The Book of Black Flash

[Arch-vile]

Thanks all, This passes.

[SirGalahad]

Originally Posted by Arch-vile

SPEED REAPER
At the start of the game, choose an enemy Unique or Event Hero to be Black Flash's Quarry. You must choose a figure with the highest Move number available. When its Quarry is destroyed, remove 1 Wound Marker from this card, and choose another enemy Unique or Event Hero to be Black Flash's Quarry.

TRY TO OUTRUN DEATH
Immediately after the opponent who controls Black Flash's Quarry finishes their player turn, you may move Black Flash up to 4 spaces. Whenever Black Flash ends its movement adjacent to its Quarry, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 11 or higher, inflict a wound on its Quarry receives one wound.

SUPERSPEED
Black Flash may move through all figures, never takes leaving engagement attacks, and does not have to stop his its movement when entering water spaces. After taking a turn with Black Flash, if he it did not use his its Try To Outrun Death special power this turn, he it may move up to an additional 4 spaces.

If the entity is gender-neutral.

If not, change to male pronouns in the first two powers.

[Arch-vile]

Thanks SirG! Updated.

[Arch-vile]

Shiftrex & Splash tests:

C3G PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

Unit Name Black Flash

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? No
- What should be the unit's point value? 250?
- Give a brief overview. The first game was using the Flash Family vs Gor which was a bit of a nightmare in itself. I think the matchup was pretty bad here but it highlighted something with BF. He seems to like going after low-life low-defense figures more than one large target, meaning that he would probably be good thematically at chasing down another speedster.


Map: Chernobyl
Units:

300 Black Flash
300 Flash (Wally West) (Flash Family)
250 Flash (Barry Allen)
50 Atom (Ray Palmer)
100 Ragdoll (Peter Merkell Jr.)
1000, 5 hexes

vs

Gorr
1000, 1 hex

Spoiler Alert!

Gor won after sucking up a bunch of life points.

Early - Not too bad, Wally put 2 unblockable wounds on Gor and I managed to keep people mostly out of his reach. Good took center height on the board, I put ragdoll next to him to try and pin him down. I used Black Flash to move up and place Atom to double engage Gor and moved in and out trying to hit with BF's d20 wound.

Mid - BF manages to place one wound and then dies because he can't do much against all the shadow tiles being placed if he wants to stay close enough to keep coming back for his d20 roll. I kept him as a passive threat because he wasn't my biggest offensive tool. Barry put 4 wounds on Gor after BF went down.

Late - Wally managed to put quite a few wounds on Gor, bringing him down to 3 life at one point but them Gor brought down Ragdoll and moved around Atom to kill Wally who hadn't moved far enough away. Then the others were picked off as Gor got a lot of life back.

Gor survives with 8 life remaining, healed back up from 3 life remaining.

_____________________________________________________________

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? No
- What should be the unit's point value? 250?
- Give a brief overview. Second game had a much better showing for BF, I think he could be pretty fitting in the Slashers build but his point total makes him awkward. Opponent pointed out that it would be great if BF could carry around Chucky.


Map: Chernobyl
Units:

335 Pinhead (Elliott Spencer)
300 Black Flash
175 Jason Voorhees
135 Michael Myers
50 Atom (Ray Palmer)
995, 5 hexes

vs

600 Alien Drone x5
400 Alien Queen
1000, 7 hexes

Spoiler Alert!

Aliens win with full life Queen, 2 full life drones, 1 drone with 1 life remaining.


Early - Not a bad showing for BF. I placed his quarry on a drone and pulled the Atom along with me thinking that I could pop him onto a drone if I needed to lower its stats but that didn't wind up happening because Drones can just run away. BF was able to kill two drones relatively quickly on the left side of the board while two more ran up the center. Mike moved up the center, Jason moved around the right while Pinhead stayed in the start zone. I put no OMs on BF I just used his bonding and passive movement, he felt like he fit in with the slashers.

Mid - Moved into the start zone after putting the Quarry marker on the remaining drone near the queen and struggled to put a wound on it. BF took a net wound after every drone he killed because he was just wounding it, taking acid damage, then killing it and taking acid plus his heal. Two drones that went up the middle bypassed Mike and ganged up on pinhead. I moved mike back to try and kill one, he blanked his roll on height, then pinhead failed his d20 wounding ability. Pinhead fell a turn later and BF took another wound from trying to kill the drone in the opponent's start zone.

