The Pre-SoV Workshop

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Taeblewalker

Scarlet looks great. But I would say, "After revealing order marker 1 on Codename Scarlet and taking a turn with her..."

For Agent Krey, Tricky Attack Enhancement is refreshingly different from other powers. It might work better if it had a range like 4, a la Taelord. She does seem a little weak for her powers; maybe up her range to 7.

For Jan Sobeiski, it's good that you are coming up with totally different powers compared to what's already out there. However, I don't really understand the first power; why does he get more defense from charging?

Kafnirra isn't bad as a damage soak. She would do better in that role if she had more Life. I'm not sure why you chose Wild; who does that benefit? Off hand I can think of the Marro Drones but I'm sure there are others. She definitely suffers from low Range but at least she can potentially attack more than one figure if she's lucky.

Yeah that is good wording for Scarlet I think; I was using wording from Ornak but since Ornak skips his own turn this makes better sense.

I was thinking about Krey at 65 points but attack buffs do always have scary potential. I playtested her with Microcorp in several games and getting three of them next to her on height is 3x5 dice which can be quite nasty. She's squishy enough that I could see a small buff to something like the range or points on her though yeah.

Jan's marker is supposed to be representing the "momentum"/hard-to-hit nature of a fast-moving cavalry charge in terms of being difficult to pin down with ranged attacks (also where the name of that power comes from). So as he's rushing in the arrow and gunfire targeting is difficult. It's perhaps a little more abstract than a lot of powers, whether *too* abstract, I'm not sure. It works for me but perhaps not for others.

Kafnirra tags Wild figures for the overall theme, so she can bond with and soak damage for both MacDirks and Dreadguls (which both tie into her general thematics) but not for Knights (who don't, and already have very good defense and don't really need the help). Knights could still use her as a flexible ranged attacker though, in the vein of Hrognak. I actually did play some with her at 6 life, but it felt a bit obnoxious for the points - it might be right though (or 6 life and 95 or 100 points perhaps).

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

I was thinking about Krey at 65 points but attack buffs do always have scary potential. I playtested her with Microcorp in several games and getting three of them next to her on height is 3x5 dice which can be quite nasty. She's squishy enough that I could see a small buff to something like the range or points on her though yeah.

Krey is crazy-broken at 70pts. +1 attack to an entire agent ranged pod? There's a reason Taelord costs so much.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Krey is crazy-broken at 70pts. +1 attack to an entire agent ranged pod? There's a reason Taelord costs so much.

I kind of thought that could be the case going in as well potentially, but she's considerably worse than Marcus at it (she mostly boosts worse units than him i.e not 4th or 10th, and also ones that don't get 4 activations per turn, and has half the life and 1 less defense, for just 30 less points - all that does not seem like a great tradeoff to make for those 30).

You can set up Raelin, Krav and her which can do some nasty damage but even backed by Raelin, she's not super survivable on 3 life and 2 defense unless your d20 is running really hot, and you can't use Romans as a bonding screen to get her into position either like you can with Marcus - your best bet is Scarlet with her OM1 double/triple positioning but that is another 110 points to sink. If you're doing any of that you're almost certainly better off doing other ranged pods as far as I can tell, but I may have missed something somewhere.

The Agents do have more range generally, so on some maps and match-ups I could def. see it being a potential problem still that I just didn't run into as much as I could have and that could be a good reason to increase her points and her stats a little (I want her to stay fragile for exactly these reasons though). Do you think there is a point range where the effect is more balanced? She does not seem worth as much as Marcus's 100 points gets you to me.

I also don't hate the idea of reworking it to be a limited version of Andask's effect, something along these lines:

LASER SIGHT
When a Tricky figure you control adjacent to Agent Krey attacks an enemy figure with a normal attack, before defense dice are rolled, you may re-roll all attack dice that did not show skulls. Laser Sight does not affect Agent Krey. Laser Sight may only be used once per turn.

That would allow her to still fill a similar role while reducing her buffing ceiling considerably (and actually would work nicely with Agent Carr's Sword of Reckoning in tandem with Scarlet, if you activate both of them as part of her Mission Assignment - which is cool). Could be only a single dice reroll to really hit her power level hard, and/or "within 2 clear sight spaces" rather than strictly adjacent, but any/all of this would keep her theme and role intact while curbing the most degenerate scenarios of stacking up a super-buffed pod.

