The Book of Upside-down Man

[IAmBatman]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM
NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: UPSIDE-DOWN MAN
VERSION TESTED

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

NAME = UPSIDE-DOWN MAN
SECRET IDENTITY = n/a

SPECIES = OTHERKIND
UNIQUENESS = EVENT HERO
CLASS = TORMENTOR
PERSONALITY = MALEVOLENT

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 14

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 7
DEFENSE = 4

POINTS = 705

TRUE MAGIC
You may draft or cast Spell cards with Upside-down Man as though he has the Magical Defense Power and any Special Powers, Class, or Species listed on them. Upside-down Man never receives wounds from spells he casts. Whenever a Spell Card would be removed from the game, you may shuffle it face down into his Upside-down Deck.

UPSIDEDOWN CRUELTY
Upside-down Man is never attacked when leaving an engagement. While there are five or more Spell Cards in his Upside-down Deck, whenever he passes over a wounded enemy figure you may roll an unblockable attack die against the chosen figure. If you roll a skull, draw the top Spell Card from the Upside-down Deck and add it to your army.

LIVING MAGIC
After Upside-down Man casts a spell instead of attacking normally, he may immediately attack with his normal attack.

SUPER STRENGTH

FLYING

Original Design

Spoiler Alert!

NAME = The Upsidedown Man
SECRET IDENTITY = n/a

SPECIES = Otherkind
UNIQUENESS = Event Hero
CLASS = Tormentor
PERSONALITY = Malevolent

SIZE/HEIGHT = Medium 5

LIFE = 13

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 7
DEFENSE = 4

POINTS = ???

TRUE MAGIC
While drafting, The Upsidedown Man is considered to to have any Special Powers, Class, or Species listed on Spell Cards you draft. Upsidedown Man never receives wounds from spells he casts. While The Upsidedown Man is on the battlefield, whenever a Spell Card would be removed from the game, you may instead place it underneath this card.

UPSIDEDOWN CRUELTY
The Upsidedown Man is never attacked when leaving an engagement. Whenever the Upsidedown Man passes over a wounded figure, you may roll an unblockable attack die against the chosen figure. If you roll a skull, take the top Spell Card from underneath this card and add it to your army.

LIVING MAGIC
If The Upsidedown Man casts a spell instead of attacking normally, he may immediately attack with his normal attack one time.

MAGICAL DEFENSE
When The Upsidedown Man is attacked by an opponent's figure that does not have the Magical Defense special power, the most wounds The Upsidedown Man can take for this attack is one.

SUPER STRENGTH

FLYING

Army Test
Map: DARK DIMENSION
Units: Upside-down Man (705), Judge Anderson (190), Lightning Bolt (5), Healing Energy (x5) (100) (1000) vs Godzilla (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: Initiative Lawful Magic. Judge Anderson advances.
Godzilla advances.
Upside-down Man advances.
Godzilla advances.
Upside-down Man engages Godzilla, fails to hit him with a Lightning Bolt, then punches Godzilla for three wounds from height.
Godzilla punches Upside-down Man from height disadvantage for four wounds.

Round 2: Initiative Godzilla. He punches up on Upside-down Man for a fifth wound.
Upside-down Man uses Healing Energy and then punches down on Godzilla for one wound.
Godzilla stomps through Upside-down Man for a fifth wound, then uses Atomic Breath to score three more.
Judge Anderson advances and shoots Godzilla for a wound from height.
Godzilla stomps through Upside-down Man for a ninth wound, then has his attack blocked by Anderson.
Upside-down Man heals and then rolls terribly from height and fails to hit Godzilla.
Upside-down Man takes a lava field wound.

Round 3: Initiative Upside-down Man. He heals a wound, then punches down on Godzilla for two wounds.
Godzilla punches up for three wounds on Upside-down Man.
Upside-down Man finally uses his fifth spell and heals a wound, then punches down on Godzilla for four wounds.
Godzilla misses his unblockable and whiffs his Atomic Breath.
Upsdide-down Man passes over Godzilla, missing the unblockable, then heals a wound and punches down for four wounds.
Godzilla misses his unblockable and has his attack blocked by Judge Anderson.

