Ixe's Custom Units

[Ixe]

Thanks for the comments, IshMEL, and those are some good ideas. However, the devil faction will likely develop such that the order markers will not necessarily be going on the bearded devils to make them go. I had been considering similar powers for them (things like horde movement), but there are a few things holding me back:

For one, I don't like to exceed three powers on an army card. While I'm sure I will do that eventually, I try to restrict myself and will probably only do so when I feel that the design particularly warrants it. With the required beard power and lava resistance (for what I'm doing with the faction), I preferred what Reach accomplishes with the beard power over another something else to help mobilize them.

Secondly and more directly, it did no feel like a good thematic fit. Powers like Horde Movement are great for things like zombies that are known to swarm, but here it felt more like a direct tool to address a meta-concern to fill a design hole rather than particularly serving the aspect of the unit I was trying to capture. Versions that I considered that could be more thematically justified (like Frenzy) ran into the first set of problems. We wouldn't even be having this conversation had I an extra figure for them.

Upon further reflection, it is probably for the best that I've traded them back to being a common hero. The faction will likely revolve around common heroes anyway given the fact that I can never find more than two and often only 1 miniature of a particular type in the first place.

[Ixe]

I went through the miniatures that I set aside for this faction and realized that I have 16 more designs that I can entertain. I had no idea that this faction had the prospect of rivaling the marro in size when I set out. I'm not sure if I'll post them all, but I nevertheless don't intend to spend the next 4 months only putting up devils. I'm therefore going to be posting them a bit more regularly than the once-a-week that I had adopted for this thread.

This is the Spined Devil from D&D Desert of Desolation.



NAME = Spined Devil
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Scout
PERSONALITY = Tormenting
SIZE = Medium 4
COMMON HERO

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 4
ATTACK = 2
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 20

FLAMING SPINES
If a Spined Devil inflicts at least one wound with its normal attack, roll the 20-sided die for Fire Damage. If you roll a 14 or higher, add 1 additional wound marker to the defending figure's Army Card. Figures with the Lava Resistant Special Power are not affected by Flaming Spines.

LAVA RESISTANT
A Spined Devil never rolls for molten lava damage or lava field damage and it does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.

FLYING
When counting spaces for a Spined Devil's movement, ignore elevation. A Spined Devil may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. If a Spined Devil is engaged when it starts to fly, it will take any leaving engagement attacks.


Spined devils are wicked little creatures that delight in seeing others suffer. They fly about the battlefield, ripping off fiery spines from their own body and hurling them at their foes. This spines quickly regrow, providing them with a limitless supply of projectiles with which to devastate their opponents.

The faction was lacking any presence in ranged attacks and have the chance to make up for it here. I am always a little cautious about ranged fliers but more limited range should make up for what they have in maneuverability and stop them from being effective at kiting. The Fiery Spines ability, while representative, is intended to be a bit more marginal. They must first deal damage with their attack of two, making it unreliably relevant against heroes only. I was tempted not to have it at all, but I felt they needed a little more pizazz beyond their obvious flight and the standard devil ability.

Since I am a bit forced to having the faction mostly comprised of common heroes, I have noticed that it ties your hands quite a bit when it comes to pricing. With these devils at 20 points, three of them acting in concert would effectively be a 60 point squad. If I felt that was a little low, my next available price point would be effectively 75 points.

Still, I don't terribly mind the theme that it carries. Essentially, individual devils may be able to provide services to different groups and mesh with them, but largely they are self-serving and don't act together. Only when united under leaders who have the strength of mind to telepathically coalesce all those individual voices will they be able to coordinate to a cohesive and deadly efficient army. More on that to come.

As always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[Ixe]

Further looking at the available Devil figures, I'm probably going to truncate the faction. While there are some 16 odd designs I can make, there are only so many designs that I actually need right now. I might throw down some more as I go along, but eventually you are only ever going to play with so many of them.

Here's another one that I'm a little worried about despite seeming pretty straight-forward. This is the Chain Devil from D&D Angelfire.


As an alternate, here is the Chain Devil from D&D Dangerous Delves.


NAME = Chain Devil
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Fighter
PERSONALITY = Tormenting
SIZE = Medium 5
COMMON HERO

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 4
POINTS = 30

CHAIN GRAB 7
After moving and before attacking with a Chain Devil, you may choose one opponent's small or medium figure within 3 clear sight spaces whose base is no more than 6 levels above that Chain Devil's height or 6 levels below that Chain Devil's base. Roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 7 or higher, place the chosen figure on any empty same-level space adjacent to that Chain Devil. If the chosen figure is engaged when it is moved by Chain Grab, it will not take any leaving engagement attacks.

