Summertime Custom Competition Poll - Vote by July 9

[Heroscaper 101]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

I'm planning on sharing my thoughts on the various entries, but I've been pretty busy with work as of late. I unfortunately won't be able to do it until after the poll closes.

It is difficult to moderate work from funtime. This optional so don't beat yourself up, do it when you at your own leisure.

[Dr.Goomonkey]

Congratulations @OmegaPegasus on making the winning design of this contest, the Tanuki Nomad.

[superfrog]

Koji-Danuki deserved several more votes.

I voted for the Nomad, but I am a bit surprised that it won (congrats).

I think with some refinement Yamabushi Kenza has the most potential out of the lot.

[DanieLoche]

Congrats !

Just for the little story about the Drunk Firefox : it is not a custom of mine -even if I helped a lot in balancing it- but from darklord, from the french forum. It fit pretty well this competition's figure thus I decided to translate it for your pleasure.
"Firefox" is a wink to the web browser, because in fact Firefox logo is a red panda and not a fox... and for the contest we are talking about a red panda so I decided to make the shortcut during my quick-translation exercise ! ^^

[OmegaPegasus]

Woo-Hoo, I'm da Winnah! A couple things; I saw earlier someone brought up the cost of Nomad being a bit expensive because he has to be close in order to get his Trickery power to work. I originally planned him just to have that power and it to work on any player regardless of range and line of sight, but then soon realized that it would have been way too powerful. Inebriated stumble is there to give him a little longevity and for flavor & I think 30pts is a nice cheap sweet spot that is able to fit on any team, leaving room for more potent threats to take up your points. So if he is eaten by a range piece before he gets to do his thing it's not a huge loss for your army. Ironically, his original name was going going to be Tanuki Trickster but changed it because it sounded too generic. I didn't give him a name because Nomad is supposed to remind you of the traveling warrior that passes through towns and helps where he can and disapears soon after without giving his name. But I know I didn't want to make him a common/uncommon piece. Thanks to all who voted for my piece. I , myself voted for Yamabushi Kenza. who also looks like a blast to play.

[Yodaking]

Congrats' OmegaPegasus! I didn't vote for your design myself but I can understand why others did. Some fun passive powers for a 30 point filler figure.

My submission for this contest was Yamabushi Kenza ,and it was hard for me to not want to discuss the design while voting was still going on. I generated all my design ideas from the research I found after looking up what the figure was as I didn't know anything about them before hand.

From my point of view the Metamorphosis power was the one I'm least satisfied with but I kept running into issues when trying to make it work a different way that I eventually just settled on what is on the card and moved on. The power I liked the most was the Shared Mischief power. Here is the list of official units he would then bond with:

Medium Tricky Unique Heroes: Agent Carr, Agent Skahen, Arkmer, Deathwalker 7000, Emirroon, Johnny “Shotgun” Sullivan, Kee-Mo-Shi, Morsbane, Ne-Gok-Sa, Ononashi, Shiori, Sonlen, and Warden 816.

Several Unique Heroes I have long thought were pretty sweet but ended up getting over looked because they didn't have many synergy options to build an army around. As an example, Kee-Mo-Shi gets left out of Marro builds because she is a Warwhich instead of a Warlord. I think you could now build some fun 400/500/600 point armies around the Medium Tricky Hero bonding.

Yamabushi Kenza (140) + Kee-Mo-Shi (130) + Ononashi (10) = 300
Yamabushi Kenza (140) + Sonlen (160) = 300
Yamabushi Kenza (140) + Shiori (60) = 200
Yamabushi Kenza (140) + Arkmer (50) + Ononashi (10) = 200

+

Agent Carr (100)
Deathwalker 7000 (100)
Morsbane (100)
Ne-Gok-Sa (90) + Ononashi (10) = 100
Warden 816 (90) + Ononashi (10) = 100

If you didn't want to take Warden 816 without any guards, you can start with this: Yamabushi Kenza (140) + Warden 816 (90) + Zettian Guards (70) = 300 Add in Deathwalker 7000 & Agent Carr for a 500 point army. Deathwalker 7000 would be way more effective/interesting if you didn't need to put OM's on him.

