Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion

[Pumpkin_King]

To be fair, I originally called for 6 extra dice on UBB, which was called too much.

[superfrog]

I see conversations elsewhere it I disagree with those who dislike this design. Provides a nice add-on the the existing outlaw synergy. to review.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

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WULFING HUNTERS
TUNDRA NOMADS



The figures used are #001 and #014 from D&D ICEWIND DALE: RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN.

CARD TEXT:
[spoiler]GENERAL = ULLAR
PLANET = EARTH
SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = COMMON SQUAD
CLASS = HUNTERS
PERSONALITY = FEARSOME
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 1

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 50

STALKERS
At the beginning of the game choose an opponent's unique Hero. After that Hero takes a turn you may immediately move up to 4 Wulfing Hunters 3 spaces each.

STRIKE AND FADE
After attacking with the Wulfing Hunters, you may move any Hunters that dealt one or more wounds to an opponent's figure up to three spaces each.

STEALTHY 3
When an unengaged Wulfing Hunter is attacked with a normal or special attack, add 3 defense dice to the defending Hunter.

DISENGAGE
Wulfing Hunters are never attacked when leaving an engagement.

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The minis are those below.

Duergar Mind Master



Reghed Nomad with Spear

[Tornado]

Squad of 4 figures?

[UtahScott]

Wulfing Hunters are a two-figure squad.

[Shiftrex]

@kolakoski

I think you may have copy/pasted your posting template over without making a change that first miniature is likely not a Duergar Mastermind.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

@kolakoski

I think you may have copy/pasted your posting template over without making a change that first miniature is likely not a Duergar Mastermind.

Correct.

The minis are those below.

Reghed Nomad with Cage



Reghed Nomad with Spear

[Scytale]

Lady Aldorn by @Leaf_It

Master Aldorn didn't just bring his Visages, he's got his Lady by his side.

Balance

Lady Aldorn is a difficult unit to compare with the unusual combination of being somewhat of a support unit but mostly an assassin-like one. But SoV has inducted a fairly similar unit before with Urk. Urk is a notable 25 points cheaper, but the difference in survivability is not a minor one. The bonus movements, while similar in concept and function, are quite different in practice due to the figures involved, the amount of movement, and the value-add to their respective armies. The Lady's Levitation and Phantom Walk abilities are far from trivial too, as they include various solid abilities like Slither, Lava Resistant, and Disengage. Ninety points is ballpark at least.

Theme

Lady Aldorn continues the broad themes of good mobility and draining/fear effects of the Aldorns, though less thematically obvious in the latter case. Levitation and Phantom Walk are the signature of the faction, and Blade of Terror is evocative. The loss of movement in Call of Aldorn doesn't feel thematically natural, but it's not bad, and theme needs to be second to gameplay.

Creativity

I very much appreciate designs that bring a faction together in ways other than bonding. The combination of bonus movements for other figures and gaining attack boosts from their adjacencies is a good one, lending itself to being both supportive and individually potent, but without being overly straightforward in play or counterplay.

Playability

As I noted in the Creativity section, I really like units like this, ones that bring together multiple units in a way that's not only thematic but valuable on the battlefield without relying on bonding. I also appreciate that Lady Aldorn is tricky to maximize; the specifics of Call of Aldorn reward good positioning and timing.

To get good use out of her, you need to play Lady Aldorn early. If you wait until your Specters are engaged in battle, you are spending turns moving more Specters into the enemy's threat range while limiting yourself to a single attack. You are almost never better off trying to move her up mid-game as opposed to repeatedly activating Specters. Fortunately, the good Specter movement you get from activating the Lady means you aren't wasting turns moving her instead of her minions in the early game. Timing when to switch order markers over to the Specters is crucial here.

Once Lady Aldorn is in position, she serves as a threat the opponent has to take into account. That's probably her best impact on the game. A well-timing order marker can send her in for a mean Blade of Terror strike.

At least, that's the theory. In practice, though, I found Mrs. Aldorn to be underwhelming at best. The Specters have ok survivability, but not great. They really want to keep up their pressure to hold battle lines, so a turn used elsewhere can really hurt their advantage state. In theory you can be moving up reinforcements during that turn, but you need to use those movements to beef up Blade of Terror, and you can only use so many of those movements before Lady Aldorn herself is too slow to get into position. So it ends up being a non-Specter turn. But you get a big hit with Blade of Terror, right? In the chaos of the battlefield, it's very hard to predict the best time to move in for a strike, made all the more complex by the so-so survivability of the Specters and the slowdown of Call of Aldorn. When I would manage to get everything set up and timed just right I would excitedly pull off a big attack of ... five dice maybe. Enough to put a wound or two on a bonding hero, and then watch the Specters moved in get swarmed and killed.

For all of the effort it takes to pull off a good Lady Aldorn turn, the payout just wasn't worth it. I felt like I would have gotten more value from just activating the Specters, and more value from drafting another squad of them instead in the first place. There is some value to having Lady Aldorn sitting in a good position to keep your opponent fearful, but the timing difficultly combined with the movement penalty means her significant threat range isn't all that big, so I never felt much fear facing her.

Summary

Lady Aldorn is a good design, she just lacks teeth. Statistically she adds up to being a notable threat, but in practice the payout just isn't worth the effort. I wanted to like her because I really liked the puzzle of getting the most out of her, but both playing with her and against her she was consistently underwhelming.

I vote Nay to induct Lady Aldorn into the SoV.

[Scytale]

Reminder to all interested in joining the team as an SoV Judge: submissions are due by March 16th.

Judge Submission Contest rules:

Anyone may enter. A submission should include both a write-up introducing yourself and explaining why you would make a good Judge and a formal review of one of the units currently under SoV review.

The review may be done in any format but must include a final Yea or Nay vote. We will not be judging the submission based on the depth of the review; you are not expected to do testing as thoroughly as an SoV review requires, and your review may reference that incompleteness. What we will be looking for is a sense of your understanding of the game and your approach to testing, and how well you articulate your reasons for your vote.

If you have submitted a review in the past, you may skip the write-up and/or review and let us know you would like us to consider your prior submission.

Submissions will be accepted until end of day March 16th. Please send your submissions in a PM to me or another SoV Judge.

[P_J_Keller]

Just wanted to let y'all know that although I went all in on premium AoA, the C3V and SoV forums are the first items I check when I make my daily review at Heroscapers.

The work that the creators and judges do has me more excited than the new Renegade stuff.

So I wanted to give all you creators and judges a note of appreciation.

Thank you

[Dysole]

Honestly, as I'm typing this I'm not sure where I'm going to end up in my vote one way or the other so let's go on this journey together. I like the simplicity of the card and I do agree that in general, he's going to be Mastermind in the start zone type of guy. I'm not sure that's a bad style of play though. Scytale's comments on how to make it better intrigue me and so I have to weigh whether or not I think the existing synergy is "good enough". It does echo Clayton's once per round power and I do like the thematicness of revealing an X OM.

I'm not sure if it does enough to make the lawmen vs outlaw match close to an even match given how much the outlaws would be relying on Quick draw, Gunslingers, and Josie's multi attack to keep pace with the lawmen and the lawmen have multiple SAs in their faction to mitigate that. And I think that's really the kicker for me on a NO vote. This feels very close. I could easily see myself upvoting something very similar. I do want a unit like this to pass, but I don't know if it's quite there yet.

~Dysole, who admittedly hasn't played out the lawmen vs outlaws matchup so it might be closer than her theoryscape has it

[Scytale]

The Shards of She-Kul-Ra, the Wulfing Hunters, and Nordlüng have all passed United Fanscape Review and move forward in the process.