Sherman Davies' Marvel customs - Starshine

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by IshMEL

Looks like I have some new cards to make! I like your Doombot -- Minion of Doom is a great power for it to have. You made him as powerful as Doctor Doom (compared to the C3G version at 2 life and a much cheaper cost).

Thanks - the idea was to essentially make Dr. Doom into an uncommon hero via his Doombots.

Originally Posted by Tornado

You get a roll DoD for every Doombot in your army?
Scary.

Cool Storm. She is quite the glass cannon.

Yup, you get a chance to roll for every Doombot, with the idea being that the more of them you're facing, the less likely it is that a destroyed Dr. Doom will be the real thing.

As for Storm, her glass cannon nature was the reason she was tough to play well and I didn't change that, but making her Tempest SA more potent should allow her to have more of an impact on games before getting destroyed.

[Tornado]

I like it. She certainly has to be played to her strengths which is cool.

Way different then the C3G version which is pretty powerhouse-y.
This version takes a little finesse but you gotta love Range 7 & Attack5.
Good stuff Sherm!

[IshMEL]

Hey, I have a math question about Density Control (on Sandman and Vision). It gives them the option on defending of either one-shield-blocks-all, or +2 defense dice. If the attacker rolls more than 1 skull, are you always better off picking the one-shield option? Or is there another scenario I'm missing?

[Sherman Davies]

Not being too well versed in calculating probabilities, I can't give you a hard math answer, other than to say that the chance of whiffing defense on 4 dice with Vision is 20%, and 30% with Sandman's 3 dice. So the decision, for me, is generally situational. When an attacker rolls 2 skulls, I usually choose +2 defense dice, reasoning that even if I roll poorly, I'll likely roll at least one shield and take one hit, which is preferable to risking a whiff and taking two hits. Obviously, height advantage factors into this decision as well. With a 3 skull or greater attack, I always choose the one-shield-blocks-all option. (Of course, that didn't help me the time Grishnakh used my Hawkeye, boosted by Captain America, to shoot my Vision, rolling 5 skulls and destroying Vision with a single well-placed arrow. ) Hope that helps!

In other news, I tweaked my Use Object rules and my Quinjet card after mulling over the last scenario I ran for the Gang of Four:






I changed the Use Object rules so that figures have to pick up an object before moving, instead of at any point during their movement. I think this will add a layer of tactical decision making that was absent before. I also tweaked the Quinjet after watching the Hulk throw the Quinjet at an opponent and thinking it was weird for such a massive thrown object to not affect any figures near the target.

I also designed a card for the Quinjet wings, something I've been meaning to do ever since I bought it and realized the wings are detachable:

[chas]

Heads Up!!!

[IshMEL]

I was curious, so I ran the numbers on Density Control. If your opponent attacks with more than one skull, you should almost always take the 1-shield-blocks-all option.

Let's say your opponent has rolled two skulls, and you decide to roll 4 defense. You have a ~20% chance of rolling no shields, and 80% of rolling at least one shield. 2 hits x 20% = 0.4 wounds you will take, on average.

Let's say that instead you go for 6 dice. You have a 9% chance of rolling no shields now, a 26% chance of rolling 1, and 65% chance of rolling more 2 or more. (2 hits x .09)+(1 hit x 0.26) = 0.44 wounds taken, on average.

The situation I can see where you might want to go for more shields is if the figure has life left equal to the number of skulls rolled. Then you're not just talking about the average number of wounds, but the potential strategic elimination of your figure. Since you'd rather have a figure with 1 life left, the "all or nothing" option looks less appetizing.

So, kids, do your math homework, but play by your gut!

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by IshMEL

I was curious, so I ran the numbers on Density Control. If your opponent attacks with more than one skull, you should almost always take the 1-shield-blocks-all option.

Let's say your opponent has rolled two skulls, and you decide to roll 4 defense. You have a ~20% chance of rolling no shields, and 80% of rolling at least one shield. 2 hits x 20% = 0.4 wounds you will take, on average.

Let's say that instead you go for 6 dice. You have a 9% chance of rolling no shields now, a 26% chance of rolling 1, and 65% chance of rolling more 2 or more. (2 hits x .09)+(1 hit x 0.26) = 0.44 wounds taken, on average.

Thanks, that's really interesting. Can you explain how to calculate the odds of rolling multiple shields on a given number of dice? I only know how to figure the odds of rolling at least one shield, but not multiples. Given the numbers you cite, I may want to think about tweaking Sandman and Vision - my goal with the Density Control power was to make the extra defense dice option more viable against one or two skulls, with the one shield blocks all option reserved for bigger hits.

[IshMEL]

I don't really understand the math -- @ollie could probably explain it -- but the function in Excel (or Google Sheets) is BINOMDIST for the Binomial Distribution. I threw together a quick Google Sheet so you can see how it works.

BINOMDIST(num_successes, num_trials, prob_success, cumulative)

Summary
Calculates the probability of drawing a certain number of successes (or a maximum number of successes) in a certain number of tries given a population of a certain size containing a certain number of successes, with replacement of draws.
num_successes
The number of successes for which to calculate the probability in num_trials trials.
num_trials
The number of independent trials.
prob_success
The probability of success in any given trial.

Translating to Scape, num_successes is the number of shields you're looking to get; num_trials is the number of dice you're throwing; and prob_success is the chance of any particular die rolling a shield, i.e., 1/3. So with 4 dice, the chance of throwing exactly 2 shields is 29.6%, and the chance of throwing at least 2 shields is 40.7% (the same as the chance of 2 + chance of 3 + chance of 4).

Number of Dice	4	
Chance of Result	33.33%
		
N	Chance of                 Chance of 
        Exactly N Results	At Least N Results
0	19.75%	                  100.00%
1	39.51%	                  80.25%
2	29.63%	                  40.74%
3	9.88%	                  11.11%
4	1.23%	                  1.23%

You can play around with the spreadsheet. If you want to add more dice to the calculation, you'll need to add the formula in those rows.

[Sherman Davies]

Wow, thanks for that Google sheet - that's exactly what I needed. Much appreciated. Given the results I got from that formula, it looks like this is how Sandman and Vision should look to get the gameplay effect I've been aiming for:





With these versions, the one-shield-blocks-all option is better against attacks of three skulls or more, while the extra dice option is better against attacks of one or two skulls.

[Sherman Davies]

Two more cards for the scenario I'm planning for the Gang of Four in May:

[Drewman-chu]

Nice Mole Man Team Sherm. Theme really fits I found a way to use the Giganto figure when I made may cards. It's not hard to rebase him and use him against the FF.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Drewman-chu

Nice Mole Man Team Sherm. Theme really fits I found a way to use the Giganto figure when I made may cards. It's not hard to rebase him and use him against the FF.

That's funny, when I told a friend of mine that I was planning a Fantastic Four vs. Mole Man scenario for Heroscape the first thing he asked was if it involved Giganto.

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the really huge (and expensive) figures Heroclix has made over the years. I've also never given much thought to how such figures would move around if they were too big to fit on a peanut base.