The Book of Obsidian

[IAmBatman]

Sent!

[IAmBatman]

Intangibility covers the engagement strikes! I'm thinking it should be a single use power, so hopefully not having that leaving engagement language won't be an issue for future designs.

I wish they could all be Rainbow Rolls, personally, though I did have something called "Eating Nemo" once that was delicious.

Thanks, David!

Cheers,
Bats

Originally Posted by davidlhsl

Obsidian

The Sushi Train brings plates around
It all looks good to me
And the wasabi and pickled ginger
And a cup of hot green tea
The miso soup tastes real fine
It warms me up inside
And now here comes a spider roll
Makes me open my mouth real wide

I wish they all could be California
Wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California rolls.

The unagi with the eel sauce
Is so tasty and nice
And the nigiri with the sliced fish
Pressed firmly on sushi rice
The Philadelphia rolls, you know, have cream cheese
While the Boston roll with the mayo
Give me sushi, please!

I wish they all could be California
Wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California rolls.

A-hem. Where was I? Oh,

Obsidian

Sushilands Passage
You've got to love the terrain changers, and shadow tiles are always handy. I like the timing of this, because you can plant the tile and *poof*.

Does he take engagement strikes?

Intanginigiri
Vetted!

Enveloped in Sashimi
This could be very useful with friendly figures if you can avoid the Enveloped condition by the end of the round. It also has nice offensive potential when you Envelope the enemy. A less spooky version of Cloak.

Final Thoughts
Very nice design! Although I tend to be obsessed, I'm glad it doesn't affect my work.

[IAmBatman]

I'm thinking he compares well to Martian Manhunter at 300. That's probably where I'll start him right now!

If Obsidian is adjacent to any one other figure and only that figure, whether it's an enemy figure (and thus an engagement) or not, that figure is Enveloped. So it can be good or bad for his team.

Cheers,
Bats

Originally Posted by Porkins

Interesting write up. I have always enjoyed Mika Connour's shadow powers, and you made it even better since he can drop a shadow tile before moving. Difficult character to nail down with the limitations on non-adjacent attacks.

Is an opponent's figure who is engaged with Obsidian in order to attack him also considered to be enveloped? If so, then a figure has to get adjacent to him to attack and has to disengage before the end of the round (risking an auto-wound) or stay engaged to the end of the round, thereby also risking an auto-wound. Add to that the fact that he is a ranged flyer/teleporter with Life of 6 and Def 5 (which will often be 6 or 7 due to shadow spaces and/or Intangibility allowing Obsidian to easily gain height advantage). I think we are looking at a pricey figure.

[IAmBatman]

C3G INITIAL PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE TEST UNIT (OBSIDIAN)

- THEME TEST/ Check to see if there are any powers or stats on the test unit card that does not accurately reflect the theme or likeness of what the character would and could do. Also consider destructible objects, and whether or not this characters powers should affect them.
PASS

- MIRROR TEST/ Check to see if the unit were played against itself, if there would be any loops that would upset the balance of the Game.
PASS

- BONDING TEST/ Compare the unit card with all possible currently existing Bonding abilities to make sure there are no continual Bonding possibilities that do not stop appropriately or do not stop at all. This is to prevent loops in Bonding.
PASS

- SYNERGIES TEST/ Compare the unit card with all possible currently existing synergies to make sure there are no factors that could break the game by making any unit to powerful or too weak.
PASS

- POWER CHECK/ Consider the test unit and all existing units and all glyphs to compare to and check for any powers that could be over amplified and break the game. Each power must define when it takes place, who or what it affects, and What are the stipulations on the power if there are any.
PASS

- FUN TEST/ Consider whether or not the design was fun to play.
PASS

- FUN COMPETITIVE TEST/ Consider whether or not the design was fun to play against.
PASS

- DRAFTING TEST/ Consider whether or not this design is worth drafting.
PASS

- USAGE TEST/ Consider whether or not all of the powers on this card were used or at least usable.
PASS

- STRATEGY TEST/ Consider whether or not the design offers any real strategy or interesting tactics to the overall game.
PASS

Heavy Hitter or Mid-Level Hero Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 280ish.
- Give a brief overview. I could possibly see a bit of wiggle room here, depending on how valuable or not he is for his armies, but 280 feels closest after the heavy hitters.

