Heroscape: Age of Annihilation is here! Back it on Haslab!

[MegaSilver]

Originally Posted by Taeblewalker

Awesome imagery!

My guess is that you start the game with the Unique Hero and Unique Squad. The Unique Hero can take wounds to spawn more of the Unique Squad (to the max of the unique squad), and/or the Unique Squad can merge with the Unique Hero to recover it's health and/or re-create the Unique Hero if it dies.

[Swarm]

Originally Posted by Swarm

Hope it's not a Marro ripoff! Hives, Hiveminds and castes.. That's a Tyranid/Marro theme already

And these ones look just like gnids. Marro Hivelords are suing for copycatting their troops

So far, the craven court is the first release that left me dubious... Guess I'll see what comes next before making up my mind.

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by MegaSilver

My guess is that you start the game with the Unique Hero and Unique Squad. The Unique Hero can take wounds to spawn more of the Unique Squad (to the max of the unique squad), and/or the Unique Squad can merge with the Unique Hero to recover it's health and/or re-create the Unique Hero if it dies.

Could be you start with a squad and the last one left becomes the hero...increased powers, etc. Two cards to play - the hero comes into effect when only one squad member is left.

I have a custom units like that. The squad costs 120 points but the hero is a 0 point card. Based on a curse last one of the squad surviving transforms by supernatural forces and is taken over by the curse but that's just backstory. He must attack every round or take a hit.

[chas]

Sir Heroscape was hypothesizing that it would be too clumsy to physically have individual bugs that can be put onto and removed from a sculpt. So I'm thinking, if this is so, that there will be only two sculpt types--the Hero and the Squad, as others have noted above. Keeping track of their strengths with wound markers, one can transform into the other under certain circumstances; you just replaced one with the other.

A set would come with one Squad, and one Hero, as MegaSilver says above. I would have thought multiples for bugs, but it does say "Unique Hero" and Unique Squad."

The sketches show two sizes of bug, and the Hero is made up of fewer but larger size sculpts with different features, where the ones that make up the Squad are smaller (because more are in the group). So they change features during metamorphosis, as well as abilities. There will be a formula for how many littles may turn big, and vice versa. Would there be limitations on making the change? Do you lose any leftover numbers? Does a "reduced" weaker unit have the same powers, or any? They would be easier to defeat--possibly taking 1 wound per little bug, whereas the Hero takes no loss until it is defeated. I can see trying to retreat the reduced units, as you do in a wargame, perhaps to reassemble them to full strength!

It will be interesting to find out how they work...Designer Skynight says they've already been playtested!

[SkyWhale]

I think this is a squad that can gather together to form a peanut-base hero. And I don't think we're seeing different sized bugs here, I think the scaling for the hero was shifted down to fit it into the frame. I only see for certain 3 different molds (round backside turned up, round backside turned down, and pointy backside) for the Legionnaires, but that doesn't mean that all of the squad members are shown in here. It could be a massive squad (6-7?) to allow for the "swarming" talked about in the update.

[Myriadite]

Very neat! I like the adaptive, Q9-like ability. Under the classic distribution model, I could imagine this unique hero/squad filling a booster all by themselves.

[caps]

Originally Posted by Anitar

I have to say I do think this is a bit of a copout. There are ways to approach this that are culturally sensitive to some extent. For instance, Paizo (the authors of the Pathfinder RPG) lean heavily on non-Western cultures for mythical creatures, story tropes, and inspiration for the cultures in their setting. One of the ways they accomplish that in a very laudable fashion is by sub-contracting the work to freelance writers who are either descended from a given culture or immersed in it in other ways (perhaps via academic research).

For another example, Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Vol. 2 has a couple of non-Western characters (they look like they are from African folklore to me, but I haven't looked into it) and the back of the rulebook credits some "Cultural Consultants."

Perhaps that is what Encarmine is alluding to when he says they "represent a higher complexity to execute then perhaps assumed." He did say it wasn't a "never" on more historical units, so hopefully they do get around to it.

[caps]

Today's Designer's notes

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I'm getting major Alien queen vibes from this figure.

[skyknight]

There’s my girl

[chas]

Sounds like sort of a mobile Marro Hive! Very interesting.

[Airborne Elite 5]

I'm getting serious Xenomorph Queen vibes from this one! She looks so cool and so terrifying!

EDIT: Looks like I'm not alone in the Alien queen inspiration

[Larmo]

I'm getting pretty worn down on the fantasy units and only give a quick glance to the discord announcements. the comments above about historical units have me pretty worried that this isn't going to recapture the heroscape magic. the main thing that drew me to heroscape and still defines the game to me is rotv - orcs, men in black, samurai, vikings, robots, WWII paratroopers, aliens, eves, and dragons.

the new factions showcased are all very cool on their own, but they aren't mohican scouts and ancient roman gladiators fighting templar cavalry either. it sounds like we'll never see those units again.