The Book of Shriek

[Ronin]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Shriek

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Shriek @160, Icicle, Harley Quinn (I) (440) vs Batwoman, Batgirl (Babs), Nite Owl (440)

Spoiler Alert!

Kind of a mixed bag for Shriek here in the first round: she moved up for free and claimed a Glyph of Orbital Laser Control, and her defense subtraction resulted in Icicle dealing 1 extra wound each to Batgirl and Batwoman: the latter was just enough to destroy her! Unfortunately, her defense subtraction also resulted in 1 extra wound to Icicle, which killed him. Shriek herself took two wounds from Nite Owl.

Shriek got taken down at the start of the second round by Nite Owl, taking an OM with her. She had been hoping to get in a bonding turn with Harley, but no such luck. Harley managed to finish off Batgirl on her own, but then Nite Owl took her down on a botched defense roll.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): not used
• Psycho Love: moved 3 times. Claimed a Glyph of Orbital Laser Control.
• Sonic Disorientation: subtracted 1 die from Batgirl's defense 2 times, 1 die from Batwoman's attack 2 times (both against Icicle's Ice Darts SA). Subtracted 1 die from Icicle's defense 1 time.
• Maximum Carnage: had to plan mobilization a bit to avoid compelling her own guys to attack her.
• Damage Taken: 0 wounds from Batwoman in 1 attack, 0 wounds from Batgirl in 1 attack, 2 wounds from Nite Owl in 2 attacks

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Nite Owl unwounded

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Shriek @160, Carnage (440) vs Batwoman, Batgirl (Babs), Nite Owl (440)

Spoiler Alert!

Okay, bigger showing for Team Shriek this time. Carnage and Shriek moved up and on their first turn in the action, Carnage beefed it and didn't do any damage. Batwoman responded by failing to damage him in turn, and then Nite Owl popped Shriek for a wound. Then it was Carnage's turn again and he, thanks to Shriek's defense nerf, dealt exactly enough wounds to destroy Batwoman. Then because of Kill Crazy he got a second attack and OHKOed Nite Owl as well (Shriek's defense nerf didn't matter for that one, Carnage just rolled a ton of skulls).

Batgirl hit Shriek for a wound before Carnage ended the game, but the writing was on the wall once Batwoman went down.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): not used
• Psycho Love: moved 2 times.
• Sonic Disorientation: subtracted 1 defense die from Batwoman 2 times (resulting in 1 extra wound to Batwoman and her destruction). Subtracted 1 defense die from Nite Owl 1 time (no difference in number of wounds). Subtracted 1 defense die from Batgirl 2 times (resulting in 1 extra wound).
• Maximum Carnage: mobilization wasn't as tricky this time since Carnage is short-range.
• Damage Taken: 1 wound from Nite Owl in 1 attack, 1 wound from Batgirl in 1 attack

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Shriek with 2 wounds, Carnage unwounded

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Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Shriek @160, Carnage, Star-Lord, Harley Quinn (I) (820) vs Captain America, Bucky, Venom (C3G), Agent Venom, Atom (820)

Spoiler Alert!

Psycho Guardians had a rough start here: Bucky had the most wildly successful Machine Gun SA I've ever seen (1 wound each to Harley and Star-Lord, 2 wounds each to Shriek and Carnage), and Agent Venom put a couple additional wounds on Carnage. The Insane Gang retaliated hard, though, with Carnage getting a big attack in and Harley dropping a Shriek-enhanced Smilex. Between them, they destroyed Agent Venom and Atom, and put three wounds on Venom. At the end of the round, Captain America called down a laser with the Glyph of Orbital Laser Control and wounded Harley, Carnage and Shriek as well as Bucky. The wounds realy dropped hard and heavy in this one.

Cap dropped Carnage on the first turn of the next round, and then Venom finished Shriek. Harley and Star-Lord couldn't quite hack it in clean-up and Symbiote Avengers won the day.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack):
• Psycho Love: moved 1 time.
• Sonic Disorientation: subtracted 1 die from Star-Lord's defense 1 time (no additional wounds). Subtracted 2 dice from Agent Venom's defense 2 times (no additional wounds). Subtracted 2 dice from Venom's defense 1 time (2 additional wounds). Subtracted 1 die from Captain America's defense 1 time (no additional wounds).
• Maximum Carnage: didn't directly come into play. Dictated mobilization for both teams (Venom had to curtail his movement a bit to avoid being forced to attack Atom)
• Damage Taken: 2 wounds from Bucky in 1 special attack & 1 normal attack, 1 wound from Glyph of Orbital Laser Control, 1 wound from Venom in 1 attack (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Venom with 4 wounds, Captain America unwounded

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Initial in progress. Ran the two smaller games I was thinking about. Feeling alright as a support piece so far. Not super dynamic, because she mainly does her thing passively, but "flying around and whammying people while Carnage brutalizes them" is pretty much on point. I think she'll have more occasion to get directly involved in bigger games, though. Still not 100% sure what I'm doing in game four, but I wanted to run her with Joker once.

Planning on wrapping up this weekend.

[Ronin]

Okay, I ran game three here, and I wanted to pump the brakes and do a little refactor.

I think Maximum Carnage isn't really working for me as-is. I expected it to only come into play every so often, but it feels even rarer than I expected, and that makes it super easy to overlook. It just feels like an element that's going to make the card difficult to play correctly, and isn't hugely impactful even when it's remembered.

Distinctly missing from the card, though, are Shriek's motherly impulses and focus on found family (of monsters).... I think she could use a little something to represent that side of the character and bring it through.

She also pseudo-adopts Carrion and Demogoblin during that story, but Doppelganger (the six-armed Spider-Man monster there) is the one she was tightest with; he actually genuinely thinks of her as his mom and they show up together a lot to this day.

