Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[Dysole]

M.A.R.S. or What Happens When You Give a Robot the Fireball Spell

Balance

M.A.R.S.A.T.T.A.C.K.S. can be absolutely crushing with a hot run of dice but if you can engage him quickly he can be pretty effectively neutered. 3 life doesn't give a ton of options for disengagement and 5 defense (or 7 in a Raelin aura) can definitely hold up to some abuse but not a ton and the risk of blowing yourself up when attacking adjacent figures is very real. 4 move makes it hard to kite with him which is very good with the potent special attack he has. He costs a bit less than Executioner and a bit more than X17 but both have Hoplitron bonding (and Executioner has Zettian Infantry bonding) and the “all or nothing” nature of the explosion special and his survivability feel about right to be between those two.

Theme

Looking at the figure, some kind of multi attack missile shot was absolutely needed. Given the simple power that matches the chaotic destruction of Valkrill and the color scheme, it's hard to see this figure as anything but Valkrill. I also do appreciate the different naming convention although more abbreviations might be difficult down the road if other Valkrill soulborgs show up. My one quibble is Militaristic which I don't love but I can buy it. It feels just a little too orderly for Valkrill but it's not a deal breaker.

Creativity

Less is more. It's an explosion power but it has two targets. It's not anything shiny or fancy but reusing previous powers with a simple tweak is sometimes much more interesting than trying to do too much with something new. 4 attack normal attack gives you a decent option if the explosion is suboptimal or you really need to kill the unit barreling toward you. While it's not a power that oozes creativity, I appreciate the restraint to not add in a frill to the package and I think it does a lot with the few words it puts down.

Playability

Two builds really shone for M.A.R.S.N.E.E.D.S.M.O.M.S. One army is Cultists and Raelin. Raelin and a screen was the first army I tried, but typically with screens you're worried about hitting them and killing them with the explosion. With Cultists (especially ones in Raelin's aura), you're not nearly worried since they will almost certainly be more likely to survive M.A.R.S.B.A.R.S. blitzkrieg bombing of the countryside.

The other army core is just a bunch of Hounds. Their 5 defense can usually survive any bombs, the robot is immune to Plague, and if you decide to target a Hound, being double spaced allows more figures to be hit. I like that his best builds are some lower tier units rather than a typical rats + Raelin + range army.

None of the top armies are worried about the Cultist army although it can pull off some wins. While M.A.R.S.E.I.L.L.E.S. can decimate armies the top armies usually have enough pieces to either sneak past the screen and tie him up or just power their way through the Cultist screen. Any ranged pieces can usually take shots at him or Raelin and then you have to choose between tying up those figures with Cultists or just firebombing them. There are some armies that would struggle against this build (mostly 3 figure melee squad armies without bonding) but it won't be breaking the meta as too many good armies have answers.

The Hounds build might be a bit better but that's probably because Hounds are a bit better than Cultists although in this build M.A.R.S.R.O.V.E.R. is more fragile due to Raelin not being present (it also tends to run out of hexes really quickly). Even so, with this build lots of the top builds just have more attacks that even the ones who have to bunch up (like Gruts or Romans) can usually win by sheer number of attacks.

M.A.R.S.H.M.E.L.L.O. himself actually gives a lot of interesting choices throughout the game. The explosion special has a lot of flexibility if you're unengaged. Furthermore, the fact that you don't have to choose two figures if there's only one good target means you can sometimes treat it as a regular explosion attack. If you do get engaged, there are times where disengaging will be the right call, times when shooting the thing next to you with a normal attack will be the right call, and times when the best choice is to say screw it and drop the barrage with you in the crosshairs. (one time this led to him surviving with one life while killing all gruts engaged with him)

He's best used in the midgame as he doesn't have a ton of targets in endgame to leverage the explosion but is also too fragile to bring out too early. Typically, you want some sort of screen to be up for him or else your opponent can usually run at least one figure up to him and engage him which does a lot to minimize his effect especially if that figure gets a wound or two on him.

The opponent also has lots of interesting decisions between deciding how bunched up they want to be (this was actually really important in a Romans game where they chose to forgo a lot of shield wall to minimize targets) and how much of a push they want to do to stop the rampaging soulborg. Some armies like Honor Guard kind of don't really have a choice to stop huddling together but most other armies can at least minimize explosion potential. Sometimes, you just have to tank it and hope a 3/3 doesn't drop 4 figures at once (This happened once against a Grut army taking out Nerak and 3 heavies).

