Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[Kaemon Awa 123]

Ok, I can see your concerns about Vargach. I'm considering a few potential fixes, but I haven't quite found the right one yet.

For now, I'd like to remove him from the process for the time being.

[Killometer]

Vargach by Kaemon Awa 123 removed from process per designer's request.

[Fedex worker]

So I edited Maug's card a bit:

Spoiler Alert!

I edited the kick power to say only enemy units and removed the higher-level no kicking damage. I also raised his attack by 1 to make him more worth his points.

(P.S. sorry about posting again after he was declined [and can't be re-submitted due to the C3V announcement] but I just wanted to make sure I made the proper changes to make him fit into HS as well as he can)

Oh and also is it normal for (in this case) the figure's hand and foot to stick out of the picture area? I wasn't sure if this was in any official cards but I just though it made the card look cooler and sort of 3D.

[1Mmirg]

Fedex, I think this card looks excellent. I may even print out both cards and let my kids choose which "Maug" they want to play each game.

Sorry your timing was poor, though, for what it was worth, the unit has been in planning for quite a while in the C3V.

It's an awkward part of our process that a unit often spends a month (or many months!) before even reaching ERB. It is an important part of our quality control, but it does mean that units receive a lot of time and work before being announced.

[nyys]

Whew... looks like my fellow judges did all the work for me this time around. Is there anything left outstanding that still needs to be voted on to review?

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by dok

I'd like to nominate another of my customs, the Hoplitron:

I think compared to other common hero's he has too high defense and attack values. I think he should be closer to a 3 attack 5 Def or 3 attack 4 def for his value and what he adds with bonding.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

I think compared to other common hero's he has too high defense and attack values. I think he should be closer to a 3 attack 5 Def or 3 attack 4 def for his value and what he adds with bonding.

I'm surprised to see you say that, Kinseth. If we were playing tonight (and you couldn't depend on being dice Jesus again), would you draft these guys?

For starters, comparing the Hoplitron to the other self-bonding common heroes, the wyrmlings, is an exercise in futility. One is a flying figure with a ranged special attack (or special power in the case of black wyrmlings), the other is a walking melee figure. As I said earlier,

Originally Posted by dok

Sure, a pack of Hoplitrons will annihilate a pack of Black Wyrmings in a head-to-head matchup, but the Black Wyrmlings can start a turn 10 spaces away from a Krav and kill one half the time. Their roles are so different that a direct comparison is almost meaningless. (FWIW, I could test 6 red wyrmlings against 5 Hoplitrons - while I still don't think it's a very meaningful measure of the value of the Hoplitrons, that could be an interesting fight, actually. Who I would favor would depend a lot on the map.)

The Hoplitrons are quite similar to the wyrmlings in that (unlike most other common heroes) they make a lot of sense as a filler for the last ~120 points in an army. But that's pretty much where the similarities end, in my mind.

In that same post, I demonstrate that Dumutefs and Death Knights (such a power build, right? ) comfortably beat Hoplitrons point-for-point on even ground:

Originally Posted by dok

The Dumutefs are our first useful comparison. They are large and have similar stats (4/4), but bond with Death Knights - that's 3 attacks versus two. The matchup calculator doesn't really allow us to test this, but fortunately the expected points inflicted with an attack of 4 is nearly identical when attacking a Death Knight or a Dumutef, so we can do this one on the back of the envelope.

Hoplitrons, with 2 attacks of 4 per turn, will inflict an average of 27.8 points of damage per turn per turn against Death Knights and Dumutefs. Death Knights and Dumutefs, with 2 attack of 2+soul weapons and 1 attack of 4, will inflict an average of 36.75 points of damage per turn against Hoplitrons. So, that B- combo wins, point-for-point. Granted, this doesn't account for the side advantages of the Hoplitrons (all-large figures, ability to move allies and enemies).

I also compare them, in that post, to the elementals, and conclude that based on that comparison we'd slot them somewhere in the "B" range:

Originally Posted by dok

The Elementals have an extra activation when played with Kurrok, but we can still try to compare them. Water Elementals (ranged) and Air Elementals (flying utility figure) don't really make sense as points of comparison, but Earth and Fire elementals are both reasonable tools of comparison.

At 400 vs. 415, you can compare 8 triple-activating FEs vs. 11 Hoplitrons. FEs win 55% of the time, despite the matchup calculator's extremely conservative way of guessing the number of Searing Intensity rolls you get, and this is without even considering the possibility that Kurrok can revive elementals or finish off the remaining Hoplitrons. In reality, this would be much closer to 80/20 on even ground, or worse, probably. I could test this if you need convincing.

Earth Elementals would be much closer, of course, owing to not having the ridiculously awesome Searing Intensity power. The matchup calculator puts them at 47% underdogs if they can hit two figures per activation with Earth Slam, and 22% underdogs if they are reduced to using their normal attacks. Again, this leaves out the possibility of Kurrok running and gunning and reviving at the end of the game, so the real numbers would be much better for the elementals. Still, I think it's fair to say that the Hoplitrons slot in between the A- Fire Elemental and the B- Earth Elemental in their value.

