The Book of Thundercracker

[Yodaking]

I'll see if I can't get that into a test then.

[Yodaking]

Looks like Prime would completely negate Sonic Boom right now.

INSPIRING LEADERSHIP
When an Order Marker is removed from the card of a figure you control by an opponent's special power, or when an Army Card you control has its last figure destroyed and before removing that figure from the battlefield, you may choose Optimus Prime or a figure you control within clear sight of Optimus Prime. Place the removed Order Marker or any unrevealed Order Markers on the destroyed figure's card on the chosen figure's card.

Initial thought was to change Prime's card so it's a once per turn power, but he's been released for a while now. So I'm wondering if we can't do something on Thundercrackers end? Or maybe it's fine as is, that Prime counters this one power when in play and it works fine when he's not there to lead the Autobots.

[fret_gurglo]

I would say it's fine as is. But if you really want it so that Optimus can't stop Thundercracker, you could make it so that Thundercracker reveals the OM instead of removing it. Nearly the same effect, it just would be a weird and unique way to do it.

[Yodaking]

I think I'll just leave it as is and let Prime be one guy its just not a good move against. Revealed OM have some game impacts for Auto-bots so that would just lead to other issues.

[Yodaking]

Following up here after talking about it in Skywarps thread. This is what I'm thinking to try and give Thundercracker and the full Seeker team-up a little more juice. I think Skywarp will always be a little more interesting to play, just because the teleporting trickster is unique to him, while Thundercracker's thing is being a somewhat reluctant Decepticon.

SONIC BOOM 8
Immeditely after initiative is rolled for the first round, you may move all Seekers you control 10 spaces in a straight line. If you do, then one at a time, roll the 20-sided die for every opponent's Order Marker. On a roll of 8 or higher, that opponent must remove the Order Marker.

[Yodaking]

LP responded in Skywarp's thread that he would leave the d20 a 10+. So that's what I'll do. SP updated with what I want to see tested.

[Yodaking]

Here are Shifty's tests.

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

C3G DUAL PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME = THUNDERCRACKER

SPECIES = CYBERTRONIAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = SEEKER
PERSONALITY = CONFLICTED

SIZE/HEIGHT = HUGE 15 (DOUBLE BASED)

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 7
RANGE = 6
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 270

SEEKER ASSAULT
After revealing an Order Marker on this card and making a normal attack with this figure, you may make one normal attack, on a new target, with any Seeker you control.

SONIC BOOM 10
Immediately after initiative is rolled for the first round, you may move all Seekers you control 10 spaces in a straight line. If you do, then one at a time, roll the 20-sided die for every opponent's Order Marker. On a roll of 10 or higher, that opponent must remove the Order Marker.

AERIAL ADVANTAGE
While Thundercracker can use his Flying special power, he is always considered to have height advantage on non-flying figures.

FLYING
SUPERSTRENGTH

NAME OF THE TEST UNIT Thundercracker

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes
- What should be the unit's point value? 270
- Give a brief overview. Was unsure of how I wanted to use him at first, hadn't played full decepticons before. Wound up using him to just throw out some early attacks and act as a first strike unit with the hope of knocking OMs off.
Map: Sacred Shrine
Units: .

410 Megatron
340 Soundwave
110 Ravage
60 Headpool (Wade Wilson's Head)
270 TESTED UNIT
1190, 7 hexes

VS

15 Maggot Swarm x3
620 Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur)
280 Wolverine (James Howlett)
275 Cable (Nate Summers)
1190, 6 hexes

Spoiler Alert!

(Summary)
Apocalypse Wins!

Early: Knocked 2 Order Markers off with Thundercraker and moved pretty far forward. Round one was quiet, I was able to develop my units pretty evenly and take an attack at Cable. Cable was not terribly effective early game because he was mostly shooting at Thundercracker who denied him the ability to get any height advantage. Wolverine ran up to engage Thundercracker but when down quickly to a Megatron turn and a Soundwave/Ravage turn afterwards. After this Cable got some nasty damage on Megatron who blanked on defense.

Mid: Cable tried to finish off Megatron but fell short because of a wisecrack, then Megatron turned into a gun and Headpool blasted Cable down to 1 life (greatest interaction on earth). Megatron went down shortly after because Apocalypse joined the fray, Thundercracker finished off cable but then went down really quickly to Apocalypse. Since Apoc can fly the height advantage power got removed from the equation and his stats were low enough that he folded quickly.

