Lumovanis' Customs [Current Project: Starcraft (10-14-19)]

[SuperSamyon]

I absolutely love that someone is working on Starcraft customs! Starcraft 1 consumed my evenings for many years and I took Starcraft 2 seriously as a competitor when it first released. Unfortunately, as I got older and entered into my 30s, it became harder to game like I use to.

I'm going to take a look at your work and will provide feedback if you want some. It will be fantastic if you are able to balance these enough to be encorporated into the main game. I know often times people like to create sub universes that are only compatible with similar figures but Starcraft could easily be balanced with Heroscape in mind.

Thanks again for starting this!

Edit: Initial thought - It seems odd that all of the Terran army wouldn't fight for the same general. Thematically, it would make sense if they either all fought for Jandar or Vydar.

Taking a quick look at Jim, you have him bonding with disciplined soldiers which may have unintended consequences. Would Jim and the Roman army look good on a battlefield? However, the Jandar Soulborgs would be a thematically good looking choice. A suggestion for how you could make it work is "Before taking a turn with Jim... You may take a turn with a hero or squad that follows Jandar and has a range of 2+." Just a thought depending on your goals with this custom.

Also, for the firebat, consider having a self destruct option for stimpack. For example, if you roll a 20, immediately destroy this firebat. This will thematically represent the damage that a firebat will take by stiming and provide some extra risk vs reward.

[Lumovanis]

Originally Posted by TREX

Just going to throw some input at you for kethis. Lovely backstory. So descriptive and paints a great picture for the unit. Ill breakdown what I critique.
Targeting Mark- it should probably specify how many markers or affected figures it can have at one time. Right now one figure per turn can be targeted and none lose their mark until destroyed. Also its not specified the kethis alone gets to negate the figures allowing friendly figures to attack the marked figures in a negated state. You could probably get rid of the token all together and just specify:
Targeting Mark
Whenever kethis attacks a figure, all special abilities on that army card are negated. Any terrain effects are also negated.

It does the same thing, keeps it simple, and saves a lot of card space. Also helping with theme Id negate jungle bush and shadow bonuses as well. Snow units such as dzu te wouldnt be allowed to hide by glaciers.

Heres a simpler Disruptor Axe:
Disruptor Axe 1
When attacking an adjacent figure, kethis recieves one additional attack die. If the defending figure recieves at least 1 wound, kethis may roll 1 addtional, unblockable attack die on the defending figure.

This verbage cuts out additional, un needed text. Kethis only has normal attacks so that part isnt needed. All the stats are pretty hefty so not sure about the pricing. 5 life and 5 defense is better than Major Q10 for the points in that regard. The range is one less but no special attacks. Lastly, the Bio makes me think that this character is more like a sniper type character. Hope this helps. I hope to get back to my starcraft customs as well. What scaling are you printing your starcraft minis at and are you using resin or fdm? The ones Ive printed at about 32mm because the marines are in pretty big suits and the protoss are bigger than humans anyway. I eventually had planned to make cards for my seige tanks for Hexless Heroscape.

So, for Kethis, the original design of the marker was that it was like a tag applied to a single figure until it was destroyed (forcing you to make the decision on whether or not you were going to commit to killing that target before needing the mark again). That being said, it sort of evolved during the bio, so it will likely become a passive attack effect. It was intended only to benefit Kethis herself. Part of me wants to add text allowing it to counter abilities that deny targeting points. As it is worded currently, it already denies bonus dice from things like terrain and height advantage (as was intended); "...it can only roll its base defense". It also stops them from rolling extra dice from things like auras and such. A short list of other things off the top of my head that her targeting stops;

Spoiler Alert!

Insubstantial
Stealth Armor
Stealth Dodge
Evil Eye Protection
Counter Strike
Vanish
Scatter

The axe probably could use the cleaning up on the text. Yeah she is pretty beefy on stats (definitely intentional), and with the adjustments to her targeting that make it better, it is extremely likely her cost will increase by about 15. It's hard to compare her to Q10 though, because Q10 has better range and two different multi-attack special attacks.

As far as her class and such goes, you have to figure that an adaptable bounty hunter would be forced into many different roles when thrust into this world. The bio was mostly to apply lore to her targeting ability and give a feel for her prowess. I wish there was unlimited space on cards so I could convey a bounty hunter ability, but, the targeting is the main focus here.