Round 4: Initiative Godzilla. He rolls terribly and can’t hit Upside-down Man with an attack.
Upside-down Man misses another unblockable and punches Godzilla for two wounds.
Godzilla misses his unblockable and has his attack blocked.
Upside-down Man misses an unblockable and has his attack blocked.
Godzilla hits his unblockable but has his attack cancelled by Anderson.
Upside-down Man misses his unblockable, but KO’s Godzilla with an attack.

Unit Summary: He’s easy to wound, but has enough life to stick around and Judge Anderson and healing spells gave him the staying power to finish Godzilla mostly with his normal attack, even when his Upsidedown Cruelty and Living Magic weren’t doing much.

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): Inflicted [19] wounds on [Godzilla [19]]
• TRUE MAGIC: Shuffled back in [6] spells
• UPSIDEDOWN CRUELTY: Rolled [4] unblockables to do [0] wounds and return [0] spells
• LIVING MAGIC: Used to get in extra normal attacks [6] times.
• Damage Taken: 15 wounds.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Judge Anderson with Full Life and Uside-down Man with 4/14 Life remaining win.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: CONFLICT CHERNOBYL
Units: Upside-down Man (705), Judge Anderson (190), Lightning Bolt (x5) (25)), Healing Energy (x4) (80) (1000) vs Fantastic Four (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Dropped one Healing Energy for four Lightning Bolts in hopes of getting his auto wounds going sooner. Mister Fantastic’s Rubber Wrap is a hard counter to what Upside-down Man wants to do as well, so the extra range and attack power is good to have.
Round 1: Initiative Fan Four. Invisible Woman, Thing, and Mister Fantastic advance.
Judge Anderson advances and misses a shot on Thing.
Human Torch and Invisible Woman both attack Judge Anderson from height and range. Invisible Woman scores one wound. Mister Fantastic moves into position in front of his allies.
UPSD Man burns a Lightning Bolt on Human Torch but can’t hit.
Thing advances. Human Torch avoids a swipe and misses his Flame On attempt on Judge Anderson. She blocks his attack from height with her X. Mister Fantastic Rubber Wraps her and hits her for one wound.
UPSD Man engages Invisible Woman and fails to hit her with a Lightning Bolt or an attack. Ouch.

Round 2: Initiative UPSD Man, who whiffs on a lightning bolt and then has an attack of 3 blocked by Invisible Woman. Just terrible.
Human Torch takes a swipe, then hits UPSD Man with a Flame On, then burns Judge Anderson’s X with an attack from height. Invisible Woman moves away from UPSD Man and blasts Anderson for a wound. Mister Fantastic punches UPSD Man for a third wound.
UPSD Man uses healing energy on himself, then punches Mister Fantastic for two wounds.
Human Torch avoids a swipe, Flames On UPSD Man for two wounds, then punches out Judge Anderson. Thing punches UPSD Man for three wounds. Mister Fantastic is blocked.
UPSD Man uses healing energy and punches Mister Fantastic for a third wound.
Mister Fantastic finally botches a leadership roll and his attack is blocked.

Round 3: Initiative Fantastic Four. Human Torch avoids the swipe, Flames On successfully, then catches UPSD Man whiffing against a big attack. Suddenly UPSD Man is down to two life. Thing rolls 8 skulls on 9 dice and finishes the job.

Unit Summary: Four attacks in a row against Invisible Woman resulting in no damage really hurt his chances here. The Fan Four consistently got three activations and the dice here seemed to favor them overall. With Rubber Wrap perfectly countering Upsidedown Cruelty, Upside-down Man never got his engine going and didn’t have enough offense to take down the Fan Four.

