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  #1  
Old May 25th, 2006, 12:21 PM
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Command Cards (An Alternative to Order Markers)

When I first played Memoir 44 I thought that the command card system might be a good alternative to the order markers in Heroscape, but I never pursued it. Now that I've been playing Command & Colors:Ancients quite a bit, the thought has struck me even stronger than before.

With the help of several people on this site, Malechi and I have adapted the C&C:A style command cards to Heroscape. Basically, instead of using the order markers, you play a command card from your hand. The command card determines which units/figures may be activated, and the player chooses from all the possibilities which one(s) he will activate. Play then proceeds according to standard HS rules regarding movement, attack, special abilities (including bonding, frenzy etc). There are even defensive cards that may be played during an opponents turn!

The cards have been play tested and revised quite a bit now. I'd appreciate anyone's input who would be willing to give them a try.

The Command Cards are in the Downloads Section and may be downloaded by following this link:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...?do=file&id=31


Last edited by Malechi; June 6th, 2008 at 03:56 AM. Reason: Corrected Link
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  #2  
Old May 25th, 2006, 12:34 PM
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I really like this idea. You could even state 1 squad may activate or 1 character may activate instead of doing points or terrain. You could even follow some of the card ideas from Columbia games Crusader Rex or Hammer of the Scotts that have a number (1,2 or 3) which represents how many different units can activate. That can be granulated to 1 squad or 1 hero, 2 squads or 2 heroes, 3 squads or 3 heroes and of course, 2s would be rarer than 1s and 3s would be rarer then 1s or 2s. Then the special cards would be cool. Each player would draw 4 cards at the start of each round and they can play 1 card each for 3 turns in initiative order. Any unused cards are discarded and then 4 more cards drawn,etc. You could even limit the game by only having a draw deck of 48 cards and when the draw deck is empty, game over.

Cool idea...now I have some stuff to ponder about making this work.

Newb.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 01:04 AM
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I finished a first pass at a deck of command cards and play tested them tonight a bit. The two armies were:

Sentinels x2 Arrow Gruts x 3
Sir Denrick Krug
Knights x 2 Minions x 1
4th Mass x 2 Anubian Wolves x 2
Marrden hounds x1

The game flowed very well with the cards. And it was a very balanced match-up too. It ended in a protracted slug-fest with two Sentinels vs two Minions on the side of the map, and the knights and orcs in the center fighting for high ground. The last minion managed to kill the last sentinel and the last two arrow gruts took out the last knight.

I have a few things I'll probably change, and as always I would love to get some feedback from any interested parties. I've attached a powerpoint file that contains the deck (four pages, no backs and no art - just the basics for play-testing). I just printed these out on normal paper and cut them out. It was good enough for testing. Give them a try, let me know how they work, what wording needs to be modified, what problems arose, the balance/ratios of the various cards, and ideas for other types of cards. (see first post of this thread for latest version of cards)
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Old May 26th, 2006, 01:07 AM
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Awesome, I'll get them printed up and tried out!

Newb.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 07:55 AM
Kenntak Kenntak is offline
 
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Sounds like a very interesting idea. Some players that I played Heroscape with are not that keen on the order markers, so this presents an interesting alternative.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 11:58 AM
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Yeah, I've had a love/hate relationship with the turn markers from day one. On the one hand they do cause players to make interesting choices, but at the same time they seem to limit the flow of the battles a bit.

I've made several attempts at custom rules to improve upon the turn markers, but my attempts either ended up unbalancing the game or made things too complicated.

I think the command cards may just do the trick. They really no not add any additional complexity, and require little additional explaination beyond the text on the cards themselves. They add more decisions to the game, and that's always a good thing to me. Of course, I only have one test game under my belt, but so far so good!
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Old May 26th, 2006, 01:46 PM
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Here is version 2 of the cards. I modified the deck a little bit, added a few new card types, and changed some of the language to better reflect the verbage used in the official rules. I also am presenting them as a pdf file rather than powerpoint (which should make it much more accesible to everyone).

