Lord Dragonix's Superheroscape

[Lord Dragonix]

Woot! My cards are now totally indexed!

Ant Man: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...oms/AntMan.jpg

Angel: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/.../Archangel.jpg

Archangel: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...Archangel2.jpg

Black Panther: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ckPanther2.jpg

Colossus: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/.../Colossus2.jpg

Cyclops (90s Costume): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ms/Cyclops.jpg

Cyclops (Utopia Costume): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...s/Cyclops2.jpg

Doc Samson: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/.../DocSamson.jpg

Emma Frost (X-MEN): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...EmmaFrost3.jpg

Giant Man: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...s/GiantMan.jpg

Iron Man: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ms/IronMan.jpg

Iron Man (Hulkbuster): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...usterArmor.jpg

Nick Fury: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...s/NickFury.jpg

Nightcrawler: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ghtcrawler.jpg
Nightcrawler (NM24 Edit): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ler-NM24-1.jpg

Phoenix (Jean Grey in Phoenix Costume): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...ms/Phoenix.jpg
Phoenix (90s Jean Grey): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...s/Phoenix2.jpg

Quicksilver: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...uicksilver.jpg

Scarlet Witch: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...arletWitch.jpg

Sentinel Mark II: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...inelMarkII.jpg

Sentinel Mark VII: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...nelMarkVII.jpg

S.H.I.E.L.D. Troopers: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...LDTroopers.jpg

Thor (Classic): http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...stoms/Thor.jpg

Vison: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...oms/Vision.jpg

War Machine: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/...WarMachine.jpg

Wolverine: http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/.../Wolverine.jpg

I hid my original first post in the spoiler below:

Spoiler Alert!

I first started playing Heroscape just as the Elite Onyx Viper Master Sets were clearancing out of Wally World. Even before the Marvel Master Set had been announced I had twice tried to create Marvel Heroscape sets out of Heroclix minis. The first attempt featured an independent point system, add-on mechanics, and overall a complete lack of balance. The second attempt, with help from my brother, featured an attempt to point according to official classic scape, bland uniformity, and overall a complete lack of fun.

About two years ago after tiring of waiting for the booster wave of official Superheroscape, I ran into GreyOwl's customization tools. I sorted and organized them so that I could constructed my own official-esque Marvel Heroscape army cards. My earlier attempts had just been colored octagons, so having real army cards was definitely a plus. Of course, before starting my own project I looked over the customs here on Heroscapers. I had not and still do not care for what C3G puts out and with a quick look-see at some other custom attempts at my fave characters like Wolverine, I decided nothing quite met my standard of quality while simultaneously capturing the essence of the characters and remaining playable.

First, I set about customizing my minis, whose bases had previously been painted green and brown, with no other work done to the figures, to match the standard Heroscape look. So, I repainted all human heads and any other flesh areas to get rid of eyeballs and eyebrows and any other facial details. I completely repainted some minis to cover or repair the dreadful paint applications on some Heroclix, especially early releases. After that I based the minis on one-inch diameter wood bases painted gray and "flocked" with my special asphalt = ballast + water + black paint + Elmer’s glue blend. Full repaints were spray sealed.

It may be noted that I don’t wash my Superhero minis. This is because I don’t like painting bright spandex wearing supers only to have them get dulled down by an icky black wash. Here, I’ll sacrifice realism for prettyism.

Finally I set about designing some cards in Paintdotnet and then adding in the stats and text in Printshop. I currently have over 150 active, meaning I haven't retired the figures or cards, army cards which fit the Superheroscape style. I will probably add them all, over time, with pics of the minis, but first I would like to mention my card design philosophy.

1) Comic customs should feature character art not minis art. It is thematically fitting, and I don't want to spend additional time taking pics of my minis (can't use stock photos as I repaint most of them at least a little bit) and digitally manipulating them over backgrounds. A note to new customizers: check out Comic Vine’s galleries under the character(s) you are looking for art of. They usually have at least a few images, even for obscure characters that traditional search engines don’t help with.