Getting a 3/3 feels so satisfying but it can be so disheartening when you roll a 0/3 and then get swarmed the next turn and die. He's not quite all or nothing, but a lot of times it can feel that way. With proper protection though, you usually are able to come back from a poor roll, but too many in a row will doom him.

Summary

There's a lot to like about M.A.R.S.U.P.I.A.L. The unit feels like a Valkrill figure both in appearance and how it plays with his fairly indiscriminate special attack. It's a fairly simple unit and those are some of the best packages. I also like how one simple power and some simple stats create a lot of choices on both sides of the battlefield.

I vote YES to induct M.A.R.S. into the SoV

~Dysole, happy to have her first SoV vote complete

[Knox]

Man, I am so excited for M.A.R.S. & Clayton Pierce. Those are going to be 2 really fun units when inducted

[Shiftrex]

I am withdrawing my Wulfling Hunter Submission.

https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...postcount=7258

Doesn't seem likely to pass, lots in the pipeline for y'all, thankyou for playing it Scytale.

[Scytale]

The Wulfling Hunters have been removed from the process by the submitter's request.

[Knox]

What's the mini for Clayton Pierce? Did some searching of the forums but had a real difficult time finding it.

[superfrog]

Originally Posted by Knox

What's the mini for Clayton Pierce? Did some searching of the forums but had a real difficult time finding it.

Here is the best price I could find. Be warned that it's very expensive, with a cost in the high 40s. Other sites are more than twice as much.

[Vydar_XLIII]

Originally Posted by superfrog

Here is the best price I could find. Be warned that it's very expensive, with a cost in the high 40s. Other sites are more than twice as much.

This trolled me HARD. I went to look at my emailed receipt before I even clicked your link. lol

[Knox]

Originally Posted by superfrog

Here is the best price I could find. Be warned that it's very expensive, with a cost in the high 40s. Other sites are more than twice as much.

Lmao. Fantastic. Clayton is definitely going to be an addition to my home games soon. Let's get him that last vote or 2 for the SoV!!

[superfrog]

Abe no Seimei, Kincho, and Ibaraki-Doji by Astroking112

As other judges have done, I will review these units together, since they are presented as a standalone faction.

Balance

We'll go easiest to hardest on the balance scale:

Kincho is pretty close. He's got a statline similar to Yi Feng and sits at the same cost. The two noticeable differences (other than the life/defense swap) are that Yi Feng has higher attack and can deal passive damage, while Kincho has two movement tricks. Seems a reasonable point cost.

Ibaraki-Doji also seems in the right ballpark. I might actually call him undercosted based on his huge attack potential (which of course you'll use OMs on). In some ways he's like a mini Jotun (one less defense, 2 less attack, no throw) with a more flexible special attack that can also grant bonus move to make up for his slowness. Flying helps too. Of course, a double special attack of 4 isn't breaking new ground at 120 points (see Kaemon Awa), so it's close.

As far as Abe no Seimei, who the heck knows. Looking at his stats, he's just kinda a generic ranged single attacker, maybe worth 60-80 points. The powerset is hard to judge points-wise, but I'll come back to that later. On the whole, the faction is definitely not aggressively priced with powers that outclass their points.

Theme

I will say that for this review I read way more Wikipedia articles than I have for any other SoV review, that was fun and eye-opening. I share Scytale's concern that Abe no Seimei doesn't really make sense to be classified as a Yokai himself, but that's not a huge deal. I do appreciate seeing how the themes were developed across the faction as a whole, they do have a mischievous demonic vibe that seems appropriate to the mythical basis.

Tying many of the powers into revealed OMs is kind of odd to me thematically, as I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, although it's a cool mechanic.

Creativity

Very creative. The most unique HS playing experience I've had as a tester. Sometimes it's hard to invent meaningful new mechanics, and I liked the concept of shifting around OMs after turns for different buffs.

Playability

The army core as submitted is 310 points, although most of my testing involved Masha for a 420 point army. It's worth noting at the outset that this faction was submitted independent of Masha and would need to stand on its own even if Masha was to fail.

