The Book of Gamora (II)

[IAmBatman]

Defensive Stance? Defensive Fury?

[Ronin]

Still looking for a couple votes here!

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Ronin

First rule of power names: I'm bad at em.

All ears on alternate suggestions.

Honed Reflexes?

[Arkham]

Points wise, I think 310, same as Gamora I, would be ideal army potential wise. But it’s possible 300 and 320 offer possibilities I haven’t looked into yet.

[Tornado]

Yea

[Yodaking]

yea

[Yodaking]

I often build up my armies in blocks of points, so just looking at straight up GotG team building, this is what I see when I look at what is either released or on deck.

Star Lord 250
Rocket II (195) & Baby Groot (105) = 300
Rocket I (175) & Groot (275) = 450

Drax I 350
Mantis 200
Bug 200
Adam Warlock 400
Cosmo (160) + Jack Flag (190) = 350
Gamora I (310) + Nebula (240) = 550
Gamora I (310) + Jack Flag (190) = 500
Cosmo (160) + Nebula (240) = 400

Those are all nice blocks to work with, then we have these two odd balls.

Rocket II (195) & Groot (275) = 470
Rocket I (175) & Baby Groot (105) = 280

They currently don't have many options other than being teamed up with these odd pairings.

Nebula (240) + Jack Flag (190) = 430 + RII & G (470) = 900
Gamora I (310) + Cosmo (160) = 470 + RI & BG (280) = 750

As such I still like the idea of having Drax II at 330 and Gamora II at 320. Then you have:

Drax II (330) + Gamora II (320) = 650
Drax II (330) + RII & G (470) = 800
Gamora II (320) + RI & BG (280) = 600

It doesn't look like Drax II will end up at 330 though. At 340 he basically replaces Nebula (240) in the blocks above at +100 while opening up this 4 figure block:

Drax II (340) + Nebula (240) + RII & G (470) = 1050
+ SL 250 = 1300

Gamora II could really end up at anywhere between 270-330 then.

At 290, she would get paired up with Cosmo (160) and replace Jack Flag (190) in his one pairing above that doesn't include Gamora I.

300 would be ideal as it would make her a block all by herself (which could be added to the D/N/RII/BG/SL build above for a 1600 point team).

310 would let you swap her out for the first Gamora in the blocks above.

Then 270, 280, 320 or 330 could each work but it would pretty much tie her to one of the R&G odd balls.

[Ronin]

This passes

I'll start testing around 320 and see how she feels. We can figure it out from there.

[Arkham]

I was thinking more along these lines:

Star-Lord (250)
Drax II (340)
Gamora I or II (310)
900
Baby Groot (105)
1005
Rocket II (195)
1200
Mantis (200)
1400
Bug (200)
1600

Star-Lord (250)
Gamora I or II (310)
Nebula (240)
800
Mantis (200) or Bug (200)
1000
Drax II (340)
Cosmo (160)
1500

There's also Adam Warlock in there for a block of 400 that can be added to any of those.

But I agree, we can figure it out after we get a read on how she feels.

[Ronin]

Fwiw, if we're thinking she has a shot at coming in around 300, we could also bump Drax II to 350 and shoot for 300 even for Gamora. (Think there was some pro-350 sentiment in Drax's thread, and I know my yea still stands at 350).

Lets them live in the same builds together as if they were 310/340, and keeps them both in even 50-point increments that are common to a lot of the core Guardians (Star-Lord, Warlock, Mantis, Rocket & Groot I, Rocket & Groot II).

[Arkham]

If that's the preference that's fine.

[Ronin]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Gamora (II)

Army Test
Map: Ivy's Greenhouse
Units: Gamora (II) @300, Songbird, Luke Cage, Speedball (820) vs Black Canary, Robin (Dick), Green Arrow (Ollie), Speedy (Roy), Batgirl (Cass), Hawkeye (II) (820)

Spoiler Alert!

Gamora is a great heavy-hitter for the Crime Fighters here. Her unblockables come in super-handy for dispatching Robin quickly, and she gets some wounds in on a few key targets with her normal attack.

