The Book of Greater Ice Elemental

[BurnyFlame]

The Book of Greater Ice Elemental

Champions of the Forgotten Realms – Collection D1 – Glaun Bog Raiders

If you cannot see the Army Card graphic, check the HeroScapers Gallery or Hasbro's Unit Page for stats and special powers, plus "character biography" and other non-game unit info.

Character Bio (from front page): The Greater Ice Elemental is a Jandar-summoned Hero ready to support the adventuring group. He has a new ability that is very unique. Using ICE COLD, he can turn the water spaces he’s on and all same-level adjacent water spaces to normal ice spaces. Normally that’s just a cool little mechanic to create an ice bridge. But couple that with his COLD HEALING power, and you’ve got a self healing Hero that can change the landscape of any battlefield!

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-Rulings and Clarifications-

Ice Cold: Stopping in Water
Q: Does the Greater Ice Elemental have to stop on water spaces?
A: No. He turns the water to ice as soon as he steps on it. [FAQ 11.3]

Ice Cold: Falling Damage
Q: Does the Greater Ice Elemental take falling damage when falling into water?
A: Yes. He turns the water to ice as soon as he lands on it. [FAQ 11.3]

Q: How do Uncommon Heroes work?
A: See The Book of Feral Troll, Clarifications section

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Synergy Benefits Received/Imposed

Werewolf Lord: Lycanthropy:
As a Construct, the Greater Ice Elemental is never affected by the Werewolf Lord's LYCANTHROPY power. That bites for him.

Synergy Benefits Offered

Ice Troll Berserker:
Because of his ability to turn water into ice, the Greater Ice Elemental may assist the Ice Troll Berserker when the Ice Troll Berserker rolls for ICE TROLL CHARGE. If the Ice Troll Berserker is on an ice space, he may also remove an extra wound marker due to his COLD REGENERATE power.

Terrain Benefits Received

WATER TILES: Ice Cold – Makes water tiles normal ice spaces.

SLIPPERY ICE TILES: Ice Cold – Makes slippery ice spaces normal ice spaces.

ICE and SNOW TILES: Ice Spikes 15 – Plus 2 to die roll.

ICE and SNOW TILES: Cold Healing – Removes one wound marker after taking a turn.

C3V and SoV Custom Synergies

Spoiler Alert!

Talingul: Master of Great Constructs
As a Huge Construct, a Greater Ice Elemental may benefit from Talingul's activation synergy.

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

Greater Ice Elemental discussion

Greater Ice Elemental Pre-Release Discussion

The Elementals Strategy and Discussion

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-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

Elemental Poll

Kurrok the Elementalist rampant speculation thread

D1 army ideas

Wo-Sa-Ga vs. Greater Ice Elemental

Power Rankings

Jexik: Greater Ice Elemental- Too much of a hero-and-melee killer to survive in a tourney environment. C+

OEAO: C+

Cleon: Tier 3 (184/208)

dok (VC inclusive): C+

[09167]

That figure is just beautiful! and his specials are fantastic, I wonder how well he would fit into my strategies (OoO)

[JusticeProctor]

The Greater Ice Elemental (GIE) is a bit of an odd duck. It has stats similar to Drake's, but is vunerable to range. It's abilities lean towards stationary melee combat (engagement strike and water/ice healing), which is odd because that's exactly the opposite of how an opponent is going to engage this elemental.

Definitely has the cool factor (pun intended), but is going to be more popular in dungeon crawls and pre-set scenarios than in average army builds.

[Tai-Pan]

Originally Posted by JusticeProctor

The Greater Ice Elemental (GIE) is a bit of an odd duck. It has stats similar to Drake's, but is vunerable to range. It's abilities lean towards stationary melee combat (engagement strike and water/ice healing), which is odd because that's exactly the opposite of how an opponent is going to engage this elemental.

Water/ice healing really isn't that stationary, it just really depends on the battlefield. I could see there being a slight problem with engagement strike on a melee figure though. Enemy range figures just shoot, enemy melee just wait until you engage them.

