Random Draft Deck - Available for Download!

[Carakki]

Almost everyone who has read the most recent HS Codex (Issue #11) has been fascinated with the Random Draft Deck. (If you haven't heard of this, I highly recommend you go download the magazine here and flip to page 29.) Several people have wondered how to get in touch with the 'Antimatter' who created them (author of the article), but to no avail as I have seen.

I, too, am quite fascinated by the simple efficiency of the drafting alternative, and after many hours of work, now present to the Heroscape public downloadable, printable version of the Random Draft Deck.

In addition, I have created a simple reference card (comparable to the Heroscape Brief Card designed by LongHeroscaper). It outlines the workings of the system in an easy-to-read format. There is also a guide on how to construct your RDD. This is VERY IMPORTANT to read. I would also recommend reading the reference card, as it outlines some key layout differences between my cards and Antimatter's.

But enough with the introduction. You want the goods.

The goods are, for the convenience of all, divided into many PDFs. Below is each PDF and a breakdown of what's in it. The brief card and construction guide are at the top, followed by the complete Deck, then everything else.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD FROM MEDIAFIRE:
Click the link provided, then click 'click here to start download.' Ignore any pop-ups. If you just want to see the document, click 'Open with' and select a program. To download the document, click 'Save file.'

Reference Card & How to Construct Your Deck

Spoiler Alert!

Random Draft Deck Reference Card
To use, print on 8.5 x 11 paper and fold in half.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR RANDOM DRAFT DECK

Spoiler Alert!

1. -If you have every Heroscape figure there is to have (excepting Wave D1) or just want the full deck, simply download the 'Complete Deck' file below.
   -If you have an incomplete collection and want to save paper/money/time, download the sets you do have from below, as well as the set of wilds.
2. Procure the following materials: cardstock paper, standard-size card sleeves with colored backs, printer & ink (or services).
3. Print each sheet of figure cards on the cardstock, then cut them out and slide them into the sleeves.
4. -If you have a complete collection, you are done.
   -If your collection is incomplete, you still have to determine how many wilds to include in your deck. To do this, count the number of regular cards you have printed and divide by 8. Round DOWN to the nearest card. This is the number of wilds you will have in your deck.
   -To determine which wilds to include, use the following list and go up:
   *Draft Common Squad
   *Draft Unique Squad
   *Draft Hero (100 Points or Less)
   *Draft Hero (150 Points or Less)
   *Draft Hero
   For example, if you have determined you will need 9 wild cards, you will count as follows: 1 common squad, 1 unique squad, 1 hero under 100, 1 hero under 150, 1 hero, 1 common squad, 1 unique squad, 1 hero under 100, thus determining that you will need:
   *2 Draft Common Squad wilds
   *2 Draft Unique Squad wilds
   *2 Draft Hero (100 Points or Less) wilds
   *1 Draft Hero (150 Points or Less) wild
   *1 Draft Hero wild
   Sounds complicated, but it isn't in practice.
5. For those with incomplete collections, simply download additional sets and print more wilds as they come up. Those with complete collections will need to download cards for Waves D1 and D2 as they come out. I will try to make cards for new expansions in as timely a fashion as possible.

THE CARDS

Spoiler Alert!

COMPLETE DECK, ALL FIGURES, AND WILDS

Spoiler Alert!

Complete Deck
-Contains everything needed for the current deck, including all 164 figure cards and 20 wilds.

All Figures
-Contains all 164 figure cards.

Wilds
-Contains one of each wild card.

MASTER SETS

Spoiler Alert!

Rise of the Valkyrie
-Contains the 16 figures from the ROTV master set.

Swarm of the Marro
-Contains the 10 figures from the SOTM master set.

Battle for the Underdark
-Contains the 8 figures from the BFTU master set.

LARGE EXPANSIONS

Spoiler Alert!

Aquilla's Alliance
-Contains Gurei-Oni, Sujoah, Wo-Sa-Ga, Zelrig, and Zetacron.

Orm's Return
-Contains Brunak, Charos, Deathwalker 8000 Dund, and Su-Bak-Na.

Raknar's Vision
-Contains Braxas, Jotun, Major Q9, Nilfheim, and Theracus

Flagbearers
-Contains Acolarh, Hatamoto Taro, Laglor, Ornak, and Sir Gilbert.

Terrain Packs
-Contains the Dumutef Guard, Dzu-Teh, Fyorlag Spiders, and Obsidian Guards.

Marvel
-Contains Abomination, Captain America, Doctor Doom, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Red Skull, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Thanos, and Venom.

WAVES

Spoiler Alert!

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5

Wave 6

Wave 7

Wave 8

Wave 9

Wave 10
-Contains Agent Skahen, Elite Onyx Vipers, Granite Guardians, Master Win Chiu Woo, Sir Hawthorne, Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider, and Quasatch Hunters.

Wave D1

And for those with some curiosity in their souls (I know I'm always curious about how things are created), I'll take a moment here to describe the process and logic behind the Deck.

Spoiler Alert!