Her defense rolls aren't that great, but her defensive power lets her disengage from Black Canary a couple times, to keep herself from being mauled by Fists of Fury. She eventually goes down regardless, but her team coasts to a pretty strong victory, thanks to Speedball tanking a lot of attacks in the endgame. The last two figures standing are Speedball and Hawkeye. Hawkeye uses his SA to subtract Speedball's defense dice, but Speedball keeps coming up with 1 shield on 1 die and not taking any damage anyway.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): 2 wounds to Batgirl in 1 attack, 2 wounds to Black Canary in 1 attack, 2 wounds to Green Arrow in 1 attack
• Flanking Strike: moved 3 times. Rolled unblockables 2 times. 3 wounds to Robin in 2 uses (destroyed).
• Trained to Perfection: Whirlwinded 0 times. Auto-skulled 3 times.
• Defensive Maneuver: Counterstruck 0 times. Moved 2 times.
• Damage Taken: 5 wounds from Black Canary in 2 attacks, 1 wound from Hawkeye in 1 attack (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Speedball with 1 wound

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Ivy's Greenhouse
Units: Gamora (II) @300, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon (II), Groot (Baby) (850) vs Wrecking Crew, Atom (Ray) (850)

Spoiler Alert!

Gamora's Flanking Strike unblockables didn't come into play quite so much here, because she was used as a screen to protect Rocket and Star-Lord from the Wrecking Crew. The map also played into that somewhat - the natural barrier in the middle slowed the Crew's assault on the Guardians' efficiency units, whereas they probably could have run around Gamora more easily and pressured Star-Lord and Rocket more quickly on some other maps.

Gamora had a pretty big, pretty lucky game. She took out Wrecker on a couple counter strikes after he pulled two 1-skull attack rolls in the same turn. Then, on her turn, Gamora rolled 7 skulls on 7 dice (1 extra from Star-Lord & 1 extra from height), plus an auto-skull, and annihilated Thunderball in 1 hit.

Unfortunately, her luck ran out on the next turn and she got Wrecked - Bulldozer flattened her. Once Gamora went down, the remaining Wrecking Crew members were able to pick apart Rocket and Groot on a big turn, leaving Star-Lord without much hope of a solo victory.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): 1 wound to Wrecker in 2 attacks, 6 wounds to Thunderball in 1 attack (destroyed)
• Flanking Strike: moved 3 times. Rolled unblockables 0 times.
• Trained to Perfection: Whirlwinded 0 times. Auto-skulled 2 times.
• Defensive Maneuver: Counterstruck 2 times. Moved 2 times. 2 wounds dealt to Wrecker (destroyed)
• Damage Taken: 0 wounds from Thunderball in 1 attack, 1 wound from Wrecker in 3 attacks, 2 wounds from Piledriver in 2 attacks, 3 wounds from Bulldozer in 1 attack (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Bulldozer with 3 wounds, Piledriver unwounded

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Ivy's Greenhouse
Units: Gamora (II) @300, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon (II), Groot (Baby) (850) vs Captain America, Bucky, Agent Venom, Squirrel Girl, Oracle, Skrull Infiltrator x4 (850)

Spoiler Alert!

The Guardians really struggled to get going offensively here - nothing really went horribly awry strategically, but there were a lot of 1-2 skull attack rolls. Cap remained standing all game, and Venom only went down to a really luck shot from Star-Lord in the endgame, when all the other Guardians were dead.

Gamora had pretty weak luck on her own turns, but did manage to counter strike Bucky to death.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): 1 wound to Bucky in 1 attack, 1 wound to Cap in 3 attacks
• Flanking Strike: moved 3 times. Rolled unblockables 0 times.
• Trained to Perfection: Whirlwinded 1 times. Auto-skulled 2 times.
• Defensive Maneuver: Counterstruck 4 times. Moved 1 time. Dealt 1 wound to Agent Venom, 3 wounds to Bucky (destroyed)
• Damage Taken: 1 wound from Captain America in 1 attack, 0 wounds from Bucky in 3 attacks, 5 wounds from Agent Venom in 7 attacks (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Captain America with 4 wounds, Oracle with 1 wound, Squirrel Girl unwounded, 4 Skrull Infiltrators (2 never placed on the battlefield)

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Ended up running her at 300, since that's our target, just to see how she felt. She played really well with Luke, but I think she would get some of the same benefits in a bigger Guardians build where she has other heavies to buddy up with. Luke made Flanking Strike a lot more usable because he can charge into engagement without fear, whereas Rocket and Star-Lord are not eager to do that. Bigger builds with Drax or maybe Cap would solve that issue, though.

I don't think she's too far off of 300. She can be pretty nasty on offense, but she's not doing anything crazy, mechanically, and her defensive power only indirectly protects her (by intimidating low-attack figures or moving her away from melee multi-attackers).

The Whirlwind option of Trained to Perfection didn't come up that much here either, but a lot of that was down to the map, I think - Ivy's Greenhouse lends itself to a lot of 'north-facing zax vs south-facing zax' throw-downs, especially when you have heavies fighting heavies.

Bigger Guardians games where she has other heavies to buddy up with, are gonna be the thing to test, I think.