Astro's Custom Units [Update 5/26/21: WWII Medic]

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

Prompted by the discussion over in the SoV nominations thread over M.A.R.S., I'm taking him back to the drawing board for some minor tweaks and even more testing before a resubmission. Here is the original card for reference:

I would limit the scope of his double attack to something similar as Othkurik. I personally think Barrage implies that it isn't a guided strike, otherwise you would have used Guided Strike in the name perhaps? But anyways, you could still get off double attacks and limit its scope.

Range 5, Attack 3. Limit scope to one or two adjacent figures on each blast. I'd think 150 is probably a minimum for this type of attack though.

Remove its long range attack, it is okay to be a one trick pony. And part of the power check is that he has to get into range to deliver his payload.

I like the suggest of a strong close range attack, a Foot stomp attack, and raise up its defense to 6.

I don't care much for Raised Chassis, i'd ditch it. It doesn't do much for the card.

Just my free-form thoughts on the figure.

[Dad_Scaper]

I think forcing him to use uncontrollable explosions is very Valkrill. I wouldn’t limit their size because the madness is part of the unit’s charm.

[Leaf_It]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

I would limit the scope of his double attack to something similar as Othkurik. I personally think Barrage implies that it isn't a guided strike, otherwise you would have used Guided Strike in the name perhaps? But anyways, you could still get off double attacks and limit its scope.

Range 5, Attack 3. Limit scope to one or two adjacent figures on each blast. I'd think 150 is probably a minimum for this type of attack though.

Remove its long range attack, it is okay to be a one trick pony. And part of the power check is that he has to get into range to deliver his payload.

I like the suggest of a strong close range attack, a Foot stomp attack, and raise up its defense to 6.

I don't care much for Raised Chassis, i'd ditch it. It doesn't do much for the card.

Just my free-form thoughts on the figure.

Othkurik's Special is very different from the Explosive attack that I would expect to see from a giant robot. A simple name change to Guided Missile Strike is simple enough, and seems like it would fix the thematic disconnect that some people are having. I also want to point out that Othkurik's 4 dice are more potent than the 3 dice M.A.R.S. is rolling.

Lowering the special range to 5 could be alright, though I don't think that 150 is a minimum. Othkurik is only 140, and he has 5 life, a bonding squad, 6 move, and flying, which drastically improves his utility, and mobility.

Lowering the base attack range could be okay, but Melee opens up Hoplitron Bonding, which I think should be avoided. But that's just me, maybe Astroking is alright with it.

I am indifferent to Raised Chassis. I don't think it makes enough of a difference with or without, to to worry about, and it adds a bit of flavor to the card.

[Kinseth]

Othkuriks range is much shorter on his special, and only has one of them. A bonding squad can always show up for a unit, so the idea of that doesn't mean much for me.

You are just not going to get me to agree with double explosions as it is written. I am but one vote in the VC, but it would be a nay for me. You can choose to feel I am the minority and that enough will vote it through. Anyways these are my concerns.

[Leaf_It]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

Othkuriks range is much shorter on his special, and only has one of them. A bonding squad can always show up for a unit, so the idea of that doesn't mean much for me.

The range is indeed shorter, but the mobility is higher. MARS can be outranged by many things, and tied down by others, especially rats. From what I've seen, I would be very surprised to see the C3V/SoV allow a bonding squad through for Valkrill Soulborgs. A squad that gives them movement bonding maybe, but that's as far as I would ever expect see it.

Originally Posted by Kinseth

You are just not going to get me to agree with double explosions as it is written. I am but one vote in the VC, but it would be a nay for me. You can choose to feel I am the minority and that enough will vote it through. Anyways these are my concerns.

Fair enough. But I like it, and if it is going to get cut, I won't let it happen without showing my perspective on it.

That said, it has been very enjoy able going back an forth with you. The internet doesn't have many places left where you can do that, without things getting nasty.

[caps]

Kinseth and I have agreed on many other points in the last, I am sure. But it is remarkable to me in this instance how completely I disagree with everything he has had to say about this unit.

This is faster than quoting all his statements and saying I disagree with them.

*Without having played it* I think this unit is remarkably close. I do not like the idea of a melee attack. I don't think it fits the mini, and hoplitron bonding introduces other issues. A ranged attack of 2 seems unnecessarily low. For a machine gun, a range of 8 also seems unnecessarily high. Thus my proposal of a R7,A3 normal attack. An alternative idea would be a R5,A4 normal attack.