EDIT: I suppose you can pair her with Laglor and Raelin and Agents, which is something Marcus can't do; you don't have too many points for Agents or screens left after doing that (110 for Laglor, 80 for Raelin, 70 for her is 260, and the cheapest Tricky ranged squad is Gorillinators at 90 so you can fit just two squads into most army sizes - or something like Krav and 2x Rats at 500) but it does give you a decently strong pod that some armies probably have issues with. Whether it's meaningfully different in terms of play to something like Q9 pods in that instance I'm not sure, but it was something I didn't consider.

[Blue Trails]

I appreciate the feedback, guys!

Originally Posted by Vydar_XLIII

Its a good thing you said that these were the same minis that Leaf_It previously proposed, otherwise I would not have realized it. These minis are translucent and unpainted.

...

Unfortunately, I think using unpainted, off-white, translucent figures is pretty close to a non-starter for me for this design. There have been a lot of translucent minis to have come through lately and while I think more of them can be ok in the right circumstances (especially in diferent colors), I don't think there is much room for off-white, especially that aren't thematically connected to the Aldorns.

I realize that it makes sense for your wolves to be spectral and that it may be the best decision for this particular design; however, being unpainted and translucent in a color of an existing faction is a lot of baggage that this starts this design off on the wrong foot if it wants to be included in VC canon.

Also worth noting that there is currently a different 2-figure, Ullar, melee squad with Hunter synergies in the SoV queue. How do your hounds differentiate themselves from a very similar submission? Unfortunately, that's another issue for this design to overcome out the gate.

On to the design itself. To start, I see the word psychopomp as a job description (re. Class) rather than a species. Its the name of the entity that guides dead souls to their place in the afterlife. Characters like the Grim Reaper, Davy Jones, Charon and the Cwn Annwn are psychopomps. I also don't feel like this word is a good descriptor of your design. Nothing about the power set hits this thematic beat. Your design is a set of ghostly wolves with hunter synergy. They hunt in a pack with an alpha* and move through stuff like all the other ghostly HS units.

I like where you're coming from; the source material, the theme, etc. But I think you got bogged down with the hunter synergy and the Wild Hunt theme you want is not showing itself well on the card. With the in-the-queue Wulfing Hunters already doing the hunter stuff, I think I'd look in the direction of "escort of the dead" for another iteration. That direction would make this design stand out as doing something potentially quite different.

----------

* Yes, I am aware that the "Alpha Beta Wolf Theory" has been debunked. I just used it as an analogy for how Quarry Hunting works.

First, thanks for posting a picture of the physical sculpts! I didn't have any ready, and my search-fu was weak.

I didn't know that the color white was associated with a specific faction when used for translucent figures, as I overlooked the new Aldorn units that are undergoing review; my bad. Given the differences between the Air Elemental and the Specters of Aldorn, I thought that white semi-translucent figures would be valid for any ghostly or immaterial design.

I see we interpreted the appropriateness of the Psychopomp Species differently: as you said, it's the specific variety of supernatural being that performs the Cwn Annwn's job, so it seemed fine to me.

I am aware of Shiftrex's Wulfing Hunters (of which I am a fan!), but I think that the Annunhounds distinguish themselves from Wulfings fairly well. While both designs share a General and a Class, as well as the limitations of a two-man melee squad, a significant difference lies in the fact that the Wulfings must remain unengaged to fully utilize their special powers, while the Hounds must engage as many key figures as possible to maximize the reward of their bonding turns. Also, although they both operate within a similar thematic and synergistic area, the Wulfings only offer direct synergy benefits to themselves, while the Annunhounds work with any Hunter Hero. I think there's enough creative space for both submissions, all things considered.

In the worst case of overlap, though, it would be easy enough to switch the Annunhounds to Einar as a nod to the Master of the Hunt. They're both inspired by the UK's Wild Hunt stories, after all.

Further exploration of the Psychopomp/Wild Hunt themes would be interesting, too.