Spoiler Alert!

TEST 1
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Booster Gold (290)
Booster rolled much better than Obsidian here, and Obsidian never managed to get value out of Shadowlands Passage due to moving in short spaces (so no defensive bonus) rather than long spaces (so no massive teleportation) because there was only one opposing figure. He also missed his only roll for Enveloped in Shadows. Meanwhile, Booster stopped Obsidian’s only strong attack roll with Temporal Defense, but never brought out his Glyph of Temporal Displacement and only used his special attack once.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Booster Gold with Full Life wins Turn 4, Round 2.

TEST 2
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Booster Gold (290)
Booster burns his Temporal Defense too early in Round 2 and suffers from a 5 skull attack from Obsidian on height. Flying and Intangibility helped Obsidian hold height for the entire match, while Shadowlands Passage gave him a +1 defensive bonus for the shadow tile he occupied. He failed his only Enveloped in Shadows roll.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 4 Wounds wins Turn 4, Round 2.

TEST 3
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Red Tornado (300)
Red Tornado got height and used Air Elemental Flying to keep Obsidian engaged and on a ladder. This prevented Obsidian from using his shadow tile bonus and made it a match of 7/7 versus 5/5, which, combined with missing his only Enveloped in Shadows roll, meant bad news for Obsidian.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Red Tornado with 1 Wound wins Turn 5, Round 2.

TEST 4
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Red Tornado (300)
The height advantage was more back and forth this time, due to swapped startzones, but Red Tornado rolling 7 skulls from height for 5 wounds really started swinging things in his favor. At the end of Round 1, Obsidian hit his Enveloped in Shadows roll to put Red Tornado up to 4 wounds. Obsidian went on to win initiative and Red Tornado whiffed his defenses against a 4 skull attack to lose it.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 5 Wounds wins Turn 1, Round 2.

TEST 5
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. War Machine (270)
The combatants stayed mostly on even height here, other than one attack from Obsidian, and Intangibility neutered all of War Machine’s specials. Shadowlands gave Obsidian an extra defensive die most of the match, and Enveloped in Shadows hit on the second roll to finish War Machine off at the end of round 3 (he didn’t roll for it in round 1).
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 1 Wound wins Turn 6, Round 3.

TEST 6
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. War Machine (270)
Much of the same here, with Enveloped by Shadows hitting one of two, and Obsidian won easily.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 1 Wound wins Turn 1, Round 2.

TEST 7
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Eradicator (280)
Obsidian grabbed height for a couple of attacks, but didn’t have much offensive success, and sacrificed adjacency at the end of Round 1 to make Enveloped in Shadows irrelevant. Intangibility was nice here, but Eradicator was fast enough and hits hard enough in melee to overcome it, including one hit in Round 1 that landed five wounds.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Eradicator with 2 Wounds wins Turn 2, Round 2.

TEST 8
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Eradicator (280)
This was a similar match up, but Obsidian couldn’t quite get the battlefield to work for him, and some height for Eradicator at the very end did him in. Obsidian hit his only Enveloped in Shadows roll.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Eradicator with 4 Wounds wins Turn 5, Round 2.

TEST 9
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Lex Luthor (Battlesuit) (280)
Lex’s defense was really tough for Obsidian to crack here, even when he got height. He hit one of two Enveloped in Shadows rolls to help.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Lex Luthor with 3 Wounds wins Turn 2, Round 2.

TEST 10
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Lex Luthor (Battlesuit) (280)
Obsidian managed to work the battlefield in his favor here and had height for the majority of the match. He hit Enveloped by Shadows after Round 1, but missed after Round 2 and went into Round 3 only needing to hit Lex for one more wound, while still having 3 life left himself. Obsidian won initiative in Round 3, and finally hit a good attack roll, 5 skulls, and Lex only blocked two of them, falling to the darkness.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 3 Wounds wins Turn 1, Round 2.

