Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[Tornado]

That sounds incredibly reasonable dok.

Love the Zombie Hulk, it was the first custom ever allowed on our playing table. My group has evolved a lot since then.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Great discussion. Look what you did L_O. You even got scolded by Dad, nice.

L_O I think we have very much the same thoughts and feelings on the matter. I suggest my approach, which was to just let it go. If you never play competitively then there is no need to worry. The scene is always fun because 'scapers are simply good people but we all already know that.

quozl mentioned perhaps another group will come along with a different set of goals for designing 'custom classic' figures that is not as focused on competition(Heroscape was never intended to play in tournaments anyway).

Much like C3G there are plenty of customs out there that were never approved but still fun, great designs. I know there was some backlash to C3G(mostly badgermaniac I believe) for dominating the Super'scape scene and marginalizing other non C3G creators.
"C3G killed the Comics Custom Star".
Many have continued on though. Matt Helm's designs are incredibly good.

My advice would be to open up the playtesting a little to take some pressure off the judges. Keep the faith VC.

Nice to know someone feels the same way I do. I can see how there may have been some backlash against the C3G for dominating the comics custom scene - what I'd love to see in both Classic and Superscape is some independent customs creators designing for compatibility with that sub-game's 'official' customs but not necessarily intending to make them official themselves. There's some of this still in Classic, which is good to see, but actually depressingly little in Superscape - on these boards it's mainly Gardevoir, who I'm also planning to use some of the customs of.

I will be shutting up now. I'm sorry if I caused any offence - I always try to be respectful, but I seem to have a knack for stirring up controversial debates with these projects (Stan Lee debate, Mystique debate, what themes should be allowed for C3G debate etc.).

Originally Posted by Lyrgard

This thread was a great help to refine Asterios, and a thread I would like to see more often used !

On the french forum, we made twice a thread to make a figure for SoV (Kheris and Asterios). They were not just custom we thought we could submit to SoV. They were made to be submited. Each time, we only had a figure and a very vague idea of what we wanted it to do.
The same could be done on this forum, to create competitive customs to propose to SoV. Quite like it is done in C3G, I believe.
The main problem is to find an largely available figure, and a main, vague idea.

I hope a competitive custom could soon pass SoV to tell once and for all that SoV is not comited to C ranked figures

You may be interested in another debate I started in the Suggestions for C3V thread.

[Evar-Scarcarver]

Just thought I'd weigh in my useless opinion in the recent discussion, which I've been following...

SoV is very slow moving, I agree, and it could be faster and more efficient. However, I would be strongly opposed to this, for two reasons:

• I prefer extremely high quality customs, especially if I'm going to be using them in a tournament.
• I'm broke, and if they came out any faster, I wouldn't be able to buy minis.

Which sets up perfectly for my next point:
Even though the restriction on mini availability can be very annoying when it comes to submitting customs, it's a lifesaver when it comes to buying them.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm broke, so if I can't buy the mini for a couple months after the custom is accepted, I can usually still find it at a reasonable price when I have $$$. (Which is also why I nearly cried from joy after I found the C3V public miniature information thread.)

[Lyrgard]

I would like to make a little experimentation, regarding all that was said on this subject.

In short, I would like to try here what we made in the French forum. That is open a thread to create a custom in order to submit it to SoV. Basically, the rules would be :

- One person (the proposer) would give an available mini(s), and an idea of what he/she thought of
- The ultimate goal is to produce a card to submit to SoV
- It is open to anyone that want to give his opinion, and public
- Progress would be made by majority consensus, with the help of a vote if needed.
- the proposer will have the final word in all decisions, but should use this right only if the custom is not progressing anymore.
- Anything can be changed, even the base idea, if another is proposed and sweep the community for it.

It is intended to be a little anarchical. The "proposer has the final word" is only here to insure it stay focused if needed. It is not a place to ask help to refine your custom. It is a place to make a community custom. The one proposing the custom has to be ok to change his idea of the figure if the community prefer another. The proposer will have to maintain the OP with the up to date state of the custom.

When the custom is considered finished, the proposer will then open another thread, for playtests. The first thing would be to determine what sort of playtest to do. Find, theorically, the strenght and the weakness of the custom, and make a list of situation that should be tested.

