Ixe's Custom Units

[Lazy Orang]

By 'do something with them' I only meant 'do some testing and give them a card'. I don't restrict myself to what goes through the SoV - these guys are too awesome for me to pass up. If you can get them in the SoV, that's great, but if there's something preventing that (as there usually is), then they're still awesome!

[Ixe]

Thanks again to everyone for the comments on the legion devils. They're one I'm definitely going to revisit. However, the goal of starting this was to make a devil faction where I would adapt over a number of D&D devils, so here is the next entry.

This is the Barbed Devil from D&D Angelfire.


NAME = Barbed Devil
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Guard
PERSONALITY = Tormenting
SIZE = Medium 5
COMMON HERO

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 5
POINTS = 30

BARBED RETRIBUTION 8
When a Barbed Devil receives one or more wounds from a normal attack from an adjacent attacking figure, before removing that Barbed Devil, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll an 8 or higher, the attack figure receives 1 wound.

LAVA RESISTANT
A Barbed Devil never rolls for molten lava or lava field damage, and it does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.


Barbed Devils are as malicious as they are prickly, delighting holding down their opponents and impaling them against their sturdy hides. Should an attack actually manage to slip past their defenses, the attacker must be wary or risk killing themselves on those very barbs.

This unit was a little tricky to design, where I went back and forth on different ways to represent the different powers. For its barbs, I ranged from considering things like Ice Spikes to Counterstrike to some sort of defensive power the had the chance to prevent the wound and deal damage back to the attacker. In the end, the retribution aspect is the most faithful to the source material while still providing something unique to the game.

Otherwise, Barbed Devils are known for grappling their opponents and trying to impale them against their barbs. I was thinking of different ways to represent this, whether to simply give them some variant on cyberclaw or to give them A Coward's Reward to make them a bit stickier in melee. In particular, with their retribution power, I was concerned that it would be the case where your ranged figure is more likely to live if they just moved out of engagement and risk the attack before trying for a kill. However, it was then I realized that this sort of decision was actually interesting since the power only triggers if you actually kill the devil in the first place. Your ranged figure is certainly more likely to survive the encounter with the Barbed devil if they retreat back, but then you also risk losing the attack to a successful leaving engagement strike and being put back in the same situation. In this case, I believe fewer powers leads to more dynamic gameplay.

As a common hero, the Barbed Devils are tough and fast enough to survive getting into melee and are ready to punish the foe once there, even if they are killed. Single attacks certainly won't be winning any wars, although they can couple with the Crypt Guardians nicely to launch into engagement and screen your foes. Even if they are not facing ranged or special attacks, the Barbed Devils still cost enough that they'll lose parity in most match ups and probably behave reasonably.

As always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[Scytale]

The Barbed Devil is a nice filler design. Barbed Retribution is a good adaptation of the D&D version, interesting and useful. Punishes melee, but that's how these things go. The 5 Defense makes them somewhat tough, though not as long as one would hope probably.

Unless you have more synergies planned (these guys would love free movements), the Barbs won't be more than filler. You get a decent value for the price, but order markers spent on them don't give you much.

[Ixe]

Thanks for commenting. While I'm still working it out, I absolutely plan on building some heavier synergies into my devil faction. In D&D, devils represent a highly organized army that coordinates their tactics and utilizes some amazing strategies to win battles despite being vastly outnumbered by the demon hordes. However, it is a little challenging to put together the feel of a cohesive army when I so often have only one or two figures available for any given devil. The legion devils were unavoidable to do outside of squad form in a representative way, but expect more common heroes before it all gets tied together.

Until that time, I am striving to juggle making the devils function together as an appropriately costed faction as well as make them be able to stand outside of it reasonably. As such, I'm trying to have them tap into pre-existing groups as best I can and enjoy some external synergies. So far, the Barbed Devils can roll into a guard based army and the Legion Devils enjoy soldier synergy.

Speaking of the Legion Devils, I've actually had the chance to run some testing on them. While they are tricky to gauge since they are just so different, they are at the very least consistently under performing given their point value. There are just a lot of different things that hurt them. High attack units basically kill chunks of your army in a single swing, and even powers like mob attack are amplified in that your opponent really only needs to focus on attacking one figure to affect the lot of them. Placement is a lot to consider, where moving a devil into low ground can spell doom if the opponent then just focuses fire on it. In addition, multi-attacks that are normally forced to spread over different targets can rip through their army.

The teleport ability is absolutely powerful, but the same level aspect is very limiting and their move is low enough that it is sometimes a challenge to set up good position and get all the attacks that you want. They are strangely stronger than normal squads against destroy powers like Chomp since they can so easily teleport in reinforcements and barely miss a beat. If they're going to die, it will be all together. I would also say that, because of teleport, 2 squads is about the sweet spot for them. Adding more essentially just adds more life to the pool while the extra devils just wait in the start zone.

More testing is definitely needed for something as unconventional as these guys, but I'm going to roll their points back and try some more testing.

[IshMEL]

A Summoner who could move (and possibly resurrect) the Barbed Devils would be a cool addition. Could work with Legion Devils too...

