Porting AotP Into Scape

[The_X_Marker]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Here is a brief description of each, I'm sure more active Magic players can do a better job defining them.

So Jandar does fit in with White quite well, same with Ullar for Green. Utgar for Black also fits like a glove. Red & Blue are not perfect fits but Vydar is fairly Neutral and seems to value knowledge in the form of technology. That leaves Einar and Red to be paired up.

I'll elaborate:

White is law, order, and structure. White heals, protects, and is a force for justice and honor. In this way, Jandar is a good fit, but Einar is also a good fit...

Blue magic is about deceit, logic, and illusion. Blue puts information and knowledge first and will do what it takes to get it. Vydar is a great fit, but then some of Utgar is also really good at this...

Green is about growth, life, and brute force. Green creatures are typically forest-dwelling animals, humanoids with forest animal features, elves, and awe-inspiring behemoths. Ullar is the only fit here, I feel certain about that.

Black is the color of death, fear, ambition, and amorality. Black seeks power and will do whatever it takes to get it. Nothing is sacred. Utgar seems like the best fit, Vydar also has some stuff that can go here.

That really leaves Red. Red is all about emotion, freedom, impulse, and warlike frenzy. Einar is too structured, Utgar is a decent match for Red, too, especially with the Marro and Kyrie.

The problem we run into here is that some of the units in HeroScape have personalities that match up with more than one color in Magic. I would imagine that each unit must be matched to a color on a case by case basis.

Honestly, I think that the games will work best together if we don't go for the summon aspect. Just imagine that ArchKyrie protections prevent enchantments from happening to HeroScape units because the Kyrie are jealous that other beings can have the power of wellsprings without drinking from them. I don't see much of a problem with building armies that combine the two while still keeping both separate. We can reword abilities so they work between games, but I don't think combining them into colors will be necessary.

I like the idea of having Nyssa with her elves in an elf army, Sprint is really powerful.

Order Markers still would work, too.

It feels a lot to me like Warmachine and Hordes. Two distinct games with similar rule sets that can be played together, and usually are.

[Yodaking]

So you are saying combine them while keeping them completely separate? The enchantments would then only ever work on Arena figures and cards and never be used on a Classic Scape squad. That certainly could work but it seems like a little bit of work could combine them in a more interesting way.

Boosting Classic Scape Unique Squads could breath new life into some old units. I also think it would be cool if we get to a point where Sonlen, Emirroon, and the rest of the elf wizards can cast the green spells. Maybe let Chandris cast red spells since he has the fireball. If the spell card points transfer over you just simply draft which ever spells you want them to have and work out a system for casting. Sudema might be a cool spell caster, although Black seems more like her color than Blue. Kurrok, Estivara, & Pelloth seem like good spell casting options. We could even consider the healers like Ana, Rhogar. If you have the Warrior Kelda casting spells based on her healing staff, then the warrior Runa could also cast spells via the helm. Oh, and the Warwitch Kee-Mo-Shi would be fun to play with some spells.

[chas]

G1 Shark,

HOLY COW! That puts a whole new meaning into the upcoming "Artifact Army Card" slated for expansions! Many thanks for that info!

I've made so much fun of MTG through the years, that I never thought I'd be exploring its background for board game ideas. That's the fun of life--ya never know what's gonna happen next...

[wriggz]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

So you are saying combine them while keeping them completely separate? The enchantments would then only ever work on Arena figures and cards and never be used on a Classic Scape squad. That certainly could work but it seems like a little bit of work could combine them in a more interesting way.

I think this makes the most, simplist sense. The only difference I plan to run with AotP is to have the Planeswalker use order markers. With that you get all the powers of the Planeswalker but need the planeswalker to survive.

I think people are under estimating how brutal common scape squads are. 300 points of 4th mass or Knights + Champion have the potential to truely mess up a planes walker. Not to mention Dund cripling them for an entire round.

Heck runing DW7000, Brunak and Ornak on your first turn has a chance to end the game in round one.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by G1shark

@ Johngee you actully made me remember that in Magic the Gathering they have a faction called colorless or Artifact which appears grey sometimes. The Planeswalker Tezzeret who is a colorless artifact planeswalker, is very much a tech savvy planeswalker who specializes in espionage, infiltration, and backstabbing.

That sounds very Vydar-ish to me . . . ~~lol~~ I'm glad that my feeble efforts to communicate enabled your synapses to connect more efficiently (this was said by one suffering from a severe case of age related CRS).

[quozl]

Tezzeret has been represented as blue and as blue/black.

Karn (a golem) and Ugin (a spirit dragon) are the only colorless planeswalkers.

[The_X_Marker]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

So you are saying combine them while keeping them completely separate? The enchantments would then only ever work on Arena figures and cards and never be used on a Classic Scape squad. That certainly could work but it seems like a little bit of work could combine them in a more interesting way.
<Spellcasting stuff>

I don't see why we couldn't run armies with Gideon leading Knights of Weston backed by his Rhox and Kor. He doesn't just have to fight them, he doesn't summon them, they're just in the same army.

Combining the two might lead to having us make armies that are 700 points as a standard, and I am fine with that.

As for spells, they already mostly target generic unique squads, or only last one turn, so I don't foresee any problem with having spells that allow it to affect HeroScape models. Certainly, Krav with Dark Harvest (which only says unique squad) would be tough, but we have plenty of A+ figures anyway. Some combinations will just work too well.