For instance, for Asterios, we thought it would be good to test Asterios :
- against mono-card army (that is, mainly mono-card. Full stinger + Raelin is a "mono-card" army)
- against full heroes army
- against ranged squad
- in a competitive army, against a competitive army
- in a fun game (not competitive)
- in free for all game, or 2vs2 game
- on a flat map/ease of movement map
- on a map with a lot of height change/or movement hindering (snow for instance).

Any member of the forum could then make games using Asterios, and write a little report of the game and how the custom managed. He/she will also tell which of the items in the previous list his game covered (for instance, a game with competitive armies, on a map with lot of road, against a 10th army would account for 4 of the categories). The proposer will be in charge of keeping track of what situation has been tested, and how many time
It would be best if members tried to make playtest on situation that have the fewest number of test being done, but members have the freedom to make playtest in the way they are the most confortable with.

From those tests, the community decide if the custom is ready to be submited, or need a little more twist.

I intend to start with a thread where all thoses rules are written. People would, in that thread, propose figure and idea (you HAVE to propose a figure with your idea, and with enough availability). When 4 or 5 figure are proposed, a vote will be made to determine the first figure and the first proposer.

What do you think of this idea ? I would be a sort of public C3V, but with SoV at the end of the chain for stamp approval. It would make the forum live. SoV judges could give their opinion, as any member, so accpetance for review into SoV should be quick once the card is done. A lot of tests would already have been done, so perhaps the judges would have less to do before they think they can reliably vote.
I would only need something from the SoV, concerning the figure availability. The goal of this project would be to make the figure pass the SoV. If it is voted down, it would be reworked and resubmited, until it pass (at least if it is not because of the figure itself). As the SoV now only check availability at the vote for review time (I believe I read that), I ask if it would be possible that for the figure that goes throught the process I explained before, that availability was only checked at the begining of the process. Creating a custom from just an idea and a figure can take a lot of time (especially with lot of people involved), and then SoV induction can take a lot of time too. Figure availability can vary quickly. As i would be an open custom creation, people would soon see if they are interested to buy the figure, from the way the discussions go. As the project is aimed to have the figure pass the SoV, they can have a sort of insurance that the figure will eventually pass SoV, and could buy it early.

All that is just a sort of draft of what I think could be done. For now, I would just like to have your opinion on it.

[caps]

If the community gets behind it it could be a cool idea. It should output a cool figure whether it is approved by SoV or not.

--

The SoV cannot guarantee that they will treat a resubmission the same as its original submission as far as availability is concerned. That is to say, if a unit is rejected in its first pass through and then resubmitted, availability will most likely be reevaluated at resubmission time.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Lyrgard

As the SoV now only check availability at the vote for review time (I believe I read that),

Yes, that is the current policy.

Originally Posted by Lyrgard

I ask if it would be possible that for the figure that goes throught the process I explained before, that availability was only checked at the begining of the process.

If I get what you're saying, you'd like us to evaluate a figure's availability prior to its development as a custom, with the assurance that said figure will be used and submitted. It's not our normal process, and it does slide into dangerous territory (we don't want a deluge of such requests from people considering figures for their own customs), but perhaps we can work something out.

[nyys]

I would suggest that once a sculpt is decided on, the availabilty numbers are posted in the thread immediately. Since it's a community project I think it would be fair to asses availabilty (each judge may vary) based on how many were available at the start of the process and reasonable to assume that many of those involved acquired said figure(s) during that process.

Could even take a 'role call' to see how many Scapers have the unit at the time of submission so the SoV can take that into account as well.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Lyrgard

I would like to make a little experimentation, regarding all that was said on this subject.

In short, I would like to try here what we made in the French forum. That is open a thread to create a custom in order to submit it to SoV. Basically, the rules would be :

- One person (the proposer) would give an available mini(s), and an idea of what he/she thought of
- The ultimate goal is to produce a card to submit to SoV
- It is open to anyone that want to give his opinion, and public
- Progress would be made by majority consensus, with the help of a vote if needed.
- the proposer will have the final word in all decisions, but should use this right only if the custom is not progressing anymore.
- Anything can be changed, even the base idea, if another is proposed and sweep the community for it.

