The Book of Ant-Man (Scott Lang)

[Lazy Orang]

The Book of Ant-Man (Scott Lang)

C3G MARVEL PUBLIC EXCLUSIVE COLLECTION 16
RULING THE RABBLE


Comic PDF


Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Age of Ultron set.
Its model number and name are #003 / Ant-Man.

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Age of Ultron: Classic Avengers Fast Forces set.
Its model number and name are #001 / Ant-Man.

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Character Bio - Years after Hank Pym hung up his Ant-Man suit for good, former petty crook Scott Lang stole the suit from Pym's home. Rather than using it for profit, Scott used its powers to save his daughter Cassie, and put an end to the schemes of Darren Cross, a ruthless industrialist and would-be supervillain. Scott impressed Pym enough that he was allowed to keep the suit, and he became the second Ant-Man. As Ant-Man, Scott is a frequent member of the Avengers, striving always to be someone his daughter could be proud of.
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-Rulings and Clarifications-

• N/A

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• As a tiny figure, Ant-Man has these Tiny Synergies.
• As a Human, Ant-Man has these Human Synergies.
• As a Thief, Ant-Man has these Thief Synergies.

Outgoing Synergy:

• Ant-Man may activate an Insect Hero with his Amateur Insect Control special power. Current Insects.

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-Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses-

Immunities

• As a Tiny figure, Ant-Man cannot be affected by aspects of certain special powers. Special Powers that Interact Differently with Tiny Figures.

Benefits

• As a Tiny figure, Ant-Man may target a figure with the Tiny Stealth special power for a leaving engagement attack. Current Figures with the Tiny Stealth special power.
• As a Tiny figure, Ant-Man interacts differently with certain special powers. Current Special Powers that Interact Differently with Tiny Figures.

Weaknesses

• Ant-Man can only be attacked with a leaving engagement attack by another Tiny figure. Current Tiny figures.
• As a Tiny figure, Ant-Man interacts differently with certain special powers. Special Powers that Interact Differently with Tiny Figures.

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• N/A

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: (Ronin)
• Second playtest: (Ronin)
• Third playtest: (Arkham)
• Fourth playtest: (laughing_matter)
• Fifth playtest: (Lazy Orang)
• Sixth playtest: (Lazy Orang)
• Seventh playtest: (L0B5T3R)
• Art: Comic, Figure, Background
• Art by Arkham
• Scott Lang created by David Michelinie and John Byrne

[Lazy Orang]

NAME = ANT-MAN
SECRET IDENTITY = SCOTT LANG

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = THIEF
PERSONALITY = TRICKY
SIZE/HEIGHT = TINY 2

LIFE = 3
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENCE = 4

POINTS = 80

INSECT CONTROL 1
Before taking a turn with Ant-Man, you may first take a turn with a Common Insect Hero you control.

SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Figures that are not tiny roll 2 fewer dice when attacking Ant-Man with a normal attack, to a minimum of 1 die, and roll 2 fewer dice when attacked by Ant-Man's normal attack.

TINY THIEF
Ant-Man cannot be targeted by opponents' non-adjacent figures for any attacks or for any opponents' special powers that require clear sight, can move through all figures, and only takes leaving engagement attacks from tiny figures. Ant-Man never takes falling damage and may ignore his height of 2 when climbing. After moving and before attacking, if there is not a glyph on this card, you may choose a figure that Ant-Man moved through this turn with at least one Equipment Glyph on its card and place a glyph from that card on this card.

Original Design:

Spoiler Alert!

Name -Ant-Man
Secret Identity - Scott Lang

Species - Human
Uniqueness - Unique Hero
Class - Thief
Personality - Tricky
Size/Height - Tiny 2

1 Life
Move 5
Range 1
Attack 3
Defence 5

Points 70?

AMATEUR INSECT CONTROL

After revealing an Order Marker on this card and before taking a turn with Ant-Man, you may first take a turn with an Insect Hero you control.

SMALL BUT MIGHTY

Figures that are not Tiny subtract 2 from their attack dice when attacking Ant-Man, to a minimum of 1, and subtract 2 from their defense dice when attacked by Ant-Man with an adjacent normal attack.

TINY THIEF
Ant-Man cannot be targeted by non-adjacent figures, can move through all figures, and only takes leaving engagement attacks from Tiny figures. Ant-Man never takes falling damage and may ignore his height of 2 when climbing. After moving and before attacking, if there is not a glyph on this card, you may choose a figure that Ant-Man moved through this turn with at least one Equipment Glyph on its card and place a glyph from that card on this card.

[Lazy Orang]

Comic

Spoiler Alert!

Mini

Spoiler Alert!

I wish there were a figure that looked more like his suit, but there isn't one that's appropriately tiny.

