Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[Son of Arathorn]

The nomination post has been updated with the new card. Thanks to awesomeunleashed.

[Scytale]

Changing my vote to to review Shaitahn.

[Son of Arathorn]

I've also put in a few pictures of Shaitahn with other miniatures, under the theme section of the nomination.

[Foudzing]

Kheris Fehn

The figure:

Spoiler Alert!

Army card:


Balance: A large amount of test is already done (special thanks to our crazy playtester Laudaphnis), the results are quite positive about the cost and the playability of Kheris.
Here are the statistics of the total of points killed by Kheris per game during the tests:

Spoiler Alert!

You can see that the mean is a bit high, but it's normal because lots of machups were favorable to him.
Reports for a majority of the tests are avalaible so if you want more details (how Kheris died, how the games went on...) you can pm me.
Note: Those tests were done more in a casual game point of view rather than in a tournament game point of view. Our priority was to make Kheris fun to play.

Playability: We worked a lot on this part. The special attack Slayer jump didn’t give us any problems because similar powers already exists. Tthe power Deflection gave us lots of troubles in order to make it clear, simple, effective and without any problem in the game (infinite turn, interaction with others powers…). I think we achieved this objective.
Kheris uses a single-hex base like the others confrontation figures.
His special attack Slayer jump give him extra movement, allowing him to dash on his preys, even if it is on moderate height. While trusting forward or engaged, his shield can withstand even the fiercest attacks. His life-long battle against Dragons enable him to predict their attacks and defend himslef even better against those foes. Kheris can also use his shield to cover his back when leaving engagment. So good is his shield dexterity that Kheris can even deflect parried strike (parried by normal defense or by the Nnah Scirh Shield power) back to the attacker.
On the other hand, should his shield not protect him against an attack, Kheris is quite frail for a Hero, with only a defense of 3. His 5 lifes give him nonetheless some staying power but will not last long under sustained attack. Moreover, his ability to deflect back attacks only work against basic attack, ennemies can safely attack him with special attacks.
Kheris is a shark, with a long range of attack, and a set of defensive powers that can make the opponent ponder how to deal with him. Jotun can surely kill him quick, but who want to rolls 6 skulls out of 8 and see Kheris deflect it back with a lucky d20 roll ?

Creativity: Our goal was not to create a revolutionary figure, we just wanted to create a good hero with some orgininal (but not revolutionaries) powers.
We wanted to give him a counter-strike power, but not the classic counter-strike which is already very used. Our idea was that stronger is the attack from the opponent, stronger should the deflection be. But it is risky, because against stronger attacks, Kheris must rely sollely on his Shield power to protect itself and trigger the deflection. Smaller attacks are easier to deflect, and it is reflected by the fact that both the Shield power and the basic defense roll can trigger it.
The two others powers of Kheris are not something new to Heroscape.
The Nhah Scirh Shield power is inspired from the Stealth Armor of the Microcorp agents, with a bonus against Dragon to reflect the roots of Kheris.
The Slayer jump special attack is an adaptation for a Hero of the "Pounce" special attack of the Wolves of Baldru.
Kheris is obviously a hero-killer (a shark), his slayer jump allows him to aim aura figures or long ranged heroes quite fast. His Nnah Scirh Shield gives him more resistance from shoots during is charge and it increases the deflection chances (because Nnah Scirh Shield and Deflection can be used together!) His Deflection makes him stronger in a face-to-face with big heroes and allows him to be more resistant against squads. But he has only 3 defense without range or defensive power so he's quite fragile.
Obviously his main weakness is ranged squads, you must not send Kheris to the front if there is still lots of ranged units.
On the side note, Kheris has a little bonus against figurine with power that grant them automatic shields when rolling defense, because those powers are negated during the Deflection.
Finally Kheris is kind of Eltahale but not as polyvalent as her (Eltahale is also strong against squads), in consequence he costs less. He’s another option for a hero-killer in this cost, for example if we compare him to Sgt. Drake V1, they’re 2 good hero-killers but they have different strenght and weakness.
Kheris will certainly not become the figure of the year but it’s another good hero option in the draft.

Theme: Confrontation figures proved to fits very well with Heroscape. At the beginning we wanted Kheris to became the second figure from planet Isadora. But when Dalu and Seb from Space tolds us about a Nnah Scirh squad from Icaria at the C3V, we completely changed the background of Kheris and decided that he will be a Nnah Scirh assassin. For more coherence in the background we added a bonus against dragons (little bonus which works well: check the stats).
No bonding with the Nnah Scirh squad because we don’t know anything about this squad and because Kheris looks more like a lonely assassin than like a leader in ours opinions.