Late: Lategame came down to Soundwave trying to get wounds on Megatron but failing to get any through. Between the Shield Belt, Time stone, and fact that Apocalypse could use the maggots to pass off any damage made the fight tough. I was unable to wound Apocalypse in the endgame due to lack of firepower. We noticed that it was also tough to position the double space huge figures on this map, came into play a few times in tight quarters.

Life: Apocalypse (all life remaining), 1x Maggot Swarm.

_____________________________________________________________

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes
- What should be the unit's point value? 270
- Give a brief overview. Better game here, positioning both seekers out to the middle of the map after first initiative was very effective. Prime blocking OM tricks meant that the first turn was not as eventful but I still got high groud and coordinated enough good attack early to make things work..
Map: Sacred Shrine
Units:

310 Starscream
410 Megatron
270 Thundercracker
10 Maggot Swarm x2
1000, 8 hexes

VS

410 Optimus Prime
200 Spider-Man (Peter Parker) (Transformers)
190 Jack Flag (Jack Harrison)
200 Bumblebee
1000, 5 hexes

Spoiler Alert!

(Summary)
Who won and how many wounds did they have?Megatron Reigns!

Early: I zoomed the seekers out early game to the water and then spent the first round moving them up onto the mountain, was able to set up and get shots on Bumblebee as he moved up. That autobot moved up with Jack Flag but I focused the robot down with with seekers on height and then finished him off with Megatron. After that Optimus started moved out, I moved Starscream and Thundercracker to an elevated 7 hex to wall off Megatron and started taking turns shooting him.

Mid: Prime moved to engage starscream and brought him to 1 lifepoint but Megatron was close enough to turn into a gun and enable a 10 dice special attack. Prime at it pretty hard (4 wounds) but then he moved around to engage both the smaller decepticons. He slowly worked through them, their lower stats didn't hold out long against 8 attack and I wound up switching my order markers onto Megatron. We had a really touch and go situation but Megatron got out of his Prime encounter with only 2 wounds (Prime had been whittled down but it still took a long time to finish him off).

Late: Megatron faced off against Jack Flag and Spiderman, Jack fell within two attacks and Spiderman held out for a long time. Spiderman brought Megatron down to 2 life because he parked up on a single elevated hex that had no options for 4 range to engage from even ground. I put Megatron on low ground and we went back and forth for 2 rounds with little action before Megatron dropped 4 wounds on Spiderman to finish him off.

Life: Megatron (2), Maggots x2.

_____________________________________________________________

Player 1's THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Thundercracker doesn't feel worth it unless you have another Seeker. Most of the time when I was using Thundercracker in the first army. His movement ability for the beginning of the game is interested, we made a note to submit a question on this. The original version of the ability (sonic boom 6) said that the seekers could move up to 6 while the new version says that we have to move 10. Is the intent that we must move exactly 10? That is how we played it and it was a bit akward on a map with so many uneven parts, so I wound up putting my seekers in the water on game 2 just to find a landing space.

Restricting the OM removal on Sonic Boom to the first round seems like a great improvement. It seems fun to remove a bunch of OMs but I could see it going really bad. If all we do is set the early game development back a turn then it feels better because that just lets the seekers get set up to sniping positions, start zone harassment is possible but shouldn't be a big issue.

The ability to always have height advantage against non-flyers is an interesting way to pack more stats onto Thundercracker. Without it he feels a bit easier to kill than the others but it conveys the theme of him being a fast flyer really well. I wish flying worked this way in heroscape period.

Player 2's THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Thundercracker feels worth cost at 270. A big loss and then a close win, but Thundercracker put in a fair share each game. He basically allowed the Decepticons to wipeout Wolverine after a Sonic Boom OM removal. The second game Seeker Assault was a clear boost for Starscream and Optimus fully ignored the Boom but it was good early movement. Sonic Boom is pretty fun to see work even though it shrecked me, I think it's on the brink of badness, but reeling it in to just the first round fixed that and makes him and the Seekers clear early game targets that force a rush. Aerial Advantage in particular makes you wanna take the bastard out. I think it's a fair strategy and not overly unfun or anything. I like Thundercracker overall and think he's probably good on testing actually and the Seekers make pretty fun enemies.

