Heirloom Pre-Release Discussion Thread

[Tai-Pan]

I can see his (Devil's Advocate) point though. I enjoy having all the HeroScape figures and playing with all of them. However, I never play a random mish-mash of subpar units. That is just asking for trouble. Last time I tried something like that, I was wiped out within two or three rounds, most of which I didn't get to play because my order markers kept falling apart.

I am a much bigger fan of getting a decent army together, but still incorporating lesser-used figures. Nobody exceeds 250 points, so that leaves at least half an army open to take something worth having.

Thematic armies are also fun because, IMO, there aren't any that are absolutely unplayable and especially if both players are doing themes, it seems fairly balanced in most cases.

[Dredd Stev]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

We'll see who ends up being right. If you are right and his advantage is real and atually useful we should start seeing him used regularly in tournaments and having high success.

If on the otherhand he is a ghost in reagrds to tournament success and his benefit is almost nothing we'll know I was right.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

In my experiences, the popular pieces are the pieces that work well, not those that gather dust. Raelin, Dragons, Q9, Q10, Krav, AE are always in demand because not only do they look cool but are strong and get results, causing others to want to use them again.

Conversely, the weak pieces get used 1 or 2 times then vanish because others don't want to be stuck with a piece that is not fun because it dies so quickly or does not accomplish much. Maybe you enjoy using junk pieces such as Brandis, Hatamoto Taro, and Shiori and hope we get more like them. I have also never seen anything like you describe with terrible units attracting new players.

Though I say it all the time and I fear it might be getting old, I'll nonetheless say it again:

There is MUCH more to Heroscape than "500point-kill em all-24 startzone- blind draft- on a BoV map" style games. Such games constitute a tournament standard to be sure, but also represent only a small fraction of the overall gameplay made possible by the build and battle system.

Granted, there are top tier figures that just preform well in many situations and particularly shine in the meta-game (as we define it) due to their versatility and abilities that get a particular spike from said metagame. That is not an indication that other figures, which seem to do less for the points are in some way "broken" or "garbage".

Consider:

Brandis Skyhunter (a hero DA seems to loath) Out side of his very nice sculpt and unique and innovative powers, is generally not much of a mainstay on the tourney scene. I get that, at 90 points he's just not a great fit into a standard tournament army core and generally the points can be used better elsewhere. I agree.

But what about a dungeon dive style game? One where you were you could only draft the DnD heroes? One where you saw that range would be very usefull at the early and late stages of the dungeon? Is he starting to look better? Think people watching that map would say, "Hey look at the ranger dropping Wyverns left and right, what a cool name and idea for a power! I'm going to have to check out this new masterset! ("Archer's Glory" is one of the best named abilities in the game if you ask me!)

Originally Posted by DA

"LOL, look how quickly my Brandis died, and he only killed 10 points! This is great, I want to use him again."

I can't stand the argument that if a figure doesn't kill at least its point cost in the course of a game that it somehow under preformed. Forgetting the fact that many figures are designed to be cheerleaders and not really do much actual combat, the value of even an offensive style figure goes far beyond merely how many points it killed. Heroscape is such a dynamic and deeply strategic game that it's down right insulting (to the game, not me. Also can a game get insulted?) to reduce one's analysis of a battle (or figure in general) to such a one dimensional line of thought.

Lets use Brandis as an example again:

You drafted him in your army and started to move him out mid-game. He's taken a few pot shots but hasn't done a damage yet then gets engaged by lets say... Finn. On his next activation you see that there is one OM on your enemies Theracus who is in position to move lets say... Syv on to some high ground. You take a risk disengage and loose an arrow at the winged steed. POP! 5skulls vs 1shield and he drops dead. With your free turn you hop on a little height and drop another arrow on whoever, say Finn, doing 1 damage. When the next markers are reviled it WAS on Theracus and now a squad of yours has the chance to reach Syv and take a few attacks.

In the above scenario Brandis only killed 40 points but probably won you the game (or at least prevented a major rain of arrows from up on the hill). Are you telling me that even if you never activated him from that point on that he wasn't "worth the draft"? How valuable a figure was in a game really does not depend on how much they killed points wise, but rather WHAT figures they killed and WHEN they killed them. And it goes even beyond that, lots of figures can more than "earn their points" by nullifying threats without actually killing the figures.