LAVA RESISTANT
A Chain Devil never rolls for molten lava damage or lava field damage and he does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.


Chain Devil's are frighteningly efficient when manipulating chains, able to supernaturally possess the links of metal and command them to their will. They can easily control the battlefield by grabbing and pulling their foes about before flaying them with their chains.

These guys may appear to be a worse version of the Drow Chainfighter at first blush, but they have some insidious advantages. Fist, despite being slower, they are slightly more efficient at grabbing their opponents and sculpting the battlefield. The exact number will be a dial I can tune for balancing, but I wanted to represent their prowess in this area given their magical mastery of chains.

Second, and more dangerously, they are far more potent at "lava-dunking." While they and their drow counterparts are only capable of putting figures on an adjacent, same-level space, the drow are much more limited in that most molten lava spaces (and liquid spaces of any kind) tend to be at least a level lower than the surrounding land. The chain devils being lava resistant means that they may be deadly efficient on lava maps at pulling opponents into a molten death. For this reason, I'm tempted to extend the height they can place the opponent but limit them to land spaces, although that doesn't make much thematic sense for them. Nevertheless, I am hesitant over how well they'd perform on those maps.

Lastly, the devil faction will soon reveal that it has the ability to put its disparate heroes to work towards a greater cause. In this vein, the chain devils will be a key player in battlefield control and manipulation to set up further tactics. In any case, comments are always greatly appreciated.

[IshMEL]

Looks cool! Chain Grab is a power type we should see more of. I wouldn't worry too much about the lava effect. If it proves to be too much in play on a lava map, I'd rather see you up their cost by 5 points than tinker with the power. But then, I'm always about theme....

[Ixe]

Here is the linchpin in the devil forces. It's all based around them.

This is the Ice Devil from D&D Blood War


As an alternate, this is the Voracious Ice Devil from D&D Against the Giants.


NAME = Ice Devil
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Mastermind
PERSONALITY = Cunning
SIZE = Large 6
UNCOMMON HERO

LIFE = 4
MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 5
POINTS = 145

TELEPATHIC COMMANDS
After revealing an Order Marker on this Ice Devil, instead of taking a turn with this Ice Devil, you may take a turn with up to three Common Devil Heroes you control or one Devil Squad you control. Any figure that is taking a turn must be within 10 spaces prior to its movement.

CONE OF COLD SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 3. Choose a figure to attack. Any figures adjacent to the chosen figure are also affected by the Cone of Cold Special Attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense dice separately. This Ice Devil is not affected by its own Cone of Cold Special Attack.

LAVA RESISTANT
This Ice Devil never rolls for molten lava damage or lava field damage and it does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.


Ice Devils are the strategist and leaders of the devil armies. They unite their forces beneath their prodigious intellect and coordinate their forces into a tactical legion. They telepathically issue commands to the battlefield from a safe location and can even hold their own in a fight if called for, fighting with spear or laying in with devastating cold attacks. While they are given an important roll in the Devil legions, they are still outranked by other devils and hold no real sway in commanding them.

The Ice Devil is the thread on which the entire faction hangs. It transforms the disparate and disorganized common heroes into an incredibly versatile force that can overwhelm the enemy and shape the course of the battlefield. Assassinating an Ice Devil has obvious benefits in taking down the central command structure, although large enough engagements may see multiple Ice Devils for some extra insurance.

The first power was a must given the faction and really captures the role Ice Devils play when the devils organize into their legions. After that, I wanted to capture their fighting ability by representing them with a cold power in some way. A more Nilfheim based approach is awfully tempting, but I decided to represent a lesser cone-type effect instead with a classic cone of cold (for an attempt at a true cone template, see Viceron the Bloody). Otherwise, the Ice Devil is fairly sturdy and no slouch in combat, although certainly not worth its points on that alone.

As always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[Scytale]

Ice Devil
Ah, the Ice Devil is what pulls the faction together. Take note that lOS-not-needed + range-unlimited controller is really useful, and probably won't leave the starting zone until everything else is dead. Controllers like Kurrok often have range and/or LOS restrictions. Consider limiting it to 8 spaces (LOS not needed -- it's telepathy after all). Cone of Cold is useful, pretty standard multi-hit. Lava Resistant seems weird, but it does match the rest of the faction.

