The Book of Spider-Man (Symbiote)

[MrNobody]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Catchin’ Bad Guys Just Like Flies

Army Test 1
Map: Bountiful Grove (Glyph of Wannok)
Units: Team 1 (1,000):Spider-Man (295), Chief (165), Robotman (175), Negative Man (40), Negative Spirit (135), Changeling (190)
Team 2 (1,000): Fantastic Four

Pre-game thoughts: An oddball composition, for sure, but I think the Chief really provides a one-stop-shop for things Spidey needs; both OM management and an attack boost. (With a downside that doesn’t mean all that much to Spidey.) The map is small enough that Caulder can hide behind a ruin in the SZ and still most likely get full effectiveness, so that should be a natural upside as well.

Summary of the game:

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: T2 wins initiative
-Torch blasts Gar from long range, inflicting a wound
-The Neg Spirt catches Johnny outside of Sue’s force field, inflicting a whopping 3 wounds
-Thing clobbers Neg Spirit, inflicting 3 wounds
-Johnny takes an LEA from Neg Spirit, but inflicts a Flame On wound in return
-Johnny swoops into T1’s SZ and goes Supernova, inflicting 1 wound on Chief, 1 wound on Neg Man, 1 wound on Changeling, but getting killed by Spidey’s Spider-Sense
-Chief manipulates Robotman
-Neg Spirit inflicts 1 wound each on Reed, Sue, and Ben

Round 2: T1 wins initiative
-Chief manipulates Robotman
-Sue inflicts a wound on Gar
-Reed attacks Gar as well, inflicting 1 wound
-Neg Spirit flies through Sue, inflicting a wound
-Reed inflicts a wound on Neg Man
-Robotman punches Sue, inflicting 2 wounds
-A fully enraged Thing puts 3 wounds on Robotman
-Reed tries to attack Caulder, but the Chief Escapes, inflicting a wound on Reed

Round 3: T1 wins initiative
-Chief manipulates Robotman
-Robotman finishes off Sue
-Neg Spirit inflicts a wound on Reed
-Ben inflicts a wound on Robotman
-Reed puts a wound on Caulder, but Caulder counterstrikes, inflicting a wound right back
-Spidey finishes off Reed
-T2 had OM2 and OM3 on Reed, so they lose the rest of their turns this round
-Robotman inflicts a wound on Ben

Round 4: T2 wins initiative
-Ben finishes off Robotman, who goes on Spidey’s card
-Changeling inflicts a wound on Ben
-Neg Spirit flies through Ben, inflicting a wound
-Ben pounds on Changeling, inflicting a wound
-Neg Spirit flies through Ben again, inflicting another wound
-Ben destroys Changeling
-Spidey repairs Robotman, healing 1 wound

Round 5: T1 wins initiative
-Ben finishes off Neg Man, destroying Neg Spirit as well
-Spidey finishes off Ben


Special power usages:
Normal Attack: 2 wounds inflicted (1 on Reed, 1 on Ben)
Remorse downsides: 0 triggered
Symbiote Spider-Sense: 1 wounds inflicted

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Spider-Man (0/5 wounds), Chief (2/4 wounds)

Post-game thoughts: I think this smaller map size and the ruin in the SZ was just optimal for the strike team style gameplay of the DP. Spidey didn’t do anything spectacular here, cause he was waiting for Robotman to fall before getting active, and Robotman survived way longer than he should’ve.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test 2
Map: Bountiful Grove (Glyph of Ollie’s Stupendous Chili]
Units: Team 1 (700): Spider-Man (295), Chief (165), Iron Man (Hasbro) (240)
Team 2 (700): TMNT

Pre-game thoughts: I decided for the sake of fairness that Chief can’t start the game behind the ruin hiding like a little you-know-what.