Astro noted in his submission that this army wasn't likely to make a splash on the tournament scene, so I started with that assumption in mind. I didn't jump into playing against Spiders/Quahon or Knights/Gilbert or Grimnak/Heavies or Stinger spam. I specifically decided on testing against mid-to-low tier armies to see what they were capable of. Some of my test matchups included Honor Guard with Syvarris, Moltenclaw with Greenscales, Aubrien Archers, Specters of Aldorn, Dreadguls with Jotun, even small Talingul armies to get the low-activation matchup. These armies were coherent but not overpowering.

...except that each of the listed armies wiped the map with the Yokai literally every time. Not close games, either. Nearly every game I played ended up with 100+ points remaining in the opposing army.

As it turns out, for all the Yokai's tricks, they really are just a collection of single-attack heroes with one double-attacking hero. They can move around and get to different locations somewhat easily but they have little to no attacking power. The only exception is Ibaraki-Doji, who can do some solid damage with his 4x2. This doesn't matter much to any army that can tank a squad kill or two: they can just focus down I-D any time he comes in to do damage. If he gets switched out they can focus down whoever he switched with and limit the Yokai's (already tenuous) board control.

As I continued testing, I thought about the other faction submission that passed through SoV and decided to test Yokai against Shadows. Lo and behold, the Yokai got their first win. The one thing they're good at is a bum rush towards a vulnerable target like Xundar (or Kurrok, or Iskra in a Skellies build). And when I say that "they" are good against a vulnerable target, I really mean that Ibaraki-Doji is good against a vulnerable target. Move up one Yokai on OM1 and possibly 2, switch that Yokai out for a fresh Ibaraki-Doji, use Demon of Rashomon and take whatever LEAs you need to, and engage Xundar for another 4 dice plus the threat of 6 next turn. Feels kinda lame even when it works since you kinda skip the whole game and place the outcome in the hands of a few LEAs and an attack or two.

Of course, after I realized this was the only path to victory, the Shadow army adapted and protected Xundar better, and was still able to beat the Yokai in multiple followup games.

I tried Yokai with Raelin for extra defense, I tried Yokai with Rats to screen. They still kept losing.

One last thing that stood out to me is that Abe no Seimei's power set is quite distinctive in that none of his powers have any reference to his figure on the board or his card. The Divination power doesn't require using his card, and is only somewhat useful about once a game in some games (where did my opponent put their round 1 Raelin OM?), except when you reveal it on Masha for the attack debuff. Both the Shapeshift and the Night of the Yokai powers don't reference Abe either, they just grant additional powers to Yokai. In that way, Abe no Seimei plays like an alternate rule set rather than a figure, and the rule set is just not worth 130 points with the figures it works with.

There was a discussion in the discord the other day about Elf Wizards, who can put out 6 attacks per round, and how going down to 5 by using Haduc was so difficult for that army. The Elves have 6 attacks that are all special attacks, can be explosions, and have long range. The Yokai can barely match that output from melee on a good round, and it's nearly all dependent on a single figure to keep it going.

Summary

The Yokai were interesting to play but they just really struggled with attack output. Perhaps this faction would work better with additional pieces, but I have to judge the pieces that were submitted. Even with Masha I struggled to find any way for them to produce, and without Masha (as they are supposed to be judged) they would be even worse. I am fine with passing figures that are less suited for a tournament scene, but the Yokai struggle badly against nearly every type of army composition even at lower power levels.

I vote to induct Abe no Seimei, Kincho, and Ibaraki-Doji into the Soldiers of Valhalla

[Vydar_XLIII]

M.A.R.S. by Astroking112

Balance

The stats portray a slow moving, limited range, heavily armored unit. The defense and life follow the Soulborg precedent of difficult to hit but can only take a few hits. My first impression is that the 4 Range seems odd for a miniature with such a massive artillery. Even though the shoulder-mounted-artillery is represented by the Special Attack, the front facing guns don’t look nearly as damaging. As in they don’t feel like an attack of 4 when the SA is 3. That said, it is my understanding that the Range and Attack are the parts of the design that underwent most of the changes since the previous version(s) and mostly for balance reasons, which I’d agree with. Restraining the normal Range to 4 while making the normal Attack larger than the Special Attack gives the user of M.A.R.S. options and sometimes forces them to make sub-optimal positioning choices to attack optimal targets.

