[Pod 0] Ozuul (Eldrazi Ruiner) - Playtesting

[caps]

Originally Posted by Captain Stupendous

CaptainStupendous Suggestion:

I like this proposal, Captain Stupendous. @Scytale do you see any rules issues with this?

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I like this proposal, Captain Stupendous. @Scytale do you see any rules issues with this?

Placement and movement in Heroscape are the same thing, but it is true that placement powers generally do not talk about falling damage. I can't argue with that precedent.

So yes, this looks good, though I'd add a "One at a time," at the start of the second sentence. "In the order that you choose" is unnecessary, since the rulebook tells us that the owner of the power chooses the order figures are affected. But it does add some clarification.

[NecroBlade]

GRAVITY PULL
After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. One at a time, in the order that you choose, each non-adjacent small or medium figure within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul must be placed by its controller on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack.


Sounds like "in the order that you choose" may be optional if we want to clean it up a little. Changed "owner" to "controller" on the off chance some Mind Shackle type power is in play (if your opponent steals your figure, you're still the owner, but they are the controller, and it would make more sense for them to place it than you). Gravity sounds like the kind of thing that causes you to fall, so I'm in favor of including "but will take any falling damage that may apply. Should be fun ripping defenders off walls in castle sieges.

Sound good enough for the OP?

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

GRAVITY PULL
After moving and before attacking, Ozuul may use Gravity Pull. One at a time, in the order that you choose, each non-adjacent small or medium figure within 2 clear sight spaces of Ozuul must be placed by its controller on any empty space adjacent to Ozuul, if possible. Figures moved with Gravity Pull do not take any leaving engagement attacks but will take any falling damage that may apply. After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul must use Crushing Vortex Special Attack.


Sounds like "in the order that you choose" may be optional if we want to clean it up a little. Changed "owner" to "controller" on the off chance some Mind Shackle type power is in play (if your opponent steals your figure, you're still the owner, but they are the controller, and it would make more sense for them to place it than you). Gravity sounds like the kind of thing that causes you to fall, so I'm in favor of including "but will take any falling damage that may apply. Should be fun ripping defenders off walls in castle sieges.

Sound good enough for the OP?

I know that there were some concerns raised about Gravity Pull applying falling damage, because the precedent is that placement powers do not have falling damage unless specifically noted. For newer players, this won't be obvious, and it might be confusing to then move on to the majority of powers where falling damage is not mentioned at all.

I'm not personally swayed by this concern, but it is worth noting. Dienekes already has an example of a placement power without falling damage in the set, so there might be some confusion there. I'm willing to clarify it with a R&C in his book (which we should have anyway) and a line in the rulebook, but I get that it's not ideal.

Personally, I'd like to test Ozuul with falling damage first (it'd be a fun interaction when pulling figures off of Pillars of Hár) so that we can at least get a feel for whether it really adds to the design or not. If it's mostly superfluous and the forced Crushing Vortex afterward is enough of a threat, then we can cut it.

Other than that, I really like the streamlined wording and would like to use it.

[caps]

I'm pretty happy to not apply falling damage in the name of simplicity, but if Scytale can come up with wording he's happy with (including NB's wording) I am fine with trying it to start.

[NecroBlade]

Sounds like we might want to take a vote on including falling damage here or not? If Dienekes doesn't cause falling damage, and Ozuul spells out that it does, then that could actually be a good way to illustrate the rule to players (in addition to the mandatory rulebook rules, of course).

My vote is yea, for falling damage, because gravity.

Yes (4): NecroBlade, capsocrates, Astroking112, Pumpkin_King
No (1): flameslayer93

[flameslayer93]

For simplicity’s sake, and because I don’t view the pull as something that is done so quickly that things could get hurt if they fell, I’ll vote No to Falling Damage.

[caps]

I will vote yes for falling damage but falling back to no if necessary to break a tie. I feel pretty split on this.

[Astroking112]

I'll vote yes to falling damage. If playtesting shows that it doesn't add much to the design, however, then that's the first thing that I want to cut.

