Heroscape 2.0 and Halloween: On Gaming Moral Sensibilities

[Yodaking]

Well Spring yada, yada, yada.......

[chas]

Where are the five new factions on the Good vs Evil scale? When we last left our Archkyrie Generals, it was Jandar (heroic), Ullar (Elvish), and Aquilla (ecological) as the Goods vs Utgar (monstrous and dominating) and Valkrill (Ditto) as Evils with Vydar Neutral and eventually switching over to Evil. So you can judge by their Generals.

But just for fun, lets look at the aesthetic we have for the new factions:

AOA Factions Good To Evil?

Clockwork Cute peaceful furry animals forced to go to war to defend themselves against Cyborgs.

Lifeborne Pro natural life, and antiBrood. But one Utgar mage messing with Undead! So mixed.

Dawnraider Neutral anarchists? All species and all (former) General loyalties combined into a pirate band. Organized enough to follow their Captains.

Ironbound: Biologicals merged with machine parts as cyborgs. Ugly and nasty, or just misunderstood?

Brood: Because Icky Hive Minded Bugs under their Queen.

Do you agree?

It was said at Hasbro PulseCon that the 20 scenarios in 2 campaigns we'll be getting will be somehow different than those that we have from Old Scape. I've been wondering if the Factions will come into play as such ("Take so many points from X Faction or General in your Army"). We know that the terrain is all from the province of Laur, which may locate the action there. Usually army building is not General or Faction specific in our games, although I tend to mix Good and Evil less than some other players around here.

Now that we've seen 11 of the AOA cards, their Power Synergies do seem to be a bit more Faction specific this time around. And its been hinted that the Clockwork Airship will work with the Gliders, perhaps will some kind of 'Tow and Drop' ability for example. (I've also just noticed that the Airship is carrying bombs!). This has made me want to try them out first in our games with AOA next year (hopefully).

What do you think?

[chas]

Revisiting the theme of this thread after the failure of the Haslab funding of Age of Annihilation, where are we now in how we look at the new faction sensibilities of the AOA Factions for the future?

1. There will be no more AOA stuff for now. Full Stop! Due to NDAs, the designers cannot even discuss possible further developments of Hasbro/Avalon Hill property. And with the general flame out of Hasbro with such failures as the DnD controversy, we can hardly expect any redo of the Vanguard Edition set anytime soon. So officially we're back in limbo.

2. I have been developing my AOA Proxy Play Project, using all aspects of the Vanguard Set we were given or has been even suggested during the offering period last Fall. So far this has included the use of Anitar's Classic style army cards, which are easier to read and use--for all Revealed (Official Draft) army cards and Unrevealed cards (Anitar's Customs). So far I've done three sessions and myself played all of the regular cards and the 5 SOTM Heroes, and will also soon use the 7 Valkyries. In a few days we will have our first session with more than 2 Players.

I've played these 10 games on either the First Scenario AOA map or my own reinterpretation of the Haslab Display Photo, using in some games the Vanguard Set cards, glyphs, and even Illusory Walls, with my own proxy figures. My proxies usually are not as close as those suggested in the proxy thread, but I got playing. All details of these games, including photos, can be seen on my signature thread for The New York City Gang of Four linked below in all my posts.

3. So far no one else on the site has discussed playing AOA games at all onsite. I don't know whether others are still in shock over the failure of the offering or have given up on it, are busy collecting more accurate proxy figures for future endeavors, or are discussing their games elsewhere online.

4. We have been using the 8 AOA Faction armies I made up so far, in order to get as many of them on the table as quickly as possible. Next month we will be integrating them with all previous Classic and Custom cards. While I've been busy providing the physical wherewithall to play these games, using the large amount of figures I have here including those from Scape Proxies, Arena of the Planeswalkers, Star Wars Minis, etc., at least a couple of the others have started building armies using all of the army cards.

5. I haven't changed my feeling for the new Factions in how I view them on the Good vs Evil scale noted upthread. Our first game had the Good teams of Clockwork and Dryans fighting each other, because they happened to be the two we wanted most to try out. Later on the Evil teams--Ironclad and Brood--sort of teamed up in concept, because they only have about half as many cards as the others. And the Neutral Dawnraiders have been doing their own thing, so to speak.

6. For me, the most disappointing thing is that we only now have the First of the Twenty Scenarios (in Two Campaigns) promised for the Vanguard Set. I had hoped that the Good vs Evil alignments of the Factions would be heavily reflected in these new AOA scenarios, with perhaps even eventually at the end a Rescuing Raelin game, somewhat similar to the old animated promos. The care taken with the new and old Generals seemed to point towards this theme being reflected at least in the doings of Utgar and (the new) Revna vs the others.

So the main legacy of the Vanguard Set for the next year or so for me may be scenario design. The format of our games here in NYC with the Gang of Four (now actually Seven due to a recent expansion) has always been monthly custom scenarios we individually design anyhow as rotating Game Masters. I expect that my own personal efforts in the AOA direction will be exploring this Good vs Evil theme in future scenarios!

In the last couple of months I've hosted an extra second monthly game for AOA, which I may continue to get us playing more AOA (once if four months is a long time to wait to do more). In the meantime you can see commentary with photos on what we're up to in our group thread! Check it out.

7. It remains to be seen whether new C3V offerings will reflect AOA indirectly. Perhaps future new development will at least provide army cards that are compatible with what we have for the Vanguard Set. I'm thinking not so much what they have already in the pipeline, but new creations after the official fail of AOA. And of course individuals are free to do as they like with their own personal Customs, especially in filling out the Ironclad and Brood Factions!

8. Back just after official Scape ended, you may remember that a number of "official" further scenarios were released using DnD themes and components. It would be wonderful if more AOA scenarios could be released this time too. I'd love to see and play some. And this was allowed by Hasbro. So we'll see.

Good luck to everyone in future AOA adventures. I know we will continue them here.