The Book of Gizmo

[japes]

Originally Posted by quozl

It does not count as a common figure.

That's what I thought. Just wanted to verify that and have it in the thread.

I propose to move to Initial Playtesting with what's in the SP

@Viegon
@Yodaking
@johnny139
@Tornado
@TrollBrute

After I get a baseline for Gizmo I'm going to run a few test with both versions of the squad though I think the Daring Decoy version may be too annoying to play against. After I see how each feel I'll make the decision and finish off the Initial using that. I don't want Gizmo getting too skewed because of a squad that doesn't make the cut.

[Tornado]

Yea

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Sorry I forgot to respond to this earlier.

Originally Posted by japes

Thanks for the comments and Good suggestions on the wording. I was trying to avoid any language that said take a turn with... in hopes of avoiding things like Awesome Andy's "instead of taking a turn..." type powers as I didn't know how they reacted since they are attacks.

I would rather drop the Hero portion of his attack than add the OM reveal. That would completely take away the intent of him within his team. I didn't think any of the android squads were a big enough deal to matter that much and it's pretty much the meat of the design. His own attack is weak and using mechanical constructs to do his attacking is what he does.

Would dropping the Hero portion make you feel more comfortable?
@dok , @webear, @Dysole any other worries.

Sorry, I forgot you gave one of these guys an extra turn power, so om restrictions are obviously out.

He is a lot less worrisome without the 'Android' (god, I still hate that C3G uses this term this way) Hero bonding bit, but both powers still put a huge crimp on 'Android' Squad design space. Not sure if that's a big deal or not, but I'd consider limiting him to just Small 'Androids' (the decoys are small right?), at least for the respawn bit if nothing else. Little... gizmos... seem more like Gizmo's wheelhouse, and I don't think he'd be able to whip up like an Ultron Drone or something right on the spot anyway.

Just a thought, but what about replacing 'Improvised Weaponry' with something like Mogrimm's Commander's Strike but only for 'Androids'? It would eliminate the turn stacking completely, be a lot easier to balance, and it actually sort-of conveys the theme you're going for.

EDIT:
Also which would be the most annoying, a squad of re-spawning minions with Daring Decoy or with Attack/Defense -1 when engaged. I'm wanting them to just be there to slow down the opponent so that the Fearsome Five and other android manipulators can get rolled out and set up but I don't want them to become cheap shields with universal appeal. May not be possible but I want to try if it is.

I'd avoid any type of attack subtraction mechanic personally, they get dangerous very fast (unless it's limited to only protecting themselves from the attack, like a Skull Demon or Lazy's Antman). You'd at least need to add the 'to a minimum of one' wording to the end, which is nasty wording but needed in this case.

On the other hand, Daring Decoy might be a touch broken on a squad that can respawn so easy. Like if it's in the end game, anyone without disengage / multi attack ability is in a bad position. They'll be stuck either disengaging however many decoys to attack Gizmo or just wasting their turn killing something that will come right back.

Either way, I think these guys are going to end up stronger than you're intending them to be. You probably at least want to cut their stats a bit.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

Sorry I forgot to respond to this earlier.

Sorry, I forgot you gave one of these guys an extra turn power, so om restrictions are obviously out.

He is a lot less worrisome without the 'Android' (god, I still hate that C3G uses this term this way) Hero bonding bit, but both powers still put a huge crimp on 'Android' Squad design space. Not sure if that's a big deal or not, but I'd consider limiting him to just Small 'Androids' (the decoys are small right?), at least for the respawn bit if nothing else. Little... gizmos... seem more like Gizmo's wheelhouse, and I don't think he'd be able to whip up like an Ultron Drone or something right on the spot anyway.

Just a thought, but what about replacing 'Improvised Weaponry' with something like Mogrimm's Commander's Strike but only for 'Androids'? It would eliminate the turn stacking completely, be a lot easier to balance, and it actually sort-of conveys the theme you're going for.

I'd avoid any type of attack subtraction mechanic personally, they get dangerous very fast (unless it's limited to only protecting themselves from the attack, like a Skull Demon or Lazy's Antman). You'd at least need to add the 'to a minimum of one' wording to the end, which is nasty wording but needed in this case.