It is intended to be a little anarchical. The "proposer has the final word" is only here to insure it stay focused if needed. It is not a place to ask help to refine your custom. It is a place to make a community custom. The one proposing the custom has to be ok to change his idea of the figure if the community prefer another. The proposer will have to maintain the OP with the up to date state of the custom.

When the custom is considered finished, the proposer will then open another thread, for playtests. The first thing would be to determine what sort of playtest to do. Find, theorically, the strenght and the weakness of the custom, and make a list of situation that should be tested.

For instance, for Asterios, we thought it would be good to test Asterios :
- against mono-card army (that is, mainly mono-card. Full stinger + Raelin is a "mono-card" army)
- against full heroes army
- against ranged squad
- in a competitive army, against a competitive army
- in a fun game (not competitive)
- in free for all game, or 2vs2 game
- on a flat map/ease of movement map
- on a map with a lot of height change/or movement hindering (snow for instance).

Any member of the forum could then make games using Asterios, and write a little report of the game and how the custom managed. He/she will also tell which of the items in the previous list his game covered (for instance, a game with competitive armies, on a map with lot of road, against a 10th army would account for 4 of the categories). The proposer will be in charge of keeping track of what situation has been tested, and how many time
It would be best if members tried to make playtest on situation that have the fewest number of test being done, but members have the freedom to make playtest in the way they are the most confortable with.

From those tests, the community decide if the custom is ready to be submited, or need a little more twist.

I intend to start with a thread where all thoses rules are written. People would, in that thread, propose figure and idea (you HAVE to propose a figure with your idea, and with enough availability). When 4 or 5 figure are proposed, a vote will be made to determine the first figure and the first proposer.

What do you think of this idea ? I would be a sort of public C3V, but with SoV at the end of the chain for stamp approval. It would make the forum live. SoV judges could give their opinion, as any member, so accpetance for review into SoV should be quick once the card is done. A lot of tests would already have been done, so perhaps the judges would have less to do before they think they can reliably vote.
I would only need something from the SoV, concerning the figure availability. The goal of this project would be to make the figure pass the SoV. If it is voted down, it would be reworked and resubmited, until it pass (at least if it is not because of the figure itself). As the SoV now only check availability at the vote for review time (I believe I read that), I ask if it would be possible that for the figure that goes throught the process I explained before, that availability was only checked at the begining of the process. Creating a custom from just an idea and a figure can take a lot of time (especially with lot of people involved), and then SoV induction can take a lot of time too. Figure availability can vary quickly. As i would be an open custom creation, people would soon see if they are interested to buy the figure, from the way the discussions go. As the project is aimed to have the figure pass the SoV, they can have a sort of insurance that the figure will eventually pass SoV, and could buy it early.

All that is just a sort of draft of what I think could be done. For now, I would just like to have your opinion on it.

That sounds like an epic idea!

[Sir Yeshua]

Sounds good! Thanks for sharing how Astrios and Kheris were designed, Lyrgard. This sounds like a really cool idea!

(And now Lazy Orang will have something to do and will stop raising heck! )

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Sir Yeshua

Sounds good! Thanks for sharing how Astrios and Kheris were designed, Lyrgard. This sounds like a really cool idea!

(And now Lazy Orang will have something to do and will stop raising heck! )

Not raising heck, just actively debating multiple questions. Debate keeps things fresh.

[Lyrgard]

Originally Posted by Scytale

If I get what you're saying, you'd like us to evaluate a figure's availability prior to its development as a custom, with the assurance that said figure will be used and submitted. It's not our normal process, and it does slide into dangerous territory (we don't want a deluge of such requests from people considering figures for their own customs), but perhaps we can work something out.

Yes, basically I ask the SoV to make an exception just for the process I intend to launch. It is not an urgent matter, I believe. We still have to see if the BCoV (Boot Camp of Valhalla - for training Soldiers of Valhalla) will draw the community attention and participation. We will probably have to ask the question again when the first figure will be submited. For now, I just wanted to have the mood of the SoV judges on this point. If the ideas is positevly received and, as you say, "we could work something out", I think it is enough for now. I don't ask SoV to commit to a project that is not existing yet !
When we'll have solid results, then it'll be another matter.

All I can say is that the idea of BCoV have been warmly welcomed, and so I'll try this adventure !

[Lyrgard]

Sorry for the double post.

Just wanted to say that the Boot Camp of Valhalla just opened !