HelmAverse Supers - Reinforcements Arrive

[Sherman Davies]

I love Adaptive Defense Program, Matt - definitely one of your more creative powers. Though if you really want to encourage the kinds of counter tactics you mentioned to get around it, I'd suggest that the power add 2 defense dice for each revealed marker. Y'know, make it something people really want to avoid.

[Matt Helm]

Thanks SD, I just needed the inspiration from a 7 year old. And although I like the idea of making it nasty with the 2 dice, I also don't want to make it necessary to counter him with Martian Manhunter, Reed Richards or Hawkeye. I know I also recommended teaming up on him but remember, even your first attack is usually a revealed OM so his Defense really starts as 6 and has the potential to be an 8. So at the +2 scale, even if I started him at a Defense of 4 on the card, he'd jump to 6, 8 or 10 with multiple revealed OMs.

Normally that may sound cool but as the game gets down to only a few figures left, I'd hate to see Transfer of Consciousness revive him and then have the opponent with only one figure trying to get attacks in on 6, 8 and 10 defense scale.

I don't want to stress it but if he gets height, his card says 5 +1 for height and +1 for the opponent revealing the 1st OM gives him a 7 to start (unless of course Mr. F or MM get involved as suggested).

[A3n]

This is very funny. I was kicking that exact idea in my head the other night. Obviously not for Brainiac, it was for the public C3G Swamp Thing but I decided it wasn't appropriate for him, but I was locking it away in my mind for later. So yeah I love it & can completely get on board with it. I will make the update this evening (or if I can squeeze a bit of time as soon as I get home from work ).

Cheers

[Matt Helm]

EDIT (since I was ninja'd by A3n): Excellent A3n, I look forward to the change and please take your time and make sure you don't cut into family time.
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Potential wording edit needed on Guardian. I don't remember if his current Exoskeleton was taken from official wording so maybe we should change it to:

EXOSKELETAL FORCE FIELD
When rolling defense dice, Guardian always adds one extra shield to whatever is rolled.

Or we could just leave it as is since it matches the format of Invisible Woman and Green Lantern and just add the word "dice," after the word "defense":

EXOSKELETAL FORCE FIELD
When Guardian rolls defense dice, add one automatic shield to whatever is rolled.

[A3n]

Updates done for both Brainiac & Guardian (I went with the first one as it sounds better).

Cheers

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Matt Helm

I know I also recommended teaming up on him but remember, even your first attack is usually a revealed OM so his Defense really starts as 6 and has the potential to be an 8. So at the +2 scale, even if I started him at a Defense of 4 on the card, he'd jump to 6, 8 or 10 with multiple revealed OMs.

Normally that may sound cool but as the game gets down to only a few figures left, I'd hate to see Transfer of Consciousness revive him and then have the opponent with only one figure trying to get attacks in on 6, 8 and 10 defense scale.

You're right, I forgot that it would be +2 per unrevealed order marker.

[Matt Helm]

Thought I'd share a quick battle report from the Helmiverse. Last weekend I got a chance to try out the customs with a 2 on 2 750 pt (approx... I let them vary a bit just to get the game going) each battle with the son and a few nephews. One nephew was new to the game so I took him on my team and we went against the two punk die rollers.

Even though each card was not used to its potential, I do believe that the costing is pretty close on the ones we used and that made me feel good.

Son's Team:
- Black Adam 350
- Doctor Strange 250
- Bucky (the Helm/Garada version as without Cap in the game, my son asked for the older version) 130
His Partner:
- Captain Marvel 350
- Crimson Dynamo 230
- Guardian 220
Team TOTAL: 1530

Dad's Team:
- Superman 390
- Azrael 180
- Joker 150
My Partner:
- Green Lantern 290
- Flash 260
- Hawkgirl 210
Team Total: 1480

Let me just tell you that the battle was fierce with no side taking a clear advantage until the end. Black Adam and Captain Marvel tried to team up on Superman but the Flash was wizzing through them both and eventually Black Adam took the engagement swipe risk to go track down and pummel the Flash. With Superman and Captain Marvel wounding each other, it came down to who was luckier. Superman belted him with a whallop, but left the captain with one life left and just enough for him to bring down the lightning with a Shazam SA that took out Big Blue (by one extra skull... oh Supes, how did you fail me).