As far as Starcraft, MicroRealms replied to my question on their scaling that they were 28mm heroic, which was equivalent to 32mm and that scaling was taken into consideration on the power armor and such. You can see the measurements and materials for Raynor as an example here. He did warn that the versatile plastic loses a fair amount of detail and probably isn't worth the savings over the high-detail plastics. Now I haven't printed any yet as I wanted to wait until stats were finalized before I even start dropping money on anything.

Thanks for the feedback!

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

I absolutely love that someone is working on Starcraft customs! Starcraft 1 consumed my evenings for many years and I took Starcraft 2 seriously as a competitor when it first released. Unfortunately, as I got older and entered into my 30s, it became harder to game like I use to.

I'm going to take a look at your work and will provide feedback if you want some. It will be fantastic if you are able to balance these enough to be encorporated into the main game. I know often times people like to create sub universes that are only compatible with similar figures but Starcraft could easily be balanced with Heroscape in mind.

Thanks again for starting this!

Edit: Initial thought - It seems odd that all of the Terran army wouldn't fight for the same general. Thematically, it would make sense if they either all fought for Jandar or Vydar.

Taking a quick look at Jim, you have him bonding with disciplined soldiers which may have unintended consequences. Would Jim and the Roman army look good on a battlefield? However, the Jandar Soulborgs would be a thematically good looking choice. A suggestion for how you could make it work is "Before taking a turn with Jim... You may take a turn with a hero or squad that follows Jandar and has a range of 2+." Just a thought depending on your goals with this custom.

Also, for the firebat, consider having a self destruct option for stimpack. For example, if you roll a 20, immediately destroy this firebat. This will thematically represent the damage that a firebat will take by stiming and provide some extra risk vs reward.

Hello. So, for the multi-faction situation, I have taken the lore from actual heroscape into account. Note that humans from Earth are all different factions based on beliefs and attitudes. This was my thought process on splitting their faction up. How would they be divided up between multiple generals when entering this strange world? This does not prevent them fighting together for pretty much most games. Within the world of Valhalla, I could totally see Raynor leading all kinds of bizarre forces. Hell, that was his thing in Starcraft (and Heroes of the Storm honestly); piecing formidable forces together out of misfits and exiles. Originally I was going to not restrict him on what he could hand actions to, but realized that it needed balance and limiting to disciplined personality type was the easiest and made him more useful within the core game (the other option was rebellious, but there just weren't enough of them to make it worthwhile).

Stimpack was redesigned based on the fact squads have 1 life. If I decide to make the Firebat uncommon and add some life to him, he will likely be able to spend health to forcibly activate a stimpack if he fails his roll for it.

[SuperSamyon]

I understand. I still think that if you are basing it on the lore and want to merge Heroscape lore with starcraft, then the humans should never be on utgar's army since they would be on opposing sides. For non unique heroes, they could be in any army but utgars. Now for unique Terran heroes, it makes sense they would be on utgars army if their personality matched it. Your call, but it seems off hat certain characters that are usually on the same side would be against each other. Ask yourself this, why would a firebat fight alongside the zerg?

The zerg makes sense to be in all utgar army.

And the stimpack works great with one life even if it means the firebat is destroyed. It adds a nice risk reward element especially if you increase the damage output with the stimpack.

[TREX]

You may want to look at some of the HoSS designs for your bounty hunter. The bounty hunters have an ability called bounty that allows them to gain a boost on a specific bounty(hero). As far as Starcraft figures go Ive already 3d printed a raynor, tychus, about 11 or so marines, 5 protoss zealots, artanis, and a handful of siege tanks. Half in tank mode, half in siege mode. I dont think Id pay those shapeway prices myself. I dont generally make cards unless I have minis for them beforehand. I thought about printing some of the firebats and a zeratul.

[Lumovanis]

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

I understand. I still think that if you are basing it on the lore and want to merge Heroscape lore with starcraft, then the humans should never be on utgar's army since they would be on opposing sides. For non unique heroes, they could be in any army but utgars. Now for unique Terran heroes, it makes sense they would be on utgars army if their personality matched it. Your call, but it seems off hat certain characters that are usually on the same side would be against each other. Ask yourself this, why would a firebat fight alongside the zerg?

The zerg makes sense to be in all utgar army.

And the stimpack works great with one life even if it means the firebat is destroyed. It adds a nice risk reward element especially if you increase the damage output with the stimpack.

I may consider switching the Firebat to Vydar, but that's not a major concern currently. I mean as far as sides go, why are minutemen fighting samurai? Why are sentient robots fighting sentient robots? Terran fight each other all the time. The personality types soldiers need to be a Firebat in the first place makes them immediately irrational and unstable. It's a wonder they don't turn on their allies most of the time, hence why they were rotated out of conventional military forces during SC2.