Not sure what I'd do to play up that side of the character yet, so I'll plan on testing Wonder Woman while I mull it over. Totally open to any thoughts here!

[Karat]

Well, mothers are usually protective. So maybe something that let's her either take an attack for someone else or gets an attack boost when attacking a figure that wounded a member of her family.

[IAmBatman]

She definitely does seem protective in that comic.

If you wanted to resurrect Maximum Carnage, you could always limit it to your figures only and add an attack boost to it. Having to attack + attacking harder feels more like carnage to me.

But, yeah, I'm not sure if forcing players to attack does much most of the time because ... that's kind of what I want to do on my turn anyway, and if I'm within 4 spaces of Shriek there's a pretty good chance I can target her.

I guess if you run her against TMNT and/or with stoppers like Jean Grey there's a chance of forcing someone to hit their own people, but you'd really have to build around that for it to be reliable, I think.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

But, yeah, I'm not sure if forcing players to attack does much most of the time because ... that's kind of what I want to do on my turn anyway, and if I'm within 4 spaces of Shriek there's a pretty good chance I can target her.

I guess if you run her against TMNT and/or with stoppers like Jean Grey there's a chance of forcing someone to hit their own people, but you'd really have to build around that for it to be reliable, I think.

For sure. And I expected that effect to some degree, but it's a little more prominent than I realized, and the overlookability of it kinda sinks the idea for me.

After mulling it over, I was kinda thinking about doing an OM rescue/freak-out effect (a la Sif), but we did just do something like that on Red Wolf so I'm leery of going back to the same well too many times. Maybe change it up a bi to be a little more 'actively protective' instead of just avenging someone, though?

Whenever a [whatever our tag for Shriek's kiddos is] in your army receives one or more wounds, you may choose to immediately move all Order Markers from that Hero's card to this card. If you do, for the rest of the round, Shriek rolls one additional die when attacking figures adjacent to that Hero.

So it lets her save OMs on destruction, but also lets her bail her kids out when they become unsafe places for OMs.

[IAmBatman]

I would just give her the straight up extra attack. The theme holds if her kiddo is destroyed and she's seeking vengeance or if she has to try to fight her way out of engagement with a different figure to get to her kiddos. So the conditional aspect really isn't needed thematically, IMO, and mechanically she's not so tough an attacker that I'm worried about her getting an unconditional +1 attack in those instances.

[johnny139]

I do think the "saving OMs" power is a well we've been going to a lot recently. But it's thematic here.

I guess mechanically, what armies are we wanting her to gel with? What weaknesses would a Carnage/Doppelganger/Demogoblin/Carrion army have? I'm assuming OM flexibility would be a big one, since none of them are OM management types, so that might be appropriate here.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I would just give her the straight up extra attack. The theme holds if her kiddo is destroyed and she's seeking vengeance or if she has to try to fight her way out of engagement with a different figure to get to her kiddos. So the conditional aspect really isn't needed thematically, IMO, and mechanically she's not so tough an attacker that I'm worried about her getting an unconditional +1 attack in those instances.

Originally Posted by johnny139

I do think the "saving OMs" power is a well we've been going to a lot recently. But it's thematic here.

I guess mechanically, what armies are we wanting her to gel with? What weaknesses would a Carnage/Doppelganger/Demogoblin/Carrion army have? I'm assuming OM flexibility would be a big one, since none of them are OM management types, so that might be appropriate here.

I think my concern with just the extra attack is that without some kind of other tweak that makes her more apt to get an OM or an activation, it's not apt to amount to much (unless you're talking about a fairly significant attack boost).

Like johnny's getting at, her most thematic allies aren't OM management types and I like encouraging that, mechanically, more than I like the idea of encouraging builds that feature a top-down OM manager.

As an alternative to the straight-up OM save, you could do something more like:

After revealing an Order Marker on the card of a Unique [kiddo] Hero you control and instead of taking a turn with that Hero, you may take a turn with Shriek. During this turn, Shriek may [add to her attack number against figures adjacent to the kiddo she's bailing out, or maybe allow her to attack all figures adjacent to the Hero she's bailing out, whichever. Possibly Starfire-style boost-per-wound on the kiddo effect].

That actually feels like it hits the protective theme a little better for me than the OM save version, while still hitting the right sort of factional mechanic.

[IAmBatman]

Actually I was just saying to do exactly what you had, just not to restrict the attack boost based on whom she attacked any.

But I like what you've got there. You could do an add to her movement based on figures engaged with kiddo, ala Raven, and then let her attack all figures she's engaged with that turn.

[Ronin]

Oh, gotcha, my misunderstanding.

I think I prefer the second direction anyhow as well, though. She's already moving for free with Psycho Love (and wants to be fairly front-line with Sonic Disorientation), so I'm not sure if the Raven-style extra move would be a big deal.

[IAmBatman]

Probably my incomplete wording, looking back. I blame lazy phone posting.

But, yeah, I think you hit the theme better with this newer take.

[Ronin]

Okay, so right now

After revealing an Order Marker on the card of a Unique [kiddo] Hero you control and instead of taking a turn with that Hero, you may take a turn with Shriek. During this turn, Shriek rolls one additional attack die against figures adjacent to that Hero.

Big question with this direction is to figure out how we're marking out the kiddos.... Carrion, Doppelganger, and Demogoblin don't really have an easy, obvious class or personality overlap. Personality especially would be hard to unify the tag on... you'd need something like "Ferocious, Sadistic, or Insane".

Class-wise, I don't know, maybe there's something you could fold them all into, but nothing intuitive jumps out at me. They're all monsters, but monsters of very different stripes.