Summary of the game:

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: T1 wins initiative
-Chief manipulates Spidey
-Spidey inflicts 3 wounds on Leo, but feels guilty
-Spidey fails to dodge one of Leo’s blades, taking 1 wound

Round 2: T2 wins initiative
-Spidey fails to dodge Leo again, taking another 2 wounds
-Spidey dodges a blow from Mikey, then counters by inflicting a wound on both Raph and Mikey
-Chief manipulates Spidey
-Spidey finishes off Leo but feels guilty

Round 3: T2 wins initiative
-Chief manipulates Spidey
-Spidey inflicts 3 wounds on Raph but feels guilty
-Mikey tries to attack Spidey, but Spidey dodges and counters, finishing off Raph
-Tony inflicts 3 wounds on Don, causing him to drop the Gauntlet

Round 4: T1 wins initiative
-Chief manipulates Spidey
-Chief picks up the Gauntlet
-Spidey inflicts a wound on Mikey
-Chief counters Mikey twice, finishing him off
-Spidey finishes off Donnie. He feels guilty, but still wins


Special power usages:
Normal Attack: 10 wounds inflicted (5 on Leo, 3 on Raph, 1 on Mikey, 1 on Donnie)
Remorse downsides: 4 triggered
Symbiote Spider-Sense: 3 wounds inflicted

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Spider-Man (3/5 wounds), Chief (0/4 wounds), Iron Man (0/4 wounds)

Post-game thoughts: It’s a very solid combo. The melee Turtles especially had a rough time dealing with Spidey. Because they were all grouped near him, he got plenty of chances to roll Spider-Sense unblockables; he missed over half of them and still did a ton of damage with the power.

Rage and Remorse came up all 4 rounds here, but Chief could just easily switch to activating Iron Man for a few turns. It didn’t really feel like it broke my stride in a major way. However, it did allow the Turtles to get some swipes in they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Chili thoughts; was placed in the suggested spot for this map, in the middle of some water. Nobody bothered to go for it, because that would involve stopping movement in the water and risking taking chili damage. So basically no data there.

___________________________________________________________

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: I do feel bad that this felt like it was just as much of a test of the Chief as it was of Spidey. But they do pair very well together. Chief not only allows Spidey more multi-attacks, but the extra die actually increases the chance that Spidey does get to multi-attack. And Spidey, with his D20 dodge, doesn’t suffer the consequences of manipulation nearly as bad as most units. Spidey was frequently rolling 7 dice with a combination of Manipulation and height, and that felt pretty powerful when you throw in the fact they’re potential multi-attacks of 7.

I will say that I think this map being so small might’ve been a factor. It allows really fast deployment, especially with a character like Spidey that can essentially fly. It also allows Chief to be able to control his allies around the map from his SZ for the most part.

Not broken, but I do feel like this specific combo was a real bargain for 460 points.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: He’s fun and feels right. I dig it!

It might be worth considering if Chief is better than we gave him credit for originally. I do think this map is a bit too small for its own good (probably going to build a new one after this game), and this might just be a good combo where they play perfectly to each other's strengths. But still, I never realized when I was creating the character that I was making essentially the cheapest generalist OM manager in the game. (By like...5 points, but still.) Worth looking into IMO (although maybe not in this thread.)

Idk, feel free to tell me if you think it's not a big deal at all. I just don't think I totally realized what I had made.

[Yodaking]

I don't ever use Prof. X to activate just one non-mutant hero, maybe I should try it sometime, but two mutants is really good (in part because their are so many to chose from). Still he is really good with that power at 220 points, and it looks like you game Chief the same power for 55 less points. The limited supply of double bonding partners makes that seem not completely crazy, but then you also gave Chief an att. boosting power as well. The defensive power is much different than Prof. X's, but they are still both def. powers, and the Chiefs can result in counter strike auto-wounds. Taken all together, 165 does look a little light to me.

Why that seems to show up more here than perhaps it did in previous testing, is that the attack boosting power comes with a downside of -1 def., but Spidey doesn't really care about that, since his swing line power is the first line of defense and prevents him from having to roll defense dice. The too small map also seems to be a key culprit. Prof. X builds require you to drop 90 points on Angel for some mobility. He does much more than that of course, but carrying Charles out of the SZ and within 10 spaces of the main fight zone is important. By playing on a map where the main fight zone is within 10 spaces of the SZ, you just saved yourself some points being spent on mobility or OM investments used on moving up.

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I don't ever use Prof. X to activate just one non-mutant hero, maybe I should try it sometime, but two mutants is really good (in part because their are so many to chose from). Still he is really good with that power at 220 points, and it looks like you game Chief the same power for 55 less points. The limited supply of double bonding partners makes that seem not completely crazy, but then you also gave Chief an att. boosting power as well. The defensive power is much different than Prof. X's, but they are still both def. powers, and the Chiefs can result in counter strike auto-wounds. Taken all together, 165 does look a little light to me.