_____________________________________________________________

Squad Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 310?
- Give a brief overview. Intangibility and his other powers proved much more useful against squads who were relatively easy to hit and run. Obsidian showed some prominence here, but the dice also favored him.
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Hawkmen of Thanagar x3 (300)

Spoiler Alert!

Obsidian danced around effectively, using his range advantage and strong attack of 5 to take out two Hawkmen in Round 1, while taking one wound himself, ending the round standing on a Shadow Tile and daring the Hawkemn to pursue him. Since only one could have closed into engagement, it opted out, and avoided the Enveloped in Shadows roll. He won initiative for Round 2 and took out another Hawkman with his first attack. The Hawkmen closed in on him then, two of them, and rolled miserable attacks of one and two skulls, failing to harm him. He took out another one on his attack, then took 3 wounds from a nasty 4 skull attack. He took out the second to last Hawkman then, and the final Hawkman, staring at a 2 life Obsidian, took the risk and engaged. Three skulls were rolled. Obsidian, on shadow, rolled three shields! And then nailed his first Enveloped in Shadows roll to finish things off.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 4 Wounds wins Turn 6, Round 2.

_____________________________________________________________

Squad Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes
- What should be the unit's point value? 310?
- Give a brief overview. This was a bit more of a grind, but with uneven terrain, Obsidian had the decided advantage. Only the superior numbers here gave the Amazons a chance.
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian vs. Amazon Warriors x3 (300)

Spoiler Alert!

Non-flyers on a map with lots of height against a figure with range, flying, and Intangibility put the Amazon Warriors behind the eight ball from the get go. He only picked off one Amazon Warrior in Round 1, but he did manage to spread around his Shadow Tiles, and his tactical advantage was clear as the Warriors scurried to cover the map and try to move to his refuge on height. One clever trick the Amazon Warriors used was to move to the Shadow Tiles, preventing any Shadowland Passage, and taking the defensive bonuses for themselves.
In Round 2, Obsidian won initiative and took out another Amazon on his first attack. The Amazons managed to close in, though, even though only one could attack. Their first attack failed, though, and their attacker fell. Nor was the second attempt successful, but the third Amazon to defend that round finally blocked Obsidian’s attack. This gave the Amazons time to bring up more reinforcements even as they made their third attack, which was a whiff.
Enveloped by Shadows took out an Amazon at the end of Round 2, then initiative went to the Amazons, who couldn’t even break through with a 3 skull attack, thanks to solid defensive rolling by Obsidian. The defending Amazon did not roll quite so well, whiffing and falling to a 2 skull attack. It went on this way, the dice heavily favoring Obsidian, until three Amazons had fallen and the round ended without Obsidian taking any wounds.
With no targets for Enveloped by Shadows, the action moved to Round 4. Only one squad of Amazons remained. Lopsided rolls continued this round until finally, on Turn 3 of the round, the Amazons rolled 3 skulls and Obsidian whiffed, taking 3 wounds. They couldn’t repeat the feat, though, and were down to a single Warrior by the end of Round 4. No targets for Enveloped by Shadows here either.
Finally, in Round 5, the Amazons win initiative and score a fourth wound on Obsidian when he whiffs, then he gets in the last kill when the last Amazon whiffs on their own defensive roll.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Obsidian with 4 Wounds wins Turn 2, Round 5.

_____________________________________________________________

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes
- What should be the unit's point value? 260-270?
- Give a brief overview. Obsidian didn’t do much to help his allies here other than a little bit of damage.
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian (280), Martian Manhunter (300), Green Arrow (Oliver) (150), Atom (50), Green Arrow (Connor) (130), Speedy (Roy) (90) (1,000) vs. Joker (140), Harley Quinn (130), Beat Cops x2 (130), White Martians x4 (600) (1,000)

Spoiler Alert!

