Sherman Davies' DC customs - Sandman

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Garada

One more thought... since the logic of making GCPD et all LAWMAN is sound, why not make Green Lantern a LAWMAN too? After all, the GL Corps is basically an intergalactic police force.

I finally got around to taking Garada's (very old) advice and updated my Green Lantern custom the other day. In addition to changing his class to Lawman, I also changed the way his Force Field power worked after some theoryscaping and playtesting. Previously, it allowed protected figures to substitute GL's defense score for their own, but that mechanic becomes problematic and wordy when other boosters are pumping up GL's defense. So I changed it to make it simply add 3 defense dice; it loses a little bit of thematic flavor but closes a lot of loopholes. (I'll probably make the same change to my Invisible Woman custom.) Here's the updated card.

I ran a bunch of playtest games with Hal, trying to make the most broken combos I could think of. First I put him (at 340 points) on a team with Captain America and my Commissioner Gordon custom, essentially creating a 610-point uber-character, as Green Lantern could just fly around carrying Cap and Gordon to boost his stats. To face this cheese, I rounded up the Hulk and Iron Man.

I played two of these games, with the tactics on both sides staying mainly the same: The GL-pod would fly to a strategic position on height and blast away, while Hulk and Iron Man would try to pick off the Commissioner early and then turn their attacks on Jordan. In both games they were able to destroy Commissioner Gordon, who was very vulnerable any time GL's force field missed. In the first game a badly-wounded Hulk managed to destroy GL as well, but was destroyed soon after that by Cap. That was enough for Iron Man though, as he was able to put the last couple of wounds on Cap to win the game. The second time around Hulk failed to finish off GL before dying, leaving GL with 1 life left. The wounded Lantern and Cap were able to make short work of Iron Man after that.

With that 1-1 record, I decided to try GL at 330 points. I also decided to go ultra-cheesy and replace Commissioner Gordon with Raelin (RotV), making a 630-point GL with a potential defense of 10 dice. I played this trio against the same 610-point, Hulk/Iron Man duo in two games, with the GL team winning both times, although GL went down in both games leaving Cap as last man standing.

I changed tack with the next three games, closing the 20-point differential by dropping Iron Man and replacing him with Venom and the Ninja of the Northern Wind, reasoning that the Ninja and Hulk would be useful for assassinating Raelin and softening up GL and Cap before Venom finished the job. This army did suprisingly well against my GL/Raelin combo, winning two out of three games. Spider-Sense and Disappearing Ninja protected against GL's powerful attack while Hulk occupied Cap, keeping him from using Shield Throw on the ninjas. The Ninjas and Hulk would do most of the early fighting, usually taking out Raelin and GL and before dying. With GL out of the way, Venom would usually have a good shot against Captain America, as long as Spider-Sense kicked in at least once.

[Markb97402]

union jack was the first figure i broke my 2 dollar barrier for ($2.50) damn you NM24!!!

[Garada]

Originally Posted by Markb97402

union jack was the first figure i broke my 2 dollar barrier for ($2.50) damn you NM24!!!

Awesome!

I bought 12 Hand Ninja [4 squads], mostly from strikezoneonline. A pox on NM24!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have also broken my 'cap' on several occasions, most notably for a $4 Stilt-Man [hi's custom is just too cool to resist] and I think I paid $5 for Xorn. I also paid too much for Orphan [obscure X-Statix character by Mike Allred] and Mr. Freeze, but I've never paid more than $5 or 6 including shipping.

Like Mr. Davies said, it's easy to justify a little more for a particularly awesome mini when you average 25-75 cents each for all of the others.

Sorry if this got all thread-jacky, SD!

NecroBlade: I second Miniaturemarket.com - I've ordered from them twice and been very satisfied. They even put 50 cents in the box for a 35 cent figure they were out of stock on.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Garada

Sorry if this got all thread-jacky, SD!

No problem - any activity's good activity, right?

A bit more on topic, the recent NM24 process with Doctor Octopus made me realize that my old Clayface card had a bit of an unintended loophole in it. His range of 2 meant that he could conceivably attack a figure 2 spaces away, but who was extremely higher or lower than he was. Since that wasn't my intent, and since his Pliable Body power already allowed him to treat figures 2 spaces away (and within 8 levels of him) as adjacent, I reduced his Range to 1. Here's the revised card.

