The Book of Queen of Spades

[Ronin]

Alright, I'll try to keep that in mind as I'm playing. Just heads-up, I was hoping to knock this test out this week, but I've been a little tight on time. My dad is visiting this weekend, so I probably won't get to this until about Tuesday. I haven't forgotten, though!

[Ronin]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Queen of Spades @200 points

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Queen of Spades @200, King @210, Ace @260 (670) vs Batman (I), Robin (Dick), Nite Owl, Toxin (670)

Spoiler Alert!

Pretty strong performance from the Queen in this one - particularly handy that she hit all her Royal Flush rolls. She's a bit crap as an attacker, but still worth taking the odd turn with to make sure she's in good position for Deceptions. Her team actually did pretty well for itself at first, but fell apart after Queen went down.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): not used
• Razor Spade Special Attack: 0 wounds on Robin in 1 attack, 0 wounds on Batman in 2 attacks
• Deceptions 12: used 6 times, 3 successes (2 due to X reveal). Tricked Nite Owl into attacking his teammates 3 times, resulting in 3 wounds on Batman.
• Royal Flush 12: 3 rolls, 3 successes.
• Damage Taken: 1 wound from Evasive Strike, 3 from Toxin in 2 attacks (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Batman with 1 Life left, Nite Owl with full Life

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Queen of Spades @200, King @210, Ace @260, Duploids (770) vs Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Ragdoll (770)

Spoiler Alert!

This game was kinda the opposite - Queen was a bit more successful on her Deceptions rolls and stuck around for a while, but much less so on Royal Flush rolls. I was guilty of taking too many turns with her in the start of the game and gambling on hitting her bonding roll, in retrospect.

King picked up the slack in the first real strong showing I've seen from him, though - he had a run of hitting all his d20 rolls in the endgame, and the Heroes for Hire needing to close to melee range gave him a few chances to use Enhanced Charisma.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): 0 wounds to Ragdoll in 1 attack, 0 wounds to Luke Cage in 2 attacks
• Razor Spade Special Attack: 0 wounds to Iron Fist in 1 attack, 1 wound to Luke Cage in 1 attack
• Deceptions 12: 7 rolls, 4 successes (1 due to X reveal). Tricked the New Avengers into punching each other four times, but they kept not damaging each other. Only resulted in 1 wound to Luke Cage.
• Royal Flush 12: 4 rolls, 1 success.
• Damage Taken: 1 wound from Jessica Jones in 1 attack, 3 wounds from Luke Cage in 2 attacks (destroyed)

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Ace with 2 Life left, King with full Life

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: A lot to chew on here - still kinda mulling it over. Feel like I could run a couple more games and still not entirely have a handle on these guys. Figuring out what to do with the X OM is tough because I really want that boost on Deceptions more than King's powers, but Ace's attack bonding I'd rather have with King.

Queen feels like the more valuable piece than King to me, but her offense is limited enough that I feel like a straight-up "just Ace and Queen" thing is probably less attractive than "just Ace and King".

King is a little hard to figure out what to do with at times - he feels okay as an attacker when it's just him and Ace and he's getting the odd Ace Up the Sleeve attack activation, but if he's not getting the X OM, he feels pretty underwhelming (aside from his statistically-unlikely rampage in game two), and I found myself rarely really wanting to take a turn with him when Queen hit her Royal Flush roll. I think he's at risk of getting passed over a lot to make sure you get the Ace turn in the bonding chain.

[fret_gurglo]

Thanks for the tests Ronin. Queen is sitting at 5 wins and 2 losses suggesting she is undercost. I do not wish to increase her cost so I think I will limit her Deceptions to only 2 spaces. Hopefully that will bring her value down to about 200.

However, I find King a little overpriced. [MENTION=44836]Ronin[/MENTION] (or anyone for that matter) do you think if King's Enhanced Charisma had a range of 2 we could keep his cost between 210-220?