Availability: We are not specialists of U.S figures sellers but as he's quite common we guess he's also common in America.
Here are some examples:
-Ebay: (abugames = 17 sells, 10 more restants)
-Miniature Market
-Paizo
-NobleKnight Games
-TROLLandTOAD
-Ludibay
-Dragontalongames

Things which changed:
.His species is now Icarian in order to fit with the C3V squad.
.Complete rewording of the power Deflection.
.Little rewording of the power Nnah Scirh Field.

[Dad_Scaper]

[Super Bogue]

I am going to vote for review for Shaitahn. Undead March might cause some issues though, but I will see what the playtesting shows.

I am going to vote for review for Kheris Fehn. The accessiblity to the miniature is too low. Miniature Market has 9 and that eBay seller has 17. All other sites you had listed did not give a specific quantity and wanted at least $8 for the figure.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Super Bogue

I am going to vote for review for Kheris Fehn. The accessiblity to the miniature is too low. Miniature Market has 9 and that eBay seller has 17. All other sites you had listed did not give a specific quantity and wanted at least $8 for the figure.

It's just examples.
Just google "Kheris hero box" and you have plenty of sellers and for less than 8$.

Moreover Caps said he could afford lots of this figure.

Another example:
LudikBazar
And 2 others ebay sellers:
http://cgi.ebay.fr/SCCH01-KHERIS-HER...ht_1762wt_1270
http://cgi.ebay.fr/Kheris-a-Scorpion...ht_2005wt_1031

[ZBeeblebrox]

I vote YES to reveiw SoA's Shaitahn

[Scytale]

Once again I really like the overall design of Kheris and think that he's a solid custom. But you are faultering on your concept of "a good hero with some original (but not revolutionary) powers". Deflection introduces three dangerous new mechanics, redirecting an already-rolled attack (to oneself even), turning a normal attack into a special attack, and having an attack come from a non-existent source (an adjacent friendly figure). There are times when pushing the boundaries of the ruleset and the language are necessary and possibly appropriate, but Deflection is essentially just a different flavor of a simple existing power (Counter Strike). As it stands it is doing a lot of tricky stuff to essentially just give the attacker a defense roll. There are lots of potential variants that do not introduce new mechanics (some of my fellow judges offered some good ideas in the feedback thread). Even if a variant does not act quite the same, the characteristics of the unit will not change: attacking Kheris with an adjacent normal attack is dangerous. That's the important part, and it does not require this level of complexity.

I vote to review Kheris Fehn.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Once again I really like the overall design of Kheris and think that he's a solid custom. But you are faultering on your concept of "a good hero with some original (but not revolutionary) powers". Deflection introduces three dangerous new mechanics, redirecting an already-rolled attack (to oneself even), turning a normal attack into a special attack, and having an attack come from a non-existent source (an adjacent friendly figure). There are times when pushing the boundaries of the ruleset and the language are necessary and possibly appropriate, but Deflection is essentially just a different flavor of a simple existing power (Counter Strike). As it stands it is doing a lot of tricky stuff to essentially just give the attacker a defense roll. There are lots of potential variants that do not introduce new mechanics (some of my fellow judges offered some good ideas in the feedback thread). Even if a variant does not act quite the same, the characteristics of the unit will not change: attacking Kheris with an adjacent normal attack is dangerous. That's the important part, and it does not require this level of complexity.

I vote to review Kheris Fehn.

What's your opinion about the avaibility of the figure?

[ZBeeblebrox]

First of all, thank you to the entire French heroscape Community for having the patience to put Kheris through the process of revision.

Secondly, I really like this design you worked on so hard to create, and knowing dalu, you guys are top notch in testing and theoryscaping.

That being said, I really want to vote to review this guy, but I did a thorough search of the web and only located 33 (without looking at stores outside the US...which may be unfair to our French neighbors, but most Scapers on this site are North American).

Here is what I found:

9 @ Miniature Market -

17 on ebay -

1 (or more)* at Paizo -

2 @ Chaos Orc Superstore -

1 (or more)* @ Noble Knight -

2 @ Troll & toad -

*The (or more) are sites that do not list availability so I do not know how many those companies possess...but my rule is if i can't see it; I can't count it...sorry.

This is not enough in my opinion to give an thumbs up to reviewing this, but I also know as a connoisseur of pre-painted miniatures that this particular figure has been sold two years in a row in Fantasy Flights' Holiday Sale in December and Miniature Market has increased its availability right around GenCon...so in just a couple of months we could re-visit this and have the availability that is required.

But truth be told, I cannot give the OK to reviewing this based on my prediction that the availability will increase and have to go with what I can find today. So I regretfully have vote NO to review Kheris Fehn.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

What's your opinion about the avaibility of the figure?

The numbers aren't looking good, but I'm willing to believe capsocrates' investigation into Paizo.