Without too much range to counter, Obsidian really didn’t help his teammates that much here and he only got one wound out of Enveloped in Shadows in 4 rolls for it. After he fell, Martian Manhunter mounted an impressive comeback, taking out all four White Martians (Obsidian had put 3 wounds on one, as well as knocking out a Cop) and facing off with Harley (who had Atom stuck on her) and Joker. But he couldn’t bring down the insane duo and that was it.
Green Arrows (both) and Speedy were doing well early until Harley’s bomb blew to kingdom come in a big swinging point for the game.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Joker with 1 Wound, Harley Quinn with Full Life and one Beat Cop survive to win Turn 3, Round 8.

_____________________________________________________________

Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes
- What should be the unit's point value? 280
- Give a brief overview. He didn’t get much use out of his attacks, but his speed and flying and disengage helped him take out Invisible Woman and then finish off her allies.
Map: Custom
Units: Obsidian (280), Batman (250), Mole Man (100), Moloids x17 (170), Weather Wizard (100), Robin (Dick) (100) (1,000) vs. Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Thing (1,000)

Spoiler Alert!

Batman chooses First Aid Kit (never used), Infrared Goggles (never used) and Bat-Grapple (used plenty) at the start of the game.
Human Torch sacrifices himself early to use Flame On 4 and Supernova to take out scores of Moloids and Weather Wizard in one attack. Mole Man finished him off and then squared off with the Fantastic Three. One Moloid slipped in to put an early wound on Invisible Woman and Robin snuck in two more as the Fantastic Three started to whittle down the heroes.
Eventually Batman and Obsidian were in end game versus the Fantastic Three and Obsidian opened things up by putting the last wound on Invisible Woman. He ended up putting 4 wounds on Thing and 4 wounds on Mister Fantastic as well, all with his normal attack.
Enveloped in Shadows didn’t do much to protect his allies (again not much enemy range) and missed on both attempts to wound. Obsidian didn’t manage to place his shadow tiles efficiently, but did put one underneath him to protect him from some of Thing and Mister Fanatstic’s attacks.
Who won and how many wounds did they have? Batman with Full Life and Obsidian with 1 Wound win Turn 4, Round 6.

[Scapemage]

I find the concept of Enveloped very interesting. You can use it on your opponent's figures to wound them, but they become Intangible. You can use it on your own figures, but they could take damage. There are some very interesting ways to build this guy.

[IAmBatman]

Updated through squad tests. He's feeling like 280 so far. I'll hopefully be able to get in army tests tomorrow.

[Hahma]

HH's looked 280, but he dominated vs squads and those were melee squads, so Intangibility didn't matter. But then again, those squads were melee (except for spear volley) and Hawkmen had some synergy they couldn't use from their card, but still something to keep in mind. He's a single attacker and taking down squaddies like that is no small potatoes.

He could provide added benefit for a teammate by enshrouding them for part of a round to protect them from ranged attack like Shadowcat, though either he or the teammate will need to move before the end of the round to prevent possible friendly fire.

[IAmBatman]

Well Intangibility did help him stay at range and get height thanks to the free disengage, and there were quite a few times Spear Volley would have helped the Amazons, since he moved to a spot on the map where they were restricted to one attack at a time. I could see him going up to 290 if he proves helpful to his allies in army tests. At the same time, I think getting wounds with Enveloped in Shadows will be a lot harder to do in army tests. We'll see, though! I think 280-290 is probably the range right now, though if he tanks the army tests, 270 is in play, and if he's incredible in army tests, 300 is in play.

[Hahma]

Yeah, HH and squad tests help get ballpark cost, but army tests will nail it down as working with others and sharing OM's etc. give a better picture of value.

[IAmBatman]

Playtests all wrapped up, 24 hours on the clock. I like him at 280 for the public tests. Hopefully the public testers can figure out how to use his powers more efficiently than I can!

I would like to make one change, making his shadow dropping trigger before moving rather than before taking a turn, so that he can drop the shadow tiles when moved by Martian Manhunter, etc. Thoughts appreciated!

[Hahma]

Pre-Yea for testing at 280 and the before moving for dropping acid..er' I mean shadow tiles sounds like a good idea too.

[A3n]

Pre-Yea from me also.