From the outset, two aspects of the Deck's creation stood out as particularly daunting:

1. The sheer number of cards. As you may have noticed, there are 184 cards in the current Deck. Simply going through each of the cards took most of the time.
2. The fact that each of the cards had a picture of the figure on it. While seemingly a simple task, it turns out that official images have not been produced past Wave 8, and had not been produced at all for other cards. Thus, it was up to me to create the 28 images required for cards from Wave 9, Wave 10, Battle for the Underdark, and the Obsidian Guards. I am hugely grateful to basilmichael for his stunning photos of the figures from Wave 9, which can be found in each figure's respective Book.

The design concept was pretty basic - an arch at the top for the name and point value, a box for the image, and then another box for the bonus drafts. The background is a resized clipping from the area of a Heroscape card where abilities are printed.

From there it was smooth sailing, mostly a matter of putting in the time to type out abilities and copy-paste-resize-center the images. Then, right around Wave 10, there came the issue of the skip option. Pretty much everyone in my gaming circle agreed that every figure over 150 points deserved the skip option. I felt that went against the point of the skip option and partially defeated the purpose of the RDD itself, but the first version of the Deck still had skip options on everyone 180 points and up (yes, you could skip out on Major Q9). After designing the wild cards (an adventure in itself, I spent some two hours experimenting with different designs for the center before settling on the simple group of general's symbols), I realized that high-point figures would only need skip options in games over their point value, and changed the list of figures with skip options to:

• Ulginesh (who is rather overpriced without Elves to link with)
• The Marro Hive (which is both defenseless and useless without hordes of Marro)
• Kato Katsuro (see Hive, replace 'Marro' with 'Ashigaru/Samurai')
• Spartacus (see Ulginesh, replace 'Elves' with 'Gladiators' and 'rather' with 'way')
• Acolarh (who is almost entirely centered on Elves)
• Hatamoto Taro (who is only useful in a mostly-Einar army, which is hard to make if he's the only Einar unit in your draft)

After that minor dilemma, I was completely done until I noticed something about the PDFs after printing them: the edges of the cards overlapped. This was a result of the stroke I had placed on the outer boxes of each card, not considering that it would later cost me three or four days of going through each and every file to remove the stroke and reprint the cards as PDFs.

Which brings us, after some hours assembling/assimilating the wilds into PDFs, to today, when I proudly present my creation to the public.

I hope everyone finds this a useful tool, and brings many gaming groups out of the rut Antimatter and I have both found ourselves in. If you have any questions whatsoever, feel free to post them here. Enjoy!

[ellak96]

Very Nice!!!

I look forward to playing with them

[TurtleKing99]

Random draft is awesome

Will we be seeing marvel?

[Carakki]

Originally Posted by TurtleKing99

Random draft is awesome

Will we be seeing marvel?

If people want it. I don't own Marvel and never plan to get it, but I'm willing to make some cards for them.

[TurtleKing99]

Originally Posted by Carakki

If people want it. I don't own Marvel and never plan to get it, but I'm willing to make some cards for them.

Right now at my house I have some wave 1, zombies, RotV and Marvel, So I would be very happy if you made the Marvel Cards.

Right now I am just using an extra wild for unique hero.

[Carakki]

Originally Posted by TurtleKing99

Right now at my house I have some wave 1, zombies, RotV and Marvel, So I would be very happy if you made the Marvel Cards.

Right now I am just using an extra wild for unique hero.

All righty, then. Marvel it is. I'll see about getting them together by Wednesday.

[TurtleKing99]

Thanks!

BTW, if I get the Venoc warlord, I can get as many squads of vipers as I want, or just one squad? (if I draft vipers with the bonus on VW's card, do I get to use bonus on the viper's card?)

[Carakki]

Originally Posted by TurtleKing99

Thanks!

BTW, if I get the Venoc warlord, I can get as many squads of vipers as I want, or just one squad? (if I draft vipers with the bonus on VW's card, do I get to use bonus on the viper's card?)

You would only get one squad of Vipers.

For the second, you're drafting the Vipers themselves, not their RDD card, so any bonus drafts are null.

[Carakki]

Marvel has been added to the Large Expansions section. Hope you enjoy!

[the great divide]

I liked this idea a lot too, when I saw it posted on BGG.

I created an updated set of cards for the Artscow service, which adds stats and some other details.



Here are links to the image galleries:
http://www.artscow.com/ShareAlbum.aspx?Key=krqcymnd
http://www.artscow.com/ShareAlbum.aspx?Key=vbf91oyn
http://www.artscow.com/ShareAlbum.aspx?Key=sahkqt6q
http://www.artscow.com/ShareAlbum.aspx?Key=psvu0icl

Here are links to the completed decks:
http://www.artscow.com/share/0fotbi2qdhs8
http://www.artscow.com/share/1vusadqfej3v
http://www.artscow.com/share/w18y43nto2zq
http://www.artscow.com/share/f7d6z10u206p

More details here:
http://bg.geekdo.com/article/3886821#3886821

[dickflea]

Very nice, i too am in pretty much a rut. Having to go through a stack of cards to fill my points quota was getting very daunting.

Thanks if you hadn't done it i would.

[Carakki]

Glad everyone likes it.

I hope to have Wave D1 up by the end of the week, so keep an eye out for it.