According to page 11 of the rulebook, "A figure with a Range of 1 can attack a figure only from an adjacent space." The way I figure it, this rule combined with Clayface's Pliable Body allow him to attack figures 2 spaces away without actually having a Range of 2. It seems clear to me, but I'm wondering if others think so too.

[NecroBlade]

Sounds fine to me and avoids making them 'engaged' with him at the same time. For my Clayface's Smother Special Attack (Range 3) I added "Smother can't be used to attack non-adjacent figures that are 5 or more levels higher or lower than Clayface" or something like that. Same wording I use for 'Limited Reach' on figures like Mr. Fantastic whom I give 2 Range.

[Matt Helm]

I'm with Necro on this one. When I read your updated card, I immediately thought you purposely used adjacent only as an effort to avoid engagement. In other words, I thought you were trying to get to the range of 2 while limiting the height difference available.

Although adjacent and engaged are almost interchangeable, I think it says a lot when you chose one or the other. I'd go clunky with "adjacent and engaged" if that is your intent.

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

LADY SHIVA
- Solid figure. Nothing else to say, nice work.

ARKHAM INMATES
- Crazed Attack is a great ability!
- For Frightened Minds, I would change "may not" to "cannot" just for absolute assurance that it can't change.
- Again very nicely done.

[Garada]

Curse you, Davies! You went and made me buy more miniatures...
Just got Lady Shiva yesterday. Good stuff, she's getting added to the 'Batman List'.

[Matt Helm]

Thanks to S.D. I have a Scarecrow on the way (among other figures) so I feel your pain. You guys are all killing me with such great customs.

Mr Davies:
1. Why have you not added the NM24 stamp to Scarecrow? Take credit for the praise and display it proudly
2. I think I somehow downloaded your Wonder Woman card yet I can't find it anywhere on this site. At least I think it is your work. It happens to be my favorite WW (Bracelet Deflection, Tiara Special Attack, Flying... sound like yours?) so if it was yours, please share it with the rest of the community.

[Sherman Davies]

Sorry for the absence guys, my computer's been acting up lately and I'm just now getting things back on track.

Matt Helm, I'll add the NM24 stamp to Scarecrow when I get a chance. As for Wonder Woman, that does sound like mine, although you're right - I've never posted her on this site before. You probably downloaded her from my Photobucket album, which is public. I've been keeping my unfinished customs there and posting them in this thread after they've been playtested a few times, but since you've discovered Diana there I'll add her to the thread now:



I've never playtested her, but I've actually been thinking about making the following changes to her card:

1) Upping her attack to a 7 and her defense to a 6.

2) Changing Bracelet Deflection so that instead of ranged Counterstrike, she adds 2 to her defense against non-adjacent attacks. Seems more thematically appropriate to me, since Wonder Woman doesn't really deflect bullets back at her attackers so much as she deflects them away from herself.

3) Adding an extra attack to Tiara Special Attack.

Thoughts?

[Matt Helm]

That's the one! Sorry to make you draw out an unfinished work of art, but I'm selfish and therefore, glad it's out.

1) I like the idea of increasing the Attack and Defense by 1 each

2) I agree that counter strike is not in the true spirit. Have you thought instead to go with a Sentinel (Jandar not Marvel) approach and make every shield rolled against a non-adjacent normal attack count as 2 shields?

3) I leave that one up to you.

[Garada]

Nice WW, SD!

I think the proposed change to the Bracelet Deflection power is a good idea... very rarely does WW ever hit someone with a deflected bullet, and when it does happen it's usually an accident [see the excellent new direct-to-DVD DC Universe animated feature 'Wonder Woman' for a perfect example of this].

The only fear I would have after that change [to 2 auto Shields vs Ranged] is that if you also up her Defense by 1 she'll be nearly unkillable, and only then by someone bold enough to engage her in Melee combat. meanwhile, if you up the Tiara attack, she'll pick off all the fools from range before they even get close. Maybe keep the Tiara attack at 3 but allow an additional target? That way even if you do raise her Attack to 7 [which I'm totally for], there is still a use for her Tiara.

So I guess what I'm saying is...
- Attack +1
- Defense stays same
- Change Bracelet Deflection as proposed [the most important potential change IMHO, to preserve [Thematic Quality']
- Add 1 target to Tiara Special

Ya know, if you want to... I think she's already pretty cool as is.

So now we need The Martian Manhunter and Aquaman to complete the Sherman Davies version of the 'Big 7' of Justice League... either the Animated or Grant Morrison Version.

Keep up the great work sir, we missed you!