Just a few notes on how to use the cards. Shuffle the deck and deal each player 5 cards. If you want more of a challenge you can take fewer cards. Roll initiative to determine who goes first. that is the only initiative roll made. (For multiplayer games you may want to roll initiative each round or every few rounds). Players then alternate playing one card each round. the cards allow the player to activate cards/figures or take special actions. Note that on a given round, the same figure may not activate twice (except in the case of special abilities). This means the card that says "Activate two army cards" may not be used to take two turns with Charos, or move and attack with the same three minion twice. Also, any bonded heroes may only activate once as well. So, if you play the card "Activate Three Common Squads", you could not activate 9 arrow gruts and then take three turns with Krug.

So far the only figure that is hurt by all these changes is Dund. I've been thinking about this as a possible remedy. When Dund paralyzes a unit, place two pennies or other markers on the corresponding card. That card may not be activated for two rounds (remove a penny each round as a reminder). I think this still gives Dund the same power and point value without any drastic change to how he is played.

If any of you has the interest to give this system a shot I'd love to hear from you. If not, I certainly understand!

EDIT: When I tested the download just down, simply clicking on "download" didn't work. I had to right click on "download" and select "save target as". Then it opened okay. Not sure what the problem is there.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 01:51 PM
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If you edit your first post and attach this file to it, it will show up in the download section of the site.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 01:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by netherspirit
If you edit your first post and attach this file to it, it will show up in the download section of the site.
Will do. Thanks.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 03:21 PM
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jbbnbsmith,

I have M44 and like the card system. I printed out the cards and will give them a shot. I will let you know how they work for us.
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Old May 26th, 2006, 04:37 PM
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Nice work. I wonder if you should place a cap on figures you can activate like CC:A places a command card cap on the amount of some units you can move or affect. For example, with activate 150, you could activate 15 Blade Gruts anywhere on the board.
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Old May 27th, 2006, 10:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenntak
Nice work. I wonder if you should place a cap on figures you can activate like CC:A places a command card cap on the amount of some units you can move or affect. For example, with activate 150, you could activate 15 Blade Gruts anywhere on the board.
The point values cards are the ones I'm most concerned with. My intention for including them was to allow players the option to activate figures from different army cards during their turn for extra flexability. But at the same time I don't want to have any cards that are "gamebreakers". I originally had point cards as high as 250! That was WAY too much for one turn if using low cost figures. So far I've found 150 to be fairly reasonable. Although it could be used to activate a whole lot of low cost figures as in your example, there are several checks/balances in place. First, there are only three (I think) 150 point cards in the deck, so the probability of drawing it is not too high. The "First Strike" card would be a nightmare if played against the orcs in the situation you described, so there is always an element of risk. And your opponent could immediately play a "counter attack card" or even another 150 point card. Now should it be 140 or 130 instead of 150? I'm not sure. Same with the other point cards which are currently 50, 75, 100, and 150. So your point is well taken.

What I haven't done yet is to evaluate all of the command cards based upon all of the existing figures to see if there are any conbinations that are just too powerful. Maintaining the wonderful balance of the game is my main concern. Perhaps 15 orcs is too much for one round. When I play tested with the arrow gruts 150 didn't seem too outrageous, but I only had three squads at the time. (I also had Krug, and the first time I allowed him three turns, one for each arrow grut squad. That was excessive! So I decided only one activation per figure per round, not including special abilities like frenzy)

The other cards that could be equally as powerful (or more so) are "Hero Charge" and "Line Advance". In my one test battle (I probably won't have a chance to play again this weekend and it's killing me!) I didn't draw these cards until near the end of the battle so I didn't experience their full potential. I also sort of guessed at some of the restrictions on several cards like "normal attack only" or "no d20 abilities". But that's what playtesting is for anyway, right?

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I'd love to hear more, especially if you actually play a game or two using the deck. I really think we could be on to something very cool here!
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