Dark Avengers/Cabal/H.A.M.M.E.R. Workshop

[johnny139]

DARK AVENGERS
H.A.M.M.E.R.
THUNDERBOLTS

Designed Dark Avengers:
Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn)

Potential Dark Avengers:

First Team:
Ares
Hawkeye (Lester ???)
Ms. Marvel (Karla Sofen)
Sentry/Void
Spider-Man/Venom (Mac Gargan)
Wolverine (Akihiro)

Second Team:
Ai Apaec
Ms. Marvel (Deidre Wentworth)
Ragnarok
Scarlet Witch (June Covington)
Trick Shot
Wolverine (Tomi Shishido)

Designed Cabal Members:
Doctor Doom
Emma Frost
Namor
The Hood

Potential Cabal Members:
Loki (female)
Norman Osborn

Designed HAMMER Members:
none

Potential HAMMER Members:
HAMMER Agents
Norman Osborn
Superia
Victoria Hand

Original OP:

Spoiler Alert!

This is mostly focusing on the Cabal-era recent stuff in the Marvel universe, where Norman Osborn is in charge of the new "Evil SHIELD" and Evil Avengers and all that evil stuff. He, in and out of Iron Patriot Armor, would be the linchpin. Less than half of these designs are mine, but I feel like it would be good to get this discussion on the ground.

Here's my concept for both Iron Patriot and Norman Osborn, drawing from Margloth and tcgkln's designs and my own:

Spoiler Alert!

NORMAN OSBORN

MUTATE
UNIQUE HERO
MASTERMIND
UNSTABLE

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 5

MOVE 5
RANGE 1
ATTACK 4
DEFENSE 4

170 POINTS

THE CABAL
Add 2 to your initiative roll for each Order Marker on this Army Card or on the Army Card of an Egomaniacal or Treacherous Hero you control.

MASTER MANIPULATOR
After revealing an Order Marker on Norman Osborn's card, instead of taking that turn with Norman Osborn, you may take a turn with any Unique Hero you control within clear sight of Norman Osborn.

GOBLIN WITHIN
If you lose initiative, you may you may not use any other special power on this card and Norman Osborn gains the Super Strength special power.

-----

IRON PATRIOT
NORMAN OSBORN

MUTATE
UNIQUE HERO
LEADER
UNSTABLE

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 5

MOVE 5
RANGE 4
ATTACK 4
DEFENSE 5

250 POINTS

DARK AVENGERS INITIATIVE
After placing Order Markers, you may reveal the "X" Order Marker on this card. As long as the "X" Order Marker is revealed, Agents, Assassins, and Criminals you control within clear sight of Iron Patriot are considered Operatives instead of what it listed on their card.

OPERATIVE FIELD COMMANDER
After revealing an Order Marker on this card, instead of moving Iron Patriot, you may rearrange any unrevealed Order Markers on Army Cards you control that are in play and immediately move any Operative you control within 8 clear sight spaces of Iron Patriot up to 4 spaces.

DOUBLE ATTACK
When Iron Patriot attacks, he may attack one additional time.

SUPER STRENGTH SYMBOL
FLYING SYMBOL

In addition, we could grab some members of the Dark Avengers. Here's tcgkln's draft of Bullseye-as-Hawkeye with some minor tweaks (making him an Operative and less "straight improvement" on the original Bullseye).

Spoiler Alert!

HAWKEYE
LESTER ???

HUMAN
UNIQUE HERO
OPERATIVE
PRECISE

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 5

MOVE 5
RANGE 7
ATTACK 4
DEFENSE 5

175 POINTS

DEADLY AIM
When attacking a non-adjacent figure within 5 clear sight spaces of Hawkeye, add 1 automatic skull to whatever is rolled. If an opponent rolls the 20-sided die for a figure attacked by Hawkeye's Deadly Aim, you may subtract 2 from or add 2 to the roll.

BRUTAL METHODS
If Hawkeye attacks an opponent's figure and does not inflict a wound, he may immediately attack that figure one additional time. [Add some sort of negative if he does do another attack - to represent him "going off the rails" and producing bad PR.]

Some spitballing of Mac-Gargan-as-Venom.

Spoiler Alert!