2) The Flying special power gets a white wing symbol, and the Stealth Flying special power gets a black wing symbol. Why? Because if Super Strength is so commonplace among capes to get a symbol, then so is flight.

3) Comic forums are filled with people arguing over Versus type threads where no one agrees on the full range and comparativeness of characters' powers. I feel this is because comics are both unintentionally written inconsistently, (due to changing potentially uninterested authors with differing values, scientific knowledge, and respect for previous foundation,) and are intentionally written inconsistently for the purpose of creating drama worth reading. Think about how interesting three page Superman comics would be where the first two pages feature Clark Kent doing whatever it is he does and a third page of Superman flying into orbit then blitzing his enemy in straight drop move. Thus, other than in broad terms, it is impossible to accurately create army cards which consistently balance against the comics. So, I create cards to fit the definite powers and broad themes of characters.

4) The height of the characters is determined by their official heights, not by a mini's actual size.
My guidelines were: 5’7” and below would be a height of 4,
5’8” to 6’9” = 5,
6’10: to 8’6” = 6,
8’7” to 10’ - 7.
Larger figs, like Sentinels, would be determined by comparison between classic Heroscape minis like Nilfheim.
Most official heights can be found on http://marvel.com/universe/ in the corresponding article for the character under physical attributes.

5) I pointed my Army Cards by looking at the following in order: Direct comparison to the official Marvel set, direct comparison to my previous Marvel customs, vague comparisons to official classic scape, theoryscaping, and finally play results. I almost never do the sort of one on one playtesting between figures. I prefer to look at how figures perform in larger scenarios and full builds. I also tend to feel that the points should be changed before stats or powers should be. Lastly, as the power rankings observe, even among official units there is room for slight imbalance. So, its alright if Wolverine is a cheaply costed A+ figure and Superman is an overcosted F figure.

6) While I feel it is right to add certain other characters/themes like my Dante from Devil May Cry, Motoko from Ghost in the Shell, Halo and Red vs. Blue characters, and even Snake Eyes from GIJOE, certain themes fit better in classic scape. Star Wars is a good example of this. George says Jedi aren’t superheroes, and they fit better into classic’s army divisions anyway. Also, as I tend to not like almost anything from DC comics, I feel no one should make more than a few DC customs, and only when they really feel they need to.

7) My two cents; I used to look at the two cents smiley icon and see a sideways poo with a frown face. So I used to think people were saying “Here’s my S_ _ _.” And, a hard one at that, given the frown.

So now, my first posted mini shall be my first customized Marvel mini: The Wolverine


The Mini: I used the original release Wolverine mini, but as the figure was incorrectly painted (comics tend to use blue instead of black as black doesn’t show depth as well, but on minis its just lame) I decided to go in and do a full repaint. I use Apple Barrel and Folk Art acrylics when painting mini figures, but I have since forgotten exactly which ones were used on this fig.


The Card: Made using GreyOwl’s tools and some art from the web which took me probably close to a year of on and off searching to find. (I was really surprised at how few decent pictures there were of Wolvie in this costume where he wasn’t standing right next to some other character, or stabbing the Hulk as in one of my faves.)

Healing Factor was obvious to give Wolvie, but I take a different approach than I have seen elsewhere. As Wolverine is always healing, the Troll style take a turn and then heal didn’t feel like enough. I also wanted to balance it a bit by only giving him a chance to heal using the 20-sider, to help simulate how he may have difficulty healing deep wounds/organ damage and also staying in the fight. The activation when opponents take turns means, just like in the comics, if his opponents are busy fighting each other, Wolverine can take advantage of the situation to recover, but if they gang up on him he loses the advantage.

Super Strength accounts for his adamantium protecting him from falls, his claws on objects, and for custom objects: his lifting strength which is enhanced by both his healing factor and adamantium-laced skeleton to beyond the human maximum.

