Porting AotP Into Scape

[chas]

PORTING AotP INTO HEROSCAPE

Both here and on boardgamegeek, while there have been naysayers to the whole AotP phenomenon, other of us have taken a positive view on the new game. Some want to integrate their Scape into AotP. I personally, being an active Scaper, plan to do just the opposite. I don't have the game yet, but on the general original AotP discussion thread, a German fan (Sinister) has already posted a few simple rules for doing so, which I will eventually start out with as a guide. You can find this on Page 57, Post #682, here:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...=50957&page=57

On bgg, a number of former Scapers say the new game has encouraged them to dust off their old Scape and get back into the game! In this spirit, I encourage anyone else interested to consider playing AotP as Scape.

I'll make the fewest possible changes necessary, to enjoy the gift just give to us by Craig Van Ness, Our Designer.

I'll use Order Markers for the Planeswalkers, and in general each player can only use one in his/her army. Normal Scape pieces will begin the game in a start zone or other traditional Scape mechanism. Only AotP Squads (and those that follow if expansions do in fact materialize), will be Summoned by their Planeswalker, who may initially use more than one color of Spell Card--so that the deckbuilding aspect can be experimented with before any expansions come out, as I have suggested elsewhere. So they will be appendages to their wizard, much as The Rechts of Bogdan are to Iskra Eisenwein in regular Heroscape.

Of course, I'll first play the new game as is, to get a feel for the Planeswalkers and the new mechanisms; especially since I'm not a Magic the Gathering player. (I played it once at a GenCon in a hotel room with some free packs they had given out).

Some people just are going to play the new game as is. I'd guess this category will be mostly composed of younger gamers who don't know Scape or haven't figured out how to collect the pieces needed for our old cancelled game. But being an old Scaper, with ridiculous amounts of its old product, I consider AotP to be just another Heroscape Expansion, and will treat it as such.

I hope that most of the posters on this thread will join me here for an exploration of this exercise!

The person here who has the game and is already advancing in this direction is Quozl, who has posted about combining the two games on boardgamegeek. His thread is here:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread...4/heroscape-20

The most important revision to AotP is the turn sequence, which several of us have revised for clarity; that follows the rules!

***

Draft 2 is here, adding only the sixth rule for clarification, as noted in posts below. The Zendikar Expansion has required no new rules.

***
PLANESCAPE

RULES FOR ADDING
MAGIC THE GATHERING: ARENA OF THE PLANESWALKERS (AP)
INTO HEROSCAPE (HS)

By Chas (Draft 2: 2/25/16)



Rules for both games are used, except where noted below.


1. Each player may use one Planeswalker (PW) in their army, who starts as that army does on the battlefield. Their own point cost and that of their spell deck must be paid separately.

2. All PW creatures must also be paid for separately. They start in the Reserve, and
must be summoned onto the battlefield.

3. Planeswalkers and PW Creatures are activated by Scape Order Markers, as are Scape figures.

4. If your Planeswalker is killed, his/her uncast spells and unsummoned creatures are out of the game.

5. When your Planeswalker takes a turn, he/she follows the AP turn sequence.

6. "Target Creatures" on Spell cards refers to only AOTP Creatures.

***

MTG: ARENA OF THE PLANESWALKERS: REVISED TURN SEQUENCE

1. Draw a spell card and cast spells. *

2. Select an army card and cast spells. *

3. Summon (if planeswalker was selected) and cast spells. *

4. Move selected figure(s).

5. Attack with selected figure(s).

6. Cast spells. *

7. (MTG:AOTP ONLY: End turn and advance the turn marker).


*You may only cast up to 3 spells during your entire turn.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by chas

PORTING AotP INTO HEROSCAPE

. . . Some want to integrate their Scape into AotP. I personally, being an active Scaper, plan to do just the opposite . . .

BRAVO! For staying on top of the current discussions about this "Hot Topic." I feel that I am being reluctantly dragged into this new WotC MtG:AotPWs game by my HeroScaping buddies because of the obvious similarities. Now that's *NOT* a bad thing. I'd do almost anything to see my H'Scape collection get more table time. But I've never played a MtG game and still have no intention to ever play it. I'm not even a fan of any deck-building and/or collectible card games. But I am planning to very soon purchase this game (probably multiple copies - just for the extra terrain, he he he; - ) in order to "PORT" it both ways. Integrating some HS figures and mechanics into AtoP as well as integrating a set of AtoP figures into my H'Scape games as customs.

[Garada]

I like what you're getting at here. MtG definitely has me excited about my massive Scape stash again (not that I ever really lost interest).

I definitely plan on following your progress and will one day play a Scape game with MtG characters integrated. In the meantime I'm slowly going to work a few classic Scape units into the new game - the necromancer should be able to summon Knights, right?

I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it too!

[chas]

I've just read some of Quozl's early scans of some of the rules pages, and the added components that will be in the expansions if they are issued are almost guidelines (or maybe they are guidelines) for combining the games. These will include:

Common Squads
Unique Heroes
Common Heroes

Artifact Army Cards

The latter seem like they will basically be Treasure Glyphs!

