The Book of Noob Saibot

[LordVenoc]

@Soundwarp SG-1

Am I good to go on an initial here? I don't want to step on your toes, but I'd love to see this guy move forward and hopefully finish in time for release.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

I have a set of initials done, I just got to write them up (I’m just super behind on that because I hate writing up Playtests and I’m very bad at doing them).

That’s for the offer though! You’re welcome to playtest him if you’re really jonesing to try him out. I’m not fitting to change anything from whats currently there except adding in a no Event Hero clause to the negation (which was just an oversight on my part, Soundwarpscape doesn’t have event heroes and I forgot to adjust when porting the design).

[Scapemage]

For this guy to make the July release, he needs to get moving soon.

[Ronin]

Yeah, I know you don't love writing up playtests, Joe, but we're starting to feel a time crunch on this one.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Sorry this got super delayed. Trying to do Shadow Lass really screwed me up. I feel bad for posting these tests first, but this one is under more of a time constraint and I'll have Shadow Lass written up by this weekend (for real this time).

Anyway:

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Noob Saibot @220 points and Shadow Wraith @10 points

Army Test 1
Map: Sewer Labyrinth
Units: Dark Assassin: Noob (220), Wraith (10), Hand Ninja x4 (340), Atom (50) - 620 total vs Secret Four: Catman (170), Scandal Savage (200), Deadshot (150), Ragdoll (100)- 620 total

Spoiler Alert!

Game Summary:

Noob is just playing the front-man for the Hand Band in this one. It's a pretty nice combo, between them you can get a lot of attacks per turn and direct those attacks against pretty much whoever you want. In this case Noob didn't have anything amazing to negate, but the steady flow of attacks proved enough to whittle the Outlaws down.

This was a strong showing, though, in retrospect, I think a lot of that was down to the Secret Four not being the best choice against the Hand more than anything Noob did. Kinda overestimated the pro of Catman getting his wound trigger easier and underestimated the con of everyone on the team being fairly easier of the Ninjas to wound right back. Considering he had a 'stacked deck', Noob really didn't feel overpowered or anything here.

colorUnit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): Pinged Scandal for 1 early on. Got 2 wounds on Catman in one attack right before he died.
• Blackhole Teleportation: Used once to set-up a bunch of attacks on Catman, which did get some good wounds in but then kinda backfired as Catman took out Noob right after. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to just keep Noob out of the way and let the ninjas absorb hits for him.
• Ghostball: Only used twice, both times against Ragdoll.
• Shadow Summons: Always used, not like there's a reason not to. The Wraith managed to get two wounds on Ragdoll and one on Catman.
• Damage Taken: His four defense held up abnormally well for a bit, but the Secret Four had a lot of ways to put some wounds on a Hero fast and eventually he fell in one turn from a combo of Catman leading into Deadshot leading into a Finish the Job attack. But if you gotta die, might as well die to crazy Rube Goldberg turn.

Result: 5 Hand Ninja disappear into the night to resurrect Bi-Han once more.

Army Test 2
Map: Sewer Labyrinth
Units: Fear Me: Noob (220), Wraith (10), Judge Mortis (165), Judge Fear (145) - 540 total vs Spider Cage: Luke Cage (190), Spider-Man (250), Ragdoll (100)- 540 total

Spoiler Alert!

Game Summary:

Trying a bit of a different tack, using Noob more for his movement and Undead synergies here. It worked pretty well, Fear and Mortis both like getting a few 'free' moves now and again, but the big story here was, big surprise, negation is really nice against guys that depend on their defensive powers. Unfortunately, an attack of 3 is not that nice. So while Noob and company where able to whittle away at the other team consistently, they never really got a big enough hit in to really shift things in their favor. Team Spider-Cage eventually did though, and once Noob was down the rest of the team folded in short order.

This was a very close game that could have easily gone Noob's way, but I like that he was hardly insurmountable even for a team heavy on defensive powers.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): He never attacked, since it seemed wiser to negate powers and let the Wraith do the stabbing.
• Blackhole Teleportation: Used once each on Mortis and Fear to help them keep the pressure on the other team. The power sort of passively boosted Mortis in a way, since it made disengaging from him sort of pointless.
• Ghostball: Used to whammy Spider-Man every turn to set-up for the Wraith.
• Shadow Summons: Used every turn. Ended up putting 4 wounds on Spider-Man in five attacks, which was pretty consistent, but a little slower than the team need him to be.
• Damage Taken: Once again, his defense was weirdly sturdy, but Spidey kept pace with him inflicting about a wound per attack for awhile. Eventually Spidey finished him off with two wounds in his last attack.