Even in-game, units can't commit suicide with stimpacks.

Originally Posted by TREX

You may want to look at some of the HoSS designs for your bounty hunter. The bounty hunters have an ability called bounty that allows them to gain a boost on a specific bounty(hero). As far as Starcraft figures go Ive already 3d printed a raynor, tychus, about 11 or so marines, 5 protoss zealots, artanis, and a handful of siege tanks. Half in tank mode, half in siege mode. I dont think Id pay those shapeway prices myself. I dont generally make cards unless I have minis for them beforehand. I thought about printing some of the firebats and a zeratul.

What's ironic is that I was slowly converting the entirety of both iconic starfinder packs into a somewhat cohesive bounty hunter theme already. I didn't even consider glancing over the Star Wars stuff.

Bounty Hunters

Spoiler Alert!

Edit: I just realized I should probably clarify the height the charge reaches up to, probably 3-5 levels or so.

Also, an updated version of Kethis. After some thought, I did decide to bump her defense down to 4 and slightly up her cost.

Spoiler Alert!

[Lumovanis]

Bit of a play-test update here; I tested Rosa and the Firebat some more this last couple days. The Firebat feels a lot better at 3 life and modified his stimpack to allow him to pay 1 life on a failed roll to trigger it anyways. I will probably up his cost by about 15 or so, but he definitely feels more useful with those changes. Rosa feels a little less overpowering at -1 life and defense, but I'll need to test her a bit more to find a sweet spot.

Zerg feel... great. They do indeed swarm over the field and the clutch burrow rolls feel good. Kerrigan feels REALLY strong and will likely get her points bumped up a bit. Roaches are in the works. Still deciding how best to handle their regen and such as 1 life squad units. I have considered it being a chance when they take lethal damage that they can roll to shrug some of it off (so they survive unless it's total overkill). I think I want them to not only have burrow, but be able to re-burrow as well (and pop up elsewhere if needed).

Other things being considered right now are upgrades. I'm considering having them function like equipment, where you purchase them for an army card and the two are linked. No card may have multiples of the same upgrade card. Some examples of ones I've been thinking of;

U-238 Shells
Points: 12
Restrictions: Raynor's Raiders, Jim Raynor [and Terran Marines if I decide to get around to making them]
Effect: +1 range

Metabolic Boost
Points: 6/Zergling Squad in army
Restrictions: Zerglings
All your Zergling squads have +1 move and increase their climb value by 1.

Adrenal Glands
Points: 10/Zergling Squad in army
Restrictions: Zerglings
All your Zergling squads gain the following ability; "After a Zergling squad attacks, choose one of the Zerglings that attacked that turn, it makes another attack".

Evolved Carapaces
Points: 8/squad of the type chosen in army
Restrictions: Common Zerg Squad
The upgraded squads have +1 defense.

[Lumovanis]

Going through some changes at work, I may not be able to work on this stuff over the next couple weeks. Guess we'll see what happens.

[Lumovanis]

Work changes are still going on. Weird schedules, lack of sleep, etc. Fun times.

[Lumovanis]

I think things have finally settled down a bit. Work has changed and I don't have as much free time anymore, but I should be able to post at least somewhat consistently now. Guess I'll get things started by posting a couple I was working on during my away time;

Artanis [Double Base]

Spoiler Alert!

Zealot

Spoiler Alert!

[Pumpkin_King]

I’m not a Starcraft guy (though I play most of blizzard’s other games and I like a couple SC heroes in HOTS) but it seems weird the Firebat is utgar? Also, were it me, I would re-work how his range works.

[Lumovanis]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

I’m not a Starcraft guy (though I play most of blizzard’s other games and I like a couple SC heroes in HOTS) but it seems weird the Firebat is utgar? Also, were it me, I would re-work how his range works.

Well, personality wise, Firebats are typically unstable and suicidal (it's kind of a requirement for the job), though I was already considering moving them to Vygar. As far as his range goes, I wanted the line attack to be his basic attack (meaning if he were granted an attack from somewhere, it would still be a line attack and not some weird melee range only thing). I suppose it could be adjusted to just also strike another figure adjacent to them, but the elevation thing is still an issue honestly.

[Pumpkin_King]

I'd give him 2 range with the Fen Hydra's Reach, then give him a fireline Special Attack like Mimring or Incendiborgs.