Ultimate Endurance was inspired by the Wolverine novel Election Day where his enemies kept getting the crap scared out of them when he was covering the distance between when they had thought themselves safely distant. (Not a novel for kids to read. Wolverine skins a guy and wears him to fool some sensors.) In short: he’s faster than he looks. By wounding himself, this shows Wolverine pushing into his Superhuman stamina while still tiring himself out. It also helps balance out with Healing Factor to create a strategic element to Berserker Rage. Finally it gives him more threat against common squaddies; giving him up to two moves per Order Marker also helps to diminish an enemy’s attempt to kite Wolverine to wait out his healing.

I think Counter Strike and Berserker Rage should be obvious. And, his height of 4 is because he is short. Any custom with a height of 5 would just be disgraceful to the character.

Pointwise, I felt he was a bit under the Hulk. He will still go down from multiple attacks from squaddies, and one on one with the Hulk, Hulk’s Rage will Smash Wolverine. However, given lucky rolls, Wolverine could still be a fair comparison to Hulk, especially with effective use of Ultimate Endurance.

Hopefully I will remember to keep posting more of my cards and minis in the coming days/weeks/months. So check back soon!

[Margloth]

Good stuff and I look forward to where this thread is going!

[Lord Dragonix]

As a reward for someone replying in my thread, I give you a second custom: Emma Frost


The Mini: Thanks to the recent Heroclix Giant Size X-MEN set, a much nicer looking Emma Frost is available than was previously. Both were touched up using Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints. The normal Emma is just Fleshtone on the bare skin areas and an unaltered original paintjob. The diamond Emma is a blend of White and Metal Blue Sapphire, followed by some dry brushed White.


The Card: Again constructed with GreyOwl's tools, this is one of the cards whose normally white font won't print very well on light backgrounds, and so it was replaced with a middle gray color.

The Psychic Blast Special Attack should be a fairly obvious type of power to give Emma Frost. As a purely telepathic attack it has a great range and won't require line of sight but lacks a physical attack's punch. And, as psychics don't gain or lose advantage with height, it made sense to throw in a line negating Height Advantage for defending figures.

Mind Influence is a variation on the temporary Mind Shackle used by Official Doom and some of my other customs. By only letting Emma move figures, I could set the chance of being controlled to fairly high. The line about the move number makes sure she won't try moving a Marro Hive. And, I didn't want Emma to fly opponent's figures to the top of a wall and then have them leap off, though she could still potentially walk them into lava.

The Diamond form was inspired by the Wolverine and the X-MEN cartoon, (back when I first worked on Emma's card I hadn't read more than a few comics with her in them,) and so she can fairly easily switch between diamond and flesh forms but can't use her other powers while in diamond form. Originally I had used a Diamond marker to track her state, but since I got two Emma Frost's from a Brick of Giant Size X-MEN I just decided to have her switch between figures. It makes it a lot easier to remember which one you are using.

As kind of a mix of Tul-Bak-Ra, Dr. Doom lite, and a melee fighter, but not all at once, I finally settled on 160 points. Any attempt to set her higher left her unplaced, and lower just seemed too cheap.

[Margloth]

Good stuff. I'd rep you again if I could.

Some minor wording issues, and rules lawyers could argue the figure switching, but I think you explained it well and kept it from being too powerful. Plus, your minis are gorgeous.

You're gonna be one to watch!

[SirGalahad]

Just a suggestion - if defending figures aren't going to get additional defense dice against her Psychic Blast SA from height advantage, they probably shouldn't get any from terrain (Ticalla Jungle Trees and Bushes or shadow spaces) either.

[Lord Dragonix]

While cutting out the bonus for Jungle pieces or shadow spaces could potentially be feasible, I don't want to fill up the card any more. Also, Jungle pieces don't make too much thematic in-game sense anyway, a figure looking right at another just 2 spaces away can still get the defense bonus.
Shadow seems more likely to be added in, and would be an interesting way to get a cancel to Batman, Black Panther, Nightcrawler, etc.'s shadow boosted abilities. With that said, given the Valhallaesque nature of shadow spaces in Heroscape, they could be so dark/magical that they cloud and hide the minds of those figures on those spaces.