Originally Posted by Scytale

I'm afraid I have to agree with Vydar in that VC is reaching saturation with ghostly translucent units, especially with recent submissions. Those submissions had the benefit of tying with an existing unit; these don't have that luxury.

That's not to say that ghostly units aren't possible to add in, but the bar is going to be higher. They need to add something new, which these sort of do with strong Hunter Hero synergy. The hunting theme is similar to the current version of Wulfing Hunters, but different in how it works, and this seems like it handles the thematic concept without feeling too forced.

It's probably as good of a design as we can expect for ghostly hounds (except the Psychopomp species name--not a fan). They are phantomy and do hunting-hound things. If the figures were painted and the design wasn't ghostly I think they'd get accepted for review easily. But I'm not sure if this version will overcome translucent-fatigue.

Hm. "Translucent-fatigue" wouldn't have occurred to me, but it seems like a valid point; I understand that VC is similarly weary of Medium Heroes from the fantasy genre. If I may speculate here, would a thematic third power help the Hounds meet the resulting stricter standards? A different incarnation of the Annunhounds' design had what I will politely describe as a complementary, heavily mutated homage to the MotH's Mortal Strike power, though I dropped it for brevity; it resembled what follows.

LURE THE SOUL
After an Annunhound attacks a figure with exactly 1 Life remaining, if no excess shields were rolled, roll an unblockable attack die against the defending figure.

The use of "remaining Lives" in a power trigger condition is admittedly unusual, but Tetraites provides a precedent for this sort of clause.


Also, I can see that people don't share my enthusiasm for the "Psychopomp" species. I suppose I could call them "Entities" or "Fairies" as a more generalized description of not-quite undead spirits, similar to classic 'Scape's uses of "Arachnids" instead of "Spiders" and "Undead" instead of "Vampire" for the Fyorlag Spiders and the Esenweins, respectively.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Blue Trails

Hm. "Translucent-fatigue" wouldn't have occurred to me, but it seems like a valid point; I understand that VC is similarly weary of Medium Heroes from the fantasy genre. If I may speculate here, would a thematic third power help the Hounds meet the resulting stricter standards?

Adding a power (probably) isn't the answer. It won't change the figures, it will just potentially muddy an already good design.

Originally Posted by Blue Trails

Also, I can see that people don't share my enthusiasm for the "Psychopomp" species. I suppose I could call them "Entities" or "Fairies" as a more generalized description of not-quite undead spirits, similar to classic 'Scape's uses of "Arachnids" instead of "Spiders" and "Undead" instead of "Vampire" for the Fyorlag Spiders and the Esenweins, respectively.

What's wrong with them being Undead? Undead in Heroscape is very broad, including things like Retchets.

[Shadowking]

OK, I've made some adjustments to Agent Krey I think help her out in terms of balanced power, theme/interest level and fun synergy without changing much about her theme or role; a flat Tricky Attack Enhancement was a little boring anyway, and Targeting Laser is worse with podding up squads (while still offering some utility), gives more agency/decision-making on the part of the player playing with her, and better with more fun Tricky hero play with units like Darrak Ambershard and Agent Carr; specifically the Scarlet play with Mission Assignment in conjuction with Agent Carr seems particularly cool to run with this adjustment whereas with the flat attack buff was much less interesting. I also bumped her up by 10 points which in conjuction with the ceiling reduction of her attack buff hopefully makes her potential a bit less overall - Kira Jax says her base stat-line with no abilities is probably worth about ~25 points (Kira having +1 range and an OK ability at 30 points), so you're paying 55 points for the two abilities on top then which I think seems fairly reasonable.

Would greatly appreciate some more thoughts on this version of her (and on the other three units in their current states) if anyone has the chance!

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

OK, I've made some adjustments to Agent Krey I think help her out in terms of balanced power, theme/interest level and fun synergy without changing much about her theme or role

That made her more broken. And less fun to play with, as it adds in more pauses and rolls into the attack phase.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Scytale

That made her more broken. And less fun to play with, as it adds in more pauses and rolls into the attack phase.