Chain Devil
Pretty similar to the Drow Chainfighter at first glance, but with the Ice Devil's multi-activation it's anything but. It can set up all sort of combos, from pulling a unit into a bad position to pound on with subsequent activations, to opening a hole in a screen to allow other Devils to immediately pour through, to pulling something off a glyph and immediately taking it. It's the Arashara Goshiri problem; when followed with more activations enemy-moving powers become vastly more powerful. I have trouble believing this guy won't be too strong.

Spined Devil
Flaming Spines has a problem: what does adding a wound marker to a Common Army Card mean? Or adding a wound marker to a Squad card? This power needs to be limited to Unique Heroes. That said, this fellow provides a bit of anti-hero in a Devil army, as well as a generally-useful ranged (albeit short) flying figure.

Overall the faction looks fun and interesting, but I suspect they won't be very competitive (Chain Devil notwithstanding). They're essentially a squad of three (mostly) melee and somewhat costly figures with mediocre defense and no bonding. As such they'll suffer from the same problems those squads face; painful loss of board control and attack potential with each lost figure. Without a resurrect ability each dead figure hurts. Keep that in mind when testing.

[Ixe]

Thanks for the comments.
@IshMEL , I'm glad you like the Chain Devil. I'm also fighting to balance the theme with how it would function mechanically. It's something to consider.
@Scytale , I'm not quite done with the devils yet and what they'd bring to the field, but you do have some good points. I'll throw a range on the Ice Devils so they actually move around a bit. I'm basing the faction off of 3.5 D&D devils who are almost all immune to fire and it is still to play a roll in the faction. The one exception to this immunity is actually the Chain Devil, oddly enough, although I feel that it is important enough to maintain that I'm going to cheat some with it (and risk the lava dunking).

As far as the chain devils are concerned, I fear you may have a good point about the level of battle manipulation that they possess. I was and am still tempted to swing them to being a two-figure common squad to cut down on that somewhat. If that were the case, I'd also tweak the Ice Devil to be able to choose to activate a common squad as well (I might need to do that anyway just to pick up the legion devils). I nevertheless do want the battlefield manipulation to be part of their army, but ideally in a way that is not too game breaking.

I don't think the Spined Devil has a problem with its wording, or at least no more than Sujoah does with his Poison Sting Special Attack. I'd take it that they the figure is destroyed by the time it receives the prerequisite firsts wound and requires no further die rolling.

For the whole faction, you raise some interesting points. The nature of a common hero based army makes army costs difficult to juggle. The fact that Heroscape is conducted in 5 point increments means that any change to a card is an effective 15 point swing to how it functions underneath the Ice Devil. I can tweak things somewhat if I figure the cost of the Ice Devil in order to just make them function (although individual turns gives more flexibility), but they will nevertheless be down on numbers and unit activations than more competitive builds. Defense also being on the low side for their cost is something to consider further (the Barbed Devil is toughest at 5).

Nevertheless, I'm chasing after a very particular theme with the devils. In the Blood War in D&D, devils and demons are perpetually at war with each other. In this conflict, the devils are vastly outnumbered in every battle, yet they still manage to repel all incursions into their domain and even advance beyond it to take new ground. They don't win because they are simply stronger than their opponent, they win because they are smarter and more organized. They coordinate with their forces to put together amazing tactics and routinely achieve the impossible against their endless foes.

Ideally, I want to capture this theme such that it functions well in Heroscape terms. I suspect that the armies will probably have to be relegated towards massive point totals in order to function, but I'll call it a success if the devils prove they can win the day despite being badly outnumbered.

[IshMEL]

Aha! The commanding unit has arrived at last!

I'll throw in my usual random ideas about the Ice Devil:

At first, I'm like Lava Resistant Ice Guy? But I looked it up, it's canon. I guess they're just that cool.

I kind of want the Cone of Cold to have a little more "ice" flavor to it. Either Lava Resistant figures reduce their defense against it, or figures with Cold Regenerate or Cold Healing are immune to it, or both.

What about "Mastermind" for their Class? Recalls another telepathic unit, and it has precedence.