Engagement strike will be useful against figures that rely on adjacency for one offensive reason or another (repulsors, glad-blasts, rats, etc). It will also come in if you play smart against squad figures. Just engage and attack one melee squad figure at a time. You'll probably take it out with an attack of 6, and the others either wait until you pick them off one by one, or they attack and risk dying on icy spikes.

[Acinonyx]

Would the ice elemental freeze swamp water by stepping on it and get the healing from the resultant ice the same as it would on regular water?

[Frylock]

Originally Posted by Acinonyx

Would the ice elemental freeze swamp water by stepping on it and get the healing from the resultant ice the same as it would on regular water?

Since swamp water is treated like regular water for most special powers, then yes, he could heal on swamp water.

[Looking East]

This is such a neat figure it's a shame it doesn't have a little ranged attack to make it more useful. I am trying to think of ways to use this guy and make him worth his points. I think he is pretty much a sitting duck against rangers which will keep him out of tournaments for the most part since he costs way too many points to only be useful against some builds. Against a melee army he really does look like he can hold his own. He would make a fun last piece standing on the board if you make sure to take out all your opponent's range and on maps that use lots of water barriers he is of course quite useful in a melee army.

[Margloth]

Originally Posted by Tai-Pan

Water/ice healing really isn't that stationary, it just really depends on the battlefield. I could see there being a slight problem with engagement strike on a melee figure though. Enemy range figures just shoot, enemy melee just wait until you engage them.

Engagement strike will be useful against figures that rely on adjacency for one offensive reason or another (repulsors, glad-blasts, rats, etc). It will also come in if you play smart against squad figures. Just engage and attack one melee squad figure at a time. You'll probably take it out with an attack of 6, and the others either wait until you pick them off one by one, or they attack and risk dying on icy spikes.

This isn't necessarily a weakness... as I see it, think of GIE as a walking ice shield for weaker melee characters: GIE advances, blocking LOS and taking potshots from ranged attackers, makes ice bridges for following melees, and discourages enemy melees from getting close... and when you get close enough, the squads break out from behind and swarm. Plan it right, and GIE could end this move on snow/ice, heal up, and come back into the fray near the end of the battle when his stats will seem much more deadly.

Although admittedly this will take some careful OM management.
Just my 2 cents...

[vertigosmooth]

I find the GIE is more useful than some may think. They make perfect road blocks for important choke points and to help control an area of the board. Just last night I had him camped in water by a bridge and road and he killed two figures walking by without even using order markers. I find a good strategy is moving him to an ideal defensive position early on(preferably in water) and then just save him for cleanup or big hero killing. My GIE took three wounds during the game and when the end of the game came, where I was putting order markers on him, he was already in water so I ended up healing back to full health. Range would be an issue but if you play your cards right and draft things to counter that you should be ok. Not to mention having a sturdy hero soaking up your opponents attacks is an advantage in its own right (especially if you add an order mark on him here and there to heal).


Dustin

[Cratos]

Found out the hard way last night that this guy is tough...

He snagged height on my Tor-kul-na and went to town. I left engagement to stomp some other stuff (thinking I could re-engage without feeling the wrath of the Ice Spikes due to my size-WRONG!), ate a Nagrub or two and then came back to kill the GIE. Unfortunately, I managed only 1 wound on him before dying.

My son made a fatal error though, moving forward to kill my remaining Nagrubs, thus negating Ice Spikes as we moved around him for height and the kill.

[dok]

Although it wasn't formatted the standard way, this GIE discussion thread actually got a lot more digital ink than the other one. There's also a good discussion starting here, in the book of Wo-Sa-Ga, where the close parallels between these two figures are explored.

[spiteofthedice]

BurnyFlame, the link beneath the card graphic still leads to heroscape.com. Since they don't update anymore, you might want to link to the HSers Gallery:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...hp?i=5457&c=11