Tiranx's Customs

[GatekeeperDatuck]

For X18, I think that most of the bonding cost is in the Hoplitron's card. A 6 defense, 1 life hero for 35 points that can bond is not enough to push up X18's value. Even if I had 3 Hoplitron's (105 points), I still don't know if I would even pay 100 for X18. To put it differently, the Marro Stingers can usually attack 3 times for 4 dice (either height or using the power), at 5 range. While X18 and the Hoplitron are sturdier (more life and/or defense), they are melee, and will only get two attacks of 4 during a normal turn (unless they have height).

[Tiranx]

Modified Verdant Prime and Majorx18's point values.

[Tiranx]

I started working on some Tremor customs a long time ago and then never really finished anything. I started brainstorming here.

The first Tremor up is the Graboid. An uncommon hero that literally devours small and medium figures.

Graboid -- Valkrill



Left Stat Box:

Wurm
Uncommon Hero
Devourer
Wild
Huge 8

Right Stat Box:

Life - 4
Move - 4
Range - 1
Attack - 4
Defense - 4
Points - 140-160?

Devour -- Select a small or medium figure adjacent to this Graboid. The selected figure is placed on this Graboid's Army Card and is considered devoured. Only one figure may be devoured at a time. At the end of each round, roll an attack die. If the die shows a skull, the figure receives a wound. IF this Graboid is destroyed, place any devoured figure on teh space it occupied.

Underground Movement -- Instead of moving normally with this Graboid, you may immediately place it on any empty non-water space that is within 4 spaces of this Graboid and is no higher than 1 level above this Graboid's height or 3 levels below this Graboid's base. If this Graboid is engaged when it starts its Underground Movement, it will take any leaving engagement attacks.

[Arch-vile]

Nice design. Devour is quite powerful since it doesn't even require a roll. However, it only has a 50% chance of wounding each round, so it will rarely kill anything--it's more of a "get this guy out of the battle until the Graboid dies" special power.

I love the first Tremors movie, by the way.

[Tiranx]

Shrieker -- Valkrill



Left Stat Box:

Common Hero
Devourer
Mutation
Wild
Medium 4

Right Stat Box:

Life - 1
Move - 5
Range - 1
Attack - 3
Defense - 4
POints 25 - 35 ?


Heat Sensor: A Shrieker may add 3 to its Move number as long as it's unengaged prior to moving. A Shrieker must be able to move adjacent to an opponent's closes figure in order to use Heat Sensor.

Devourer Bonding: After revealing an order marker on a Shrieker's Army Card, before taking that Shrieker's turn, you may take a turn with one other Devourer Hero you control.

--Redid the wording on Heat Sensor by removing the "closest" requirement to avoid confusion. Instead, added a new sentence that gets the intended purpose for the "closest" requirement, but avoids confusion.

Heat Sensor 2.0 -- A Shrieker may add 3 to its Move number as long as it's unengaged prior to moving. A Shrieker must be able to move adjacent to an opponent's figure in order to use Heat Sensor. While using Heat Sensor, a Shrieker may never leave engagement with an opponent’s figure.

[Tiranx]

Flying Shrieker -- Valkrill



Left Stat Box:

Common Hero
Devourer
Mutation
Wild
Medium 4

Right Stat Box:

Life - 1
Move - 5
Range - 1
Attack - 3
Defense - 4
Points - 25

Heat Sensor - A Flying Shrieker may add 3 to its Move number as long as it's unengaged prior to moving. A Flying Shrieker must be able to move adjacent to an opponent's closes figure in order to use Heat Sensor.

Flying - When counting spaces for a Flying Shrieker’s movement, ignore elevations. A Flying Shrieker may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. When a Flying Shrieker starts to fly, if it is engaged it will take any leaving engagement attacks.

--New version of Heat Sensor added.

Heat Sensor 2.0 -- A Flying Shrieker may add 3 to its Move number as long as it's unengaged prior to moving. A Flying Shrieker must be able to move adjacent to an opponent's figure in order to use Heat Sensor. While using Heat Sensor, a Flying Shrieker may never leave engagement with an opponent’s figure

[6FlagsManiac]

Hey man, i really enjoy some of your designs, i like the Graboid design, however you may want to clarify some things in the power description, such as leaving engagement attacks on the devoured figure, also can you spit the devoured figure back out? Because as of now i can devour a friendly since the power does not clarify if it has to be an opponents figure or not, and in this case i could essentially carry units around after devouring them. You may also need to clarify when you can use devour, such as after moving and before attacking. Great job so far man

Also, i ran into this problem as well when i first started releasing cards, try not to put a bunch of them out there so fast that people feel overwhelmed and don't want to comment. Try to focus on one card at a time, it helps for the people trying to give you feedback.

[Scytale]

Macho Son of Nacho
Fun design for a wrestler. Anaconda Squeeze is especially fitting, as is Passionate. Eagle Power is actually rather curious; early game you want to use it to get in position, and after that you probably only want to use it on order marker 3 if you are last in initiative order (for the freebie bonus attack). It's a different twist on the X marker, and I like it.