• Deathreavers won't be doing much killing, but sure help rangers get the job done.

• X17 can pin figures down and essentially remove them from the game with no further activations required (Sorry Cyp, your day is done!)

• Morsebane can turn some figures (Mimring comes to mind, Grimnack is another) into overpriced fodder.

There are many more examples of this. My point is that if you limit yourself to the "tournament" state of mind your really missing out on most of what this game has to offer. There are more styles of maps than "1v1 BoV", there are more ways of army building than "Double-Blind 500point Draft", there is more to game objectives than "Deathmatch", and there is more to the transformers than meets the eye! (That last one was kinda of topic, but I thought it was important that everyone know).

[killercactus]

Dredd Stev, you're absolutely right.

However, it seems to me at least that "kill em all" is either the preferred, or the most widely-used type of play, which is why a lot of players (myself included) tend to think in that mindset. At home, just using the draft adds a great element to that game and can get a figure like Brandis onto the table (oh - you took Cyprien and Sonya? I'm looking at Brandis).

Consider the GenCon Events this year - every one of them is either sold out already or has 1-2 tickets remaining, except these:

Treasure Quest
Capture the Flag
Heat of the Battle

2 of those 3 are the only ones at GenCon with win conditions other than "kill em all" and HoB has different placement rules. Of course, I'm signed up for 2 of those....

Scape is certainly customizable enough though that you can pretty much devise a scenario for anything.

[Kroz]

Yes, Killercactus...that's the majority HERE. We don't know about off the site. I never thought of having 500 pt battles until I found this website. They were always 600-700 then when our set grew we started to have 1K games. Also playing with little brothers, I tend to play other style games as well to keep them interested. We were playing dungeon crawl style games long before the D&D set came out.

Brandis isn't for tournaments, but in a casual game he's an excellent guy! I wouldn't mind if people would say, "Brandis isn't a good tournament figure." Saying he isn't good period is saying that he's just not good and that he'll never be good in any kind of game which isn't right.

[Grungebob]

Originally Posted by killercactus

Dredd Stev, you're absolutely right.

However, it seems to me at least that "kill em all" is either the preferred, or the most widely-used type of play, which is why a lot of players (myself included) tend to think in that mindset. At home, just using the draft adds a great element to that game and can get a figure like Brandis onto the table (oh - you took Cyprien and Sonya? I'm looking at Brandis).

Consider the GenCon Events this year - every one of them is either sold out already or has 1-2 tickets remaining, except these:

Treasure Quest
Capture the Flag
Heat of the Battle

2 of those 3 are the only ones at GenCon with win conditions other than "kill em all" and HoB has different placement rules. Of course, I'm signed up for 2 of those....

Scape is certainly customizable enough though that you can pretty much devise a scenario for anything.

The popularity of those events only shows that the folks attending Gencon are more interested in kill-em-all. It doesn't represent the Heroscape players at large. Casual HS players approach this hobby more casually than you guys here on this site. They don't feel like they have to collect everything, they don't attend conventions, they are not as concerned with continuity, and they don't feel like they need to win every game they play, and they don't come to this site daily to kibitz about Heroscape.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

With 1 attack vs 3-4 per turn, that explosion figure is likely only surviving 1-2 turns. So maybe he will mess my height up for 1-2 turns if the map is how it is described. So for 1-2 turns I don't optimize height but I get to move 3-4 figures per turn vs your 1 figure.

I suggest you look at the probability tables before you suggest that this guy can get knocked down by a stiff breeze. Against something like 4th Mass with their attack of 2 (or are you going to WTF and delay your advance while Heirloom picks off the best-placed figures? You'd be playing right into his hands), warforged resolve is pretty effective.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

There is a reason no explosion attacker who cann't attack a start zone in Turn 1 is ever seriously used or considered in designing a good army.

By you. Not seriously used or considered by you. James Murphy and Shotgun Sullivan were on the tables on day 2 of the main event last year, and James Murphy figured very prominently in the first-round win of the army he was in.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

If he had bonding or a triple attack instead of explosion he would actually be a consideration.

And he would be way, way, too strong for 90 points. Again, D_A, nobody is arguing that explosive attack is as good as a triple or even a double attack.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Although feel free to prove me wrong by winning tournaments because of Heirloom.

