I first started playing Heroscape just as the Elite Onyx Viper Master Sets were clearancing out of Wally World. Even before the Marvel Master Set had been announced I had twice tried to create Marvel Heroscape sets out of Heroclix minis. The first attempt featured an independent point system, add-on mechanics, and overall a complete lack of balance. The second attempt, with help from my brother, featured an attempt to point according to official classic scape, bland uniformity, and overall a complete lack of fun.
About two years ago after tiring of waiting for the booster wave of official Superheroscape, I ran into GreyOwl's customization tools. I sorted and organized them so that I could constructed my own official-esque Marvel Heroscape army cards. My earlier attempts had just been colored octagons, so having real army cards was definitely a plus. Of course, before starting my own project I looked over the customs here on Heroscapers. I had not and still do not care for what C3G puts out and with a quick look-see at some other custom attempts at my fave characters like Wolverine, I decided nothing quite met my standard of quality while simultaneously capturing the essence of the characters and remaining playable.
First, I set about customizing my minis, whose bases had previously been painted green and brown, with no other work done to the figures, to match the standard Heroscape look. So, I repainted all human heads and any other flesh areas to get rid of eyeballs and eyebrows and any other facial details. I completely repainted some minis to cover or repair the dreadful paint applications on some Heroclix, especially early releases. After that I based the minis on one-inch diameter wood bases painted gray and "flocked" with my special asphalt = ballast + water + black paint + Elmer’s glue blend. Full repaints were spray sealed.
It may be noted that I don’t wash my Superhero minis. This is because I don’t like painting bright spandex wearing supers only to have them get dulled down by an icky black wash. Here, I’ll sacrifice realism for prettyism.
Finally I set about designing some cards in Paintdotnet and then adding in the stats and text in Printshop. I currently have over 150 active, meaning I haven't retired the figures or cards, army cards which fit the Superheroscape style. I will probably add them all, over time, with pics of the minis, but first I would like to mention my card design philosophy.
1) Comic customs should feature character art not minis art. It is thematically fitting, and I don't want to spend additional time taking pics of my minis (can't use stock photos as I repaint most of them at least a little bit) and digitally manipulating them over backgrounds. A note to new customizers: check out Comic Vine’s galleries under the character(s) you are looking for art of. They usually have at least a few images, even for obscure characters that traditional search engines don’t help with.
2) The Flying special power gets a white wing symbol, and the Stealth Flying special power gets a black wing symbol. Why? Because if Super Strength is so commonplace among capes to get a symbol, then so is flight.
3) Comic forums are filled with people arguing over Versus type threads where no one agrees on the full range and comparativeness of characters' powers. I feel this is because comics are both unintentionally written inconsistently, (due to changing potentially uninterested authors with differing values, scientific knowledge, and respect for previous foundation,) and are intentionally written inconsistently for the purpose of creating drama worth reading. Think about how interesting three page Superman comics would be where the first two pages feature Clark Kent doing whatever it is he does and a third page of Superman flying into orbit then blitzing his enemy in straight drop move. Thus, other than in broad terms, it is impossible to accurately create army cards which consistently balance against the comics. So, I create cards to fit the definite powers and broad themes of characters.
4) The height of the characters is determined by their official heights, not by a mini's actual size.
My guidelines were: 5’7” and below would be a height of 4,
5’8” to 6’9” = 5,
6’10: to 8’6” = 6,
8’7” to 10’ - 7.
Larger figs, like Sentinels, would be determined by comparison between classic Heroscape minis like Nilfheim.
Most official heights can be found on
http://marvel.com/universe/ in the corresponding article for the character under physical attributes.
5) I pointed my Army Cards by looking at the following in order: Direct comparison to the official Marvel set, direct comparison to my previous Marvel customs, vague comparisons to official classic scape, theoryscaping, and finally play results. I almost never do the sort of one on one playtesting between figures. I prefer to look at how figures perform in larger scenarios and full builds. I also tend to feel that the points should be changed before stats or powers should be. Lastly, as the power rankings observe, even among official units there is room for slight imbalance. So, its alright if Wolverine is a cheaply costed A+ figure and Superman is an overcosted F figure.
6) While I feel it is right to add certain other characters/themes like my Dante from Devil May Cry, Motoko from Ghost in the Shell, Halo and Red vs. Blue characters, and even Snake Eyes from GIJOE, certain themes fit better in classic scape. Star Wars is a good example of this. George says Jedi aren’t superheroes, and they fit better into classic’s army divisions anyway. Also, as I tend to not like almost anything from DC comics, I feel no one should make more than a few DC customs, and only when they really feel they need to.
7) My two cents; I used to look at the two cents smiley icon and see a sideways poo with a frown face. So I used to think people were saying “Here’s my S_ _ _.” And, a hard one at that, given the frown.
So now, my first posted mini shall be my first customized Marvel mini: The Wolverine
The Mini: I used the original release Wolverine mini, but as the figure was incorrectly painted (comics tend to use blue instead of black as black doesn’t show depth as well, but on minis its just lame) I decided to go in and do a full repaint. I use Apple Barrel and Folk Art acrylics when painting mini figures, but I have since forgotten exactly which ones were used on this fig.
The Card: Made using GreyOwl’s tools and some art from the web which took me probably close to a year of on and off searching to find. (I was really surprised at how few decent pictures there were of Wolvie in this costume where he wasn’t standing right next to some other character, or stabbing the Hulk as in one of my faves.)
Healing Factor was obvious to give Wolvie, but I take a different approach than I have seen elsewhere. As Wolverine is always healing, the Troll style take a turn and then heal didn’t feel like enough. I also wanted to balance it a bit by only giving him a chance to heal using the 20-sider, to help simulate how he may have difficulty healing deep wounds/organ damage and also staying in the fight. The activation when opponents take turns means, just like in the comics, if his opponents are busy fighting each other, Wolverine can take advantage of the situation to recover, but if they gang up on him he loses the advantage.
Super Strength accounts for his adamantium protecting him from falls, his claws on objects, and for custom objects: his lifting strength which is enhanced by both his healing factor and adamantium-laced skeleton to beyond the human maximum.
Ultimate Endurance was inspired by the Wolverine novel Election Day where his enemies kept getting the crap scared out of them when he was covering the distance between when they had thought themselves safely distant. (Not a novel for kids to read. Wolverine skins a guy and wears him to fool some sensors.) In short: he’s faster than he looks. By wounding himself, this shows Wolverine pushing into his Superhuman stamina while still tiring himself out. It also helps balance out with Healing Factor to create a strategic element to Berserker Rage. Finally it gives him more threat against common squaddies; giving him up to two moves per Order Marker also helps to diminish an enemy’s attempt to kite Wolverine to wait out his healing.
I think Counter Strike and Berserker Rage should be obvious. And, his height of 4 is because he is short. Any custom with a height of 5 would just be disgraceful to the character.
Pointwise, I felt he was a bit under the Hulk. He will still go down from multiple attacks from squaddies, and one on one with the Hulk, Hulk’s Rage will Smash Wolverine. However, given lucky rolls, Wolverine could still be a fair comparison to Hulk, especially with effective use of Ultimate Endurance.
Hopefully I will remember to keep posting more of my cards and minis in the coming days/weeks/months. So check back soon!
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