Vulcanmech Stormbringer
I really like how you aimed to make a cheap soulborg hero. Most custom makers shoot right for the high-powered stuff; not enough low-to-midrange heroes. Without Corrupted Programming I'd say he's too cheap, but that really hurts him a lot. When he works, 4 special attacks is great, even at only 2 dice. When he doesn't work, that's a lot of pain coming back. Very good filler design. I prefer Marauder for the class.

Major X18
I like the simplicity of the design. Unfortunately he's really not useful outside of Hoplitron armies due to Homing Hatchet. I'm not really fond of the name Homing Hatchet... "Homing" makes sense for ranged attacks, but seems odd for a melee attack. I don't have a great suggestion to replace it though.

Verdant Prime
Fairly straightforward anti-hero, anti-melee design. I recommend Einar over Ullar for the general, as I just don't see Ullar going the Soulborg route.

Vulcanmech Reaper
The unit's name (Reaper) and general (Valkrill) don't really match it's role (Devout Medic). It feels like a disconnect. Reaper + Deathreavers might be the most annoying army ever; rats are annoying enough without the ability to respawn, and Reaper can shoot while rebuilding them. I'm a bit concerned about respawning double-spaced figures (Deathstalkers); it's probably ok but the placing of double-spaced figures is not common. Not broken (despite the relatively high value of Deathstalkers), but there may be corner cases.

Vulcanmech Render
Cool design. A pretty useful assassin-type figure. I especially like that Rending Claws must be used if possible. Clever.

Graboid
Like the concept, like the figure. The unit appears to be crazy-strong against small/medium heroes, terrible against everything else (for the points). It's essentially an instant-kill to anything it devours which, as far as I can tell, do nothing to escape death, except it takes a long time to happen and the Graboid can die during that time. I'd suggest making it a roll for heroes similar to Grimnak, and auto-devour at the end of the round. If you do, you can drastically lower the cost to even less than Grimnak.

Shrieker
Heat Sensor is a cool concept, but it has some problematic corner cases. What does "closest" mean? If a figure is 5 spaces away but on top of a hill and another is 6 spaces away on level ground, which is considered closer? What if there is another figure 3 spaces away but separated by lava, or a wall?

Flying Shrieker
This version may work better than the previous, since it's easier to determine what is closer. But that may create more problematic cases, where "closest" is defined differently for the same power on different cards. In both cases, I suggest simply dropping the "closest" restriction. It's thematic, certainly, but trickier than it sounds and will not have a dramatic gameplay effect.

[Tiranx]

Originally Posted by 6FlagsManiac

Hey man, i really enjoy some of your designs, i like the Graboid design, however you may want to clarify some things in the power description, such as leaving engagement attacks on the devoured figure, also can you spit the devoured figure back out? Because as of now i can devour a friendly since the power does not clarify if it has to be an opponents figure or not, and in this case i could essentially carry units around after devouring them. You may also need to clarify when you can use devour, such as after moving and before attacking. Great job so far man

Also, i ran into this problem as well when i first started releasing cards, try not to put a bunch of them out there so fast that people feel overwhelmed and don't want to comment. Try to focus on one card at a time, it helps for the people trying to give you feedback.

Those are really good points. Especially stating when you can use Devour. I will change the wording for that.

Originally Posted by Scytale

Macho Son of Nacho
Fun design for a wrestler. Anaconda Squeeze is especially fitting, as is Passionate. Eagle Power is actually rather curious; early game you want to use it to get in position, and after that you probably only want to use it on order marker 3 if you are last in initiative order (for the freebie bonus attack). It's a different twist on the X marker, and I like it.

Vulcanmech Stormbringer
I really like how you aimed to make a cheap soulborg hero. Most custom makers shoot right for the high-powered stuff; not enough low-to-midrange heroes. Without Corrupted Programming I'd say he's too cheap, but that really hurts him a lot. When he works, 4 special attacks is great, even at only 2 dice. When he doesn't work, that's a lot of pain coming back. Very good filler design. I prefer Marauder for the class.

Major X18
I like the simplicity of the design. Unfortunately he's really not useful outside of Hoplitron armies due to Homing Hatchet. I'm not really fond of the name Homing Hatchet... "Homing" makes sense for ranged attacks, but seems odd for a melee attack. I don't have a great suggestion to replace it though.

Verdant Prime
Fairly straightforward anti-hero, anti-melee design. I recommend Einar over Ullar for the general, as I just don't see Ullar going the Soulborg route.

Vulcanmech Reaper
The unit's name (Reaper) and general (Valkrill) don't really match it's role (Devout Medic). It feels like a disconnect. Reaper + Deathreavers might be the most annoying army ever; rats are annoying enough without the ability to respawn, and Reaper can shoot while rebuilding them. I'm a bit concerned about respawning double-spaced figures (Deathstalkers); it's probably ok but the placing of double-spaced figures is not common. Not broken (despite the relatively high value of Deathstalkers), but there may be corner cases.

Vulcanmech Render
Cool design. A pretty useful assassin-type figure. I especially like that Rending Claws must be used if possible. Clever.