[Astroking112]

Thanks again to everyone for the continued feedback on M.A.R.S.! Here's some responses:

Originally Posted by quozl

I think it's a good idea to give details of your playtesting when submitting.

I'm thinking about how to do this. I know that M.A.R.S. is stronger on paper, so I'm going to try posting some (brief) reports for him and linking them to my resubmission. Seeing some results firsthand should help build enough confidence to get him to the playtesting stage.

Originally Posted by superfrog

I'd like to see you explore options on making sure the two explosions are close together, not in opposite directions.

Just an example off the top of my head:

Nerfing the Special Attack to where it can only affect figures that are already close to each other doesn't really jive with me. It feels like it's adding unnecessary complications, and if I was going to decrease the potential radius to as low as 2, then I think the Special Attack would be better served by simply making it a normal single-target one with more dice.

I know that this was a point of concern for you (and has already been discussed further in this thread), but M.A.R.S.' missile pods are each on swivels and could even be physically twisted to face in opposite directions. There's also the prospect of homing missiles changing direction in mid-air, which I think is reasonable enough for HeroScape. Of course, one could argue that it feels weird to have him be able to perform a 360-degree turn and lock on to two opposite targets before firing, but I'm not convinced that this is a theme break big enough to warrant adding text and complexity to the power.

Originally Posted by Scytale

There's real potential here, and I think with a round of changes you have a strong contender. I would be happy to see either option 1 or 2 (I don't think the power level is off, really). I would like to mention that I'm not a fan of Mindless either. After all, Soulborg are interesting as robots because they are infused with souls.

The discussion inspired the creator in me and I thought about how I would modify it if it were mine. Maybe it will give you ideas.

Missile Barrage Special Attack
Range 6. Attack 4.
Roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-4, choose 1 figure to attack. If you roll 5-9, choose up to 2 figures to attack. If you roll 10-17, choose up to 3 figures to attack. If you roll 18-20, choose up to 4 figures to attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figure. Each figure rolls defense dice separately.

Raised Chassis
When attacking normally or with his Missile Barrage Special Attack, if M.A.R.S. is engaged with only small figures, M.A.R.S. may target and attack non-adjacent figures.

I'm a little surprised that Mindless feels off to you. I agree that SoulBorgs are notable for their personalities (the best example is probably the Merciful Q10), but is Mindless not a valid choice? To be fair, I chose it as a synonym for Relentless to avoid Death Knight bonding, but I think that it's reasonable to say that this SoulBorg only walks around and blows up whatever moves, not giving much thought to anything.

I think that you've got an interesting set of suggestions here, and I actually really like your interpretation of Raised Chassis. I may tinker around with adding that to his design if it doesn't significantly throw his balance off.

I'm not as big of a fan of the different Special Attack, though. I like how it simulates having a lock-on to several different targets, but I feel like the dual-explosions is a simpler interpretation. I know you mentioned "blastiness creep," but I think that the two explosions are at the heart of this design and that with some modifications to the rest of the card (mostly to heavily encourage him to always use his explosion), it can have a different feel from DW9k's normal SA.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I dearly hope you do not change the special attack. The power in this design comes from it's simplicity. Nerf the normal attack (maybe just to 7R,3A), drop the secondary special power, and call it a day.

I'm leaning towards a heavier nerf to the normal attack mainly for the reasons that Dad_Scaper has shared, but this lines up very much with what I'm thinking otherwise. I agree that the Special Attack should be kept as simple as possible.

Originally Posted by BiggaBullfrog

First off, I will say I was leaning towards a no vote, mainly due to a lot of reasons stated in the thread like how he compared to KA or Q10, or mainly DW9000. I don't think the original submission was broken, but it did feel like creep (as Scytale said well with his Explosion creep and outshining Deathwalker 9000 explanation). Mainly I felt like MARS needed some room to break away from what is already canon. For that reason, I like option 1 the best of your potential changes, as encouraging him to blow up tons of stuff seems more exciting than two really good attack options.

I will say I do like Mindless if you take a route that encourages blowing tons of stuff up, including your own figures.