[Ronin]

I'd reduce the potency of the effect rather than just tightening the range. I think if you make it too hard to protect King she'll just skew towards pod play in other builds.

I think the main thing King needs is a way to be more potent as an attacker, when he's just one guy in the chain.

[fret_gurglo]

Originally Posted by Ronin

I'd reduce the potency of the effect rather than just tightening the range. I think if you make it too hard to protect King she'll just skew towards pod play in other builds.

I think the main thing King needs is a way to be more potent as an attacker, when he's just one guy in the chain.

Any thoughts as to how to reduce her potency? I don't want to adjust the number to roll as that fits the theme. I could eliminate the X OM, but I really did want the hard choices as to where to move/leave it. The only variable I seen left was the range of it.


As for King, I really found his Charisma to be virtually unused and really only used as a deterrent to keep melee attackers away from him. I think a slight range would make it useful and another tough choice for that X.

[IAmBatman]

If the "X" OM placement choice is too tough, it'll just push the players towards builds that you can better maximize. Especially with Queen.

[Ronin]

I struggled with Enhanced Charisma a lot too - had it pop off a couple times in the second game I played with Queen, though, which was nice. Helped that he was up against a melee army that dealt with Queen first, so he had some room to do his thing.

Extending the range could help.

Just a thought on the X OM stuff, but what if you took the d20 bonus out of all the other powers and just gave King a power like:

After rolling the 20-sided die for an Aristocratic Criminal you control, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card to add 3 to your roll.

It simplifies the decision about where to put the X, but honestly I think the player already gets hard choices with where to put OMs and who to chain the Royal Flush turn to. And it would mean King gets to attack more (which is strictly a good thing, IMO) and feels like a way bigger deal to the group.

[fret_gurglo]

Doing that would reduce the OM movement that Ace provides. I'm not dead set against it, but it's just not what I had in mind.

[MrNobody]

That change definitely makes a lot of sense to me. Very rare you’re going to want to attack with Queen over King. Removing the X reveal boost would still keep Enhanced Charisma as a unique ability, right?

Definitely also agree that just reducing the range on Deceptions isn’t the optimal fix here.

[fret_gurglo]

Jack and Ten will be better options for attack over King and Queen. I suspect that is where people will want to leave the OM for the additional attack, but King and Queen have the extra X power. Hence the dilemma of what to do with that X. That was the effect I was going for. If we create a power that the X is always on King, then it defeats the entire X OM movement from Ace and the gamble of where to place and when to use the X.

[fret_gurglo]

How about restricting the range of the enemy figure to include being within range of both Queen and the targeted figure from the swapped figure.

DECEPTIONS 12
If Queen of Spades or a friendly figure within 3 spaces of Queen of Spades is targeted for a non-adjacent attack, or any attack if the figure is Aristocratic, you may roll the 20-sided die and after rolling the die, you may reveal the X Order Marker on this card to add 3 to the result. If you roll 12 or higher you may choose a figure other than the attacker within 3 clear sight spaces of both the targeted figure and Queen of Spades and switch the targeted figure with the chosen figure. The attacking figure must then target and attack the chosen figure, if possible. Figures moved with this special power will not take any leaving engagement attacks.

It's a little more complicated, but creates a triangle which should narrow the effective range and therefore make it easier to circumvent.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by fret_gurglo

Jack and Ten will be better options for attack over King and Queen. I suspect that is where people will want to leave the OM for the additional attack, but King and Queen have the extra X power. Hence the dilemma of what to do with that X. That was the effect I was going for. If we create a power that the X is always on King, then it defeats the entire X OM movement from Ace and the gamble of where to place and when to use the X.

Ace's OM movement would still useful for your non-X OMs. My feel for the faction is that they could do with a bit less dilemma.

On Queen, I'd do the 2-space thing before the triangle thing, for general KISS reasons. I think either change hurts her with King way more than it hurts her playing outside the faction, though.