A suggestion for its Command power:

TELEPATHIC COMMANDS
After revealing an Order Marker on this card and taking a turn with this Ice Devil, if it did not attack you may take a turn with up to three Common Devil Heroes you control or one Devil Squad you control. Any figure that is taking a turn must be within 10 spaces of this Ice Devil prior to its movement.

So you can move him up before he commands his legions of Devils. You could potentially reduce the range if you did so.

Hope those are useful. Look forward to your battle report of Demons vs. Devils! (Someday I'll get my Demon faction finished up and on the table...)

[Ixe]

Thanks for the comments on the Ice Devil. I'm actually contemplating getting rid of the Cone of Cold power entirely, or maybe tweaking it to work more like Nilfheim's Ice Shards. I'm considering what Scytale said about needing a way to bring dead devils back and the outsiders pretty much all have the ability to summon other devils, so I'm trying to figure where to work that in if I want to go that route.

In any case, I certainly won't have the cold power be more effective against units with Lava Resistance. While it works well for things like Fire Elementals, devils have no aversion to the cold and are in fact lightly resistant to it in D&D terms. I'm otherwise just not sure if calling out other things that resist it is worth it, especially given how many fire based attacks still hurt Lava Resistant figures.

I do like the Mastermind suggestion and have switched to that. I'll consider allowing the Ice Devil to move with it's command turns, although I am a little unsure of it.

A Devil vs Demon battle does sound like a ton of fun. I believe that Scytale also has a demon faction if a themed battle like that would be something he'd be interested in.

[Ixe]

There are a ton more units I can do for the devils, but I think I'm just going to push them to their conclusion and make the final important unit. This is the one that I have truly been building the entire faction around. The design is as ambitious as it is dangerous.

This is Mephistopheles, Lord of Cania from D&D Lords of Madness.


NAME = Mephistopheles
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Duke
PERSONALITY = Terrifying
SIZE = Large 7 (Single Based)
UNIQUE HERO

LIFE = 6
MOVE = 6
RANGE = 6
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 5
POINTS = 250

FIELD OF FIRE
At the end of each round, you must roll the 20-sided die for each figure within 6 clear sight spaces of Mephistopheles. If you roll a 14 or higher, that figure receives one wound. Figures with the Lava Resistant special power are not affected by Field of Fire.

LAVA RESISTANT
Mephistopheles never rolls for molten lava damage or lava field damage and he does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.

STEALTH FLYING
When counting spaces for Mephistopheles' movement, ignore elevation. Mephistopheles may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. If Mephistopheles is engaged when it starts to fly, he will not take any leaving engagement attacks.


Presenting Mephistopheles, Lord of Caania, Duke of the Eighth Circle of Hell, and Master of Hellfire. He practices a time-honored Devil Strategy to use in the Blood War: When your entire side is immune to fire, ignite the battlefield and watch your enemies burn. In combat, he himself is no slouch, capable of of keeping on the wing to avoid his opponents and blasting them with waves of Hellfire until they are nothing but ash.

When I began constructing the devil faction, I knew that I wanted to recreate their strategy of burning the battlefield. In 3.5 D&D, devils almost all immune to fire while demons are typically only resistant. By making the fight hot enough, they can overcome overwhelming odds by burning scores of demons and picking apart the weakened rabble that survived the flames. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to do it, being tempted for a time to have Mephistopheles instead turn surrounding land tiles into lava field tiles, but that carries a strange interaction with things like road and shadow spaces and something I'd rather not mess with. Instead I switched it to being a mass Searing intensity. It won't trigger as frequently as the fire elementals can manage it, but it affect a wider area with far fewer demands on placing. It can also be done passively, allowing me to capture the theme of the devils fighting on unaffected while the world burns.

This is obviously a powerful and dangerous effects, which is why I'm starting with his points at a whopping 250. I feel I'm on the verge of passing into the realm of Superscape with a figure like that, although understandable when I'm trying to thematically represent and aspect of a near-deity outsider. I'm also trying to back him up with some respectable stats so he doesn't turn to mush if the opponent is immune to fire as well.

I'm concerned that his enormous spear may suggest that he is using that to fight but my intention is that he is shooting blasts of hellfire, basically using that as a glorified staff. I hope that comes across through his bio and range, at the very least.

In any case and as always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[IshMEL]

Hugely awesome! I demand, however, that you increase his range to 6, for thematic / theological reasons!

[Lazy Orang]

Just to let you know, Ixe, I really like the look of Viceron and I've decided to pick him up to try out.