The Book of Zetacron

[Soul Shackle]

The Book of Zetacron

Aquilla's Alliance - "Heroes of the Quagmire"

Character Bio: - Life flickers in the darkness. A low mechanical hum chases away years worth of stale silence. Whirl… click, click, click…bzzzat. A glowing square of blue fluorescence burns against the shadows. More clicks and whirls sound out. The blue glow moves forward in a staggering motion, leaving a fading trail of phantom light in its path.

An experiment failed and abandoned. A soul laid dormant in metal casings, now sparks to conciousness.

The fluorescent blue screen changes to a bright red. The red light flashes.

The far end of the room ignites in a burning cloud of yellow, red and black. Bolts of sunlight, highlighted by a haze of debris, crash in from the outside, spreading light where no light has existed for a very long time.

Dark machines march in through the bright gap that they’ve created.

The dark ones spot the bright face of the sleeper, now awake. The red light jumps high into the air, a scarlet ghost marking its trail. A blaze of incendiary tracer rounds illuminates the air in streaks, leaping from the long gunmetal barrels that are attached to the white and blue frame of the figure with the red face. Each shot fired finds its mark, burning on contact.

The invading machines fall, one by one.

A new form darkens the makeshift doorway, its massive frame blocking out the light.

A rocket screams. An explosion throws the blue and white robot to the ground.

The figure in the doorway readies a finishing blow, but its sensors suddenly go dark. Its advanced scanners circle the room and report back with no sign of the resisting blue and white soulborg … impossible.
(Hasbro)

Originally Posted by special powers

DEADLY SHOT
When attacking with Zetacron, all skulls rolled count for one additional hit.

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-Rulings and Clarifications-

- DEADLY SHOT : Skulls doubled before OR after shields?
How does Deadly Shot/Strike work? Are the skulls doubled before, or after shields are counted?
Deadly Strike & Deadly Shot double the skulls before the shields are counted. For example, Zetacron who is on height rolls 3 attack dice. Of those 3 dice, 2 skulls and one blank are rolled. The Figure below him rolls 3 dice, but only one shield. Your skulls are doubled to 4 hits. When you subtract the 1 shield, the defender takes 3 total hits. (Hasbro FAQ)

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Synergy Benefits Recieved

VENOC WARLORD : Scout Leadership
As a Scout, Zetacron may benefit from Venoc Warlord's SCOUT LEADERSHIP movement enhancement.

BRAVE ARROW : Scout Melee Attack Enhancement
Zetacron may add one attack die when adjacent to Brave Arrow and attacking an adjacent figure.

OMNICRON REPULSORS : Targeting Beacon:
As a Soulborg who follows Jandar, Zetacron may benefit from the Omnicron Repulsors' TARGETING BEACON attack bonus.[/list]

Synergy Benefits Offered

- N/A

C3V and SoV Custom Synergies

Spoiler Alert!

Synergy Benefits Offered

Synergy Benefits Received

OMEGACRON : OMNICRON MOBILIZATION
As a Soulborg who follows Jandar, Zetacron may benefit from Omegacron's movement activation synergy.

_________________________________________________________________
-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

- TBA

_________________________________________________________________
-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

Power Ranking
Zetacron- A decent filler unit, Zetacron has the potential to take out even the mightiest of Heroes with a lucky Deadly Shot. B+

Master Index
First Impressions
Army Ideas
Zetacron vs. Major Q9: A basic statistical analysis

Unit Strategy Review
- TBA

(Images courtesy of truth)

[Snotwalker 8000]

Just wanted to give accolades here. These books are a wonderful resource! Perhaps the jewel feature of the site. (and that says alot, considering all the wonderful resources here!)

For example, I've only played in a couple games against Zetacron recently, and haven't realy taken that close of a look at his card yet, and just now noticed, thanks to the synergy point in this book, that he is indeed a SCOUT! A mechanical buddy for Mittens! I never noticed before!

The strategy articles are great, the various discussion topics are engaging, but these books and the format used is a wonderful "one-stop-shop" for a quick unit analysis and a "look-see" at how they rank, what relevant threads are linked to, synergy, etc...

Anyway, back on Zetacron-Topic, though his sculpt ain't my favorite from this release, his cost, stats, and ability are right on! He was wickedly effective in knocking points off of my Kaemon Awa and Jotun, and easily earned his points in the damage he can throw down.

A fun unit whose low cost makes him easily fit into a variety of army builds...

Now if only the sculpt were a bit better...