Pics

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by Ronin

Got some mini photos. Scott came doubled-over, and I tried to get some usable photos before I bent him into a more proper shape, just in case anything went awry.

The "after" photos are first here, with the weirder ones afterward. Didn't have great sunlight today, but I think I managed to get something usable anyway.

Spoiler Alert!

Background

Spoiler Alert!

I know I'm probably being silly, but I would love to use something from this scene, if possible - it was hilarious, and, IMO, for the character these days, iconic.

[Lazy Orang]

Okay, I just wanted to post a quick rundown of some of my thought processes with this design:

1) He has Amateur Insect Control off Eric because he thematically needed to be able to do it, but giving him full Radio Insect Control from Hank would have cheapened Hank’s role as the primary Insect commander, something I was unwilling to do, especially since Hank is the original and, to many people (though not myself), still most iconic, Ant-Man.

2) Small but Mighty is intended to be this guy’s signature power, my attempt at giving him a role that’s distinct and different from the other Ant-Men available. Hank’s, as I said, the insect commander, Eric’s the flying, disappearing irritant with Agent synergies, so with Scott, I wanted to explore a direction the other Ant-Men haven’t yet - namely, I wanted to represent the combat potential afforded to him by his tiny size, how it makes him hard to see coming, tricky to hit, and how it allowing him to put his full strength into a punch on a point the size of a pin prick makes him a surprisingly effective fighter. As such, opponents roll 2 fewer attack and defence dice against him - he is, basically, the combat Ant-Man, and hopefully a fairly useful filler unit.

3) Tiny Thief, as well as incorporating Tiny Stealth, is meant to represent one of the more distinct differences in his role and character from the other Ant-Men - the fact that he is, well, a Thief. As such, he is able, like Black Cat, to steal glyphs from enemy figures he passes through. I didn’t want to make this his main thing, which is definitely Small but Mighty, as I don’t want him to feel restricted to matches where someone’s carrying a glyph or there’s one on the board, but it should hopefully be a helpful, fun and thematic touch in those matchups.

4) His class is Thief for fairly obvious reasons, given Point 3. This will give him synergy with Amanda Waller and the Crime Alley Crooks (and Ventriloquist, but... yeah, no). I don’t mind these synergies in the least, in fact I like them (given the fact that he was a former master thief who was given the choice to be Ant-Man by Hank as a last chance to redeem himself, I don’t feel him being drafted into the Suicide Squad is too far out there) but I don’t want him to feel like his Thief synergies are necessary or fundamental to playing him effectively - if the Suicide Squad is a fun and viable build for him then that’s great, but I don’t want it to be at the expense of seeing him run with the Avengers, which is honestly the primary build I have in mind for him. I doubt this will be the case, especially given that Amateur Insect Control requires you to reveal an OM on his card to use it, but I thought I should clarify my thoughts on his synergies.

With that said, I know he’s not ready to undergo any official playtesting yet, and I know that I’m not allowed to do the initial playtesting anyway, but I ran an unofficial, preliminary test for him a few weeks ago and thought it might be helpful to post it.

Name Of The Playtest Unit: Ant-Man (Scott Lang)

Preliminary Test
Map: Conflict Chernobyl (no glyphs)
Armies:
Ant-Man (Scott Lang) (70 points), Captain America (C3G), Bucky, Iron Man (Hulkbuster), Giant Man, 3x Killer Bee, 4x Fire Ant Swarm (995)
vs.
Red Skull (C3G), 2x Hydra Agents, Black Adam, Titanium Man (1,000)

Spoiler Alert!

Overview of Ant-Man’s performance:
Damage inflicted through normal attacks: 1 HYDRA Agent taken out, 2 wounds on Titanium Man.
Extra wounds thanks to Small but Mighty: 1 on a HYDRA Agent, 1 on Titanium Man.
Wounds blocked through Small but Mighty: 4 from Titanium Man.
Insect Heroes activated through Amateur Insect Control: Killer Bee five times.
Glyphs stolen through Tiny Thief: None
Engagements left through Tiny Thief: None

Round One

HYDRA claims the initiative, and Red Skull and four agents advance.
Cap and Bucky run forwards, and Steve throws his shield, knocking out one HYDRA Agent.
Four HYDRA Agents advance, one engaging Bucky, and they open fire, achieving nothing. Schmidt advances and unloads his Dual Lugers to no effect.
Giant Man runs forward, knocking the HYDRA Agent engaged with Bucky out with ease.
Four HYDRA Agents open fire on Bucky, gunning him down. Red Skull charges Steve, but is swatted away by Hank Pym, and the Cosmic Cube is knocked from his hands. Recovering and on his knees, he fires his dual lugers at the giant, inflicting two wounds.
Steve charges Red Skull, punching him from height for a wound.