Late - Jason moved up into the queen's start zone, got skewered and missed out on any opportunity to do damage. The Atom fell to a drone, BF was killed by the Queen's normal attack and Mike eventually made it next to the queen to blank on his 3 stalker marker roll. Overall better showing for BF, not a great matchup for slashers but we still didn't manage to pull off anything that makes me think "event hero."

Player 1's THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY:
Black Flash's statline seems ok, his 10 move balances with his passive movement ability and I like that he targets a single figure to move out as a grim reaper. Thematically I think he is on point, being bulkier at 6 health is absolutely necessary because he has to run up and keep being adjacent to someone in order to deal any damage.

I feel like if he is going to stay at 300 that he needs something extra, maybe a way to dodge damage. Or perhaps change up his d20 to an unblockable roll. At this point I'd like to see his cost decrease so I can fit him into a slashers build with both Jason and Freddy or at least have him carry around Chucky who he could make great use of.


Player 2's THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY:
Black Flash fell pretty early in the first game to Gorr, which was kind of a bad matchup for black Flash since the goal is to eliminate multiple Quarries, but it was nice that Event Heroes could be targeted. The second game saw a lot more action taking out the Xenos, but the Aliens won by a landslide against the Slashers since the aliens scattered across the map pretty fast and moved past everyone to take out Pinhead. I think Xenos are just kind of a bad matchup against Slashers in general, since they have no range and low movement.

Right now Black Flash is 300 and aside from superspeed is setup to pick a target and go after them, but this leads to BF getting there pretty quick and being targeted for the first attacks of the game, which can be bad, since there is no real speed dodge or anything like that. Wally has Speed Force so he can hit and then get away, and I feel like there are other speedsters who have better offensive options if they are sticking around. Black Flash was the best performing figure in the second game but still didn't feel like 300 points worth compared to say Flash Family Wally.

Since Black Flash is basically death, it could be interesting to deal autowounds instead of unblockables, it would probably have to once per round or something restrictive, but it would feel more worth drafting.

I think these were unfavorable matchups for Black Flash's side each game, but going down 20 points or so seems reasonable for the next set of tests.

[fret_gurglo]

Version tested

Spoiler Alert!

NAME = BLACK FLASH

SPECIES = ENTITY
UNIQUENESS = EVENT HERO
CLASS = TORMENTOR
PERSONALITY = RELENTLESS

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 10
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 5
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 300

SPEED REAPER
At the start of the game, choose an enemy Unique or Event Hero to be Black Flash's Quarry. You must choose a figure with the highest Move number available. When its Quarry is destroyed, remove 1 Wound Marker from this card, and choose another enemy Unique or Event Hero to be Black Flash's Quarry.

TRY TO OUTRUN DEATH
Immediately after the opponent who controls Black Flash's Quarry finishes their player turn, you may move Black Flash up to 4 spaces. Whenever Black Flash ends its movement adjacent to its Quarry, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 11 or higher, its Quarry receives one wound.

SUPERSPEED
Black Flash may move through all figures, never takes leaving engagement attacks, and does not have to stop its movement when entering water spaces. After taking a turn with Black Flash, if it did not use its Try To Outrun Death special power this turn, it may move up to an additional 4 spaces.

Army Test
Map: Martian War Zone
Units: Black Flash (300), Flash (300), Flash (220), Kid Flash (140) (1020) vs Kenshi (190), Spider-man (170), Stick (160), Thor (470) (990)

Powers Used:
Speed Reaper (chosen figure): Thor
Speed Reaper (Heal): 0
Try to Outrun Death: 3
Try to Outrun Death (dmg): 0
Superspeed: 0

Damage from normal attacks: 0

This wasn’t a team game, but instead, Thor taking on an entire speedster team and absolutely destroying them. In fact, the only wounds he took were from lava or lava field. I would not count this game towards evaluating Black Flash.


Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Kenshi with 4/4 Life Remaining, Spider-Man with 4/4 Life remaining, Stick 3/4 Life remaining, Thor 6/8 Life remaining

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: Thor rolls an 18 for his movement and flies through everyone for 1 wound on both Flashs and Black Flash, pushing a Flash into lava for 1 wound. Then Thor attacks a Flash for 1 wound. Thor uses his X to take another turn and moves for 1 wound on both Flashs and Black Flash. Thor flies and hits a Flash for 1 wound (destroying him), then attacks Black Flash and destroys it. End of round, Thor takes 1 wound from lava field
Round 2: Thor hits Kid Flash for 2 wounds. Thor reveals X for another turn, but does no damage. Kid Flash attacks Stick for 1 wound, but counter strike destroys Kid Flash. Thor flies and destroys Flash, but takes 1 wound for ending in lava.

___________________________________________________________

Map: Swamp Lab
Units: Black Flash (300), Flash (300), Flash (220), Kid Flash (140) (1020) vs Merlyn (160), Ocean Master (250), Star-lord (250), Vision (340), Spells (20) (1020)

Powers Used:
Speed Reaper (chosen figure): Vision then Ocean Master then Merlyn then Star-Lord
Speed Reaper (Heal): 4
Try to Outrun Death: 30 (Both movement & attempting wounding)
Try to Outrun Death (dmg): 8
Superspeed: 13

Damage from normal attacks: 9

I used the same speedster team and this time the results were a little more balanced. Ocean Master was on fire with his trident, dealing about 6-8 wounds total (it destroyed a full Jay Garrick in a single turn). However, Black Flash was able to turn the game around for the speedsters and pretty much destroy the other team by himself, and each time he healed.


Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Black Flash with 6/6 Life Remaining

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: Ocean Master takes to the swamp water and shoots a lightning bolt at Kid Flash for 2 wounds. Black Flash runs and punches Merlyn for 1 wound, then moves to Vision and fails for the auto wound. Flash (Jay) swaps Star-lord and Ocean Masters positions. Flash runs through and hits Star-Lord for 1 wound.
Round 2: Ocean Master uses his trident for 2 wounds on Flash. Ocean Master uses Trident to destroy Flash and hit Kid Flash for 1 wound. Flash loses OM 3. Ocean Masters uses Trident to destroy Kid Flash.
Round 3: Black Flash Outruns Death for 1 wound on Vision. Ocean Master uses the trident for a full 4 wounds on Flash(Jay) to destroy and 1 wound on Black Flash. Black Flash hits Ocean Master for 2 wounds and the trident goes flying. Black Flash destroys Vision and heals, then chooses Ocean Master.
Round 4: Black Flash Outruns Death for 1 wound on Ocean Master. Ocean Master hits Black Flash for 1 wound. Outrun Death 1 wound on Ocean Master. Black Flash destroys Ocean Master, he heals and chooses Merlyn. Merlyn hits Black Flash for 2 wounds. Outrun Death for a wound on Merlyn. Black Flash destroys Merlyn, heals and chooses Star-Lord.
Round 5: Black Flash destroys Star-Lord and heals.

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY:
He feels pretty close at 300, maybe just a smidge high, but I think he is fine at 300. His passive auto wounding is balanced with keeping him right in the middle of the fight. My mistake was not taking him out sooner in my second match, otherwise the Ocean Master team might have won.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: I was a little worried that 6 Def with no dodge special power might prove too weak for this speedster, but I think it balances nicely with 6 Life and healing.

[Arch-vile]

Thanks fret!

I'm thinking of taking Black Flash down to 280 points (-20 points) for final editing. Any objections there?

[IAmBatman]

Seems like a good approach.

[Arkham]

I'd maybe go with whatever works best for army building around that range, at least for Pinhead armies(or whatever his main armies will be)? Just to ensure he can see some decent play in that regard.

[Arch-vile]

I played around with some Pinhead builds at 280 - that should work pretty well for him. 280 + Pinhead + Chucky gets to 700, then you’ve got Ghostface, Sadako, Gremlins, or other even-point blocks to get you to other even point totals.

I’ll propose for Final Editing.

[IAmBatman]

yea

[fret_gurglo]

yea

[Arkham]

Yea