Because of Heirloom?

So, if I win a tournament with him, you'll just say I won despite him, right?

If a 530 point tourament comes along, any good player with three sets of gladiatrons at their disposal could win with him, against the best armies. And you would certainly not be winning despite him.

[Devil's Advocate]

Originally Posted by dok

By you. Not seriously used or considered by you. James Murphy and Shotgun Sullivan were on the tables on day 2 of the main event last year, and James Murphy figured very prominently in the first-round win of the army he was in.

And he would be way, way, too strong for 90 points.

Because of Heirloom?

So, if I win a tournament with him, you'll just say I won despite him, right?


If a 530 point tourament comes along, any good player with three sets of gladiatrons at their disposal could win with him, against the best armies. And you would certainly not be winning despite him.

-There is a reason he wasn't considered good enough to make Day 1. It took some pretty uncommon conditions for him to see play.

(Reinforcements + an Uncommon Point Boost + Counterdrafting a particular army build that happens to clump + a full starting zone from Day 1.

Not many tournaments let you see what you will be playing against and then add points to your army before you fight them.


-With bonding he wouldn't be too strong at 90 Points. He would not be better than Gilbert who bonds at 105 (with Knight) or Marcus who bonds at 100 (with Romans).



-It would be up to the battle reports to judge his impact. If you include him in your glad/blast army and he sits in the start zone picking flowers every game and is never even used 1 time it does not mean the player was vindicated in including him, it just shows that the Glad/Blast player was able to win without ever using 90 points.

[Kroz]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

-There is a reason he wasn't considered good enough to make Day 1. It took some pretty uncommon conditions for him to see play.

(Reinforcements + an Uncommon Point Boost + Counterdrafting a particular army build that happens to clump + a full starting zone from Day 1.

Not many tournaments let you see what you will be playing against and then add points to your army before you fight them.


-With bonding he wouldn't be too strong at 90 Points. He would not be better than Gilbert who bonds at 105 (with Knight) or Marcus who bonds at 100 (with Romans).



-It would be up to the battle reports to judge his impact. If you include him in your glad/blast army and he sits in the start zone picking flowers every game and is never even used 1 time it does not mean the player was vindicated in including him, it just shows that the Glad/Blast player was able to win without ever using 90 points.

I like how you've never once contested his survivability. Every time someone mentions warforged resolve you seem to skirt around it as if it never existed.

[Devil's Advocate]

It'll keep him alive longer but you also have to be able to kill something or boost other units. If staying alive was all that mattered the Zettians and Brunak would see constant play (I prefer their 7 Defense over his auto shield + 2 def).

I'd even choose NGS almost every time over Heirloom unless I am having a Treasure hunting contest.

6 Defense +5 life +Mindshackle +Bonding

vs

Resolved+ 2 Defense + 4 Life + Explosion

[Kroz]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

It'll keep him alive longer but you also have to be able to kill something or boost other units. If staying alive was all that mattered the Zettians and Brunak would see constant play (I prefer their 7 Defense over his auto shield + 2 def).

I'd even choose NGS almost every time over Heirloom unless I am having a Treasure hunting contest.

6 Defense +5 life +Mindshackle +Bonding

vs

Resolved+ 2 Defense + 4 Life + Explosion

The point is that you say that he would die quickly as a point in your argument and then when someone would actually show that you were wrong you wouldn't say anything and just ignore it. Pick one...is he easy to kill or hard to kill?

[Devil's Advocate]

Against sustained attacks he'll die relatively quickly.

Altough against me he would last a long time since I would ignore him and hope my opponent keeps liiting himself to 1 attack per turn while I attack the rest of his army with 4attacks per turn.

[falls78]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

It'll keep him alive longer but you also have to be able to kill something or boost other units. If staying alive was all that mattered the Zettians and Brunak would see constant play (I prefer their 7 Defense over his auto shield + 2 def).

I'd even choose NGS almost every time over Heirloom unless I am having a Treasure hunting contest.

6 Defense +5 life +Mindshackle +Bonding

vs

Resolved+ 2 Defense + 4 Life + Explosion

Why can't you just have fun?

Why do you need each character to be the greatest ever or not exist at all?

You have such a narrow view of each unit and their intended uses it is a mystery to me why you would even want to play this game.