Sherman Davies' Marvel customs - Starshine

[chas]

Yikes! Marvel has a Moslem superheroine now, right? (Or is that DC?) Will they meet each other?

[Sherman Davies]

Yeah, Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel:





Who knows if the MCU versions of Ms. Marvel and Sabra will meet, but I'd be shocked if they've met in the comics, because I'd be shocked if Marvel's done much of anything with Sabra for the last 20 years. Then again, I've been shocked before.

[Good Pig]

Yesterday my brother-in-law, niece, nephew and I played a 4-player 1,000 pt team game on an urban style map with a mountain/waterfall feature in the middle. We used several of your Marvel custom units along with a handful of Classic ones.



Here's a shot with action heating up in the second or third round:


Team 1
Professor X, Magneto, Sabretooth, Blob, Mystique
Juggernaut, War Machine, Nilfheim, Hydra Agents x1, Airborne Elite, Eldgrim

Team 2
Wolverine, Jean Grey, Hulk, Toad
Dr. Octopus, Silver Surfer, Venom, Gambit, Ant-Man

Team 2's alpha strike was Jean Grey and Silver Surfer racing out to grab glyphs. I used Professor X to send in Magneto and Mystique to counter them (hoping for Magnetic Throw + Engagement Strike). My niece moved up Juggernaut but then got the roll for Airborne Elite early on an was able to harass the other team with them. Jean Grey and Silver Surfer teamed up a bit on my Magneto and took him out pretty early, so I sent in Blob to tie up Jean. She just would not go down and rolled 3-4 shields for defense consistently. There was a fun moment when my nephew's Silver Surfer had 3 life remaining and he had a healing treasure glyph on him. For the next round I won initiative and was able to use Professor X Psi-Blast and roll 3/3 skulls with it taking him out before he could heal. Professor X also had a really funny moment where he successfully defended against angry Hulk with a 10 dice attack where he only rolled 1 skull. Professor was able to find 1 shield to hang on! My niece lasted much longer than I did and was able to have Juggernaut pick up the Batmobile and smash it over Wolverine's head. He somehow survived and healed back up. Juggernaut took a severe beating from Dr. Octopus on height getting 4 attacks of 5, ouch! Nilfheim was a latecomer to the action and helped take out Wolverine and Dr. Octopus with his Ice Shards. The remaining units made a valiant effort to stop Hulk but couldn't do it. The game finally ended with Hulk tossing a Porsche at the last remaining Airborne Elite sitting on top of the warehouse ruins. Toad, Gambit and Ant-Man didn't see much play unfortunately.

We had a blast playing. Each of the units felt really balanced and useful. One suggestion I'd make based on this game is to consider dropping Dr. Octopus attack value from 4 to 3 since he felt a bit overpowered. Hopefully you find this battle report a little entertaining. Thanks again for sharing your work!

[chas]

Good Pig,

Wow, that looks like one of our New York City Gang of Four 4 Player games, especially one that SD himself is running! How did you make up the teams? SD often places certain cards out and let's up pick from among them, or even the full teams. There are so many supers, that even if you just use his own, that otherwise you'd probably have to choose them before the Game Day.

[Good Pig]

Originally Posted by chas

Good Pig,

Wow, that looks like one of our New York City Gang of Four 4 Player games, especially one that SD himself is running! How did you make up the teams? SD often places certain cards out and let's up pick from among them, or even the full teams. There are so many supers, that even if you just use his own, that otherwise you'd probably have to choose them before the Game Day.

I only have about 50 cards made up with mainly A-list super heroes right now. It wasn't an issue for us to do drafting. I could definitely see with a huge catalog of Marvel and DC customs that it turns into choice overload for army creation. My army fit together pretty easily since I'm a big fan of Brotherhood of Mutants. I think my niece and nephew just picked units they liked the looks of. And lastly my brother-in-law takes Hulk in every game. Hulk no need strategy, Hulk smash.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Good Pig

Professor X also had a really funny moment where he successfully defended against angry Hulk with a 10 dice attack where he only rolled 1 skull. Professor was able to find 1 shield to hang on!