Why that seems to show up more here than perhaps it did in previous testing, is that the attack boosting power comes with a downside of -1 def., but Spidey doesn't really care about that, since his swing line power is the first line of defense and prevents him from having to roll defense dice. The too small map also seems to be a key culprit. Prof. X builds require you to drop 90 points on Angel for some mobility. He does much more than that of course, but carrying Charles out of the SZ and within 10 spaces of the main fight zone is important. By playing on a map where the main fight zone is within 10 spaces of the SZ, you just saved yourself some points being spent on mobility or OM investments used on moving up.

I do think there's a fair difference between the power levels of bonding with Mutants and Troubled figures. The DP are all solid, but they don't offer anything nearly on the level of Magneto II for example. Genius Escape also trades the reliability of Psychic Defense X for more potential power, which usually makes something worse competitively in my experience. (I'll also say, since I forgot to mention it, that Chief was really hot on his defense rolls in both games, Escaping things he probably shouldn't have.)

It seems like a more direct comparison for Chief as a generalist leader is Baron Zemo. (Heinrich, the 170 points one.) Looks like we're in pretty direct competition, YK.

Parsing my thoughts on Chief vs. Zemo:

Spoiler Alert!

They both can take a turn with another unit. However, Chief has the option to instead do 2 DP turns, but is limited to 10 spaces. Zemo, on the other hand, has unlimited range. He can also only select up to 5 figures and gets that boost against Patriots and Avengers, but both of those wind up being negligible most of the time. Overall, when comparing MoE and Patrol Leader, I'd probably give it to Patrol Leader, just cause it has the option of bringing DP member along to get that double turn. But they both offer things the other doesn't.

When it comes to their additional effects, Adhesive X Trap has a clearly better effect than Emotional Manipulation. Emotional Manipulation has a big upside, but also has a downside that has to be played or drafted around. Adhesive X Trap just straight up denies the enemy the ability to use their own figure, which is crazy powerful. However, EM is something that can be done while Chief sits on his couch eating chips, while AXT requires Zemo to be within 5 spaces of the target. So I don't really know which power is better, but they're both really good.

Chief has straight-up better survivability in almost every way though. Not only does he have a higher defense stat and a defensive power, but he also doesn't need to be nearly as close to the front lines in order to do his best work. That's a big upside Chief has over Zemo.

Zemo also has Mental Shield, and Chief is 5 points cheaper, but again I think both of those factors are mostly negligible in the long run.

Comparing him directly to Zemo like that kinda does validate my fears a bit. It seems like he's doing at least as good of a job as Zemo at being a generalist leader, and Zemo is already a very solid unit competitively.

I'll give Bats time to see all this and respond. If Chief does need some alterations this clearly isn't the correct thread to do it in anyways.

[IAmBatman]

Neither of those victories seem out of bounds of what I would expect from Spidey's ceiling here. He seems largely not responsible for the first victory and I'm not a big believer in the competitive power of the TMNT without Splinter so I'm not surprised to see them get run in the second test. Honestly I think they struggle with any heroes in the 300+ category. They do decently against squads and other mid-level heroes. But, like, you could put the TMNT with Batman (I) for 900 points and I'd fully expect the Wrecking Crew at 800 points to stomp them, for instance.

I'll take a look at compiling results thus far and see what I think overall. Thanks for the tests!

[IAmBatman]

Bats @280
1 big loss
1 medium win

Analysis: “He's definitely swingy. I think I unintentionally ended up with some solid counters to him in both my army tests and those went 1-1. I think in an army less set up for him, Symbiote Spider-Senses could still wreck shop, so I'm liking 280 going into public testing.”

Archie @280
1 big win
1 medium win

Analysis: “Fun design. I liked how you have to be careful to avoid wounding your own figures with swing lining after a spidey-sense roll. Rage and Remorse is handy to get extra attacks but brutal when it activates unexpectedly. I especially liked the penalty to spidey sense, that felt very necessary. Luckily an OM handler like Cap-Falcon can help there!