Graboid
Like the concept, like the figure. The unit appears to be crazy-strong against small/medium heroes, terrible against everything else (for the points). It's essentially an instant-kill to anything it devours which, as far as I can tell, do nothing to escape death, except it takes a long time to happen and the Graboid can die during that time. I'd suggest making it a roll for heroes similar to Grimnak, and auto-devour at the end of the round. If you do, you can drastically lower the cost to even less than Grimnak.

Shrieker
Heat Sensor is a cool concept, but it has some problematic corner cases. What does "closest" mean? If a figure is 5 spaces away but on top of a hill and another is 6 spaces away on level ground, which is considered closer? What if there is another figure 3 spaces away but separated by lava, or a wall?

Flying Shrieker
This version may work better than the previous, since it's easier to determine what is closer. But that may create more problematic cases, where "closest" is defined differently for the same power on different cards. In both cases, I suggest simply dropping the "closest" restriction. It's thematic, certainly, but trickier than it sounds and will not have a dramatic gameplay effect.

Wow Scytale, thanks for giving awesome feedback on every custom. After looking at what you said I think this is how I feel on each custom.

Macho -- he is pretty solid and done.

Vulcanmech Stormbringer -- Also pretty solid. Ready for play tests.

Major X18 -- Name change on Homing Hatchet and play tests.

Verdant Prime -- Choose Einar for the general, but I am not set for the points 100% still.

Vulcanmech Reaper -- Major theme change needed--Name/general can change to make the theme better. I have a back story brewing for some labs on Alpha Prime called L7. I may change the name to L7 (something) and actually put this guy with Jandar. Maybe only letting him bring Jandar Soulborg back to avoid the double base concern and the annoying rat combo.

Vulcanmech Render -- solid design. Play testing and points still need work.

Graboid -- Major rewording on devour. 6FlagsManiac brought up the need to state when the ability happens and Scytale made the suggestion of using Grimnak's Chomp as a foundation. I like both ideas and will work on the wording.

Shrieker -- Need to remove the "closest' part from Hear Sensors. That is funny because I added it because of Scytales rant about Charging assault on the SoV nomination thread. I think I will add a new sentence in that states that engagement may not be left.

Flying Shrieker -- Same changes to Heat Sensor. Don't love the name.

[Tiranx]

Updated Soulborg customs. Multiple changes made. Vulcanmech Reaper is now Deltacron and only respawns Soulborgs that follow Jandar.

Updated Heat Sensor on both types of Shrieker.

[Tiranx]

Originally Posted by Tiranx

I started working on some Tremor customs a long time ago and then never really finished anything. I started brainstorming here.

The first Tremor up is the Graboid. An uncommon hero that literally devours small and medium figures.

Graboid -- Valkrill




Left Stat Box:

Wurm
Uncommon Hero
Devourer
Wild
Huge 8

Right Stat Box:

Life - 4
Move - 4
Range - 1
Attack - 4
Defense - 4
Points - 140-160?

Devour -- Select a small or medium figure adjacent to this Graboid. The selected figure is placed on this Graboid's Army Card and is considered devoured. Only one figure may be devoured at a time. At the end of each round, roll an attack die. If the die shows a skull, the figure receives a wound. IF this Graboid is destroyed, place any devoured figure on teh space it occupied.

Underground Movement -- Instead of moving normally with this Graboid, you may immediately place it on any empty non-water space that is within 4 spaces of this Graboid and is no higher than 1 level above this Graboid's height or 3 levels below this Graboid's base. If this Graboid is engaged when it starts its Underground Movement, it will take any leaving engagement attacks.

Updated version of Devour. Following Grimnak's Chomp was a great suggestion. It answered all concerns about Devour. The ability changed from a slower wounding ability that easily removed small and medium figures, to a delayed chomp. I actually like it a lot. It weakened Devour, but now allows the Graboid to Devour and still attack.

Devour 2.0 -- After moving and before attacking, select a small or medium figure adjacent to this Graboid. If the chosen figure is a Squad figure you may place it on this Graboid's Army Card and it is considered devoured. If the chosen figure is a Hero figure, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 16 or higher, devour that figure. Only one figure may be devoured at a time. At the end of the round any devoured figure is destroyed. If this Graboid is destroyed, place any devoured figure on the space it occupied.

I think that I am now shooting for 110 points for this figure. Comparing it to Grimnak, the Graboid has lower life, worse bonding options, and a slower instant kill ability.

--In the Graboid's favor is higher attack and easier movement via Underground Movement. Due to the Graboid's height, Underground Movement can literally climb mountains now. That was a really neat design choice for the Earth Elemental that makes it an awesome ability to reuse in new figures.

I like being able to drop the points. It allows me to take more Shriekers of both types and Marcu without having to worry about Eternal Hatred.

[Tiranx]

Just worked on this guy for a custom contest and have become really attached to him.



He is a straight up kamikaze unit designed to pass on the Gnids. In play testing I found them to be really swingy. Sometimes, with their solid attach and great speed, they are able to almost take big units down, but then they can just as easily die on the way in.

I would never take more than two of them, and have found that I don't mind taking Vectors X2 and Gnids X1. Turn marker one get a whole squad on both of your Vectors and then they are loaded to weaken the heroes for the rest of you army.