VENOM
MAC GARGAN

SYMBIOTE
UNIQUE HERO
OPERATIVE
FEROCIOUS

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 5

MOVE 6
RANGE 2
ATTACK 6
DEFENSE 5

235 POINTS

SYMBIOTIC SENSES 15
If Venom is attacked and at least 1 skull is rolled, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 15 or higher, Venom takes no damage and may immediately use his Tendril Swing 3 special power.

TENDRIL SWING 3
Instead of his normal move, Venom may use his Tendril Swing. Tendril Swing has a move of 3. When counting spaces for Venom’s Tendril Swing movement, ignore elevations. Venom may swing over water without stopping, swing over figures without becoming engaged, and swing over obstacles such as ruins. Venom may not Tendril Swing more than 40 levels up or down in a single Tendril Swing. When Venom uses Tendril Swing, he will not take any leaving engagement attacks. After using Tendril Swing 3, you may use it one additional time.

SYMBIOTIC HUNGER
When Venom destroys a figure, you may remove a Wound Marker from this Army Card. After taking a turn with Venom, if there is at least one Wound Marker on this card and he did not inflict a wound, Venom inflicts a wound on an adjacent friendly figure you control, if possible.

And, hey, why not toss in Moonstone, as a variation on A3n's Meteorite, as we discussed? Maybe stat-tinker a bit.

Spoiler Alert!

[B]MOONSTONE
KARLA SOFEN

MUTATE
UNIQUE HERO
OPERATIVE
MANIPULATIVE

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 5

MOVE 7
RANGE 5
ATTACK 5
DEFENSE 5

??? POINTS

BLINDING LIGHT
Opponents' figures within 5 clear sight spaces of Moonstone cannot use attacks or special powers that require clear sight. Figures with the Sensory Assault or Radar Sense special power are not affected by Blinding Light.

INTANGIBILITY
Moonstone can move through all figures and obstacles such as ruins, and is never attacked when leaving an engagement. Moonstone cannot be targeted by opponents' non-adjacent figures for any attacks or for any opponents' special powers that require clear sight.

MANIPULATION
Before moving, you may choose one Unique Hero adjacent to Moonstone and remove one unrevealed Order Marker at random from the chosen figure's Army Card. If Moonstone attacks the chosen figure this turn, subtract one skull from whatever is rolled. Manipulation cannot be used against figures with the Valiant personality and can only be used once per round.

SUPER STRENGTH SYMBOL
FLYING SYMBOL

And tcgkln had some basic ideas for HAMMER Operatives, too, so I'll put those here.

Spoiler Alert!

H.A.M.M.E.R. OPERATIVES

HUMAN
COMMON SQUAD
AGENTS
DISCIPLINED

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 1 (3 FIGURES)

MOVE 5
RANGE 5
ATTACK 3
DEFENSE 3

90 POINTS

FIREFIGHT
When attacking with H.A.M.M.E.R. Operatives, roll 1 additional attack die for each H.A.M.M.E.R. Operative that has attacked the defending figure this turn.

Victoria Hand

Spoiler Alert!

VICTORIA HAND

HUMAN
COMMON SQUAD
AGENT
PROFESSIONAL

MEDIUM 5

LIFE 3

MOVE 5
RANGE 6
ATTACK 3
DEFENSE 3

90 POINTS

MANAGERIAL EXPERIENCE
If an opponent would remove an Order Marker from a figure you control, you may instead place that Order Marker on this card. After revealing an Order Marker on this card, you may rearrange any unrevealed Order Markers on Army Cards you control.

SHIFTING ALLEGIANCE
Whenever a Unique Hero you control is destroyed, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 4 or less, choose an opponent to take control of Victoria Hand. Victoria Hand's turn immediately ends. Remove all Order Markers from this card, then give this card to the chosen opponent.

[Margloth]

Moonstone should be Ms. Marvel during the H.A.M.M.E.R. run.

I could see Venom simply having a Chomp power that only works on squad figures, maybe that removes a wound as well. Although with healing and Symbiotic Senses, he could get very hard to take down.

I always thought Iron Patriot would be a good place to re-use Master Motivator, but I like what you've done here too.

I could see Bullseye having Finish The Job, although that might make him too similar to Deadshot. I think Green Arrow II's piercing damage mechanic could also work well.