My wins here were probably due to the power level of Cap more than Spidey, as I felt I had fairly bad luck with Spidey overall. But he still did fairly well - killing Scorpion so quickly in game 2 was a game changer. So while my tests don’t really support it, I could see a slight point increase depending on how other games go. He’s so intrinsically swingy with Symbiote Spidey-Sense (all his powers are swingy, really) that I can’t imagine he’s off by much if at all. He really needs an OM manager to function to his best too. Really fun design!”

LV @300
1 medium loss
1 big win

Analysis: “He’s fun, and I though the autowounds from Spidey sense would be oppressive. Realistically they aren’t bad, but are a bit of a deterrent to going after him. Rage and Remorse was an interesting one. I think of the three times Rage and Remorse triggered, 2 were from an extra attack (never further than that) and generally it was a three in one attack, rather than an accumulation. I’d be interested in seeing it trigger on 2 skulls rather than 3, as right now if feels more like ‘Oh I hit too hard once’ rather than ‘I lost control and went too far.’ But this is just an impression from two games obviously.”

MrNobody @300
2 big wins

Analysis: “I do feel bad that this felt like it was just as much of a test of the Chief as it was of Spidey. But they do pair very well together. Chief not only allows Spidey more multi-attacks, but the extra die actually increases the chance that Spidey does get to multi-attack. And Spidey, with his D20 dodge, doesn’t suffer the consequences of manipulation nearly as bad as most units. Spidey was frequently rolling 7 dice with a combination of Manipulation and height, and that felt pretty powerful when you throw in the fact they’re potential multi-attacks of 7.

I will say that I think this map being so small might’ve been a factor. It allows really fast deployment, especially with a character like Spidey that can essentially fly. It also allows Chief to be able to control his allies around the map from his SZ for the most part.

Not broken, but I do feel like this specific combo was a real bargain for 460 points.”

[IAmBatman]

Hmm, OK, I'd say probably coming in a little strong overall, so probably going to want to make some slight tweaks here and send him out for another round of tests to try to keep to 300.

Since all reports are that folks largely like how he plays, I'm thinking this is the lever I'd most be interested in pulling:

RAGE AND REMORSE
If Spider-Man rolls at least 3 skulls with his normal attack, he may attack again with his normal attack. Spider-Man may continue attacking this way until he rolls fewer than 3 skulls or attacks a fourth time. If Spider-Man inflicts three or more wounds on his turn, his turn immediately ends; until the start of the next round, he may not attack and whenever you roll the 20-sided die for his Symbiote Spider-Sense, subtract 49 from the roll.

It won't always be timed so he exposes himself when he goes into remorse, but when he does it would be nice for him to be able to be hit. That should also blunt the Chief combo a tad at least, as that -1 defense might become more relevant.

Lemme know what you all think, especially @Arch-vile @LordVenoc and @MrNobody

[MrNobody]

I feel like that would be a pretty major change overall, bringing his points down quite a bit. I might honestly just say “cannot attack and cannot uses his Symbiote Spider-Senses special power.”

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

I feel like that would be a pretty major change overall, bringing his points down quite a bit. I might honestly just say “cannot attack and cannot uses his Symbiote Spider-Senses special power.”

Well that would be even stronger. But, yeah, you might be right, as him hopping around and wounding someone at all when he's feeling remorse seems off brand.

I could support that change and see where his cost falls. I can't see the change dropping him under 250 and as long as we hit a 250-300 range I'm happy here.

[MrNobody]

Sorry, I just woke up and misread, I thought your change was subtracting so much from the roll that it effectively shut down the Spider-Sense roll anyways. -9 seems good, still gives you that slight chance.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

Sorry, I just woke up and misread, I thought your change was subtracting so much from the roll that it effectively shut down the Spider-Sense roll anyways. -9 seems good, still gives you that slight chance.

It takes it to 18+, which is pretty high, but, yeah, I wanted him to feel pretty vulnerable. Still have a 3/20 chance.

[Arch-vile]

Works for me. I worry that might be too much if a nerf, but he's got to be brought down somehow.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Well that would be even stronger. But, yeah, you might be right, as him hopping around and wounding someone at all when he's feeling remorse seems off brand.

Speaking of that, maybe it's worth removing the auto-wound aspect during his time in remorse? He'll defend himself, but his heart's not in it and he ain't hurting anyone. Maybe can't move or attack?
Maybe that combined with a mid-ground penalty, like -7?