I agree on that front. Especially with the old normal attack, I can see how M.A.R.S. felt like a new (and better) interpretation of Deathwalker 9000. Making his normal attack only useful at long ranges gives him some versatility, but it also heavily encourages him to move out and try to blow up whatever he can, fitting the Mindless theme as you said.

I may also toy around with a shorter normal attack, but typically the long range has been one of the highlights that people mention after using him. Especially with the slow move, I think it adds something to the design.

Originally Posted by Leaf_It

I personally feel like the Special being two explosions is very thematic. You can change exactly how it targets things for those explosions, or make each one happen one at a time, instead of simultaneously, but I feel like it would be doing the figure a disservice to limit it to a single explosion.

My suggestion would be to lower his normal to 3, so it's only strictly more dice if you have height, or some other kind of attack buff. Then raise the price by 10 or 15. Beyond this, you can consider ways to keep the special from being able to target figures 12 spaces apart. I don't think this is really that bad. I mean, anything with a double attack can do it. Nilfhiem, and Braxas can target in multiple directions like that, and so can several other figures. Their range is less than this, but they can still do it. Syvaris can target figures 18 spaces apart, why is it so bad for a futuristic robot, with advanced targeting, doing the same?

I'd rather keep him at either 125 or 135 to add more options at various point values to the game. 125 had been my target since the only other option is the Ebon Armor, but if I do feel the need to increase the points, then it will be to 135. I don't think this should be necessary, though, especially if his normal attack receives such a large decrease in lethality.

I agree on the analysis of targeting figures in different directions, as I stated earlier in this post. Combined with how rare this situation should be, I don't want to design extra limitations solely based around it.

I'm hesitant to have the rolls separated, though. One of the reasons that I combined both rolls into one was to make it clearer that all figures are affected by the same attack, instead of it being a double-attack. Distinguishing between which figures are affected by which portion of the attack sounds like a rules headache and doesn't seem like something that the original designers would've done.

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

If you do drop his range to 1, I do encourage you to bump his life up to 4, so he occasionally gets a chance to try to stomp on things. Otherwise he often won't get to live long enough to try to stomp on the things engaging him in melee.

I'm not fond of increasing his survivability at all, which is one of the reasons that I was initially hesitant about the strong melee attack (since it makes it easier for him to defend himself). I want him to be squishy as compensation for his high potential, and getting 4 Life would make him significantly stronger, even if he sacrificed his ranged normal attack.

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

I'm not very fond of the idea of giving him a big attack in melee - I have a hard time imagining the mini holding up well in a melee fight and I love how he feels like dedicated heavy artillery right now. That would dilute that theme. I'd honestly just drop his attack to 3 if you really feel the need to change it, or maybe up his price by 10.

Originally Posted by wriggz

I'm probably in this boat. I neverminded two explosions all over the board. even 8/2 would be a great normal attack and would enhance the theme of the special

The idea would be that M.A.R.S. can stomp on figures that get too close. I like how it gives more life to the mini, but I think that it has too many potential gameplay concerns as has been raised in this thread. I agree that the long range with a weaker attack makes him feel more dedicated to his role, even if his normal attack is much more niche as a result.

Originally Posted by Leaf_It

Lowering the base attack range could be okay, but Melee opens up Hoplitron Bonding, which I think should be avoided. But that's just me, maybe Astroking is alright with it.

And that is the final nail in the coffin of a melee attack. While M.A.R.S. could certainly be designed with the Hoplitrons in mind, I like him more as a standalone unit with no synergies. Thanks for catching that; I had completely forgotten about Hoplitron Bonding.

Originally Posted by Kinseth

I would limit the scope of his double attack to something similar as Othkurik. I personally think Barrage implies that it isn't a guided strike, otherwise you would have used Guided Strike in the name perhaps? But anyways, you could still get off double attacks and limit its scope.

Range 5, Attack 3. Limit scope to one or two adjacent figures on each blast. I'd think 150 is probably a minimum for this type of attack though.

Remove its long range attack, it is okay to be a one trick pony. And part of the power check is that he has to get into range to deliver his payload.

I like the suggest of a strong close range attack, a Foot stomp attack, and raise up its defense to 6.

I don't care much for Raised Chassis, i'd ditch it. It doesn't do much for the card.

Just my free-form thoughts on the figure.

Thanks for the suggestions. I really like the idea of changing the name of Missile Barrage to focus more on homing missiles; I think that this'll help sell the theme more and make the power more clearly understandable.