On the other hand, Daring Decoy might be a touch broken on a squad that can respawn so easy. Like if it's in the end game, anyone without disengage / multi attack ability is in a bad position. They'll be stuck either disengaging however many decoys to attack Gizmo or just wasting their turn killing something that will come right back.

Either way, I think these guys are going to end up stronger than you're intending them to be. You probably at least want to cut their stats a bit.

Excellent suggestion on the Small Android idea. It still works with future common figures I have in store as they will all be small as well.

The more I think about the squad the more I'm worried about it. All I really want is for them to be something you want/need to take out. Perhaps the auto wound ability for these guys like you proposed would do that. But then again if their purpose to to allow Shimmer to get in and survive long enough to use her Auto Wound power then it may not do that.

I will think on that but for now I added the Small restriction to all powers.

[Yodaking]

yea

[Tornado]

Great insight Soundwarp!

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Originally Posted by japes

Excellent suggestion on the Small Android idea. It still works with future common figures I have in store as they will all be small as well.

The more I think about the squad the more I'm worried about it. All I really want is for them to be something you want/need to take out. Perhaps the auto wound ability for these guys like you proposed would do that. But then again if their purpose to to allow Shimmer to get in and survive long enough to use her Auto Wound power then it may not do that.

I will think on that but for now I added the Small restriction to all powers.

Honestly, given the movement bonding and recursion Gizmo gives them, 'they exist' is probably enough in and of itself to let them function as blockers. You could probably get away with only giving them Climb and maybe like Disengage or something and they'd still be useful assuming they're 40 points or so (which I assume is about the level you're after thematically).

[japes]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

Honestly, given the movement bonding and recursion Gizmo gives them, 'they exist' is probably enough in and of itself to let them function as blockers. You could probably get away with only giving them Climb and maybe like Disengage or something and they'd still be useful assuming they're 40 points or so (which I assume is about the level you're after thematically).

Great minds. Just came back from the dentist with the idea to just scrap their power set altogether and give them a climbing power. Though I like the Disengage idea as well and hadn't thought of that.

Yeah 40-50 was my target.

[Viegon]

I like the idea of going with a Commander's Strike type ability instead of the current Improvised Weaponry personally. Putting in a "small" restriction definitely removes any of my concerns about limiting design space.

For the Decoys, you could always give them some sort of A Coward's Reward type power. Spitballing, you could also run with a more limited version of Distraction along the lines of: "Figures engaged with one or more Mechanical Construct Decoys subtract 1 from their Attack number when attacking a figure without the Distraction special power, to a minimum of 1".

That said, simply giving them climbing and/or disengage would be interesting too.

[japes]

I'm not sure if I'm liking the Commander's Strike type power. With the possibility of a lot of mini robots...i mean small androids...moving around it seems like it could be more powerful than just attacking with one small android squad. For reference you can see the other small androids I have planned here...


And for the Gizmo bots I am trying them with just climb and disengage.

[japes]

Gong back to this...

Commander's Strike:
After moving and before attacking with Mogrimm Forgehammer, you may choose any opponent's figure within 5 clear sight spaces that is engaged with any other figure you control. Roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 15 or higher, the chosen figure receives 1 wound

IMPROVISED WEAPONRY
After moving and before attacking with Gizmo, you may choose any opponent's figure within 5 clear sight spaces that is engaged with any other android figure you control. Roll the 20-sided die. Add 1 to the roll for each android figure engaged with the chosen figure. If you roll a 16 or higher, the chosen figure receives 1 wound.

and for the bots...

NAME = MECHANICAL CONSTRUCT - ???

SPECIES = ANDROID
UNIQUENESS = COMMON SQUAD (3)
CLASS = MECHANICAL/WEAPON/???
PERSONALITY = ANNOYING

SIZE/HEIGHT = SMALL

LIFE = 1

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 2
DEFENSE = 3

POINTS =

Disengage
These Mechanical Constructs are never attacked when leaving an engagement.

EXPERT CLIMBING
When moving up levels of height to move onto a space with these Mechanical Constructs, do not count spaces for the first two levels and only count one space for each two levels after the first two. You may ignore these Mechanical Constructs's height when climbing. These Mechanical Constructs never takes falling damage or major falling damage.

any idea of a starting point target for either of these?

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by japes

Gong back to this...

I think the cost of the squad should be pretty cheap. Maybe 30 points, around the same cost of 3 fire ant swarms.