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): Inflicted [3] wounds on [Mister Fantastic [3]]
• TRUE MAGIC: Shuffled back in [5] spells
• UPSIDEDOWN CRUELTY: Rolled [0] unblockables to do [0] wounds and return [0] spells
• LIVING MAGIC: Used to get in extra normal attacks [4] times.
• Damage Taken: 16 wounds.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Invisible Woman with Full Life, Thing with Full Life, Human Torch with 4/5 Life, and Mister Fantastic with 2/5 Life win.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: ASTEROID M
Units: Upside-down Man (705), Judge Anderson (190), Lightning Bolt (x5) (25), Healing Energy (x4) (80) (1000) vs Hawkwoman (260), Wonder Woman (JL) (310), Green Arrow (JL) (210), Black Canary (JL) (220) (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: Wonder Woman sheds a JL Marker. Initiative UPSD Man. Judge Anderson moves forward into space.
Black Canary does the same.
Judge Anderson moves to the middle of the map and fails to hit Black Canary from range.
Hawkwoman advances.
UPSD Man fails to hit Hawkwoman with a Lightning Bolt, but she flies up.
Black Canary advances.

Round 2: Wonder Woman sheds a JL Marker. Initiative UPSD Man. He engages Black Canary, fails to hit her with lightning, then smacks her for two wounds with his normal attack from height. She misses her cry.
Black Canary goes Into the Fray and forces Anderson to burn her X to save UPSD Man from a big attack. Green Arrow hits UPSD Man for two wounds from range and heigh disadvantage.
UPSD Man uses healing energy and then punches Black Canary for one wound.
Hawkwoman strikes Judge Anderson for three wounds, recharging Wonder Woman. Green Arrow sheds a JL Marker and fails a ranged attack on Judge Anderson.
UPSD Man uses healing energy, then KO’s Black Canary. She misses her cry again.
Hawkwoman KO’s Judge Anderson and recharges Green Arrow.

Round 3: Wonder Woman sheds a JL Marker. Initiative Justice League. Hawkwoman hits UPSD Man for three wounds and recharges Wonder Woman. Green Arrow sheds a marker and snipes for two more wounds.
UPSD Man uses a healing energy, then punches Green Arrow for three wounds.
Hawkwoman hits UPSD Man for two wounds, recharging Green Arrow, who immediately uses the marker and attacks from height, for one wound.
UPSD Man flies over Green Arrow, inflicting the last wound on him and returning a Lightning Bolt, which he then uses on Hawkwoman but neither that nor his normal attack can hit her.
Hawkwoman puts UPSD Man up to 9 wounds.
UPSD Man hasn’t wounded Hawkwoman, so he can’t get auto wounds on her. His Lightning Bolt and normal attack are both blocked.

Round 4: Wonder Woman sheds a JL Marker. Initiative UPSD Man. He can’t hit Hawkwoman with lightning, but does smack her for 4 wounds with his normal attack.
Hawkwoman hits hard, putting UPSD Man down to one life. She recharges Wonder Woman.
UPSD Man misses the unblockable that would’ve finished Hawkwoman, uses his last healing energy, then rolls terribly and gets taken out by Aerial Assault.

Unit Summary: The wounded restriction on Upsidedown Cruelty and the need to have five spells burned first really reduces how useful it is. Without it, Upside-down Man didn’t quite have the offensive output to take out the Justice League by himself.

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): Inflicted [11] wounds on [Black Canary [4], Green Arrow [3], Hawkwoman [4]]
• TRUE MAGIC: Shuffled back in [8] spells
• UPSIDEDOWN CRUELTY: Rolled [2] unblockables to do [1] wounds to [Green Arrow [1]] and return [1] spells
• LIVING MAGIC: Used to get in extra normal attacks [7] times.
• Damage Taken: 18 wounds.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Wonder Woman with Full Life and Hawkwoman with 1/5 Life win.

___________________________________________________________

UNIT SUMMARY: He feels really close and the more spell diversity that gets added, the better he’ll get, so I don’t want to worry too much about tweaking him to make him better. That said, I do think he’s a tad underwhelming, largely because Upsidedown Cruelty takes a lot to get going. I would consider lowering the threshold to 4 spells in the deck just to get it going sooner and to give him more chances of paying things off. Either that or eliminate the “wounded” requirement on figures he rolls unblockables against to give him more of an answer against really hard to hit figures.