[quozl]

What are you using for bases? And do they fit in the ladders well?

[Lord Dragonix]

The bases are 1 inch diameter wooden bases. They are not beveled. Beveled bases do not like ladders. They come in packs of I think 6 for about $1 at some craft stores. The best deal I have found is at Hobby Lobby with more than 20 bases for I believe $2.50. Though, I usually throw a few out for the sake of quality from the Hobby Lobby packs.

Everywhere I buy them, they have had the same thickness and it is exactly the space needed for a ladder rung. Eventually I will take some pics for you, because they all stand out perfectly perpendicularly from ladders.

I paint the bases Apple Barrel Pewter Gray. As stated in my first post, I glue down some asphalt mix in the middle of the bases, but I remember to leave an edge to grip the ladders. I use the same setup but with brown bases/grass flock for my classic customs. The only things I don't rebase are Star Wars customs, unless they are on a square base, then I use a games workshop base to keep them looking uniform.

I also use some smaller bases with the same thickness, for smaller classic figs, which looks very close to the D&D styled classic bases. Any bases larger than 1 inch diameter won't fit in a single sunken hex and generally are too thick for ladders.

[quozl]

Thanks! I think they look great!

[Lord Dragonix]

Since there were questions about my bases, I thought I would share some pics.


Top Row starting at left: Unmodified Star Wars Mini base, Star Wars mini on Games Workshop base, Heroscape base, My Marvel custom base, My normal size classic custom base, My mini classic custom base
Bottom Row from left: Big fig on two normal size classic bases, Connected double base made using two mini popsicle sticks and two mini classic bases, Heroscape "peanut" base, Connected Marvel double base, Big fig on two normal size Marvel bases


Some of my figures on ladders with my custom bases.

And today's updates: Sentinel Mark IIs and Sentinels Mark VIIs

The minis:






The Sentinel Mark IIs are just Giant-Size X-MEN giant figures based. The Sentinel Mark VIIs I made before the other Sentinels came out. They were made by supergluing and then painting the Magnetic War Machine figures that came out when Iron Man 2 hit theaters.

Perhaps the best thing about the D&D waves was the invention of Uncommon Heroes.

The cards:



As Sentinels don't have real brains I protected them from most forms of takeover, but my forthcoming Magneto can bypass that. As they are large figures both have a way of bringing multiple attacks per Order Marker which is nice.

Mutant Hunting was a pretty obvious ability and helps keep the synergies that a Mutant army can field from being overbearing. Gas Bomb put Dund's ability into a useful figure. And lastly, Blast Flying as Sentinels usually aren't performing fancy aerial maneuvers but are instead flying into things. As Gyrich would say "Don't these things know how to fly?"

[Lord Dragonix]

Since its been a little while since the last update, I thought I would put up a few customs this time.

First, my two Archangel customs.


The mini: Very little work needed to be done on this mini. Just a little paint for his face and he was done. The almost perfectly horizontal position I put him in is sometimes annoying when playing, but clever use can use his wings to block several adjacent spaces. It also looks pretty cool to have a flying figure actually flying.


The card: As Archangel doesn't have his techno-organic wings in this form, I thought that keeping the card simple would be the best. Carry is fairly obvious given he commonly plays that role in the comics. I also didn't want to give him any healing abilities as that usually requires a blood transfusion in the comics and isn't really a combat ability.

Started as this -
and became this-

The mini: While this mini didn't need much paint, its wings were originally quite odd looking. I don't know that his wings were ever drawn like that in the comics, so I made some modifications. You can see I used the Marvel Universe action figure as a reference for the wings.

Originally the wings had an extra protrusion on their far edges, so I cut those off and used the pieces to create the second set of mini wings on his back. Those were superglued on and painted with some silver. Additionally, the feathers on his main wings seemed to go far too long and separate too much, so I cut down the length and fixed them up with a little silver.