Round Two

The Avengers claim the initiative, four ant swarms tunnel forwards, and Steve punches Schmidt for a wound.
One HYDRA Agent charges Pym while another opens fire from his sniping position, but neither hurt him. Two more HYDRA Agents take their knives out against Captain America, but achieve nothing. Schmidt breaks engagement from Steve, being winged on the way out - reeling and nearly unconscious, the war-criminal uses the Tesseract to displace Rogers into the water next to him before smashing him from height with a deadly blow, inflicting three wounds, inspiring Black Adam to fly to the front lines.
Pym breaks engagement from a HYDRA Agent, taking a bullet on the way out, in order to charge Schmidt. He punches the Nazi, and while the blow itself fails to knock him out, it does knock him into a pool of water and against the bank at the other side, which he his his head against, redering him unconscious.
Four HYDRA Agents open fire on Giant Man - while three find their bullets just bounce off, one hits just the right spot, killing Hank Pym, whose massive form collapses to the ground.
Stark flies forwards.
Four HYDRA Agents open fire on Steve, but their bullets bounce off his shield.

Round Three

HYDRA claims the initiative, and Black Adam punches Steve from height, but his blow is absorbed by Cap’s shield.
Steve moves to equal height with Black Adam, punching him for a wound.
Once again Black Adam’s blow is absorbed by Cap’s shield.
Stark barrels into Theo, hitting him with a massive attack, which, fortunately for the antagonist, only inflicts a wound.
Black Adam finally breaks Cap’s skull open.
Tony punches Black Adam for a wound.

Round Four

The Avengers claim the initiative, and the ants advance, two swarms into melee with Black Adam, one engaging a HYDRA Agent. Stark hits Black Adam for a wound.
Black Adam smashes Stark for two wounds.
Stark hammers Black Adam for two more wounds, leaving him reeling.
Black Adam pounds Stark for three wounds, leaving his suit’s systems’ breaking.
Stark knocks Black Adam out.

Round Five

The Avengers claim the initiative, and the Fire Ants tunnel to engage as many HYDRA Agents as possible. Stark engages and knocks out a HYDRA Agent.
A HYDRA Agent on height shoots Stark, but his bullet bounces off. One in reserve runs up, firing wildly - a bullet enters one of the holes in the armour made by Black Adam, and severs a vital cable, shutting his suit down. Two HYDRA Agents spray bullets at the ants swarming them, killing many and forcing the rest to scuttle away.
Scott rides a bee to the front line, before dismounting, leaping at a Hydra agent, and... blanking.
Titanium Man advances, shooting at a Fire Ant Swarm since he can’t see Ant-Man, incinerating the swarm.
Scott commands a killer bee to fly at Titanium Man, but it fails to sting him. Scott knocks a HYDRA Agent out without him even seeing him.
Titanium Man escapes the bee, engaging Ant-Man and trying to take him out, but Ant-Man evades.

Round Six

Titanium Man tries to strike Ant-Man, but is again evaded.
A bee flies up and fails to sting Titanium Man. Scott also fails to harm him.
Titanium Man fails to kill the Ant.
The bee doesn’t sting. Ant-Man gets between the mercenary’s armour plates and hits him for a wound.
Titanium Man fails to achieve anything.
The bee gets its stinger between the Russian’s armour plates, stinging him for a wound and dying in the process, and Ant-Man hits him for a wound.

Round Seven

Titanium Man kills Ant-Man, taking out the Avengers’ entire round - there are only two Killer Bees and one Fire Ant Swarm left, so I’m leaving it here. I wouldn’t in an official test, but this is an unofficial preliminary, Ant-Man is dead, and HYDRA ain’t losing from here, probably isn’t even getting hurt anymore, so... that is all.

HYDRA victorious, Titanium Man 3 wounds, 4 HYDRA Agents.

Overview: I'm happy with him, thus far - he's a pretty damn fun filler. I'm not sure how much he really should be, as I'm not so good at judging filler units and his 1 Life nature makes him inherently swingy, but 70 points seems like a good starting place. Titanium Man was a good match-up for him - low enough attack for Small But Mighty to be fairly crippling, and no special or multi-attack - he’ll probably go down a lot easier to a lot of other figures.
One thing I noticed here is that a small number of figures (mostly lower level common squads) are literally unable to kill him unless they have height or some other bonus, since their attack would be being reduced to 0 - this should probably be fixed, but that should be fairly easily done.

[japes]

As far as your mini background idea...My son actually has a wooden Thomas set so maybe I can set it up for a few photos. I love the comic art with the bullets flying. Great suggestion.

The only thing that's worrisome for me is that with the class of Thief he will be caught up in that synergy web which will be expanded. I don't know if I'd classify his Avenger's self to be a thief and his power get the theme and utility of his skill as a thief across just fine. Of course I don't have an alternate idea yet.

