Springtime Custom Competition Poll - Congrats Astroking112!

[The Dewk]

My entry was the Wood Elemental, and many of you commentators are right - HOLY COW he's tiny! I ordered the miniature right after submitting my entry because it clicked where I had seen the figure before - the C3V is tinkering with it! But the USPS got all mixed up and didn't deliver until just recently. Although I like what I came up with (obviously), there's no way Brush Cover would work with this mini miniature. I'll have to find a somewhat larger, bushier treant if I want to make my Wood Elemental a reality in my home games. Thanks to those who voted for it regardless!

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

That is rather brilliant and should really be pursued. A walking tree ladder for scaling castle walls would be an awesome addition to the game.

I loved how Elder Oak instantly evoked Lord of the Rings to me, but I didn't vote for him precisely because of the three move. To be fair, he can always use Acolarh to bump that up to 5 while carrying Raelin or someone else useful, but it didn't stand out to me enough to beat a couple of the other designs.

That said... I completely failed to see that Elder Oak was effectively a walking ladder. As unpractical as it might be, I absolutely would love to use this guy in castle sieges if he was capable of placing your units up on top of those walls. It's a really unique aspect, and I'm a sucker for big sieges.

Originally Posted by Confred

Arboris
First impression - 1 Life Unique Hero? capitalized markers? a power that's literally worthless without another power?
Overgrowth - pretty much everybody didn't interpret this adding the marker on the first round. perhaps add that. I like the growth theme as it felt quite planty, not treey, but planty. encouraged turtling isn't the best, but we're talking treefolk here, so slow play is just fine.
By the Roots - I really really don't like powers that create markers without a use for them and powers that require markers without a means to create them. My initial thoughts were to remove this power and replace it with something simple to balance the above complicated power. But if this power also added overgrowth markers, with payment from rooting, like maybe not moving or something, and then perhaps spent markers to get the additional attacks or something. this was a miss for me.
Guardian - I like this class. in EverQuest, there are Protectors of Growth, that have a similar figure stats and beat bottoms.
Protective - not a fan, but didn't really count the sidebars against, only for.
Overall - a bit wonky, but it captures the theme of a growing organism in a standout way.
B

I looked at Morsbane for precedent on how to capitalize markers, which in hindsight is unfortunate, since he seems to be an exception to the rule.

The powers were split into two parts to improve the readability of the card, since I personally dislike large blocks of text on cards. I was never aware of a precedent of markers being relegated only to a single power (and I don't think that should be a problem, honestly, since it's still straightforward and easy to understand). To the same end, I'm not overly fond of specifically adding a call-out to the first round, since Overgrowth already specifies at the beginning of every round, but I'd have to see how more people blindly react to the card first to see how big of a problem it is.

I'm of course sad to hear that you weren't a fan of By the Roots, but I understand that it's not to everyone's tastes. In the same vein, I would probably enjoy something more complex like getting additional attacks or rooting figures much less, but I appreciate your suggestion nonetheless.

As for the personality, that was just the result of me trying to avoid any synergies at all, since I sometimes forget about things like Unholy Bonding and am not familiar enough with the entire VC to be sure what new synergies were added. This resulted in some unexpected synergies on my past submissions, so I just went ahead and used a previously non-existent race, class, and personality. I do feel that Protective is a little redundant when coupled with Guardian, however.

Thanks for the feedback, though! I appreciate your honest thoughts on Arboris.

Originally Posted by White Knight

I just realized that for Shepherd Evergreens, a FAQ would be needed for how to move the huge evergreen tree that takes up 4 spaces.

Just wanted to add that a couple of other things would be needed for the FAQ, such as whether the trees can move up or down levels of terrain (and if so, how much?), onto water and other "0 high" tiles, or even the way that the large Evergreen works, since there's nothing else in the game like that currently.

Converting terrain into destructible objects is also a little wonky because of the lack of cards, but I still love the concept of a figure moving trees.

[NecroBlade]

I've been meaning to come back to this and add further thoughts and responses on all the entries, but life's been busy.

Anyway, congrats @Astroking112 !

[Lazy Orang]

Wise Oak (and Defenders of Oak)

Wow, those are some tasty stats! This guy is an absolute monster, and Lord of the Forest and Walking Tall are both cool powers. I have no issues with Wise Oak himself - my issues lie with the Defenders of Oak. For one, as mentioned before, as written, Large and Huge figures without an SA literally can't attack them, at all - if it gets to an end game situation with one of these versus Krug, the Defender of Oak will win, full stop, even with its one attack - it'll take it awhile with a single attack of one, but against someone literally unable to hurt it, all it needs is time. This feels like an unintended interaction and one that needs to be ironed out. On top of that... I'm sorry, but I don't get the theme of Ironbard Taunt at all. Why are they taunting Large/Huge figures? Why can those figures only hit them with SAs? I don't know, it's thematically confusing and it isn't evocative.