My current thought for combining the games is that we keep it simple.

Either we have Planeswalker death result in a loss or make the game have 3 different victory points, maybe like this:

1: Killed the enemy Planeswalker before killing their whole army: +1 VP
2: Killed the opponent's entire army: +1 VP
3: Your Planeswalker was killed last/survived the battle: +1 VP

In this way, a player could potentially lose and still win on VP's. I think that that is pretty interesting and rewards tactical play, potentially closing a lot of skill gaps too.

[aquamaniac27]

Having played a bunch of AotP, I definitely don't want to port the "Planeswalker summons more guys," as it is an incredibly powerful mechanic, especially in conjunction with abilities like Haste (you can attack with a figure when you summon it). The deck of cards is also really powerful, most games I've played have ended by someone top-decking a card that trumps the board state.

I've been messing around with using the AotP cards and basing HS cards off of all of them, but nothing too serious right now. I'd love to see a C3-esque group get started up for those of us who want to use the figs for traditional Scape.

Another issue is M:tG's color philosophy does not mesh well with the HS generals. For those of you unfamiliar with the color wheel:

Red: emotion, passion, anger, fire, lightning, chaos
Green: nature, harmony, peace, primal strength
Blue: knowledge, illusion, deception, mind magic
White: law, righteousness, moral code, justice
Black: power, sacrifice, Machevelian thinking, corruption, manipulation
Colorless is reserved for created objects or artifacts. There is also a race of planes-eaters who are colorless.

[chas]

"Planes-eaters?" Tell me more...

***

I should have my game tomorrow. (Edit: delayed to next week!) Let the "play testing" (straight playing) begin!

After that, I will begin to post my own mininalist rules for porting AotP into Scape. Note that I will keep the new figures as specialists with their own rules, not change any Scape figures. (Only AotP units will be summoned, and only by Planeswalkers. PWs will require Order Markers. Etc. KISS).

Others are working on different ideas, so you can take your choice. Whether a "C3P" group or standard is formed, and how it will be oriented, remains to be seen. When and if the new game receives substantial expansions, I might revisit the issue, but only then. And by then I will have other people's ideas to consider. But for now, I'm just a Heroscaper who never stopped playing that game! And I consider AotP a Scape expansion present from our old pal Craig Van Ness.

There is also considerable FAQing of AotP itself going on, as the 'non-Scape' areas of the rules seem to have left much ambiguity in them to be hashed out! And I'll be paying close attention to this both here and on boardgamegeek.

[aquamaniac27]

Originally Posted by chas

"Planes-eaters?" Tell me more...

Eldrazi. Colorless beings that have "ceaseless hunger." They travel between planes, consuming all the magic, leaving the plane in ruin. It took 2 of the most powerful Planeswalkers (and some other one) to seal them away the first time. I think right now in the story, they had just been released last time we saw them.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by aquamaniac27

I've been messing around with using the AotP cards and basing HS cards off of all of them, but nothing too serious right now. I'd love to see a C3-esque group get started up for those of us who want to use the figs for traditional Scape.

Unfortunately I have zero photo-shopping skills to create HS-esque cards, so I too am patiently awaiting some creative person to publish new custom cards for each of the Planeswalkers. The PW squads are not a priority right now especially since they are not painted.


IMO: I think the stats on the M:AotP cards can be directly copied onto an HS card format with General affiliation and background color are pretty obvious, but still being debated on another thread. Personally, I like the idea of them being able to summon one squad or allied creature in the same manner as Iskra summons the Retchets on a d20 roll or Kurrock the Enviromentalist calls forth the elementals.


Perhaps . . .
Gideon (white) could summon Air Elementals, White Wyrmlings, or a Dzu-Teh squad;
Jace (blue) could summon Water Elemental, Blue Wyrmlings, the Greater Ice Elemental, Shades of Bleakewood, or his own Leline Phantoms modified to have only one Life each;
Chandra (red) could summon Fire Elementals, Red Wyrmlings, Red Ants of Aunstrom, or her own Flamewing Phoenixes;
Nissa (green) could summon Earth Elementals, Eilan Sidhe, Venoc Vipers, another elf wizard; or her own Pummelroot Elementals if the Life of each were reduced to 1;
Liliana (black) could summon Zombies of Morindan, Zombie Hulks, or Thralls (Blood, Deathstrike, or Preyblood), Deepwyrm Drow, Skeletons of Annellintina, Tomb Skeletons, or Crypt Guardians.


What we really need is a dedicated team to play test the various combinations to insure that the Point Cost is comparable to traditional HS units in order for the blended games to be balanced and not introduce Marvel-esque Superheroes into the battlefields of Valhalla.

[aquamaniac27]

Originally Posted by Johngee

Unfortunately I have zero photo-shopping skills to create HS-esque cards, so I too am patiently awaiting some creative person to publish new custom cards for each of the Planeswalkers. The PW squads are not a priority right now especially since they are not painted.

What we really need is a dedicated team to play test the various combinations to insure that the Point Cost is comparable to traditional HS units in order for the blended games to be balanced and not introduce Marvel-esque Superheroes into the battlefields of Valhalla.

The big problem is these two questions:
1) Do we keep Planeswalker summoning in Scape with these figures?
2) Do we keep the spell decks with these Planeswalkers?

Both drastically change how Scape is played, and would set different power levels for customs. Don't forget, this thread is about bring AotP into Heroscape, not the other way around. If you just mash them together, no changes need be made.