The Book of Black Swan

[Yodaking]

Alright then, I have an Ozy and a Namor army build in mind I'll test.

[Ronin]

Might not be quite bright enough to be optimal, but I got these pics:

Spoiler Alert!

[Yodaking]

Spoiler Alert!

NAME = BLACK SWAN
SECRET IDENTITY = YABBAT UMMON TURRU
SPECIES = UNKNOWN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = DESTROYER
PERSONALITY = NIHILIST
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 5
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 4
ATTACK = 5
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 300

BLACK COUNSEL
At the start of the game, you may choose any Unique Hero on the battlefield that is a King or Visionary. For the entire game, the chosen Hero has the class of Destroyer instead of what is listed on its card.

THE BLACK ORDER
After revealing an Order Marker on the card of Thanos or a Unique Destroyer in your army and before taking any turns or using any other special powers, if there are no unrevealed Order Markers on that card, you may take a turn with Black Swan. You may not take any additional turns with other figures.

EVERYTHING DIES
Once per game, after initiative is rolled, you may subtract X from all opponents' initiative rolls. X is the number of Unique Heroes in the game that are destroyed.

SUPER STRENGTH
FLYING

NAME OF THE TEST UNIT (Black Swan)
Army Test 1
- Give a brief preview. Pretty straightforward idea here, Ozy steals an OM from the opponent each round while Thanos is the beat stick. Thanos will get all the OM’s other than those Ozy needs, than Black Swan can bond with Thanos on his last turn of the round and when Ozy has to take his turn he’ll just lurk in the background while Black Swan gets a turn. This 1000 point Merc squad has been pretty hot for me (they just may be undefeated at the moment) so we’ll see if Thanos & Black Swan can shut them down. Deadpool will have to give up the X in this game until Ozy goes down, so Silver Samurai will be on a mission to kill Ozy.
Map: Pools and Hills
Units: Thanos (C3G), Black Swan@300, Ozy (1000) vs. Deadpool, Silver Samurai, Domino, Yukio, Yakuza x2 (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Black Council Usage: Made Ozy a Destroyer.
The Black Order Usage: 10 bonded turns out of 18 #ed OM revealed on other cards while she was alive.
Everything Dies Usage: Didn’t use, was waiting until the death count was higher in the early game then forgot about it late game since they were dominating and I never felt the pressure to try and win an initiative roll as a result.
Normal Damage Dealt: 2W on Yakuza A next to Bush in 1 att. from LG, 5W on Silver Samurai next to Bush in 6 att. from LG, 0W on Domino next to Bush in 2 att., 2W on Deadpool in 1 att.
Damage Taken: 0W from 2 att. by Deadpool.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Thanos (2nd life), Black Swan, & Ozy all at full health won.

Recap: Thanos & Black Swan wiped out the Yakuza without expending much effort at all, but then Thanos found himself struggling to wound Yukio while Silver Samurai sliced him up. Thanos ended up KOing Yukio and ending the Merc’s bonding turns, then hung on to life with 6W for a long time, holding up the Silver Samurai’s desires to go after Ozy and putting a hurting on Domino. Black Swan wasn’t having much luck in the attacks department during this time, but the odds weren’t really in her favor for the most part so not a big surprise. Ozy stealing OM’s really hut the Mercs though. Then suddenly Black Swan gets a hit through and Silver Samurai is reeling from the blow. Silver Samurai pulls himself together and finally puts down Thanos for the first time, but then he rolls just 1 shield on 7 defense dice for the second time in a row and falls to Back Swan. Thanos comes back into play and immediately finishes off Domino. Deadpool tries to make a run around to hopefully reach Ozy, but Thanos and Balck Swan take him out before he can get there.
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes, although I’m thinking the Black Order power should have some kind of range restriction on the bonding. Being able to bond with both Thanos on the front lines and Ozy in the SZ at the same time was pretty good.
- What should be the unit's point value? The magnitude of this win is a bit concerning here for me, I’ve been running this Merc team and they have been really strong up until this game. Much of the win can be contributed to Ozy stealing OM’s and Thanos refusing to die the first time out disrupting the Mercs ability to get across the board to threaten Ozy, but even so Black Swan bonding with both gave their team a lot of extra die to throw. A range restriction on the bonding might have forced either her or Ozy closer to the action and thus made this winning combo a little more vulnerable, but it would have to be in the 4/5 range as she was basically sitting half way in between the two. She may have been 6 spaces away from both the whole time.
_____________________________________________________________
Army Test 2
- Give a brief preview. I wanted really focus in on the Black Order power since we are building a faction around it, while also seeing how the power works out with Doomsday. Doomsday will lead the attack with all the OM’s and try to force the MoE to attack him, once Doomsday goes down, then Black Swan and the other Destroyers will share OM’s with Doomsday and try to bring him back without giving up much. Using a MoE army for them to contend with, Executioner should help with Doomsday’s big defense, so he might get targeted often by the Destroyers.
Map: Pools and Hills
Units: Black Swan@300, Namor, Doomsday, Shadow Demon x2 (1200) vs. Baron Zemo, Enchantress II, Enchant Spell, Executioner, Crimson Dynamo, Swordsman (1200)

Spoiler Alert!

