Racer: The Cavalry Fix Rule

[chas]

Is the cavalry broken? This is the most important single fix for Official Heroscape in my opinion, so after a long time I am now submitting it here. In other words, in my humble opinion (and those of others as expressed on the site) here they really blew it and should have made an official fix! The few official horsed units we've been given seem to get shot out the saddle all too easily for their high point cost, before they can get their romantic cavalry dash into the game! And what's the fun in that? After an unsuccessful search for other threads here on this old subject, I'm putting my Racer rule here to Save Our Cavalry.

I actually think this is important enough to put in the more high profile General Section, but have followed site conventions and placed it here. Please tell me what you think, link other threads you know about, or give me your own variant on the theme. Let me know if I missed any other cards that should get this one sentence defensive bonus.


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RACER
All unengaged small, medium, or large figures on four legged mounts get two additional Defense Dice against non-adjacent normal or special attacks.

***


Official Cards Affected: Add Racer to the following cards:
Sir Dupuis
Templar Cavalry
Me-Burq-Sa
Grok Riders
Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider
Swog Rider

[kolakoski]

So . . . designated Brunak and Threacus riders get the bonus too?

[ICEMASTER]

An interesting idea. I really haven't played cavalry of any kind very much.

[Nyx]

Originally Posted by chas

RACER
All unengaged small, medium, or large figures on four legged mounts receive 2 additional defense dice against non-adjacent normal and special attacks.

I don't like relying on the wording of 'on four legged mounts,' but not much you can do about that.

[flameslayer93]

How about the Swog Rider? Maybe to replace "four-legged mounts" we could put an original movement value of 7 or more. This way the wording at least partially official.

[wriggz]

RACER
All unengaged large squad figures with a base move number greater than 7 add 2 to its defense dice when defending against a normal attack.

I know this takes the heroes out of the rule, but it does the job of boosting the Templars and Groks, it also helps the Deathstalkers out a bit, but really they could use a boost too.

It is possible to remove the adjacent requirment, since they have to be un-engaged from the get go. The wording used here mimics the Phantom Knights/Gladitrons. I added the "normal attack" bit since special attacks should be special.

[DeathByUtgar]

Originally Posted by wriggz

RACER
All unengaged large figures with a base move number greater than 7 add 2 to its defense dice when defending against a normal attack.

I might try this instead

[Sherman Davies]

Heroscape doesn't fix units by adding new rules, but by adding new units.

[Kaiyu]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

Heroscape doesn't fix units by adding new rules, but by adding new units.

Easy! Turn this into a 20-ish point hero with the Racer ability. Make one specifically for each unit you want fixed. That would keep it from using the silly wording.

[wriggz]

Originally Posted by kaiyu0707

Easy! Turn this into a 20-ish point hero with the Racer ability. Make one specifically for each unit you want fixed. That would keep it from using the silly wording.

Humm, good idea for a common figure. I think I will look for a mounted D&D figure and give them the Racer power. You can still use the wording I used for the 3 squads that are affected.

[nyys]

Missed this one the first time around. I like the thematic effect the ability has. That of being difficult to target from a ranged attacker. Heck, I'd be happy with just 1 extra defense die.

Originally Posted by sherman

Heroscape doesn't fix units by adding new rules, but by adding new units.

Agreed, something like this I doubt would ever be errataed (sp?), but maybe a future unit will give them a boost.

[Dredd Stev]

The cavalry are not broken. At all. In the least. You are proposing a fix to something that works just fine, and in so applying this "fix" are venturing into the realm of breaking them.

If you find that they are falling too quickly to ranged fire then you need to stop charging them out into the line of fire. That huge movement score is just as good as an extra defense or two in most cases, keeping them safely in the back while still being able to threaten the front lines. The "racer" ability that you propose (while pretty cool) would require a jacked up price in both the grocks and the templars, +2 defensive versus all ranged attacks? with the offensive abilities they already have? Gimme a break!

I think this idea suffers from "Meta-Game Syndrome". The desire to take a figure and tweak it, change it and paint it up so it fits more snugly in the 500point-double blind-24startzone-kill em all-on a BoV style map. Granted both the cavalry squads have a hard time finding success in the above game setting, but that is hardly an indication that they are broken and in need of some sort of added defensive ability.