The Book of Evil Ernie

[Lord Pyre]

I updated Smiley to say just Undead now. Not a fan of a Hell Lord grabbing him and going nuts!

[MrNobody]

I think that makes sense.

[Karat]

I'll hit wording a bit later today so its ready to go.

[Karat]

As promised, here are your edits.

BEST FRIEND SMILEY
Start the game with the Glyph of Smiley on this card. Evil Ernie may equip the Glyph of Smiley as if he was an Unique Hero and only loses the glyph if he receives two or more wounds from a single attack or special power, or is destroyed. Evil Ernie can only lose the Glyph of Smiley if he receives two or more wounds from a single attack or special power, or is destroyed. At the end of the round, if a Glyph of Smiley is on the battlefield, you may place it up to two spaces from its current placement on either an empty space or a space occupied by Evil Ernie.

DEAD MIND
If Evil Ernie has attacked at least one enemy figure this round, his Beloved and all Undead you control add:

• 1 to their move if you control at least 4 Undead figures, and
• 1 to their defense if you control at least 6 Undead figures, and
• 1 to their attack if you control at least 8 Undead figures.

For pasteability:

BEST FRIEND SMILEY
Start the game with the Glyph of Smiley on this card. Evil Ernie may equip the Glyph of Smiley as if he was an Unique Hero. Evil Ernie can only lose the Glyph of Smiley if he receives two or more wounds from a single attack or special power, or is destroyed. At the end of the round, if a Glyph of Smiley is on the battlefield, you may place it up to two spaces from its current placement on either an empty space or a space occupied by Evil Ernie.

DEAD MIND
If Evil Ernie has attacked at least one enemy figure this round, his Beloved and all Undead you control add:

• 1 to their move if you control at least 4 Undead figures, and
• 1 to their defense if you control at least 6 Undead figures, and
• 1 to their attack if you control at least 8 Undead figures.

[japes]

Wholy...that’s a lot of text and I just realized there is a whole other third power on top.

[Lord Pyre]

I thought Arkham said it fit... I’d have to look back.

[Karat]

Originally Posted by Arkham

It'll be a tight fit, but it'll fit.

Right here.

[Lord Pyre]

MOD TUTORIAL:

The only thing that really NEEDS to be done with the Phantom is to clip off his cape. I have some hobby clippers I use and it made short work of it. The cape is slightly attached to his hair, but Ernie's hair is shorter than the Phantom's anyway, so just trim it down. I also clipped off whatever he was holding in his right hand.

As for painting, it's nice because he's essentially a zombie. Make him gross and it's fine. Or do absolutely nothing! The Phantom looks nearly perfect without any modification! I just love the character so wanted to add some personal touches myself.

He's had brown and gray skin depending on the artists. I decided on a greenish/gray skin.

Add a crazy smile. For that I did a smear of black, then filled in white over it for the teeth. Add white eyes and eyebrows.

His only other signature is his "arcane energy" in his midsection. This is nice to cover up the weirdness of the mini, and any other mangled parts from removing the cape (there will be a spot on his back that doesn't look great). Paint up whatever you want a green color, then hit the raised spots with a much lighter green, and white on top of that for a "glowing" effect.

The very last thing is to add Smiley the Psychotic Button as an optional touch. This is extremely tricky because it's so tiny. Make a yellow circle on his chest. Then add a smile, eyes, and angry eyebrows. Obviously not needed if you don't want to attempt. I personally wanted to as it makes Ernie instantly more recognizable.

[Lord Pyre]

All right we have tests for both Ernie and the Dead Onez in now!

Ernie without the Dead Onez was coming in 6W and 9L. So fairly balanced overall.

Ernie with the Dead Onez is coming in with 2W and 7L. Granted there was some changes throughout my tests. Public testing only had a single win.

Testers are saying they feels good and balanced, but they feel like they haven't gotten the hang of how to play them. From what I've seen and experienced is that Ernie really wants to be up front, but he's actually pretty fragile for a figure of his cost, and is the primary target for the opposing team. The Dead Onez don't really help his survivability other than being a screen, and Ernie being without any range doesn't get as much use out of a screen as he could otherwise.

Ernie struggles against heavy hitters by a lot, as evidenced by Tornado's many tests in Ernie's thread.

I really love that Ernie, Lady Death, and 3 Dead Onez equals 1000 points at the moment, so would love to not adjust costs if possible. After thinking about it, I think that the issue is purely on Ernie at the moment. The Dead Onez seem great as a cheap squad that can get powerful with Ernie's boosts. I just think that Ernie needs a tiny power boost. Maybe just a single extra defense? During Ernie's tests his Dead Mind bonus affected himself, but I cut that when running the Dead Onez, so realistically he did have 6 defense for some of his original tests as well, so it's really not that big a change. Also it would keep him consistent with Lady Death which is pretty cool.

The only concern with that is that he might start to get overwhelming to mid-range heroes. But like I said he did have 6 defense for much of the original tests with his boost and he still came in a tiny bit weak.

We could wait for one more test with the only change being Ernie at 6 defense, and then call it. Any other thoughts or does that sound good?

[tcglkn]

Sounds like a reasonable change to me.

[Tornado]

Yeah, I encourage that change.
Being an Event Hero it is hard to boost him. I suppose we could try Invisible Woman with him.

[Lord Pyre]

How was the dynamic with Smiley being knocked off and moving at the end of the round for you guys?