Springtime Custom Competition Poll - Congrats Astroking112!

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Dr.Goomonkey

I had been thinking summer for the next contest, but with the account of interest in workshopping these guys a bit it might make sense to run two if these a year, instead of four.

The problem with workshopping this particular batch to perfection is that, as far as I can tell, most of these minis are pretty pricey at this point. Getting a whole faction's worth of them would pass the $100 dollar mark somewhat easily. I love the idea of workshopping them, tough!

Keep up the great commentary and don't worry too much about effectively hiding which one is yours, especially with just a couple days left to vote. Like everything else the anonymity is just for fun's sake.

Honestly, I'm in favour of more of these, and I'd like to see one in the summer rather than a cut to two a year - if people want to workshop them, that's fine, but I don't necessarily feel there needs to be 'community approved' army cards coming out of these contests - what ever happened to personal creativity?

[ollie]

I agree with Lazy Orang. If the workshopping happens that'll be fun, but I don't think it's as much fun than (or, more importantly, mutually exclusive fun with) another competition.

[Ronin]

I think a little workshopping and post-mortem discussion would be cool to have, but I don't necessarily think that needs to slow the pace of the contests to two a year. Ent discussion could easily happen in parallel with a new round of submissions if people were still workshopping come the next contest.

[Confred]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

I would never expect something like this to end up in Einar, though; I guess you're putting them there because of the Gurei-Oni connection?

That's right with the Guei-Oni connection and Einar has a punisher subtheme with its Counter Strike. Splinter feels like a version of that to me.

[Confred]

Originally Posted by Dr.Goomonkey

I had been thinking summer for the next contest, but with the account of interest in workshopping these guys a bit it might make sense to run two if these a year, instead of four.

The problem with workshopping this particular batch to perfection is that, as far as I can tell, most of these minis are pretty pricey at this point. Getting a whole faction's worth of them would pass the $100 dollar mark somewhat easily. I love the idea of workshopping them, tough!

Keep up the great commentary and don't worry too much about effectively hiding which one is yours, especially with just a couple days left to vote. Like everything else the anonymity is just for fun's sake.

I'm definitely going to do my own project with these entries. I like that they're four a year instead of two and I like that the subject is unknown until it's time to do it.

[Sam]

I've seen a few mentions of one of the cards, Jubboko, having Life Drain but it taking some flak for being somehow altered - looks the same as on Cyprien's card, to me.

Disclaimer - I'm not involved in this contest!

[ollie]

My thoughts on the entrants.

On a first pass through, I knew that I was voting for Jubokko. Something like six different outlandish ideas. I think that some don't work and others don't work together, but the overflowing creativity and coolness carries it through.

With one exception (11/10, best unit, too good for the SoV), none of the ones that tried to get a multiple-tree forest effect did much for me. One aspect of this is that I don't much like the Uncommon Hero mechanic, so most were starting with a small count against.

The Timber Custodian probably came closest, but like others have said I think that Swat could have done with just one or other of the trigger conditions and I worry that Take Root is too powerful (and it encourages multiple uncommons, which pushes my anti-uncommon sentiment button more).

The Tsuri Oni were cool too, but again I think that each of the powers could be simpler: get rid of the chain in Can't See the trees and choose one or other wounding method for Splinter. And I didn't like a couple of the other quirks (Einar, Demon,...).

Then it was the big unique heroes, most of which I liked (and the Darkwood Treant Guardian probably came closest of the uncommons to being on this list).

I went with Gnarl of Elder and Oakshadow for my votes. I liked the way each of them implemented the use of trees on the battlefield, as well as the overall vibe.

I also liked Arboris (who is in the lead as I write this) but ultimately thought that the two powers with a marker involved didn't do quite enough in either gameplay and theme to justify it all rather than just boosting stats and was worried that he was just too fragile. I can easily imagine changing this opinion after playing it though.

Overall I think the standard is very high. Nice job everyone.

[Astroking112]

I'd like to express my support towards maintaining four contests a year, instead of dropping it down to two. I fully plan on improving my unit after this contest ends, but I (and everyone else) can always do that during the downtime between contests, or even continue working on them on the side while we tinker with new entries for the next one.

Also, I'm not sure if everyone does want to workshop their units afterward. It's perfectly fine for someone to be happy with the custom that they made (or just not be attached to it enough to want to keep working on it), and I'd like it if those people weren't forced to wait half a year before another contest.

If we look at something like the Architects of the Realms of Valhalla, they run a constant workshopping thread separate from the contest submissions that lets people develop their maps further when they want to. I think that this works very well, and should be the direction that these contests take instead of decreasing the number of competitions. There are also the SoV threads of course, but many of these submissions are too unconventional to really fit into those parameters, so a unique workshopping thread might be needed.

[Dr.Goomonkey]

Four contests a year it will remain, then!

As for a separate workshopping thread, there is the Custom Competition Compilation Thread that I don't really know what the function should be. I don't know if that or the individual polls would be better for this though. Part of me thinks that the polls are actually better since we already have all the individual reviews here.

I did make a couple of personal customs based off of a couple of the early contests, and planned on doing that for all the contests but that didn't happen. Also, now that I look back at those old contests a lot of the cards have been lost either from the image hosting site which shall remain nameless doing what it did, or from SumoPaint deleting all of my pictures and my not backing them up anywhere...

[El Happy Face]

Long time site lurker, but made an actual profile because this contest looked so fun. Maybe I'll participate the next time around!

[superfrog]

Welcome to the site!

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by El Happy Face

Long time site lurker, but made an actual profile because this contest looked so fun. Maybe I'll participate the next time around!

Welcome to the site! We'd welcome your entry!