SW8K

[Tai-Pan]

I just got wave 8 and 8.5 last night for my birthday, and in the following battles Zetacron didn't seem very good. We divided the new cards into 6 armies of approximately 500 points each. He was with the leftover new guys that didn't really have a strong thematic tie to anything (Granted, he goes with the omnicrons, but only in appearance, there's really not any synergy. He could have gone with a scout army, but I already had a loose ends army, so I threw him in there) I don't think he survived a single attack all night. The first game, Jorhdawn lobbed a fireball over and killed about five figures. The second game, he fell to a potshot from a marro warrior. The third game, Ne-Gok-Sa killed him in one hit.

Overall, he seemed weak. I haven't given up on him yet, since the battlefield was smaller and the game was just a bloodbath, but he's been rather uninspiring thus far.

[Soul Shackle]

You definitely need to get the first strike with him, and it needs to be on a hero, in most instances. His Range of 8 is helpful in the first strike regard. Getting him on height is HUGE. If there's a figure you'd prefer to attack on which you do not have a height advantage, consider attacking a figure on which you DO have height.

He's a fairly brittle figure, and won't survive much punishment, so do everything you can to get off a few shots early. Maybe some early OM crowding will help.

[Snotwalker 8000]

You're right on, Soul Shackle!

Zetacron is a wonderful 60pt first-strike figure. He needs to moving early in the game, particularly if there's a juicy Hero-target. His low-survivability requires that you use him aggressively, so that he can get off as many shots as possible before falling. He's a scout, so play him as such.

With Mittens in your army, he'll be off and running at move 7, range 8!! That is a HUGE threat zone! That extra 2 movement from Scout Leadership can also be critical in getting him to height to both bolster his defense and greatly increase his threat factor. Rolling 3 deadly shot dice at 8 range simply demands respect. Slap a couple wounds on most high-cost heroes, and he's earned his lunch.

SW8K

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

There goes Deadeye Dan.

[Snotwalker 8000]

Originally Posted by ParaGoomba Slayer

There goes Deadeye Dan.

Not at all.

Two very different uses.

Zetacron is great at putting the hurt on heroes much more reliably than DED. (DED's insta-kill D20 roll is nice, but nothing to bank on)

HOWEVER:

Deadeye is great at bypassing defense altogether for high-cost / high-defense squads, like the Sentinels or minions or Hounds or Krav maga, etc... A 50% chance of insta-killing a Sentinel? Priceless. Zetacron would be hard pressed to do as well against a Sent. or KMA.

SW8K

[fomox]

Originally Posted by Soul Shackle

We need fomo or mathguy in here to tell us just how much harder pressed...

Here's my take: (corrections welcome)

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The Sentinels
(http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ead.php?t=8598)

These guys have 1 life with 4 defense, and Shields of Valor. Assuming no one has height advantage, the probability of Zetacron killing one is 24.69%.

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Krav Maga Agents
(http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ead.php?t=8405)

These guys have 3 defense, plus stealth dodge. So, if Zetacron is attacking from range, they need only to avoid blanking on defense. So Zetacron only has a 22.22% probability of killing a Krav in one shot.

{It's just the probability of Zetacron getting at least one skull times the probability of the Krav getting no shields, or (3/4)*[(2/3)^3]. }

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So, SW8K is correct about each having their own situations where they shine. Deadeye Dan gets to bypass the Krav's stealth dodge and the high defense Sentinels. (Thanks to the two posts below for pointing out my initial mistake! That's what I get for talking about units I've never seen in actual play.)

You might also want to think about how long Dan and Zeta would survive against each of these groups. Mathguy's calculator could get into that if you were interested. My experience has been that Dan dies pretty easily in most games. Zeta has higher defense, but one less life. For 60 points, I think I like Zetacron better, but as always, it really depends on the board and the armies you're playing.

[Acinonyx]

I'm suprised the sentinels don't do a little better than that. Assuming even height, Zeta averages 2 skulls, and a sentinel should average 2.67 shields, so I was guessing Zeta had more like a 40-45% chance to kill one. You learn something new every day!

[Snotwalker 8000]

Deadeye Dan... still the better high-defense squad killer.

Methinks it'll be a long time before we need to worry about the cowboy losing his coveted position in his cost-range.

That being said, I think a head-to-head combat between DED and Zet. would be interesting...

[rdhight]

Zetacron makes a decent sidekick for Captain America. The +1 attack from Tactician means far, far more to him than to Deadeye Dan, Shiori, or Me-Burq-Sa, and that +1 defense is very welcome, too. They complement one another well. Z-Cron brings long range with low cost, but he's vulnerable to rats. Cap is a great rat killer with short-range attacks who sometimes has trouble making the enemy come to him. They're just a perfect match.

[drumtooth]

Zeta is KILLER on a castle! Backed by Taelord and Raelin with double height he managed to take out Cyprien, Krug, Mimring, Zelrig, and many more by himself!