The Book of General Zod

[Lord Pyre]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Honestly, should this be a Zod reeval or a New Krypton reeval at this stage? I don't want to leave the Soldiers and Ursa in eternal purgatory.

What about leaving them in.... the Phantom Zone??

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I don't think Zod can save Ursa. If he can somehow save the Soldiers and make himself viable in a build that includes the Soldiers, Infiltrators, and Non, I think that's a huge win.

agreed

[IAmBatman]

I think it makes sense to try to tackle things one at a time, and this is the one we started with. I do have something in my workshop thread designed to help the Soldiers and Ursa a bit.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Zod isn’t going to be able to save Ursa short of having a ‘All Ursas get plus 3 to their Attack and Defnese’ power or somethin, so not something I’d worry about here personally.

[Yodaking]

Just a FYI, I'm going to be really reluctant in investing more time and money into this faction at this point. It's already a very expensive army build, needing to add a few more ~250+ point heroes to the mix in order for it to work just means it's a 2000+ only army build. I don't play games at that level often enough to go down that road. When we do play games that big, JL & Avengers are going to be hard to beat.

[IAmBatman]

I think the changes I discussed with johnny previously are really going to help, fwiw. LV tested them and said the faction felt a lot more fun. Combine that with a point drop to Zod and possibly look into the Soldiers and/or Ursa in the future (and expand the faction with designs like the ones Karat and I wrote up in our workshop threads) and I think there's value there.

But I won't tell anybody how to spend their time or money!

[johnny139]

Right, so here's what we kind of had in mind.

First, the issues as I see it: The original construction of the power says you want one for Soldiers, one for Spies, one for Unique Heroes. Moving away from this betrays the spirit of the design. The Spies and particularly the Soldiers are pretty sucky units, though. Can you make a good Zod that also makes those units good, WITHOUT throwing off the balance of the design.

Don't argue with any of those points, you're not gonna win. But that's the direction I'm coming from.

Letting you choose two pips with General of New Krypton essentially fixes Zod. It makes him twice as efficient and a good linchpin for the faction. The last power makes the Spies somewhat viable, but they could use a boost; moreover, it doesn't fix the inherent suckiness of the Soldiers.

So here's what I'm proposing:

GENERAL OF NEW KRYPTON
After revealing an Order Marker on this card and instead of taking a turn normally, you may do up to two of the following:
* Take a turn with 1 Unique Kryptonian Hero you control.
* Move up to 2 Kryptonian Heroes you control. Then, you may make an immediate attack with any Kryptonian Soldier that moved.
* One at a time, for each Kryptonian Spy you control, choose a figure engaged with that Kryptonian Spy and roll 1 unblockable attack die against that figure.
Each option may only be chosen once per player turn, and a figure cannot move or take a turn if it has previously moved this turn. General Zod may be the chosen Hero.

The "take a turn" pip" is unchanged, as is the Spy pip. I moved the take a turn one to the top of the pile just because it's the simplest.

The big change is to the "move 2 Soldiers" pile. Now you can move any Heroes, which provides a failsafe for the Spies and lets you manuever your not-full-turn Uniques. More importantly, it also lets you attack with the Soldiers, which is potent. Potentially you could be getting up to 3 attacks per turn. Maybe that's almost worth 200 points a head.

[Lazy Orang]

That works pretty damn well for me, actually.


Perhaps do a reeval to fix Ursa at some point after this?

[IAmBatman]

One thing at a time! I don't think an Ursa fix (or second version) should be off the table, but I think johnny's proposed version makes sense to go forward with.

Since this has been a fairly contentious thread, should we call a vote? If not, I'm going to assume it's the desired direction and test it.

[A3n]

Not sure that the "General Zod may be the chosen Hero." works without creating a potential infinite loop.

[IAmBatman]

Valid point. Clearly not the intent here, but I can see how it can easily be read that way to allow that. I'm not sure what the best fix is there.

[Lazy Orang]

Doesn't the normally preclude that?