure with this special attack, roll 1 additional die for each figure Beta Ray Bill has previously attacked this turn, up to a maximum of +3.

BACK TO BACK
At the start of the game, you may choose one other Unique Guardian Hero or Unique Champion Hero you control. If Beta Ray Bill and the chosen hero are adjacent to each other when an Order Marker is revealed on the chosen hero's card, after taking a turn with the chosen figure, if they are still adjacent, and both of them are engaged, you may immediately attack with Beta Ray Bill's normal attack or special attack.

Who does the underlined "him" refer to there? Beta Ray Bill or the defending figure? It's unclear as is.

No issues with the power set or anything else here other than some questions on wording.

[johnny139]

Looks pretty solid to me. Stormbreaker could use some wording clean up, though, I think... maybe have it hinge on engagement rather than attacking an adjacent figure? I dunno, it just sort of reads weird to me.

Also not sure if we need Guardians for Back to Back. Beyond that, looks great to me. We'll need a post with comic art and backgrounds, too, when you get around to it.

[IAmBatman]

Guardians as of now would (unless I'm missing any) include:

Zauriel
Heimdall
Iron Man Hulkbuster
Iron Man Thorbuster

[MegaSilver]

Originally Posted by marrowick

BACK TO BACK
At the start of the game, you may choose one other Unique Guardian Hero or Unique Champion Hero you control. If Beta Ray Bill and the chosen hero are adjacent to each other when an Order Marker is revealed on the chosen hero's card, after taking that turn, if they are still adjacent, and both of them are engaged, you may immediately attack with Beta Ray Bill's normal attack or special attack.

Cueing Omegacron's card, the last line should read: "you may immediately take a turn with Beta Ray Bill, in which he may only attack."

[Viegon]

I really like this design, it captures Beta Ray perfectly.

Originally Posted by MegaSilver

Cueing Omegacron's card, the last line should read: "you may immediately take a turn with Beta Ray Bill, in which he may only attack."

C3G doesn't use that wording, they've always used wording like Beta Ray already has.

As to the design, a couple thoughts/suggestions:
1) Shouldn't Back to Back be Champions and Guards instead of Champions and Guardians? Sif, who should work with Beta Ray, is a Guard and not a Guardian (the only other current Guard is Aaron Cash).
2) Is there a reason for him not to be a Champion? I think it'd be nice if he was a Champion so Sif could use her Fierce Devotion power with him (which would make them an awesome duo).
3) Personally, I think the engagement restriction should be dropped from Back to Back. It's already very limited, with the engagement restriction I worry it will be too hard to pull off. Plus, I love the thematic imagine of Beta Ray and Thor standing back to back tossing their hammers around.
4) For Stormbreaker, how about wording it like this:

STORMBREAKER SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 4 + Special. Attack 3 + Special.
Before attacking with this special attack, you may subtract 3 from the Range number. If you do, Beta Ray Bill may attack any or all figures adjacent to him, one at a time, rolling 1 additional attack die for each figure Beta Ray Bill has previously attacked this turn, to a maximum of +3 dice.

[IAmBatman]

To everything in Viegon's post.

[johnny139]

Guardian is there because, unlike Thor, Beta Ray Bill is far more reactive than active. Keeps his head down, generally. He definitely qualifies as a Champion, though, if we want to go down that road.

...I think it being Champions and Guards is worse than Champions and Guardians, though. Guard sounds pretty wimpy to me.

Also, he's technically a Cyborg construct physically, not a Korbinite. Brain of a Korbinite in a bio-mechanical body. I dunno what we want to do there.

[Lazy Orang]

Okay, I like removing the engagement restriction from Back to Back - just seems to make it a bit more useful.
Don't exactly like the idea of the change to Guard - Sif synergy's cool, but she's the only C3G Guard other than Aaron Cash - the Guardian selection seems more interesting.
I like the idea of making him a Champion - it'll be cool to expand that synergy. Also makes a team of him and Allen the Alien more interesting, too.
I sort of know this guy from a Silver Surfer cartoon, but he was extremely different there from what he seems in the comics. Has he ever really worked with the Surfer in the comics? If so, I'd love to see Back to Back working with Adventurers as well, so he can work with the likes of Norrin and Balder, but maybe that's just me.
For the whole Korbinite/Cyborg thing, maybe make him a Korbinite and give him this?

Cybernetic Body X
Beta Ray Bill has the species Cyborg in addition to the species listed on this card. At the end of the round, if you reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card, remove one Wound Marker from each Army Card you control with the Cybernetic Repair X or Cybernetic Body X special powers.

Basing this off Kryptonian DNA with the idea of making him count as an extra species while giving him that species' signature power. No idea if it'd be thematic, though, just throwing out the idea.
Looking cool, marrowick!

[IAmBatman]

Is he a cyborg known to self-repair, though? I mean, I know he's a cyborg, but I don't know about the other part.

I'd prefer he be able to go back-to-back with Sif than with Hulkbuster Iron Man (who does not need the synergy, IMO).

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Is he a cyborg known to self-repair, though? I mean, I know he's a cyborg, but I don't know about the other part.

No idea, don't know the character, just thought it would be an easy way to make him a joint Cyborg/Korbinite with semi-precedent. It's just I think I remember reading somewhere that you were planning to give all Cyborgs Cybernetic Repair X, or did I get that wrong? This is something other people are going to need to check in on.