The card: This version of Archangel is capable of flinging his feathers as daggers, which are coated in a paralyzing toxin, so it seemed thematically sensible to have him going after his targets' Order Markers. Archangel's Aerial Superiority and solid attack value have worked perfectly as my brother once rolled 10 dice against a Sentinel by placing Archangel on top of an adjacent building. He decapitated the Sentinel in a single move.

Now Colossus:


The mini: This is a Handful of Heroes miniature. While I have seen some people have cut off the rock he is carrying, that didn't occur to me while I was painting him. I thought it was too cool to have Colossus carrying his own line of sight blocker. Originally unpainted this mini was completely painted by me with: Medium Gray, Engine Red, Yellow, Licorice, and Metallic Gunmetal Gray. The rock was the only part which was washed with black.


The card: If Colossus starts his turn unengaged he can plow into his enemies with a charge. This was inspired by his super power in the X-MEN Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance games. Generally, if you try to charge when already surrounded you will get caught on an ally or debris or something like that and won't end up doing anything other than wasting your energy. It also seemed odd to have Colossus charging figures he was already engaged to.

Fastball Special Special Attack will require a bit of work to set up, but it seemed to be the best way to let Colossus fling Wolverine around without requiring something really longwinded or an extra ability card. I have reworded this attack several times but I feel I finally got it to say everything it needs to and nothing extra.

Colossus only has Near Invulnerability since there are still a wide range of Special Attacks which can get around his armor and really big figures can basically just step on him to beat him up.

Since he is basically just a direct attack unit without any support abilities I felt that I should try to keep his points down but still over 200 to keep him from being too cheap.

How about War Machine next.


The mini: I love not having to do any repainting on minis. This figure is only a rebasing with no paint work that I remember.


The card: Basically Q10 with flight. Not much mystery here.

And, some more Iron Man suits:
I have two of the Heroscape Iron Man minis. One of those is missing all of his fingers but not his thumb on his outstretched hand, and the other has a weak paint job and a melted looking face, as you may see in the below photo. My brother and I both also felt that while the classic Iron Man is a really good card, if you read that card without knowing which mini it belonged to, you probably wouldn't guess Iron Man.



The Hulkbuster mini: I think I painted the base coat on this Handful of Heroes mini, but I was taking so long to do it that my brother did all the other painting. The only thing I know for sure that it was painted with was Red Apple. I also believe that this mini was spray sealed with a Matte finish not a Gloss finish. Oops.


The Hulkbuster card: Since in the comics his Hulkbuster suits usually just get the crap kicked out of them, this version of Iron Man doesn't have much going for it other than high attack. However, the high attack values can only be achieved through using up close brute strength, and/or stealing power from his reserves to give it that extra punch.

The Iron Man mini: Another Handful of Heroes full paint. I handled this one on my own. I am not sure which blue I used for the eyes/chest glow, but I based this in Red Apple, heavily added Metallic Pure Gold in the appropriate areas, and then lightly coated Metallic Bright Red everywhere else. A final seal with a Gloss coat, for the win, gives this mini a true metallic look.


The Iron Man card: Essentially Repulsor Pulse and Unibeam Special Attack were inspired by the Ultimate Alliance games. Repulsor shots are weak but are easy to shoot out multiple hits, and using the Unibeam leaves you vulnerable while you charge it. That vulnerability, coupled with how it depleted his power in the first Iron Man film, led to the give him one wound idea. This way, Iron Man can only use his best attack a limited number of times unless he is healed(recharged) by another figure.

The Repulsor Field power allows him to have slightly less overzealous defense against melee attacks, (his true weakness,) and allows him to operate more as the tank that Iron Man should be.

[lefton4ya]

Really nice customs! I like the card designs both in terms of powers and look; the black wing for stealth flying is genius! There might be too many powers and text for powers for my taste, but they seem balanced without actually playtesting them. Your paint jobs and rebasing are great too. I remember making my own customs in GIMP with GreyOwls's templates and waiting a year or so before I made my 1st post on Heroscapers that was all the customs I made. With the C3G out, I lost interest in making my own customs but still play some of mine from time to time.

P.S. Look for a PM from me so we can meet up some time.