[Not User Name]

I just gotta say you have a mass quantity of quality cards. I gotta take more time and read some more, but quickly looking over your thread I really like what I'm seeing. Nice work and keep it up.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Wow, been ages since I commented in here, sorry about that.

The Spotters are particularly awesome, nice job on those

I'll have to give this thread a proper look through sometime and see if I can come up with anything actually useful to add.

[Ixe]

@IshMEL , an interesting idea and something that I could see adding on later, but I'm probably going to keep the "devil" in the devil faction for now.

@Not User Name , thanks for the compliment. This has transformed more into a workshop thread as I've gone on so feel free to give your two cents on anything that catches your fancy.

@Soundwarp SG-1 , you certainly have no obligation to leave comments. I appreciate any that people are able to come by with. I'm glad to hear that you like the Spotters. I think they are nicely thematic and give snipers a chance to be a little bit more viable.

[Ixe]

Thanks again to everyone for the comments. Here is the next installment in the Devil Faction. This one has been giving me quite a bit of trouble.

This is the Vicious Bearded Devil from D&D Demonweb.


And this is the Bearded Devil from D&D Harbinger. It can be used as an alternate miniature.


NAME = Bearded Devil
GENERAL = Utgar
PLANET = Toril
SPECIES = Devil
CLASS = Fighter
PERSONALITY = Relentless
SIZE = Medium 5
COMMON HERO

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 25

FLAYING BEARD SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 2.
After attacking with Flaying Beard Special Attack, that Bearded Devil may attack again with his normal attack.

REACH
If an opponent's figure is within 2 spaces of a Bearded Devil, and it's base is no more than 3 levels above that Bearded Devil's height or 3 levels below that Bearded Devil's base, that Bearded Devil May add 1 to his range when attacking that figure.

LAVA RESISTANT
A Bearded Devil never rolls for molten lava damage or lava field damage and he does not have to stop on molten lava spaces.


Bearded devils act as the shock troops for the legions of hell, throwing themselves into enemy lines and expertly picking it apart with their long glaives. Not your average facial hair, they actually have complete control over their titular "beards" and use those powerful tendrils in battle to constrict and rake at their foes.

I've gone back and forth on this one quite a bit and tried it as a 2-figure common squad for 50 pts, but despite all my attempts to make up for its disadvantages it lacked the survivability to have any sort of board presence. As such the Beareded Devil was not going to fill the function I had set for it so I swapped it back to being a common hero.

Outside of the devil faction, they will still be able to bond with Death Knights as a cheap bonding option. While I wouldn't necessarily take them over many other heroes already within that deep pool, the option nevertheless exists and I fear we may see more devil heroes there before the faction is finished. In addition, I do plan on making some fighter-synergies at some point that these bearded devils could also tap into.

As always, comments are greatly appreciated.

Notes on when I had them as a two figure squad:

Spoiler Alert!

Designing these guys was certainly a challenge. I had two different miniatures available and was tempted to make them a common hero with an alternate sculpt (I still am), but I was apprehensive about what space they would then fill outside of the devil faction. In any case, I knew I needed to represent their most iconic aspect, the beard, and try to do so in a way that still played well.

I went back and forth on a number of design options, but I settled on the one where their beard can grant them essentially a free attack. 2 figure common squads typically lack two things: number of attacks and board presence. While this solution does nothing to satisfy the latter, it does help the former in potentially allowing them to still throw around 4 attacks per turn.

The decision to give them reach was yet another challenge. While Glaives are a reach weapon in 3.5 D&D, the miniatures don't quite support it, especially when you compare it against the likes of the Cathar Spearmen. However, I felt it provided an important role for the design in actually allowing for a decision to only use the normal attack (to hold a better position or maintain height) rather than always using the two. In addition, if the beard attack did destroy the target, it gives them a little more chance to still get the second attack off.

I still have my concerns about them. 2 figure squads are always a challenge and really require some sort of defensive aspect so losing figures isn't so easy and doesn't result in such a devastating loss in board presence. I can vaguely explain some of this away by claiming that some future unit in the faction will help, but I'm honestly not sure. As always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[Scytale]

The Bearded Devils are interesting, with Flaying Beard being an interesting way to give them enough attacks to be potent. But I do agree with your assessment that without a defensive boost of some sort they just won't be viable. It takes too much effort to move them into attack position (even considering their good move and Reach) for the low survivability they have. Board control is almost non-existent.

[Ixe]

Thanks for commenting. I still don't love what I came out with for the bearded devils, but again I'm not sure what to do with them. I could bump them down to be a common hero with an alternate sculpt which will match some of the other designs I'm forced to do, but I would like them to be able to fill a space outside of the devil faction. Tapping into Unholy Bonding is by far the lowest hanging fruit but I fear I may have to rely on that too much for other builds.

Perhaps I can promise some future group that can have ancillary synergy with them. It may be the best option on the table for what I have in mind. Otherwise in-faction attempts to make them playable may gum up the works with how everything else is going.

[IshMEL]

If what they lack is board control, why not give it to them?

After revealing an OM on this card, before taking a turn with this Bearded Devil, you may move X Other BDs you control up to Y spaces each.

Or:

ARAOMOTC, you may move X BDs you control up to Y spaces each. You may attack with any X BDs you control, even those that did not move this turn.

Just a thought...