I also do a quick comparison to the single-activation common heroes, and conclude that - big surprise - more activations win, so they're better than Chainfighters and S-Raiders.

So, even a direct comparison just to common heroes leads us to conclude that:

1. they are not the strongest common hero in the game, and
2. their power ranking probably falls somewhere in the "B" range.

All of that said, I really want to emphasize that it's silly to compare them only to other common heroes. Common heroes don't exist in a vacuum; they are played with the rest of the figures in the game. What matters in the actual game of Heroscape is not how good the Hoplitron looks next to the Dumutef Guard. Rather, what matters is how builds containing Hoplitrons look compared to the range of possible builds in the game.

As I said in that previous post, the Minions of Utgar are a decent point of comparison:

Originally Posted by dok

I think another useful point of comparison is the Minions of Utgar, whose 2/6 stats with Deadly Strike are comparable to the Hoplitron's 4/6 stats. Hoplitrons are slightly less expensive per figure (35 versus 37) and have large immunities and the shield push power, but give up flight, the extra bonus of height advantage, and (by far) most crucially, the third activation. Hoplitrons versus Minions gets ugly.

Another good point of comparison would be the other large squads - after all, these guys are large. Let's compare Marrden Hounds versus Hoplitrons. This seems fair, since neither figure's special power works on the other one. If you do out the math, you find that this matchup is almost exactly even on a points-killed-per-turn basis. This goes to show something that, as I keep mentioning, we shouldn't find surprising: activations are king. Despite having lower attack and defense values, having 50% more attacks than the other guy is a huge factor. And, just to make the obvious point, Marrden Hounds are a "B" figure.

In conclusion, the Hoplitrons are a "B" range figure by comparison to either other common heroes, or by comparison to the broader set of Heroscape figures. If I droped the stats the way you (and some others) have suggested, we would be left with a very weak figure.

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by dok

If we were playing tonight (and you couldn't depend on being dice Jesus again), would you draft these guys?

I LoL'd..

Alright if you look further into them, let's take out the bonding, they really don't have anyone good to bond with at this point. And I can't see opening it up to allow them to bond with Q9... that would just be silly.

If we take it on value of the Shield push and him being a 4/6 for 35. I still think he is pretty good. Better than a B for his value. The ability to move units off key positions, glyphs or into lava water or off of high ledges where they might take damage is a much better ability than you give it credit for.

I look at him as a very strong figure for 35. I hope to hear how he does in playtesting, would I draft him if I had an extra 35 points left over? Depending on what kind of army I was running I'd say yes.

EDIT:I realize you are also sinking order markers, on these guys. But if you have several, it makes you fairly diverse in what you can do on the map. The Shield push + Attack is pretty good. I think he is close to fair, I think I'd recommend him being a 3/6 or a 4/5 in the end.

[qt.bangerang]

Originally Posted by Son of Arathorn

I agree with D_S that the powers need to be written to match official 'Scape language...and these simply do not at this point. Also, I feel that Will of Chaos is too powerful...I know that there is not many official Valkrill units but that is where many customs are going to fall into because of that void...so it needs to be taken into consideration when designing him.

I vote NO to review Lord Eschain

[dok]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

If we take it on value of the Shield push and him being a 4/6 for 35. I still think he is pretty good. Better than a B for his value. The ability to move units off key positions, glyphs or into lava water or off of high ledges where they might take damage is a much better ability than you give it credit for.

Well, I do actually think they're better than a B... I was shooting for B+. I agree that shield push is nice - it makes up for the fact that these guys lose point-for-point against just about any above-average squad.

Originally Posted by Kinseth

Alright if you look further into them, let's take out the bonding, they really don't have anyone good to bond with at this point.

Well, they have each other. If they're single-activation, they become pretty bad, really. They'd be almost uniformly worse than the Drow Chainfighters - worse on defense, not as versatile moving figures, same offense, 10 points more expensive. Without bonding, they're just not worth the order markers to get them into the action, which means you end up using them for cleanup, where they're really not very good.

Originally Posted by Kinseth

I look at him as a very strong figure for 35. I hope to hear how he does in playtesting, would I draft him if I had an extra 35 points left over? Depending on what kind of army I was running I'd say yes.

Yes, that's the point. I don't think you can build a winning tournament army by spamming a ton of these guys, but 3 or 4 of them can be a nice compoent for a build - gives you some large immunities and gives you a way to break up choke points or entrenched positions.

[MegaSilver]

May I suggest you move this "discussion" to PMs?

[dok]

Originally Posted by MegaSilver

May I suggest you move this "discussion" to PMs?

Why is discussion in quotes here?

It's not completely clear what the lines are for discussion on this thread. "Workshopping the figure" is frowned upon, but I'm not doing that here. Rather, we're discussing the gameplay merits of a figure in the queue.

At any rate, we have taken some of these discussions to PM.