Professor X popping a wheelie to dodge the Hulk are the kinds of Heroscape moments I live for. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by Good Pig

I could definitely see with a huge catalog of Marvel and DC customs that it turns into choice overload for army creation.

When I run games for the Gang of Four and others, I usually prefer to have the players build their own armies, but I also understand that can be somewhat overwhelming so sometimes the games are more curated, with pre-made armies that everyone chooses from. I've made too many damn customs.

Originally Posted by Good Pig

And lastly my brother-in-law takes Hulk in every game. Hulk no need strategy, Hulk smash.

Yup, using Hulk is pretty straightforward. Just watch out for Braxas. I'll also keep your Doc Ock feedback in mind; being kind of based off the Fen Hydra, he is certainly capable of punching above his weight, but I would like to keep him no higher than an A- unit.

[Good Pig]

Sherman, question for you about your Mysterio design. Is he supposed to be able to use the Hallucinogenic Gas special power when he moves with Vanish during the opponent's turn?

It seems like it could create some complications. For instance what if he negates Double Attack after a figure only made one attack? This is a simple example, but hopefully you can see where I'm going with this.

Thanks!

[Sherman Davies]

Yes, he's supposed to be able to do that. In your example, I would rule that the second attack could no longer be made since Double Attack was now negated. (As another example, it can keep my Spider-Man custom from using his subsequent Web Special Attack after attacking normally.) There could be some trickier theoretical complications, but Mysterio has never seen enough play for those to pop up. If you think of any, or have them occur in a game, I'm all ears.

[Sherman Davies]

I recently got some assistance from chas in playtesting some customs I've been working on for the past few months, the Guardians of the Galaxy:













We played a couple games with the Guardians vs. some 800-point Valhallascape armies, as well as a 600-point game that I suggested to see if a Rocket Raccoon/Quahon combo felt broken. The GotG split their 800-point games and I managed to beat chas' Greenscale/Quahon/Rocket army with an Axegrinders/Migol/Q10 army.


Drax and Drake duel for control of the high ground while Gamora takes cover from Kaemon Awa:





The Guardians were the last minis I own that I hadn't made customs for, and I don't anticipate adding any minis to my collection for the foreseeable future. I still plan on designing customs for my various projects for fun, since it's become a huge part of the hobby and a great creative outlet for me, but it definitely feels good after 15 years to have reached a kind of personal milestone with these cards.

[Good Pig]

I've had these minis for awhile and toyed around with my own custom designs, but was never quite happy with them. I like how you've made each of the individual designs thematic but they seem like they'd work well together as a team. The most clear synergy being with Rocket and Groot, but I'm sure there's other more subtle ones too. It feels a little sad to hear this is your Superscape hero swan song, but these are some excellent designs to share either way.

Excelsior!

P.S. On your Shield Agents squad, did you have a specific Guard unit in mind that they would pair with when using their ability?

[chas]

Drax and Gamora make a powerful melee combo. Groot is great on a map with lots of trees; he took out several Minions with his special power. My Groot left Rocket behind in one game to fire effectively from height by himself, and then give up his excellent single hex perch to Starlord. Expect the unexpected!

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Good Pig

I've had these minis for awhile and toyed around with my own custom designs, but was never quite happy with them. I like how you've made each of the individual designs thematic but they seem like they'd work well together as a team. The most clear synergy being with Rocket and Groot, but I'm sure there's other more subtle ones too. It feels a little sad to hear this is your Superscape hero swan song, but these are some excellent designs to share either way.

Excelsior!

P.S. On your Shield Agents squad, did you have a specific Guard unit in mind that they would pair with when using their ability?

Thanks, GP. I still plan on designing customs for my Marvel, DC and LotR projects, I just won't be buying any of those minis or printing the cards out for myself. Basically, I'll be designing for the pleasure of designing, not necessarily to have figures for use in my games. I'll probably also still tweak old designs if I find it necessary, like you suggested with my Doc Ock card. (For example, I recently revised my Skrull Warriors card to reduce them to a 3-figure squad.)

As for the SHIELD Agents, they're designed to work alongside my Mandroids: