The Pre-SoV Workshop

[heroscaper2010]

Again, who/what does Ebol break? Because your arguments have been more about OM management being OP and nothing about Ebol’s abilities as a whole and how they hamper his ability to be said OP OM hub.

The difference between your insta-win unit and Ebol is that Ebol isn’t balanced while breaking outside of the game. Ebol is balanced within the game. Sure your insta-won unit is balanced, but it breaks the game. Not the case with Ebol.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by heroscaper2010

Again, who/what does Ebol break? Because your arguments have been more about OM management being OP and nothing about Ebol’s abilities as a whole and how they hamper his ability to be said OP OM hub.

The difference between your insta-win unit and Ebol is that Ebol isn’t balanced while breaking outside of the game. Ebol is balanced within the game. Sure your insta-won unit is balanced, but it breaks the game. Not the case with Ebol.

Ebol takes an advantage of some factions and broadly gives it to the entire game. In doing so, it removes one of the game's key mechanics. That's breaking the game, not unlike my hypothetical unit that removes all the game's mechanics.

It doesn't matter if Ebol is good at being an order marker hub for the entire game or bad at it. My hypothetical unit could change it to be a single dice roll, and the owner only wins on the roll of a 1 and the opponent wins otherwise. Then doesn't make it less game-breaking, it just makes it suck as a game-breaker.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Ebol takes an advantage of some factions and broadly gives it to the entire game. In doing so, it removes one of the game's key mechanics. That's breaking the game, not unlike my hypothetical unit that removes all the game's mechanics.

Very well put. I would agree here.

[heroscaper2010]

Alright, I think I have some awesome stuff here...

Here are the graphs/charts showing Order Marker Management Difficulty as Skill Level increases and the Type of Bonding decreases:



We can see here that there are 2 things that make Order Marker Management "Easy": "Before taking a turn" bonding and being an Expert.

Now this is where the fun begins. Check out those same graphs/charts but with Ebol's Usefulness in place of Order Marker Management Difficulty:

Spoiler Alert!

We see here that Hard Order Marker Management directly correlates to a Very Useful Ebol and vice versa, Easy Order Marker Management directly correlates to a Not Useful Ebol.

Because of that, the same 2 things that determine "Easy" Order Marker Management are the things that make Ebol "Not Useful" as well: "Before taking a turn" bonding and being an Expert.

What is particularly useful to know is the part where when skill level goes up, Ebol's usefulness goes down. This is vastly different from figures like Raelin or Rats x2, where when skill level goes up, high-skill players like to keep those figures around.

That is because what Raelin and Rats provide, a player can't. A player can't just add 2 defense to a unit, but Raelin can. A player can't just say that ranged figure can't attack a figure not adjacent, but Rats can. A player can however determine that he/she knows enough about Order Marker management that he/she doesn't need Ebol, and can instead draft something he/she does need, like +2 defense or a screen.

Raelin and Rats are the bone in your leg. Ebol is a crutch when you've broken it. But the second your bone heals you don't continue walking around with your crutch. You get rid of it for your perfectly fine leg.

Can they all 3 be combined? Sure they can. But as I have mentioned in previous posts, playing 80pts down is a tough thing to overcome, even with perfect OMs, and that's assuming Ebol is your last figure remaining and not assassinated beforehand. Also, Deathreavers are in the top 5 units for Lowest Point Value per Overload Opportunities Added.

[Dad_Scaper]

I just want to add about Ebol that it’s an excellent custom in every way, except that I don’t think it’s suitable for the canon for the reasons that Scytale has so articulately explained. It looks neatly in line with the aesthetic of Lazy Orang and Soundwarp, who are two excellent designers.

[Sir Heroscape]

I think you misunderstand. While OM management becomes easier as you're more experienced, it is still inherently difficult to decide based off the game scenario, risk/reward, initiative etc etc. As the game goes longer and you reach the endgame, unbonded units begin to dwindle and OM management becomes much more precarious regardless of skill level. Giving an army and an experienced player the ability to choose anywhere to take a turn removes all the risk and hard decision making that comes with having unbonded armies. In other words, rather than deciding where you need your turns and having to guess your opponents move, a player with Ebol will never be surprised when their opponent reveals an order marker somewhere else, because they'll always be able to adjust their game plan and react with whichever card they want. i.e. "oh, you won initiative and killed my last X figure...well lucky I've got Ebol to let me take a turn with Y...otherwise I might have lost an OM"

[heroscaper2010]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

I think you misunderstand. While OM management becomes easier as you're more experienced, it is still inherently difficult to decide based off the game scenario, risk/reward, initiative etc etc. As the game goes longer and you reach the endgame, unbonded units begin to dwindle and OM management becomes much more precarious. Giving an army with the ability to choose anywhere to take a turn removes all the risk and hard decision making that comes with having unbonded armies. In other words, rather than deciding where you need your turns and having to guess your opponents move, a player with Ebol will never be surprised when their opponent reveals an order marker somewhere else, because they'll always be able to adjust their game plan and react with whichever card they want. i.e. "oh, you won initiative and killed my last X figure...well lucky I've got Ebol to let me take a turn with Y...otherwise I might have lost an OM"

No I get that perfectly clear. I think you misunderstand that as the game goes on, being forced to place all of your OMs on Ebol quickly puts you in a precarious position.

I'll quote Vydar here again:

Originally Posted by Vydar is the man

Are 1-2 Order Marker activations when you otherwise wouldn't have really worth 80pts of no offense and the potential of getting assassinated with 3 unrevealed numbered OMs on your card? Seems like Rygarn could offer you that for 10pts more for way less risk and way more offense, albeit more restrictive. And It's not like I still won that game. I lost and Vydar still had his Krav, 1-life Nilfy, full-life Gilbert, and 5 KoW left.

Again, if someone would actually like to play Ebol in a game, I'm more than happy to jump in an online game and show everyone how wrong they are. Or we can keep theoryscaping...

(Well you guys can keep theoryscaping. I've actually seen Ebol play games. And lose 8 of them.)

[NecroBlade]

I'd like to get some thoughts on this unit I've had brewing for a while.

I bought the mini sometime after I first came up with the concept, and it's available again. Deathlock from D&D minis, has 100+ on Troll and Toad alone.

We know that the Esenweins led armies of Undead on Feylund and that Nicholas fights for Valkrill despite all the others fighting for Utgar. This implies a split in the family, as well as Nicholas' bio implying the creation of his new army (the Thralls) and potentially carving out power for himself (and bringing Iskra with him). We also know that Marcu was "cursed" by Cyprien, and though we don't know what the curse was exactly (could simply be the vampiric kind, morphed by Utgar's simultaneous summoning), Cyprien's bio also tells us he is "pure evil" and possibly intended to transform his brother into a "mangled monster".

Where am I going with this? Elbad connects it all.



What if it wasn't the Thrall army (yet), that Nicholas was showing Iskra? Maybe it was Elbad. And what if Marcu gave Cyprien a reason to curse him (beyond his brother being a jerk)? Maybe Marcu's longing to lead armies, though he did on Feylund, had an ambitious streak like Nicholas'. Marcu could've sided with Nicholas and helped him create Elbad (and in turn the Thralls), and it was when Cyprien found this out that he cursed Marcu. With Elbad's assistance, then, Nicholas was able to create the rest of the Thrall army for his Esenwein ambitions.

The first idea that came to mind was Mindless Pack Enhancement. The Thralls are interesting, but averaging 2 Thralls per turn with a minimum 90-point investment (for 3 to take advantage of the best roll) is often lackluster. Elbad improves that average to 3 (like most Squads, which the Thralls are trying to emulate), but at a cost that requires you to start with 3 fewer Thralls. I also didn't want Elbad to slot into a Thrall army exclusively, so why not connect him to the rest of the Undead/Esenwein clan. The simplest way to do this would've been a "Supremacy"-style power that gives +1 to the d20. Though there are other figures that could benefit, mostly Cyprien doesn't need the help. Plus, that's retreading territory and overlaps with MPE anyway. So I got creative: the Thralls, Skeletons, and even the Rechets all have placement powers, which was the perfect avenue to approach further synergy from. Necromantic Nexus expands your options for summoning the aforementioned to the spaces adjacent to Elbad. Unique, but nothing particularly powerful (in fact I deliberately intend for Elbad to be a "fun new options" figure over an "A-tier army" figure).

Lastly, his stats are fairly average. 3A/3D and 4L are nothing to write home about. He does have 4R to represent a magical attack, but I kept that short, too, because the Undead faction doesn't have much Range to begin with (just Pounce, really) and I wanted to give it an option without expanding it overmuch. Elbad is a Champion as the first "Thrall" in Nicholas' army, and Tormenting as he helps twist the new Thralls into their new forms. He clocks in at 80 points as I said in part to require replacing three Thralls in that army, and also to give flexible options for other builds (Iskra + Skeletons? Nicholas-less Thralls?).

Thanks in advance for reading and commenting!

[heroscaper2010]

As most of my games were played with @Chris Perkins , I would love to hear what he has to add to the discussion.

We had a lot of conversations about Ebol's "optimal" builds being similar to Ranjit. There was at least one game where Chris had lost initiative in the later part of the game, both of our armies thinning, and he left Ebol alive on his Turn 3 so that I would have to set them up on Ebol again at the start of the round. Lucky for me I won initiative and on Chris' Turn 1 he wasn't able to finish Ebol. Pretty sure I did end up losing Turn 3 that round though.

In that sense, I can't stress it enough that until you actually play the game with Ebol, most of these concerns are merely obnoxious obstructions.

[Sir Heroscape]

I like the design. Few thoughts to help refine it:

- remove the "title" to his name...it's clunky
- Make his class Thrall (a unique hero thrall would be pretty cool imo)
- Enhancement powers are usually adding dice...so probably change the name of the power, but I'd prefer just calling it Thrall Supremacy. That way you avoid other undead interactions for the D20 buff, you still buff the mindless pack AND he can help the Bloodburst and other Thralls that may end up using D20 powers. Thrall Supremacy would be simple and thematic for a Unique Thrall hero.
- The second power is pretty cool, though I think you could just as easily have the power change his class rather than all the extra wording

EQUAL STATUS
If you control a Unique Army Card with the class of Lord or Duke, for this game Elbad's class is Duke, regardless of what is listed on the card.

That way the mechanics are the same but the theme is more rich, i.e. Elbad was a servant thrall, but considered an Equal to Nicholas. He's the foremost of all the Thralls AND his powers indicate that.

I really like it and I think doing Thrall Supremacy + Equal Status would still achieve what you're going for but in a more refined and restrained way (not auto activating +1 thrall but just buffing the roll). Supremacy is also pretty cool because like I said it allows him to buff the bloodburst and future thralls.

[heroscaper2010]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

- Enhancement powers are usually adding dice...so probably change the name of the power, but I'd prefer just calling it Thrall Supremacy. That way you avoid other undead interactions for the D20 buff, you still buff the mindless pack AND he can help the Bloodburst and other Thralls that may end up using D20 powers. Thrall Supremacy would be simple and thematic for a Unique Thrall hero.

We'll forgive you for forgetting about Khosumet.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by heroscaper2010

We'll forgive you for forgetting about Khosumet.

He's easy to forget. Still, the precedent has been set for Enhancements to be +dice or +D20 roll. So I still think the power or the power name needs to change in order to align with precedent. But still, I think Thrall Supremacy here checks all the mechanical and thematic boxes that the design is trying to go for.