OK, now I am confused; Marcus costs 100 points and buffs better units, Taelord costs more points than Andask does and is otherwise the same stats except having mostly worse stats than Andask (no ranged attack; Kyrie Supremacy VS the weird fake "stealth flying" of Taelord I'm not sure which adds more benefit but it's gotta be fairly close); if you don't mind I would love some more elaboration on why this effect is more broken and not less - or what point range she needs to be at to be more appropriate with either one of the effects? A flat +1 buff adds a higher ceiling to the dice pools of three units; with certain combinations the reroll effect can reroll more than three dice per round (and it can be stronger if you can only get one unit within her range), but you're still capped at your original pool size.

If her points cost gets much higher than 80, then with either effect it's just a Marcus-style character with a buff effect on generally worse stuff with mostly worse stats and no movement buff for the same amount of points isn't it? Or is Marcus considered "too good" and thus anything submitted to SoV should be drastically below his power curve to the point where it's not appropriate to use him as a vague power level guider?

I think the difference between adding more dice rolls to a phase is not nothing but generally the powers that just add a +1 to a synergy group are less "fun" in terms of consideration of player agency in my opinion - this effect already exists on Andask so clearly it's been deemed to cross beneath that bar of "is this worth it" in at least that case, I'm not sure what would make this one so much less fun than him to run? I don't know, maybe I'm being dumb and missing something super obvious with this. I'm fine to use either effect here honestly.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

OK, now I am confused; Marcus costs 100 points and buffs better units, Taelord costs more points than Andask does and is otherwise the same stats except having mostly worse stats than Andask (no ranged attack; Kyrie Supremacy VS the weird fake "stealth flying" of Taelord I'm not sure which adds more benefit but it's gotta be fairly close); if you don't mind I would love some more elaboration on why this effect is more broken and not less - or what point range she needs to be at to be more appropriate with either one of the effects? A flat +1 buff adds a higher ceiling to the dice pools of three units; with certain combinations the reroll effect can reroll more than three dice per round (and it can be stronger if you can only get one unit within her range), but you're still capped at your original pool size.

Marcus buffing 10th Reg is nuts, no question.

While +1 die is a higher ceiling, rerolls of misses is better for consistency, which is what a pod needs more than anything. Krav have decent enough Attack on their own on a hill anyway. I'd have to run the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that 4 Attack with rerolls will more consistently do a point of damage than 5 Attack.

Raelin + Rats + Krav/other Agents is already top-tier. Adding in an attack buff just makes that all the nastier.

[Shadowking]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Marcus buffing 10th Reg is nuts, no question.

While +1 die is a higher ceiling, rerolls of misses is better for consistency, which is what a pod needs more than anything. Krav have decent enough Attack on their own on a hill anyway. I'd have to run the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that 4 Attack with rerolls will more consistently do a point of damage than 5 Attack.

Raelin + Rats + Krav/other Agents is already top-tier. Adding in an attack buff just makes that all the nastier.

Right, OK yeah I see, thank you, that makes sense - so if you pod up and have (relatively) consistent defences then adding in additional consistency to your attacks is likely to have a higher "value" to it, and even though she's squishy the +2 on her defence does help in combination with Rats to make certain armies (melee mostly) have a hard time breaking through and getting at her small health pool in the first place.

To be honest a lot of my games were just with her, Scarlet and Microcorp/other "fun" units and without Raelin (partly because I was using Delta points in most of them, so Raelin is a lot less efficient there), where she doesn't have anywhere near as much of a scary utilization or ceiling. Perhaps it's better to just go back to the drawing board on her design and focus more on the other three, who hopefully don't run into these sorts of issues as much? (also if I submit only Codename: Scarlet at some point, someone else could do their own repaint for the final Nakita which would be fun)

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Raelin + Rats + Krav/other Agents is already top-tier. Adding in an attack buff just makes that all the nastier.

^this.

Highly competitive players in highly competitive tournaments will know how to abuse this.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Shadowking

To be honest a lot of my games were just with her, Scarlet and Microcorp/other "fun" units and without Raelin (partly because I was using Delta points in most of them, so Raelin is a lot less efficient there), where she doesn't have anywhere near as much of a scary utilization or ceiling.

The tricky part of playtesting is to not play units they way you think they should be played, but how other people will play them. That is sometimes difficult to figure out; something you envision to be a neat cheerleader might be overly good as an assassin, for example. One thing that always needs serious playtesting is the optimal build in a standard tournament format.