Black Council Usage: Made Namor a Destroyer.
The Black Order Usage: 4 bonded turns out of 5 #ed OM revealed on other cards while she was alive.
Everything Dies Usage: Killed before she could use this power.
Normal Damage Dealt: 2W to Executioner in 3 att.
Damage Taken: 6W from Executioner in 3 att. (1 extra).
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Executioner w/5Ws, Amora w/1W, Zemo @full health, & Dynamo (unused) win.

Recap: After Namor jumps into a pool of water, Doomsday leaps across the board and drops a tree on Swordsman. The MoE saw what happened in the last game though and opted to ignore Doomsday, instead Executioner used his Ice Axe to teleport himself and Swordsman across the board next to Black Swan. She bonded with Doomsday though to at least move up to even ground and nailed Executioner for 2W, while Doomsday hit Enchantress for 1W. Next round Zemo glue traps Doomsday, but Black Swan still bonds and continues to battle Executioner. Namor leaps out of the water to try and save her but fails to do so. Black Swan is the first casualty of the game on R2T3. Since Executioner is was out in front and in the thick of battle, Zemo just keeps ordering him to swing that axe and he does so to devastating effect. A shadow demon loses his head to one swing, than Namor nearly loses an arm. Swordsman goes down, than Executioner drops 8 skulls on Namor and hews him in half. The next victim on the Executioners list is the last shadow demon and he takes that one’s wrist off with one swipe, the shadow demon then flees into a pool of water trying to hide there while Doomdays makes a comeback. Amora has other plans though and charms Doomsday into super leaping next to the shadow demon and finishing him off with a perfect 4 skull att. Amora then hits Doomsday for 3W from HG. Doomsday tries to at least finish off the wounded Executioner, but only wounds him further. Zemo moves up to be in range to use his glue trap and the Executioner adds Doomsday to his list of kills on this day.
- Does it pass, Yes or No? yes
- What should be the unit's point value? A big loss after a big win doesn’t help too much in narrowing down the cost, but it does make me feel better about the design’s balance. The difference in game impact between the two matches and their outcome are knight and day. Black Swan, as the lone bonder for the team of destroyers, was targeted and taken down first in the loss after bonding her way through the whole first game. Also this was by far the finest hour Executioner has ever produced for me, and he only bonded with Amora on the first time being activated out of the SZ. After that he had Ice Axe teleported too far away to bond with. He just drew blood with every single swing of his ax and as a result Zemo kept feeding him turns.

Final Thoughts: She has some pretty solid stats to have bonded to heavy hitters like Thanos, Doomsday, and to an extent Namor (who can throw down 8 dice himself in the right situation). Bonding with Ozy, while Ozy chose not to take a turn, was pretty significant too so I can imagine how good it would have been had Doomsday died before her in the second game. Since she was the only one in both Destroyer armies with the Black Order power, I was making an effort to keep her back on the second line of attack (using her range) in an effort to protect her and her bonding. Once we have multiple Black Order figures in the same army, they each can be played more aggressively as one loss won’t put an end to the Destroyer bonding. As such I’m a little concerned about how good Thanos and the Black Order could be. In the first game she bonded 10 out of 18 times (and took 2 turns with an OM herself) and the Destroyers dominated, in the second game she only 4 times and went down first. The second team definitely learned from the first match here though, as Thanos eliminated the Merc’s 3 bonding options before going after the Mercs themselves and it had an impact, then that is what the MoE did in the 2nd game, eliminating Black Swan first then dealing with the other Destroyers as single attack heroes. A whole team of Black Order powered figures won’t be as easy to eliminate the bonding from. It should also be noted that the second game saw a reversal on who was losing OM’s. Ozy was stealing OM’s in the first game to help the Destroyers, but in the second game it was Zemo with his Glue Trap that robbed the Destroyers of a few activations.

[Ronin]

Hmm. Big win, big loss. Definitely agree that she likes to kite right now. I think she'll always retain some of that even as the Black Order expands, since you want to keep her alive for the potential of the big initiative boost late game, and she won't be the best hitter of the bunch.

Maybe feeling a small cost bump based on the Ozy game, and to account for her synergy web still developing.

[Ronin]

Bumped her up to 320 for your games @MrNobody

[MrNobody]

I already played one but I’ll go for 320 on game #2.

[Ronin]

Fair enough. Thanks!

[MrNobody]

Here ya go!

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Black Swan

Army Test
Map: Draugur (No glyphs and snow and ice are not heavy)
Units: Team 1 (1,160): Black Swan (300), Thanos (Hasbro) (360), Gamora (II) (300), Black Panther (200)
Team 2 (1,160): Captain America (C3G) (240), Bucky (60), Iron Man (Avengers) (270), Axe Cop (250), B&C&T&R (230), Oracle (110)

Spoiler Alert!