Result: A 1 life Luke Cage wanders off, he's not having a very sweet Christmas.

Army Test 3
Map: Island Plane Crash (No E-Glyph)
Units: As One: Noob (220), Wraith (10), Ms. Marvel (350), Elektra (170)- 750 total vs Uncanny X-Men: Cyclops (I) (190), Jubilee (60), Angel (Warren) (90), Emma Frost (180), Jean Grey (170), Bailey Hoskins (50), Skrull Infiltrator x1 (10)- 750 total

Spoiler Alert!

Game Summary:

This is a pretty basic test of just stacking Noob's negation with Ms. Marvel's bonding. It was a decent combo, Ms. Marvel also doesn't mind the movement trickery that Blackhole Teleportation brings, and stopping Angel's movement shenanigans was a big help. Unfortunately, Bailey got a 5 skull explosion off pretty early and no one on Noob's team managed a big enough hit to really come back from that. Had that not happened, the game might have gone in team Noob's favor but I didn't feel like the Mutant's wining was an upset by any means.

Ultimately, I don't think the Ms. Marvel combo is too crazy. He can do a lot of tricks that can lead into a crushing turn with Ms Marvel, but if I'm not making use of his class or species I'd usually rather take Wonder Woman (I) unless I'm light on points for some reason.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): He was rarely attacking, since he was on negation duty, and never landed a wound with the two attacks he did make.
• Blackhole Teleportation: Used to essentially simulate 'Flying' by moving him up once. There were two times he moved someone next to him, once so that Ms. Marvel could get a hit in that she otherwise wouldn't, once to get Jean off of a high spot.
• Ghostball: Mostly used on Angel, regardless on if I actually attacked him or not, used once on Emma Frost. Shutting down Angel was definitely his biggest contribution to the team here.
• Shadow Summons: Used every turn Noob got, but the Wraith was not doing so well on attack today. It still managed to nick Jubilee and Cyclops for 1 wound each though.
• Damage Taken: Took two wounds from the Bailey Bomber, and one from Jeans TK, Cyclops eventually finished him off in a big optic blast hit.

Result: A 2 life Emma Frost moves in to 'console' a 1 life Cyclops as he morns Jean's death (again).

Overall: Noob's a tricky one due to the nature of his negation power. It needs to be tested against powers it will actually matter against, but that sometimes makes him look a bit more impressive than I feel he really is. 'In the wild' he'll often go against figures that just don't have anything for him to screw with. I think he's pretty potent, but he never felt broken to me. Overall, I'm happy with where he's at right now.


--

Oh, I've updated Ghostball to not work on Event Heroes. But otherwise I guess I should be good to do a vote after people get a chance to look him over?

[IAmBatman]

Pre-yea for public testing. Looking good!

[Ronin]

Pre-yea

[Scapemage]

Pre-yea. As one!

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Oh something I forgot about but probably should be handled before going to public playtesting, should the Wraith be standardized with other Shadow dudes? I know there was talk of having a standard ‘shadow person’ power or some such being discussed, but I don’t remember the specifics or if it would be needed here.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

Oh something I forgot about but probably should be handled before going to public playtesting, should the Wraith be standardized with other Shadow dudes? I know there was talk of having a standard ‘shadow person’ power or some such being discussed, but I don’t remember the specifics or if it would be needed here.

I'm sketchy on the details there myself, but looking back over the Wraith, I think he looks pretty streamlined and like a good enough template for any future similar shadow constructs.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Originally Posted by Ronin

I'm sketchy on the details there myself, but looking back over the Wraith, I think he looks pretty streamlined and like a good enough template for any future similar shadow constructs.

I remember we talked about shadow construct stuff at one point here, but I thought there was also some talk about giving guys like Cloak and Obsidian and such somekinda unified thing in some other thread? Didn’t know if the wraith should be tied into that or not.

[Ronin]

Huh. Yeah, I don't really remember that part. I'd need to go look it up for context.