[Pumpkin_King]

I'm much the same as the others. Yes, but not a strong one. It can go if need be.

[NecroBlade]

@All Your Pie hasn't voted yet, but it looks like we're including falling damage for now. Let's make sure we test with the Pillars and/or other large terrain features to see if it breaks anything.

[Captain Stupendous]

I know we're not officially in playtesting yet, so I'll just leave this here as a surprise tool that will help us later.


Map: Custom

Spoiler Alert!

Army 1 (L): Avernus, M43 Resistance Fighters x2, Hoplitron, Velnesh (400)
Army 2 (N): Ozuul, Marro Stingers x2, Ne-Gok-Sa

Which units survived?
Army 1 won after N conceded. Army 1 still had 3 Velnesh and Hoplitron. Army 2 had full life Ne-Gok-Sa

N opened with a combination of Stingers and Ozuul. I led with M43 and Avernus. Halfway through the second round I charged Avernus toward N's startzone where he killed three Stingers. The M43 did most of my heavy lifting this game, pinging Ozuul for 6 damage and killing two Stingers. After the Velnesh killed Ozuul, N conceded with only Ne-Gok-Sa left.

Turn-by-turn summary:

Spoiler Alert!

ROUND 1
N: Stingers advance a bit
L: M43 advance onto height

N: Stingers kill 1 M43
L: M43 advance, take height but miss 3 attacks vs stingers

N: Ozuul advances down east, uses gravity pull to pull an M43 but misses with the Vortex.
L: Avernus advances down middle and burns a stinger.

ROUND 2
N: Stingers drain successful. Kill 1 M43 and deal 3 wounds to Avernus.
L: M43 2 wounds to Ozuul

N: Ozuul kills 1 M43
L: Avernus charges toward enemy SZ rolls to flame two stingers, killing 1

N: Ozuul attacks Avernus to deal 1 wound
L: Avernus burns one stinger. Misses his attack

ROUND 3
L: Avernus burns a stinger. Misses an attack against Negok
N: Ozuul misses against Averus

L: M43 kill 2 stingers and miss against Negok
N: Ozuul 1 wound on Avernus

L: M43 1 wound on Ozuul
N: Stingers all dead

ROUND 4
L: M43 1 wound on Ozuul
N: Ozuul 2 wounds to kill Avernus

L: M43 1 wound Ozuul
N: Ozuul whiffs the Vortex Attack

L: M43 1 wound on Ozuul
N: Ozuul kills all three M43

ROUND 5

N: Ozuul retreats
L: Velnesh advance

N: Ozuul misses Vortex
L: Velnesh deal 2 wounds to kill Ozuul

At this point N concedes.

How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Ozuul killed 4 M43 and dealt 4 wounds to Avernus
Gravity Pull was used several times to engage M43. Despite whiffing several times, Ozuul did use Vortex to kill the last three M43 with a single attack.

Velnesh dealt 2 wounds to Avernus. If the game had been played to completion, they would have most likely dealt the majority of wounds to Ne-Gok-Sa. Shift allowed them grab some height near the end as they were advancing toward Ozuul, but it wasn’t incredibly impactful.

Any additional comments (theme, balance, fun factor with and against)?

I really like where both of these units are at right now. The Velnesh feel maybe a bit bland, but that could be that in my handful of games with them they’ve never had the opportunity to use BLINK. In a master set I also think it's perfectly fine to have a few units who aren’t crazy exciting.

Ozuul seems really fun. Despite some very poor attack rolls early in the game, he still managed to kill ~163 worth of points (4 wounds on Avernus, 4 M43). Overall I think his price could maybe come down just a bit, but not by much. I need to play with and against him more for sure though to get a feel for it. He seems like he’ll be a little trickier to play to his full potential, which is something I really like. Increasing his movement to 6 could give him more opportunities to get into the optimal position for Gravity Pull. The combination of Gravity Pull and Crushing Vortex is extremely potent (I think of it kind of like a better version of Viceron’s Bloodstorm Ritual Special Attack). Looking forward to trying both of these figures out some more.