Round 1: T2 wins initiative (because of their boosts)
-Thanos gives Iron Man 3 wounds
-Ringo gets a Nope Marker
-Black Swan kills Iron Man
-Ted gives Black Swan 4 wounds

Round 2: T1 wins initiative
-Black Swan pops off Ted’s head
-Thanos takes off Bob’s head
-Axe Cop kills Black Swan
-Ted gives Gamora 3 wounds
-Bob gives Thanos 2 wounds
-Carol kills Gamora
-T1 loses a turn from having an OM on Gamora
-Axe Cop gives Thanos 2 wounds

Round 3: T2 wins initiative
-Bob and Ted die
-Cap kills Thanos
-T1 loses a turn from having an OM on Thanos
-Bucky gets a Nope Marker
-Axe Cop gives Black Panther a wound
-T1 loses a turn from having an OM on Thanos
-Axe Cop gives Black Panther 2 wounds


Round 4: T1 wins initiative
-Thanos comes back
-Panther kills Bucky
-Panther gives Axe Cop 2 wounds
-Cap kills Panther
-T1 loses a turn from having an OM on Panther
-Cap gives Thanos 4 wounds

Round 5: T1 wins initiative
-Thanos kills Axe Cop
-Cap finishes off Thanos


Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Captain America (0/5 wounds), Oracle (0/4 wounds), Carol, Ringo

There was lots of swingy luck and big hits here, but I feel like both teams had about equal luck. I don't think Black Panther was the right choice for Counsel, he just couldn't really bring much to the table. Black Swan didn't get to use her Everything Dies power. Since she was the only real source of synergy, T1 really struggled once she was gone.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Mogo
Units: Team 1 (780): Black Swan (320), Ozymandias (200), Shadow Demon x2 (260)
Team 2 (780): Green Arrow (150), Red Arrow (150), Black Canary (190), Batgirl (Cassie) (130), Robin (Damian) (80), Alfred (60), Skrull Infiltrator x2 (20)

Spoiler Alert!

Pre-game: Shadow Demons are referred to by color; red and blue

Round 1: Ozy takes the 2 OM, T1 wins initiative
-Red Arrow shoots Black Swan for a wound

Round 2: Ozy steals the 2 OM, T1 wins initiative
-Black Swan gives Canary 2 wounds
-Black Canary gets a lucky hit in and kills Swan
-Canary gets ANOTHER lucky hit and kills the blue Demon
-Damian gives the red Demon 2 wounds

Round 3: Ozy steals the 3 OM, T2 wins initiative
-Alfred extracts Canary
-The red Demon gives Robin 2 wounds

Round 4: Ozy steals the 1 OM, T1 wins initiative
-Robin kills the red Demon
-Ozy gives Batgirl 2 wounds

Round 5: Ozy steals the 1 OM, T1 wins initiative
-Ozy gives Batgirl a wound
-Green Arrow rolls a 20 on Skill Shot and gives Ozy 3 wounds
-Batgirl counterstrikes Ozy for a wounds
-Black Canary kills Ozy

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Green Arrow (0/4 wounds), Red Arrow (0/4 wounds), Black Canary (1/4 wounds), Batgirl (3/4 wounds), Robin (2/3 wounds), Alfred (0/3 wounds)

This was just a really unlucky game for T1. Black Canary straight-up murdered Black Swan and a Shadow Demon, and it was all downhill from there. Again, Black Swan did not get to use her Everything Dies power.

___________________________________________________________

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: I think she'll be much more effective once there's more of a Black Order faction, but right now I'm not feeling she's worth where she's at. Though I do want to note that in both my games, she got really unlucky and died, probably earlier than she usually would. I also played her as a front-liner, while it looks like YK had more success playing her just behind the front line.

Picking up Ozymandias as Council felt a lot more effective than Black Panther. Black Order is obviously great, and lets you take turns with 2 heavy hitters in one turn. In both games, she died before she could use Everything Dies.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: Again, I think she'll be more exciting when she has the rest of the Black Order with her. Once you get into the actual game, her powerset isn't very crazy, but I don't think it really needs to be as long as she has some fun allies. Overall, I'm excited for her as a building block in a new faction.

[Ronin]

Thanks, Nobody!

That puts her at a 3-4 record overall. (1 big win, 1 moderate win, 1 close win, 2 big losses, 2 moderate losses)

Not sure if we want another set of tests with her kiting again, since Nobody didn't play her that way, or if we're comfortable moving her forward at 300-320. She will see a lot more faction testing as The Black Order synergy develops. Definitely not releasing her before we have a few more of those guys.

Open to thoughts.

[Yodaking]

Since we are not pressed to release her anytime soon, I'd consider just waiting on a final number once we can test her with other members of the Black Order.

[Ronin]

Yeah, we'll want to be able to make adjustments once we can test her with the other Black Order members for sure. Still need to figure out our estimate going into editing, for testing with the others, though.

[Yodaking]

I guess my current thoughts are that testing her with the 500 point Thanos, the Infinity Gauntlet Thanos, Ozy, & Doomsday would give us the most insight into how good she might be when surrounded by other members of the Black Order. The two Thanos cards because they can have a pretty big game impact without bonding, and the other two because she can give you a turn from an OM that might otherwise not have resulted in any attack dice being rolled. So maybe have one more set of tests focusing in on those team-ups and settle on a future testing price after looking at them.