HeroScape is coming back!

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Making a balanced unit is not difficult. Making a good unit is. Adjusting point costs, reigning in overly strong powers, etc, isn't particularly hard. Designing a unit that people want to play and play and play again is a challenge, as the unit needs to provide something that the many other units don't.

I see what you're saying, but when it boils down to it, everyone still has favorites at the end of the day, no matter how balanced/good a unit is. (I know I have a bunch of units like undead/historical that I gravitate more to, even though Q9, Raelin, Reavers, Krav etc are among the best.)

I guess it's more important to focus on balance vs. good as you put it, or trying to make sure everyone plays everything all the time. I just don't think that's always feasible; but that said, I think the vast majority of C3V units are "good" in that they are interesting, or at least to me; plenty of fun powers and unique looking figures, just to me the point costs are a little off on some, that's all.

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Please post those customs!

Sure, I made a couple units a while back, i'll see if I can find my old thread and post em for ya.

[ryguy266]

Originally Posted by Nukatha

Ryguy? Amusingly, his most recent video is him getting a Renegade affiliate link. Is he on 'Scapers?

Ryguy is on ‘Scapers! And I’ve been on the forums much longer than I’ve been on YouTube.

Also, your head canon is remarkably accurate. Although, that small “bad part” was a months-long ordeal full of stress for us playtesters. Fortunately it all appears to have worked out in the end, even if it was a very unpleasant ride. The community will never know, care, or even agree with everything we did for it and seems determined to give Renegade the benefit of the doubt, which is fine (frankly I can take very little credit for what happened; that was all the work of a few stellar individuals who will also never be appreciated enough in this community). But things are on the upswing at Renegade and despite everything I am genuinely looking forward to what they have in store.

[1moreheroscaper]

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

I agree. The wings are a radical change.



And there's more going on here than just the wings. This might be a bit too on the nose, but...

Evil Raelin! Hear Her ROARR!



Regardless, I still think it's a great looking sculpt of Raelin riding her Big bat cat.

There appears to be ample room for a passenger behind her. It's tempting to house rule the Carry SP...

This sculpt creates an interesting hit zone paradox. Errata on the bat cat wings, or not?



I've not yet attempted miniature painting. On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, where does this rank?

Speaking of the long established community of fan custom units and this site...and eventually a team of customizers that helped design some AoA units (and I believe D&D units). Here is my old Evil Raelin design from 2006 (but I am no means a top custom unit designer):
https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...moreheroscaper

[Tai-Pan]

I will be interested to hear how tournaments go in the beginning. Nothing in the first release looks like it would require a change in army building with the old stuff and I'm not sure the new stuff would do well against some of the old power builds. But the old stuff won't be available to a new generation, and it would be extremely uncool to mow down everything with Glads and Blasts or Q9+Krav and Rates or whatever else and every new player thinks you suck, because you're using those units.....

[nyys]

Originally Posted by Tai-Pan

I will be interested to hear how tournaments go in the beginning. Nothing in the first release looks like it would require a change in army building with the old stuff and I'm not sure the new stuff would do well against some of the old power builds. But the old stuff won't be available to a new generation, and it would be extremely uncool to mow down everything with Glads and Blasts or Q9+Krav and Rates or whatever else and every new player thinks you suck, because you're using those units.....

My guess is the 'major' tourneys will only allow AoA and forward releases, but I imagine there will be an 'anything goes' category as well or something to that effect.

[chas]

Renegade said there would be both types of events.

[Nukatha]

Numbers are fun.
AoA Master Set
8*24: 192
8*7: 56
4*3: 12
16*2: 32
18*1: 18
For 310 ordinary hexes and

20 water
+ 8 ruin pillars and some walls

Based on the good old 'hex count' metric, that would be 330, with pillars not contributing.

BftW:
2*24: 48
5*7: 35
3*3: 9
2*2: 4
6*1: 6
For 102 ordinary hexes and

13 water+wellspring water (of which 3 belong to Ewashia)
2 jungle trees (which do count as hexes in the great hex count)
For a complete hex count of 117
If we compare to old sets:
RotV: 359
SotM: 232
BftU: 161
Marvel: 103
Thus, the new set sits comfortably between sets 1 & 2, while the Wellspring set is essentially identical to Marvelscape.

[Master Roshi]

Originally Posted by Nukatha

Numbers are fun.
AoA Master Set
8*24: 192
8*7: 56
4*3: 12
16*2: 32
18*1: 18
For 310 ordinary hexes and

20 water
+ 8 ruin pillars and some walls

Based on the good old 'hex count' metric, that would be 330, with pillars not contributing.

BftW:
2*24: 48
5*7: 35
3*3: 9
2*2: 4
6*1: 6
For 102 ordinary hexes and

13 water+wellspring water (of which 3 belong to Ewashia)
2 jungle trees (which do count as hexes in the great hex count)
For a complete hex count of 117
If we compare to old sets:
RotV: 359
SotM: 232
BftU: 161
Marvel: 103
Thus, the new set sits comfortably between sets 1 & 2, while the Wellspring set is essentially identical to Marvelscape.

Thanks for the breakdown!

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by 1moreheroscaper

I agree with you that to create fairly decent balanced customs it does require years of playtesting and playing experience. I know because I use to run an eective class based on customizing games like Heroscape. I just think having such experience helps expedite the trial and error process.

My mindset during that early post was more directed at a few things: fair-point costs, interplay/combo possibility of prior units, and more importantly a power creep.

With fair-points costs, there has also been a genuine question for units, even with official units going back to Taelord at 180 to even the Einar flag-bearer.

Power-creep is more of my concern because I would rather have all units be viable in enough situations to make them playable/draft worthy than to be stuck in storage bins. For most of Heroscape official releases I think the power creep hasn't been too bad. I know players of other games do commonly mention how some units/cards become obsolete with some new releases.

I mean, in a perfect world, that'd be great, but better a unit be over costed than under costed, by any means necessary. That way even though some may see more dust than others, at least it won't dominate tournaments and tick players off, adn wind up on ban lists.

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

A good portion of the classic library is not really playable though. I think a lot of tension, when working on customs or seeing new releases, is that a lot of units in heroscape are pretty weak. If we sit down and just want to play the best armies, there is going to be a 50% of the library we dont ever consider as worthwhile.

So fo you design at that very weak level? Do you design things that are enjoyable to play like how Orcs and knights work? Do you design units that help those weaker units play more like the better units?

It isnt hard to make a decent custom. At all. I think there are a few possible flavors that people may like or not like based on the experience they want in the game.

Not everyone focus's on competitive though. Especially myself. I'd be curious to see an official poll on that though.

I personally wanna see more interesting powers on figures that look cool/interest me. I don't care about raw stats so much as fun/interesting powers when it comes to designing a figure/seeing new stuff

[Shiftrex]

I'm not assuming it is. And I'm also not sure what a poll of the hundred people that post on this forum would tell you.

Doesnt change the fact that the Einar flag bearer is unplayable unless you either contrive a very specific firmat/circumstance for it or enjoy playing a unit that isnt going to help you much.

Even if a persons focus isnt competitive I doubt they want to pick very weak units. Do you pick the car in a racing game that's the slowest by a significant margin if it doesnt have any other benefits? Maybe if your friends are terrible... or if you just enjoy losing lol. Neither is true for me. Most people dont like picking an option in a game (just in general) if it is inferior by a significant margin.