The Book of Mister Zsasz

[IAmBatman]

The Book of Mister Zsasz

C3G DC WAVE 12
LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT

Comic PDF

Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Repainted Horroclix figure from The Lab set.
Its model number and name are #079-081 / Vat-Grown Clone.

Tutorial on How to Paint this Figure

_________________________________________________________________
Character Bio - “Victor Zsasz was the head of his own international company and had amassed a large personal fortune in addition to his family's wealth. At the age of 25 his parents died in a boating accident, sending him into a deep depression. He turned to gambling, losing money in competitions around the world. One night, he ended up in a Gotham City casino, where he gambled everything he owned and ended up losing it all to the Penguin; afterwards he saw that his life was empty, driven by desire, and there was no point to his existence. While he was attempting to commit suicide by jumping from Gotham Bridge, a homeless man tried to assault him with a knife after he refused to give him money. Instinctively grabbing the knife, Zsasz saw in the man's eyes that all life is meaningless and that nothing nor anyone matters. He then proceeded to stab the man to death as a 'gift' for saving his life. From then on, he dedicated himself to 'liberating' others from their pointless existence (Zsasz often refers to victims as 'zombies'). He usually preys on young women, but has no qualms over whom he murders. He slits his victims' throats and leaves them in lifelike poses, adding a tally mark to himself each time. He has been diagnosed as insane and is regularly incarcerated in Arkham Asylum courtesy of Batman, breaking out on occasion to carry on killing.” (Wikipedia 2012).
_________________________________________________________________

-Rulings and Clarifications-

• N/A

_________________________________________________________________

-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• As a Human, Mister Zsasz has these Human Synergies.
• As an Insane figure, Mister Zsasz has these Insane Synergies.

Outgoing Synergy:

• N/A

_________________________________________________________________

-Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses-

Immunities

• As a figure with the Insane personality, Mister Zsasz cannot be affected by aspects of certain special powers. Special Powers that Interact Differently with Insane Figures.

Benefits

• As a figure with the Insane personality, Mister Zsasz interacts differently with certain special powers. Special Powers that Interact Differently with Insane Figures.

Weaknesses

• N/A

_________________________________________________________________

-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• As an Insane figure, Mister Zsasz is immune to a number of abilities, such as Beast's Negotiation and Yellow Lantern (Thaal Sinestro)'s Force of Fear Special Attack.

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: (IAmBatman)
• Second playtest: (TrollBrute)
• Third playtest: (Flame Gryphon)
• Art: Mini Photos/Comic Art/Background
• Art by tcglkn

[IAmBatman]

NAME = MISTER ZSASZ
SECRET IDENTITY = VICTOR ZSASZ

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = PSYCHOPATH
PERSONALITY = INSANE

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 2
DEFENSE = 5

POINTS = 100

KILL COUNT
After Mister Zsasz destroys an adjacent enemy figure, you may place one white Tally Marker on this card, if possible. After attacking for the first time this turn, Mister Zsasz may attack one additional time for each Tally Marker on this card. You may place a maximum of three Tally Markers on this card.

DEADLY STRIKE
When attacking with Mister Zsasz, each skull rolled counts as an additional hit.

[IAmBatman]

[IAmBatman]

I'm interested in knowing if you prefer Option A or Option B in the SP. The amount of markers can be adjusted as necessary for balance (though I'm all about more if we can do it, thematically speaking).

[tcglkn]

I personally prefer B.

[Margloth]

Originally Posted by tcglkn

I personally prefer B.

He basically just shanks people to death, right? I don't see a massive attack.

EDIT: also, can you make the dick bubble picture go away?

[IAmBatman]

Sure, that wasn't the best art option either.

I originally worked out Option A with GP, and really liked the tons of markers he could put on (this guy is Kill Crazy to quote another power name), but I was tossing it around in my head today and put together Option B because I wasn't sure if the massive attack would be very thematic either. So, yeah, I'm probably leaning towards Option B as well right now. If folks continue to pile on there, it's where I'll almost certainly go post breathing period.