I'm going to need to keep the long-ranged normal attack to avoid Hoplitron Bonding, but I agree that turning him into somewhat of a one-trick pony will make him more exciting. Hopefully decreasing the attack to 2 is enough to accomplish this.

I agree on ditching Raised Chassis. Scytale made a great reworked version of the power, but I think I'm just going to go for the simple approach and have his only power be the Special Attack.

Originally Posted by capsocrates

*Without having played it* I think this unit is remarkably close. I do not like the idea of a melee attack. I don't think it fits the mini, and hoplitron bonding introduces other issues. A ranged attack of 2 seems unnecessarily low. For a machine gun, a range of 8 also seems unnecessarily high. Thus my proposal of a R7,A3 normal attack. An alternative idea would be a R5,A4 normal attack.

I agree on the melee attack now that I've been reminded about Hoplitrons. That's definitely not something that I'm interested in, so I need to keep the range above 1.

That said, I also want to keep the normal attack below 4. I could see going up to 3 dice at 6 range or less to keep his normal attack weaker than his SA, but I'm going to try out 2 dice first and see how it changes his playstyle. If it's too weak, then I'll bump it up to 3 at a shorter range and see how that fares (I think that decreasing the points is a bad idea with his Special Attack).

That is a good point about the range of machine guns, though. I don't have the physical miniature in front of me right now, but I'm going to take a look at it when I get the chance and see if 8 range feels like it's too high.

[Dad_Scaper]

As I see it - and again, this is just my vision and not yours - going with a stompy normal attack (Range 1, Attack 5) and bumping his Life to 4 is not actually increasing his survivability. That mechanical change will force the player to choose between the booming, wonderful, wild Special Attack, and the heavy hitting melee attack.

It will, unlike your original design, give some incentive *not* to kite. And, therefore, will make melee contact with the enemy more frequent. Which means he'd probably survive *less*, as a practical matter, then he would with a lighter range attack and lower Life value. Again, just my .

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

As I see it - and again, this is just my vision and not yours - going with a stompy normal attack (Range 1, Attack 5) and bumping his Life to 4 is not actually increasing his survivability. That mechanical change will force the player to choose between the booming, wonderful, wild Special Attack, and the heavy hitting melee attack.

It will, unlike your original design, give some incentive *not* to kite. And, therefore, will make melee contact with the enemy more frequent. Which means he'd probably survive *less*, as a practical matter, then he would with a lighter range attack and lower Life value. Again, just my .

He can't really kite as it stands with 4 move. Just about any melee squad can close in on him within a turn or two, and they only need to engage one figure to him to severely hinder his output. My fear is that a strong melee attack will let him get out of this situation easier, since he can actually stand a chance of killing whatever engages him. If they stop just short of him because of careful positioning, then it would be even better for him, as he might be able to kill the surviving third member of a squad before the next set can close in.

While changing his normal attack to be melee would lead to him being engaged slightly more often, I've found that this almost always happens anyway, so it wouldn't really result in him being in significantly more danger (at least not to the point that it would counteract bumping his survivability up to match Q10 in my eyes). In my opinion, the extra potency in close quarters, survivability, and bonding would push him up into the 150 points range and make him more of a heavy-hitter for the Hoplitrons than a standalone hero, which isn't in my vision for the unit. I definitely like many parts of your suggestion here, but it doesn't quite line up with where I want to take M.A.R.S.

[Pumpkin_King]

Loving the discussion in here, as I love this mini and the direction of a missle-using Valkrill Soulborg. Not too certain I like the special attack as it is on the card, but that's just the custom maker in me wanting everything to be unique.

[Astroking112]

@Pumpkin_King Thanks for weighing in! Is it just from a term of uniqueness that you're uncertain on the Special Attack? It may seem like a simple change, but the dual-targeting system has really made M.A.R.S. feel unique in my games.

Here is the most recent version of the card:

Changes:

• Missile Barrage Special Attack is now called Guided Missiles Special Attack.
• Decreased Attack to 2.
• Removed Raised Chassis.

I'm going to run a series of playtests with this version and post some reports here, then resubmit him if all goes well. Thanks again to everyone for their input.

[flameslayer93]

I’m really digging Mars with 8R/2A for his normal attack.

I’m not sure how I feel about Mindless either. Is Nihilist from Thanos an option at all?