[Yodaking]

Forgot to cross post Lord Pyre's test with Tundercracker here so I could link it. Also including the Sonic Boom conversation from Skywarp's thread.

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: SEEKERS

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Skywarp, Thundercracker, Starscream (860)
Vs.
Spider-Verse: UK, Anya, Spider-Hulk, Spider-Thor (860)

Spoiler Alert!

Recap: The Seekers definitely struggled here. While they’re all decently hefty for their points, the only synergy between them as a group is the Seeker Assault. It’s a cool ability, but a double attack each turn wasn’t enough to break through the Spiders’ efficiency and stat boosts. Spider-Hulk took out Starscream in two attacks, taking him out pretty quick in the game. Thundercracker’s Sonic Boom took out only a single OM (3) on the round he used it, which wasn’t a big help at that point. Skywarp’s Bombing Runs never got any wounds out of bad luck. Thundercracker ended up being the last alive, I think his Aerial Advantage stat boost kept him alive slightly longer, and he ended up taking out Anya, but that’s about it.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Spider-UK with 3 wounds, Spider-Thor with 1 wound, Spider-Hulk with 0 wounds.

___________________________________________________________

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: I like the concepts of the trio, but I do feel like it needs something else for them to work as a solid army together, which could be some thematic addition I don’t know about, or maybe another ability on one of them. Skywarp is my favorite of the three, he’s fun and I could see him being an addition to any army. Thundercracker might be my least favorite, as Aerial Advantage isn’t a super interesting power even if it works well in-game. Either way I enjoyed them, I just feel like they need a little Oomph somewhere. Also of note, Starscream’s loyalty power is useless in the trio, of course.

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Basically they're a cool and fun group, I like Skywarp by far the best. I'm a little concerned about Thundercrackers potentially removing all of an opponent's OMs (And actually ALL opponents' in a team game), but I'll let others analyze it if it's too much. In my game he only removed one OM.

Would love a little something else for them, maybe a way to fully bond once a round or something? Not sure if Starscream could have some leadership thing (But obviously he has all that Loyalty stuff going on already).

One fun thing for Thundercracker might be to let Sonic Boom move all seekers?

Not sure it'll give them that much of a boost, but its something. But also I don't know the theme of these guys outside of Starscream so not sure if anything is thematic.

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Thanks for the tests LP! I had the same feeling after testing regarding Skywarp being the most fun and AA, while good and thematic, is kind of boring. I'm okay with that idea of all Seekers being able to move out and get into position for some Seeker Assault shooting all at once. It fits the theme well that they all strike out together ahead of the rest of the army. Maybe it should just be at the start of the game instead of needing to win initiative first? Also could drop the d20 roll down to 8+, that was Fret's first suggestion but I was worried about it being too much. If you only knocked out 1 of the 4 OM's when you used it (and that 1 could have been the X on an army that doesn't use the X for anything), then yeah that is kind of weak. Feeling better about leaving Skywarp at 280 after seeing the loss when paired up with CA.

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

I personally wouldn’t want to lower the d20 roll. At 10+ it already will USUALLY hit two OMs statistically, which is pretty good.

Having them all shoot forward automatically at the start of the game would be a neat effect and really give them a unique, oppressive dynamic.

[Yodaking]

With Shifty trying out the most recent version of Sonic Boom in a dual test, I think we may be good to go here. Both players seem to be okay with where Sonic Boom landed. Thunderscracker went 1-1 with Starscream and no Skywarp in play. Shifty felt Thundercracker felt a little light, while the other tester (not sure who it was) felt he was fine at 270. So I'm thinking about maybe moving forward with him at 260, since he does seem more than 10 points less value than Skywarp.

That would make the 3 Seekers together 850 points.

Soundwave 340 + Ravage 110 = 450 + 850 = 1300
Megatron 410 + Laserbeak 140 = 550 + 850 = 1400

[Yodaking]

No comments, so I guess we're good to go here.

I propose Thundercracker for Final Editing @260 points.

YK - yea
Bats - yea
Eric - yea
Fret - yea

[IAmBatman]

yea

[Ericth74]

yea