[Arkham]

Perhaps:

SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Figures that are not Tiny subtract 2 from their attack dice when attacking Ant-Man, to a minimum of 1, and subtract 2 from their defense dice when attacked by Ant-Man with an adjacent normal attack.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by japes

As far as your mini background idea...My son actually has a wooden Thomas set so maybe I can set it up for a few photos. I love the comic art with the bullets flying. Great suggestion.

That would actually be awesome if you could - my one worry with doing something based on that scene was just finding an appropriate still, and that would fix that issue if it is one, so thanks for the offer.

The only thing that's worrisome for me is that with the class of Thief he will be caught up in that synergy web which will be expanded. I don't know if I'd classify his Avenger's self to be a thief and his power get the theme and utility of his skill as a thief across just fine. Of course I don't have an alternate idea yet.

Yeah, if we have a better idea and think it's necessary to cut Thief, then we can. Personally, I like it, and I don't really think it or its synergies are weirder here than on, for example, Gambit, but if others disagree or it gets in the way of Avengers-style builds, I can see it changing.

Originally Posted by Arkham

Perhaps:

SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Figures that are not Tiny subtract 2 from their attack dice when attacking Ant-Man, to a minimum of 1, and subtract 2 from their defense dice when attacked by Ant-Man with an adjacent normal attack.

Thanks - that's pretty much exactly what I was hoping to do. Glad to see you don't feel the need to give a minimum defence - I quite like unboosted HYDRA Agents being unable to defend against him.

[Yodaking]

Just a few comments on formatting in the SP, whatever is put there is copy and pasted by the art team when making the card so it is important to have the format correct or you are asking the art team to do the formatting for you. All capital letters for the power names with no underline, no underline on the name to size section. Stuff like that, just look at a released card to see what needs to be what.

As for the design, are we married to 1 life here because Hank & Janet were both 1 life on their first cards? If this is suppose to be the 'combat' Ant-man, I could see going to 2 or 3 life.

On the test you ran, it looks like you never bonded with the ants. Did they end up having an impact on the game at all as a result? That would factor into the final results some if you were essentially playing down 45 points. Also how did you compute extra wounds and wounds blocked by small but mighty? The power has you roll less dice so you wouldn't really know how many wounds you avoided unless you rolled the lost dice later just to see what they would have been. Is that what you did here?

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Just a few comments on formatting in the SP, whatever is put there is copy and pasted by the art team when making the card so it is important to have the format correct or you are asking the art team to do the formatting for you. All capital letters for the power names with no underline, no underline on the name to size section. Stuff like that, just look at a released card to see what needs to be what.

Fixed.

As for the design, are we married to 1 life here because Hank & Janet were both 1 life on their first cards? If this is suppose to be the 'combat' Ant-man, I could see going to 2 or 3 life.

I'm not really married to it, and I could definitely see dropping his defence by 1 and bumping his Life to 2 or 3 - whichever way people think would work best, if other people aren't bugged by the inconsistency with the other Ant-Men. I guess Wasp II makes that inconsistency consistent.

On the test you ran, it looks like you never bonded with the ants. Did they end up having an impact on the game at all as a result? That would factor into the final results some if you were essentially playing down 45 points.

Scott never had reason to bond with them since the Bee seemed a better choice at every stage. The Ants were still a help however, since they were able to use their Swarm Tunnel to engage and tie down enemy forces, which is honestly how I usually use them anyway - think a poor man's Deathreavers.

Also how did you compute extra wounds and wounds blocked by small but mighty? The power has you roll less dice so you wouldn't really know how many wounds you avoided unless you rolled the lost dice later just to see what they would have been. Is that what you did here?

Yeah, that's what I did - just rolled the dice to see how it changed what happened. Thought it would be helpful for the sake of the test-sheet.

[TrollBrute]

Make sure to send a PM to all the Heroes. I believe a post in the Promotions thread is standard as well. Otherwise, good work on your first unit thread!

As for the design, I love it! I am worried about Thief synergies driving too much of his cost/builds, but I'm willing to tweak that as we go. Same with Life of 1. I could see it higher, but I'm also fine where it's at now.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by TrollBrute

Make sure to send a PM to all the Heroes. I believe a post in the Promotions thread is standard as well. Otherwise, good work on your first unit thread!

Done, and thanks!

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by TrollBrute

As for the design, I love it! I am worried about Thief synergies driving too much of his cost/builds, but I'm willing to tweak that as we go. Same with Life of 1. I could see it higher, but I'm also fine where it's at now.

to this. Really solid direction here.

Personally, I actually wouldn't go for Thief. Not a deal-breaker, but I feel like Tiny Thief gets enough of that flavor across, since Scott is more ex-thief than thief. He does pull from his thieving skill-set in superheroing, but he doesn't go and rob a casino on his day off (whereas the other relatively heroic Thieves like Black Cat and Gambit absolutely do stuff like that).