[Johngee]

I'm sure that a whole lot of more information will become available next weekend at GenCon and also when the game is officially released on august 1st. So these Forum threads should be buzzing with more facts and less speculation.

[chas]

Yes. Although if we're lucky these current threads will help folks ask the right questions at GenCon...

[lefton4ya]

Being my first post on the game,just want to note: I do like the spells, basically like having a bunch of temporary glyphs you can use at will. Kill the plainswalker as an end game is similar to kill the dragon/giant scenarios that have even been at Gencon before. I played awhile without order markers (but all other master set rules) so that is not a big deal to me. The summoning is kinda like Iskra and the Rechets, but is really the biggest difference IMHO between the games that squads do not start on the battlefield.


Not having Planeswalker yet, personally I think I would like keeping all of the Heroscape system with just a couple added things from planewalker. My idea of a blender is to

• Get rid of kill the plansewalker scenario (I like playing games out)
• Keep order markers.
• For spell card deck, I like the idea that you can play at least one card every turn, but three cards if you take a turn with the planeswalker. Maybe even play two cards if your turn is with a unique hero, but not a planeswalker.
• For Summoning: I wouldn't go as far as making all squads have to be summoned, but maybe an idea to nerf squadscape, is that only one squad of each common starts on the board, and you have to summon additional ones by taking a turn with the planeswalker. The cool thing about that would be you can summon far from your start zone, but if your planeswalker dies, you cannot summon any more units. Alternately, only the units designed for planeswaler (official AoP: MtG or or heroscape custom ports) are summoned and all other figures start as normal.
• Drafting and pre-built tourneys: You could have anywhere between 100-200 worth of spells drafted to your deck, and just subtract that from the total draft for figures. I.E. you could have a 700 point draft where you can bring 200 points of spells and 500 points of planeswalker/heroes/squads, or 100 points of spells and 600 points of figures, or in between. If not playing with my suggested planeswalker being able to summon all squads, then drafting a Planeswalker is optional, but if you don't you will be able to play less spells, so you would probably draft less cards.

Imaging a Plainswalker summoning marro stingers or 10th halfway down the maps. Maybe that is too much, but it would be cool. Basically the Planeswalker is a General in the Heroscape faction sense, but that is why they cost a lot of points.

[Marro_Warlord]

I would enjoy seeing someone like Gideon summoning Knights of Weston. If we were to blend these things together, I would ditch ranged summoning. Considering the prevalence of ranged units in Heroscape, what would happen if we "warped" them onto height. To fix this, I think that Planeswalkers should only be able to summon units to spaces adjacent to them, and only when they are unengaged. Otherwise, a Planeswalker with many ranged squads could dominate by instantly spawning squaddies onto high ground. No Rats needed!

Just my

[qt.bangerang]

Personally I want to integrate this into to Heroscape, but I haven't played it yet so maybe I will change my mind. My idea is that the colors of the MtG world represent a type of magic. So, there could be figures that use different color magic that fight for the same Valkyrie. So, I am not too concerned with who should fight for who.

The first order of business for me is translating the wording on all of the cards to match and work within official Heroscape language. Now I could simply redesign everything (which is what the C3V will do) but I like the idea of spell cards and would like to add it to Heroscape with these units and add it to existing units (Wizards, Archmages, etc.).

Once I get my own copy and have more formalized thoughts I will start my own thread on what I do as I get to doing it.

[chas]

Agreed about posting my own thing once I get the game. Jim just posted the entire rule book, which I've now printed out (see the AotP Official Rules and FAQ section).

[qt.bangerang]

Originally Posted by chas

Agreed about posting my own thing once I get the game. Jim just posted the entire rule book, which I've now printed out (see the AotP Official Rules and FAQ section).

Thanks for letting me know, waiting to finish downloading then I will start reading.

[Yodaking]

After reading through all the spell cards I'm a bit concerned that some of the enchantments would be broken when applied to common squads. Drafting 4th Mass x5, Stingers x5, etc. and enchanting all 5 squads with more attack or defense for just a few points them seems way to good. Dark Harvest in particular seems really broken as the 'cost' of the spell is to destroy a figure in the enchanted squad. Destroying 1 of only 3 or 4 figures (unique squad) seems like a fair trade off for +3 att., but destroying 1 of 12-15 figures (common squad x3, x4, x5) to add +3 att. to the remaining 11-14 figures is just ridiculous. Omnicron Snipers suddenly become one of the best units in the game when you have 8 figures that can roll double skulls on 4 dice at range.

It seems to me that the solution should be that enchant squad spells only work on unique squads, which could give classic scape unique squads a chance to be relevant again. They have been overshadowed by common squads for a long time now. The KMA would still be the gold standard since boosting their attack and/or defense would be awesome, but at least their are only 3 of them and if another planeswalker is in play you might be able to eventually remove the enchantment. Still units like the Tarn Vikings or Zettian Guards might become more popular if you could boost their stats with enchantments.