Wolverine (Daken) would be hard to distinguish from Classic Wolverine. His claws aren't adamantium, but just bone, so that could be a difference. Maybe 5 life, 6 move and the same stats as classic but with CCE?

[IAmBatman]

For Dark Avengers Initiate, I'm not loving the class changing aspect, as I fear we already have too many overlapping powers of those sorts in play, to the point where adding such a global one as this could create too many problems for me.

Also, the Avenger thing seems to be markers, right? I'd rather you could place a Dark Avenger marker on like up to 5 figures of those classes you control at the start of the game and do it like that.

I like Norman Osbourne's write up a lot. Master Manipulator is a lot more interesting with the tension provided by Goblin Within.

I'll try to take a look at the rest of these some time in the future, but those two interest me most right now.

[johnny139]

Originally Posted by Margloth

Moonstone should be Ms. Marvel during the H.A.M.M.E.R. run.

That could also work, but she WAS a member of Thunderbolts as Moonstone, so I feel like we could conflate the two and sort of pile some later disguised variation traits on that version. but that's me; I'm not sure if she needs THREE designs and I think Meteorite + Moonstone is more sensible than Meteorite + Ms. Marvel.

I could see Venom simply having a Chomp power that only works on squad figures, maybe that removes a wound as well. Although with healing and Symbiotic Senses, he could get very hard to take down.

I like that. We could bump up Symbiotic Senses further if need be; he's always struck me as the sort of Venom that takes hits rather than avoids them.

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

For Dark Avengers Initiate, I'm not loving the class changing aspect, as I fear we already have too many overlapping powers of those sorts in play, to the point where adding such a global one as this could create too many problems for me.

Also, the Avenger thing seems to be markers, right? I'd rather you could place a Dark Avenger marker on like up to 5 figures of those classes you control at the start of the game and do it like that.

I'm also really worried about that; on one hand, we DO have a ton of those sorts of powers nowadays and it could easily get confusing. On the other, I don't really want to make another "Avenger Markers" power, after Cap and Zemo. Having too many of those is equally sort of... ugh, feels kinda gross, y'know?

What he does is turn criminals and psychopaths into agents of the law. I just can't seem to think of a way to do that elegantly.

[IAmBatman]

Your "gross" is my "consistent" at least. But the fact that currently you can put multiples of these markers on a single card does hit me as "gross".

You could just give him a leadership power that helps him direct criminals and psychopaths ala Kingpin, without an actual class change. Are there enough lawmen synergies out there that we care about them getting? (You were going Operative anyway, so I'm thinking no).

[johnny139]

The problem with simply keeping them as Criminals is that they'll be getting Criminal boosts - Kingpin can order them around, Black Mask can help them out, that sort of thing. Iron Patriot's army should be "the good guys." He shouldn't be a part of the Criminal faction.

[IAmBatman]

But were they really good guys anyway? Are back door dealings with criminals out of the question?

[johnny139]

Hmm, that's a fair point... there is certainly a lot of "backdoor" feel to it all.

I suppose, as long as we can find a way to make Iron Patriot in charge and not holding hands with other Criminal leaders, it would be workable.

[IAmBatman]

Give him a power like Kingpin's and they'd be redundant drafts.

[Margloth]

How about something like:

CRONYISM
While Iron Patriot is in play, whenever an Army Card you control refers to the Agent class, it refers to the Criminal, Assassin, and Thief classes as well.

Not sure exactly how well that idea translates, or how useful it would be really.

[IAmBatman]

Oye. Even more class chaos.

[johnny139]

One thing I want to sort of capture is the "volatile" relationship between Iron Patriot and his team - if he doesn't keep his eye on them, they're not going to follow orders. I feel like some retooling is necessary for that, though, looking over his powers... at this point I feel like dropping the class change is probably a good idea.

But at the same time I really like the theme of his "team" working with him, but his team - the guys in the first post - shouldn't be any more loyal than the average criminal. For the most part, they aren't! So in that case, I'd change their classes back to normal - Assassin, Psychopath, all that. I'm not sure if I want to give Psychopaths any synergy, but at the same time, it'd be odd just calling Mac Gargan a "Criminal," y'know?

Bah so much thinking... I do like Master Motivator, the more I think of it, and I'd like to give him some sort of general Order Marker Hog power. Maybe some sort of reverse self-importance? Where Order Markers can end up activating the wrong figure?