Wood Golem

I'll be honest - this may not be my favourite, but I'm surprised it didn't get a single vote. It's solid - not amazing, but solid. Fury of the Forest, IMO, just reads like any old berserker power to me and doesn't really get accross any tree-man/guardian flavour, so that's a personal reason I'm not too fond of it. That being said, Bark-Hide Armour is a solid power and, though Root Entanglement feels like it could be a little overly powerful and could cause memory issues, it's still a cool idea and a fun little power. Perhaps a little rough around the edges in places, but he's solid, either as a standalone hero or as a bonding hero for the Death Knights.

Gnarl of Elder

Well, let's start off by congratulating you on the best name of the contest - Gnarl of Elder is such a beautiful, cool and evocative name for a treeman. Stats are solid. Tree Ally Strike fits in with a lot of other treeman designs I've seen - getting the trees to attack nearby enemies for you seems to be a common trope with these types of customs, for good reason. In all honesty, I'm starting to find such powers a tad boring now, but the only reason for that is because it's done a lot - I have to admit, though, that yours is less evocatively named than most, which feels a shame after the character's actual name is so cool. Boulder Throw pairs nicely with the figure you've chosen, and allowing double attack if you don't move and cutting through jungle are both cool little mechanics. Undead Hatred feels a little weird to me, but I can see where you were coming from and it arguably helps make him more of a character. It's a solid card, there's nothing wrong with it and it's probably fun to play, but I admit it's lacking a little in the way of flair to get me truly excited, like a few of the cards here in fact, but that could just be me.

[Confred]

Well here's a fun combo/question:

May Entrean the Elder move the Jubokko ? Does the Jubokko drop in Defense but raise in Life?

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Confred

Well here's a fun combo/question:

May Entrean the Elder move the Jubokko ? Does the Jubokko drop in Defense but raise in Life?

Reading the cards... yes, that would be the case. Of course, they were never tested together, so I can't confirm whether the Jubokko would be balanced in that situation or not! The Jubokko would also synergise with the powers of a number of other entries (no pun intended) in a similar way (you could use it to target for Darkwood Treant Guardian's Awaken the Forest, Gnarl of Elder's Tree Ally Strike or Oakshadow's Nature's Wrath, plus a Wooden Revenant spawned next to a Jubokko would receive its full life number and they would help conceal the Tsuri Oni - those were more the sorts of interactions I was anticipating when I designed the Jubokko, I confess! )

I'll write my comments on the last three later this week.

[Dr.Goomonkey]

I picked up one of the Treant Minis, so here's a little size comparison. If you pick up this one the base is pretty bendy so it doesn't pop off easily, but if you cut out around the feet it is basically perfectly sized for HeroScape.

Also, I think I'd seen somebody else post some custom with that "Mountain Troll", but I'll probably make him into some sort of zombie-giant.

[Yodaking]

That's a big club, good for squishing humans with.

[Confred]

I've been having fun converting these to a Woodkin tribal army. Took a break, but I'll pick it back up soon and post my findings.

[Lazy Orang]

Entrean the Elder

I like the idea of making trees movable, and making them DOs should make the tactic of blocking enemies in with an indestructible wall of foliage less of a problem (though I do wonder if them all being multi-life DOs could be confusing?) I also wonder how you'd go about moving the Great Evergreen, or does that not count as an Evergreen Tree for the purposes of this power? I also wonder if Root Crush could be a little overpowered (well, more than a little), but hey - it's a cool idea, and if it is, we have a Q9 killer.

Oakshadow

Honestly, a little generic. Resistance to range is nice on a meta-game level, but there's not much to make me excited here. He's a solid card, there's just nothing that makes him really stand out from the slew of other Treants with tree animation powers. A little like a more decently priced Unique Darkwood Treant Guardian with Shields of Valour vs range rather than terrain specific healing.

Arboris

Probably my favourite design of the contest, and a worthy winner. The ability to accumulate Overgrowth Markers, which he can use like Exoskeleton Markers and which make him stronger, is fascinating and awesome. Sure, it puts him into the cleanup niche, but it's fun, thematic and like nothing else in the game. He also subtly conveys the patience so iconic to many depictions of Ents (particularly in LotR) while feeling completely distinct - if you throw him out early in the game, he'll get shot down and be worth nothing, but if you wait until he's fully overgrown, he's quite scary. Don't be hasty indeed.

[wriggz]

Originally Posted by Dr.Goomonkey

I picked up one of the Treant Minis, so here's a little size comparison. If you pick up this one the base is pretty bendy so it doesn't pop off easily, but if you cut out around the feet it is basically perfectly sized for HeroScape.

Also, I think I'd seen somebody else post some custom with that "Mountain Troll", but I'll probably make him into some sort of zombie-giant.

Yeah I have both those figures and they are excellent matches for heroscape.