Idea for handling squad affiliations within Marvel Heroscape

[fostorial]

I noticed that no one really has a way to handle squad affiliations, or at least a common way, because of several complicated factors that make it rather unmanageable. However I thought it would be cool to have some kind of team bonus seeing that teams make up an important part of comic book superhero lore.

While not working in the usual manner of character cards, the variety of iron man armour (I think by GreyOwl) character cards with the idea of tony stark changing into drafted armours could be modified to be a workable squad solution.

My Proposal:

Rather than have icons on the character cards of team affiliation (because as previously mentioned rosters change a lot so constant character updates would be required) we could have the squad listed as a peripheral card that must be drafted to take effect.

Each squad card would could have pre conditions for drafting, so that you have to have a certain amount of members drafted before getting the bonus, usage rules so that a certain number of members had to be active to apply bonus and the fact you have to draft them from your point cost means the bonus doesn't have to unbalance the game because you have to pay for the bonus. Also I think it could add a bit more strategy to a game like picking off the weakest team member to deactivate the team bonus.

Example:

Team Name: Classic X-Men

Cost: 100 pts

Card text:

X-Men
This card can only be drafted if at least 3 squad members have been drafted already. At least 2 team members must be active on the battlefield for team bonus to apply.

Members (could specify costume if you wanted but could complicate things)
Cyclops (Astonishing) (example costume stipulation)
Jean Grey
Beast
Iceman
Angel

Team Synergy
+1 Defense to every member of this squad


I couldn't find any other discussions on team mechanics in the forum so I just posted it in the custom section, seemed to fit. What do people think? Any ideas? Any opinions?

[johnny139]

So, something like the team bonus in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. That's a pretty cool idea.

[HSisforcoolkids]

That's a really cool idea that I would like to see expanded upon.

[fostorial]

Yeah, a lot like Ultimate Alliance but with point costs (i suppose you did have to level to get a team bonus) and conditions to address the balancing issues.

I like the idea of the drafting strategy the more that I think about it.

In the example you need at least 2 X-men to keep the bonus, plus you drafted 3 already to get the bonus. What do you do now? Draft a more powerful unaffiliated character and have only 3 x-men, making it easier to cancel out bonus, or draft a lesser affiliated character to further secure the bonus. Sacrifice defence to gain offense or sacrifice offense to bolster defence?

Then you have the question of value. You paid for the bonus and the card so do you draft the whole team to get the most out of the bonus, even though individually they are less powerful than some characters?

With some cool draft and bonus conditions could add another layer of complexity to drafting armies.

[GreyOwl]

I like it. I think this could be made to work. You could also include rivalries into the team cards. Something like X-Men vs. Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Maybe team members would get a bonus (or penalty) when fighting members of a rival team. You probably don't want to do this on every team card, but a few might be appropriate.

In addition to classic teams like X-Men and Avengers, you could also use this for things like S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, AIM, Atlanteans (Namor's kingdom), Latverians, etc.

To make it even more of a strategic choice, you could include a bonus and a penalty on each team card.

[Troll Warrior]

I like this idea. What teams should they, or we, include?

You mentioned X-Men, but we could have:

AVENGERS (should be divided into Mighty A., New A., etc.)

Captain America
Iron Man
Yellowjacket/Giant-Man/Ant-Man
Wasp
Black Widow
Hulk (kind of)
Vision
Hawkeye
The Mighty Thor (as if he needed a boost)
Hercules
Ms. Marvel
Ares (very recently)

ACTS OF VENGEANCE (more a storyline than a team, but it still works)

Loki
Kingpin
Magneto
Mandarin
Wizard
Dr. Doom
Red Skull

BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS

Magneto
Toad
Blob
Mystique
Pyro
Sabertooth

POWER COSMIC

Silver Surfer
Terrax
Firelord
Frankie Ray
Star Dust


ILLUMINATI

Mr. Fantastic
Black Bolt
Namor the Sub-Mariner
Prof. X
Iron Man
Dr. Strange

FANTASTIC FOUR

Mr. Fantastic
Invisible Woman
Human Torch
The Thing

[jcb231]

The one problem with this idea is you'd have to continuously update the lists based on new figure releases.

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

Great idea! I had a similar thought on teams, but was waiting for more TNT customs and official units to be out. You got a lot of work ahead of you, but this could turn out great.

[GreyOwl]

Originally Posted by jcb231

The one problem with this idea is you'd have to continuously update the lists based on new figure releases.

True, but at least you'd only have to update the one team card and note each figure that is on the team. Or you could leave the old team card as is and make a new one for the revised team. Kind of like "Avengers I", "Avengers II", "Avengers III", etc. Or you can use more relevant names, if applicable. Sort of like "Classic Avengers", "Mighty Avengers", "New Avengers", etc.

[fostorial]

Originally Posted by GreyOwl

True, but at least you'd only have to update the one team card and note each figure that is on the team. Or you could leave the old team card as is and make a new one for the revised team. Kind of like "Avengers I", "Avengers II", "Avengers III", etc. Or you can use more relevant names, if applicable. Sort of like "Classic Avengers", "Mighty Avengers", "New Avengers", etc.

If we stick to teams that already have a figure released and stick to pretty well established or past teams then the roster wouldn't change that often. Could label them like comic books are named. X-Factor and X-Factor volume 2 for instance.

Another way round it would be, if only adding people to a team, use a second card with "Use in conjunction with Avengers Team card" and have it drafted as a pair. Don't want too many members on one card I'd imagine. It would just get convuluted.

I really like the idea of penalties and team rivalries too. Don't see any reason why the rivalries would have to be team based. Could have things like when any Fantastic Four member meets Dr Doom add one attack dice for each Fantastic Four member within 6 spaces.

[Jonathan]

Could be good as long as you keep it simple and related to what makes the Avengers the Avengers, the X-Men, then X-Men, etc. The only downside would be the laundry list of characters that have been in these groups, excepting those incredibly new (Illuminati?).

OR you could have it not relegated to certain characters, but just keep it close to the flavor of the organization, and people could add the bonus to whatever team they want.

Die-hards could pick Cyclops, Angel, Beast, and the X-Men bonus. People that don't care that much could make Dr. Doom, Iron Man, and the Thing their X-Men.

Make sense?

[fostorial]

Yeah, that does make sense actually. Think personally I'd rather have a list of characters specified that make up pre-existing teams but I see what your saying about being too specific.

Could have it so some teams are specified, teams that won't or are unlikely to change, like 'Classic X-Men' and 'Classic Avengers' being the original teams. Another way would be to have multiple teams of say 'X-Men' with different boosts and characters but denoted the same way as the generals they belong to in heroscape or how some people put their real name. e.g.

X-Men
Classic

X-Men
Evolution

X-Men
Animated

Keep this format for iron clad team rosters or specific established and managable teams but have the option for a more generic team in the mechanics of it. What we could do for this could be have teams based on classes or species, like X-Men would be the perfect fit with draft list of 'Must have at least 3 drafted Mutants to use receive team bonus. Team bonus only applies to Mutants' that way you could have the current shifting X-Teams.

As for the Doom, Thing etc. team we could use generic team-up team cards. Not necessarily teams as they arent established but basically give the team card a name of 'Marvel Team Up' where any two+ heroes from the Marvel universe get the team bonus. Or 'Fragile alliance' where you must have at least villian and at least 1 hero to receive the bonus.

The only thing with the team-up cards would be they would have to more expensive or less powerful than the specified teams because it would be really easy to fulfill the conditions.