Then the final Sake power was just a fun thematic effort to keep him in play longer since he would then be the lynch pin for those armies.

Also there are quite a few Tricky Elf heroes so you could add Yamabushi Kenza into a big 800-1000 point Elf based army, which is one of the reasons I went with Ullar for him. So if you were playing General wars he could team up with the Ullar elves. Ullar also has the original Shaolin Monks and I've long thought of Ullar as the nature themed General so the Tanuki seemed like a good fit on that front.

I suspect I'll end up buying the figure next time I go mini shopping and then print out the card for my own games.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper 101

It is difficult to moderate work from funtime. This optional so don't beat yourself up, do it when you at your own leisure.

Don't worry, I won't lose any sleep over sharing my thoughts on these entries. Thanks for the concern and advice, though!

I've found the time to write some stuff up for the first 4 units, so here's my feedback:

Daren
8 Life with 5 Defense and 8 Move scares me a little, especially with One Shield Defense at only 160 points. I do love the concept of this guy, though--a monk with three different aspects is intriguing--and I think that the idea holds a lot of potential. This was a strong first card to read for the contest, despite the concerns about balance.

Drunk Firefox
It feels a little bit like I missed a reference here (which to be fair, I did: I haven't used Firefox in years ). I'm not sure how I feel about Animal as a class, but I suppose it's along the same lines of Beast. Neither power feels like something that I haven't seen before, although they can combine in some interesting ways. Overall, I think this design is fairly strong, but it lacks any oomph that really excites me.

Koji-Danuki
This guy is far too complicated for an 85-point (or potentially 45-point) hero, in my opinion. Shapeshifting Anatomy has promise, but it leaves a ton of questions (if I replace a friendly figure with Koji-Danuki, do they just hang out on his card for the rest of the game? Can he just instantly destroy the Fortress Door?) and I'm not a big fan of figures that advocate taking apart the map. The second part of this power also feels like it belongs under its own power to me.

Supernatural Trickery took me more than one read to feel like I have a good idea of what it does, which makes me feel like it might be a little too complicated. I think that this makes more sense to combine into Shapeshifting Anatomy than the second part of the power (which might help improve readability a little bit), since it only takes effect when placing Koji-Danuki onto the battlefield. I do like the slight paranoia that it could cause, though, leaving the opponent to wonder where the Yokai will pop up next. Symbol of Prosperity is very unique and cool to see, as well.

Overall, I think this may be one of the most unique designs, and it's managed to capture the feeling of a shapeshifting Yokai pretty well. It's just a little too complex for my tastes.

Tanuki Nomad
Like others, I do wish that he had a more unique name, but it wasn't a major detractor for me. Tanuki Trickery is by far my favorite part of this design: it's simple, unique, and pretty fun to use whilst providing a good incentive for the other player to go ahead and kill this thorn in their side. It also leaves good room for counterplay, since you can only switch Order Markers between cards that they were already on. I'd like it even more if you could use it on friendly figures, though, to provide more value while he's in your starting zone and play up his trickery with some mind-games (albeit, this is hardly necessary).

Inebriated Stumble is a fun addition that makes him slightly more likely to get some value in a game, so I appreciate its inclusion. Disengage fulfills a similar purpose, partially negating his very poor stats. Overall, the three powers combine with each other in interesting ways, and I think that this guy would be a fun filler unit to throw into an army. I do think he's overcosted by 10 points, but he was my favorite entry and earned my vote.

I'll try to get to the rest of the cards on another day.

[Lazy Orang]

Sorry I haven't commented yet - kept slipping my mind. Congratulations to @OmegaPegasus ! Tanuki Nomad was the design I voted for, and it's nice to see a fun filler unit in the contest. I plan on picking up two figures and repainting one so I can add both Koji Danuki and the Tanuki Nomad to my games!