Feel free to comment on the individual options as well if there's anything you like/dislike/hate about the option you prefer (especially if it's Option B).

[Hahma]

Cool stuff Bats The only time I've ever heard of this guy was while playing Arkham City on X-Box 360. A payphone would ring at different places in the city and if you choose to have Bats answer it, it would be this guy and it would send you on a side mission where Batman would have to reach another certain payphone by a set amount of time or Zsasz would kill a hostage he was holding. Crazy stuff for sure.

So I don't know how much of a badass he is suppose to be when fighting, but this write-up has him as a pretty badass fighter. Is he trained in martial arts and is wicked nasty with his knife or is he just a nutjob with a knife?

Ruthless Counterstrike is for a badass fighter that is well trained and isn't so concerned about some fighting etiquette, or good guy rules. Huntress has it, but her defense if 5 when she's adjacent to a friendly figure and down to 4 when she's not adjacent to a friendly figure, so Zsasz will more than likely have 2 more defense dice to roll than Huntress does and that's without any boost for height or Cap or whatever, and Huntress has done some nasty things over the years with that RCS and 4 defense dice only.

So I guess the question for me is, I's this guy that good where he will be putting a ton of auto-wounds on melee only units that could be double his cost? Should Shang-Chi or Iron Fist be getting owned by this guy when he rolls a 3 skulls on average while defending against their attack?

Then that will bring in some swing potential where he will be super killer deadly vs. normal attacking melee units, but be able to get owned by ranged units.

Now as far as option A or B:

Option A wouldn't be really rewarding until he kills a lot of units because deadly strike is better than a straight up attack of 3 and about the same as an attack of 4 unless he has height with deadly strike and 3 dice. So it would be great against melee squaddies, but not so useful when only there are only a few unique heroes in the opposing army. So he'd really have to either kill a lot of squaddies.

Option B is kind of the opposite in a sense. It can be brutal against a single hero opponent if he gets several deadly strike attacks against them. Or if he is surrounded by squaddies, he can attack several of them. But then again, if the opponent only sends in one squaddie at a time against him, the extra attacks could be wasted.

So I guess it's more of a matter of where you would like his theme to be tied to and how each would work differently in being nasty in one situation but useless in others.

Again, not knowing him, I don't know where he should be at theme-wise or power level wise.

[Margloth]

I really think he's looking pretty good. He can get hella nasty, but shouldn't be too hard to take down.

Another option to keep tons of tally markers would be to have a base 1 attack, so he has to 'start small' and shank civilians before really becoming a threat to mid-levels.

Plus, 5-6 attacks of a single attack die that's doubled feels very much like a shanking attack to me. It might not always do damage, and it's not instantly fatal, but have to fend off a flurry of stabbing thrusts and eventually something will (likely) slip through.

[Hahma]

I guess the only problem with that is that he's going to have to be able to get close to a lot of weaker melee units to ever kill enough to make it worth it.

[Griffin]

Option B please! A potential attack of 8! A Defense of 6! Are you off your meds?

I thought a move of 6 was questionable, but I feel like I may need to pick my battles here. This guys shanks people.... that is it. I think you are really glorifying and complicating what should be a very simple figure. I can support kill markers because that is what he does, but feel that the Counter Strike power is really off here IMO, and the card just feels far too heavy for a serial knife killer.

Reel this one WAY back IMO.

[IAmBatman]

Hahma - I originally had normal Counter Strike here, but then I thought more that this guy really is a ruthless and merciless killer who, with only a knife and almost no clothing, can battle Batman effectively in hand-to-hand combat, so I thought Ruthless Counter Strike was a better fit. Had I thought about it, I would have moved the defense to 5, though, so I agree it should go down for sure. Maybe even 4.

I'm definitely going for Option B here. I could go for Move of 5 too, Griff. That's fine.