Earlier, Doctor Strange had swapped out Green Lantern for Hawkgirl but right when Captain Marvel was celebrating, GL got back into the battle and blasted him with a ranged attack taking him down. Meanwhile Black Adam took out Flash but Azrael put a little burn damage on him from distance and so Doctor Strange rescued him by swapping him out of the fray with Bucky. At the same time, Crimson Dynamo surprised Green Lantern only to take one in the back himself from Azrael. It seemed that Davie was taking out Goliath at every turn.

With the big guys gone and Adam licking his wounds, Azrael then took out Bucky (and the race was on to get the Winter Soldier on any team to upset the balance of power). But Guardian swooped in and took out both Azrael and eventually Joker (who never did get into some Revitalizing Mayhem). Dad was out of the game.

Hawkgirl had been locked in an engagement with Doctor Strange and was getting so frustrated by his one shield defense. Luckily for her, he wasn't fighting back as OM's were wasted on Bucky who was trying to defend himself with double attacks (the old card... I'm glad I changed that).

After finally breaking through and taking out Dr. Strange, Hawkgirl swooped in on Guardian and with one big blow just leveled him (he had 2 wounds already from his fray with Joker and Azrael). So now it was Hawkgirl against the very wounded (1 Life left) Black Adam. Unfortunately for her, he moved in first so she couldn't get a Soaring Charge on him.

BA missed and left Hawgirl the chance. She rolled 3 out of 4 skulls only to be met by exactly 3 shields. So now with an OM revealed, Adam got his extra die... and that was the one he would need. Hawkgirl went down and Adam stood as last man standing with one life left.

The games usually don't finish off with such a satisfyingly balanced tale. Thankfully, no kid was upset as it was so close, they all knew that we were all winners that day.

[Balantai]

Matt,

There's a fun battle report of your Fantastic Four here.

[tcglkn]

Wow, I love your customs. All are high quality and are worth playing. I was just wondering when you would be adding War Machine. It says coming soon, but I don't know when that was posted and how long it will be.

[Matt Helm]

Thanks for the kind words and the interest Tcglkn. Hopefully I can have War Machine up soon. I must admit that he's not a favorite of mine but after getting the mini on Free Comic Book Day, my son put in a request for a card so I figured I'd oblige.

I also have a skeleton write up of Plastic Man (some of my original ideas went into the C3G version so I'm trying to work out a Helmiverse version with my variant thoughts).

Other cards that may or may not make it (no promises) are Union Jack, Doctor Midnight, and an updated version of Phantom Lady.

I also have a few non-super customs in the works that will likely end up in their own thread elsewhere when I get around to it. They include updates of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (when A3n feels self satisfied with his Star Wars Template that I love as is), and the Doctor Who customs seen in the first post when we can decide if we want a different template for them or to just leave them on Marvel cards.

The new thread will also include classic style customs when we decide whether we want completely new templates, a new general color scheme, or just to filter them into the current generals. They include the 2 "steam" cards (they may also stay on Marvel cards cause they look really cool, but we'll see), an update of Nessie, and a totally new non-super custom unique squad I'll temporarily call "Felinataurs".

Then the future hopefully holds another Superhero team collaboration with A3n (his choice) and if I'm still doing this in my retirement years, maybe some Battleball figures put on cards for the Helmiverse.

So if you're even slightly interested, please keep your eyes open and hopefully I'll get some new stuff up on the board when work, family, softball, and everything else stops kicking me in the Batcave.

[Confred]

Felinataurs? as in Lamias? Always liked Lamias, Sphinxes, and Manticores. and Harpies.. but they aren't feline.

I'd like to see some D&D customs.

[davidlhsl]

David's Heroscape Milestone #538
Sponsored by Dial Soap!!!

Other than Azrael and common squad figures (*), I now have all the Helmiverse SuperHero figures up through Batman Beyond (I haven't ordered Brainiac yet). All I need to do is print the rest of the cards!

(* I'll proxy common squads with Icehouse pyramids, as there's no sense in spending the time and money tracking all the figures. Besides, I actually think the proxies make the Superheroes stand out even more.)