Theme

The red-orange, robotic bipedal walker with mounted artillery on each side seems almost destined to be a Valkrill Soulborg. The color matches the Vulcanmech Incendiborgs quite well and as Astroking explained in his submission, the name M.A.R.S. builds on the existing naming conventions for the Valkrill Soulborgs with the reference to the Roman Pantheon. (How denizens of Alpha Prime know anything about Roman deities is a different question, but the precedent is already there, so I won’t question it.) Personally, I would have assumed Valkrill soulborgs would follow a -mech or -borg naming convention similar to -cron and -tron rather than the Roman pantheon thread, but as they say, “Rules are meant to be broken” and I think this creative new direction for a soulborg line adds a lot of character to the design. In addition to the name, M.A.R.S.’ Life, Move, and Class all follow from the Incendiborgs. This makes M.A.R.S. both fit well with existing canon and further define the design space for future Valkrill soulborgs.

Something about the personality “Militaristic” doesn’t sit right with me. It isn’t bad or wrong, but it doesn’t portray the chaos of Valkrill or the annihilation described in the bio. Militaristic sounds too tactical; too Einar for me. Something like Destructive, or Devastating, or Ruthless seems more fitting. Again, it isn’t bad, but I think it could be better. Other than the Personality, I think everything on the card shows a really cohesive design.

Creativity

Missile Barrage Special Attack is just perfect for this miniature. I love the mental image the power evokes. Locking on the target and then each missile cluster firing swarms of missiles at each target. It’s really cool to have implemented in HeroScape.

Playability

A walking piece of artillery like M.A.R.S. plays like one would expect. Optimal at range, poor once engaged. The potential for a ton of damage is there but a skilled opponent can easily mitigate it. The play on the battlefield definitely feels like the miniature and the cohesive design would suggest.

M.A.R.S. has a lot of firepower that draws a lot of the opponent’s firepower in return. In my experience he skirts the line between Shark and Menacer depending on whether he is being played as a solo unit or whether he has defender and cheerleader support. The flaws that are intentionally in the design make M.A.R.S. a very challenging unit to play correctly. Too aggressive and he dies too early, too passive and he can’t move into position to hit the targets he needs. No screen and he gets swarmed and ends up exploding himself, a screen and he ends up killing your own units. He has a crazy high damage ceiling, but also an incredibly low floor and in games he tends to swing to the low end of those extremes.

After getting a feel for M.A.R.S. I focused my testing down a few avenues. 1) VS Rats+Range in an army that typically struggles with Rats and could really appreciate a multi-target special attack, 2) VS armies that like to clump up like Heavies, Blades, and Romans, and 3) In armies that don’t mind taking the splash damage, such as the Nhah Scirh and Warforged. The results of such focused testing pretty much confirmed my assumptions. The best armies to play him in exist in both category 1 and 3. Cultists appreciate a special attack of their own. And M.A.R.S. appreciates a screen that he can bomb. The only surprise was that the anti-rat niche that I thought M.A.R.S. could fill in a Knight or Dwarf army doesn’t really exist. The points are much better spent on more squaddies.

I haven’t had many games where he overperforms. I don’t like that with the amount of skill it takes to play him and the army around him, that he is so inconsistent for all your trouble. When gaming, I prefer that good decisions and good play be rewarded. M.A.R.S., being a high-skill, high variance unit, always requires a high level of play but very often puts a player in a space of trying really hard to get something to work, finally getting it right, and having a roughly 50/50 chance of being able to do anything with it.

Summary

In summary, I think the design of M.A.R.S. is really cohesive. Everything from the mini, to the stats, to the power all get wrapped up in a nice rampaging-murder-bot package. Despite this I was close to voting no for the reasons in the previous paragraph. I’ve decided that the issues I personally have with how the unit plays are subjective and should not outweigh the numerous other merits of the design. M.A.R.S. is a straightforward and incredibly thematic design and Astroking did a wonderful job balancing what might have been an oppressively good power and just because his inconsistent Missile Barrage Special Attack isn’t likely to see much play at my table doesn’t mean he isn’t a good fit for the canon.

I vote YEA to induct M.A.R.S. into the SoV.

[Scytale]

Abe no Seimei, Kincho, and Ibaraki-Doji by @Astroking112 have received 2 Nay votes to induct (wriggz and superfrog) and are removed from the process.

[Sir Heroscape]

Loving all the activity in the SoV. Now just hoping Rujin and the Shadows can get some love…