The Book of Cosmo

[Arkham]

C3G INITIAL PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE TEST UNIT Cosmo

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Army Test 1
Map: Custom
Units:
Cosmo(180), Star-Lord(250), Gamora(310) (740)
vs.
Luke Cage(200), Iron Fist(260), Wolverine(280) (740)

Spoiler Alert!

Attack Damage:


Continuum Cortex
R1T3: Reveals X to teleport Star-Lord to height within range of Gamora.

Telepathic Paralysis


Notes:
R1T2: Gamora puts 2 wounds on Iron Fist, hits Godslayer roll, 2 additional wounds.
R1T3: Iron Fist puts 1 wound on Gamora, Cage puts 1 wound on Gamora.
R2T1: Gamora kills Iron Fist.
R2T1: Wolverine attacks Gamora, receives 5 wounds from MMA.
R2T2: Gamora kills Wolverine.
R2T3: Gamora puts 1 wound on Cage.
R2T3: Cage puts 3 wounds on Star-Lord.
R3T2: Cage kills Star-Lord.
R4T2: Gamora kills Cage.


Gamora with 1 wound, Cosmo with 0 wounds.

Not a great showing for the fighters. Gamora had their number from the get go, and made easy work of Iron Fist and Wolverine. Cosmo didn't play much of a role, and only used the Cortex to move Star-Lord further, quicker.

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Army Test 2 (rematch)
Map: Custom
Units:
Cosmo(180), Star-Lord(250), Gamora(310) (740)
vs.
Luke Cage(200), Iron Fist(260), Wolverine(280) (740)

Spoiler Alert!

Attack Damage:


Continuum Cortex
R1T1: Cosmo removes 2, 3, and X. Teleports himself, Star-Lord, and Gamora to center of map high ground.

Telepathic Paralysis


Psychic Defense X
R2T1: Reveals X to protect Star-Lord from 4 skulls.
R3T1: Reveals X to protect Gamora from 5 skulls.

Notes:
R1T3: Iron Fist puts 2 wounds on Star-Lord, and Luke Cage and puts 2 wounds on Star-Lord.
R2T1: Luke Cage kills Star-Lord.
R2T2: Iron Fist puts 1 wound on Gamora, Luke Cage puts 2 wounds on Cosmo.
R3T1: Cage kills Cosmo.
R3T2: Cage puts 2 wounds on Gamora.
R3T3: Gamora kills Iron Fist(botched defense).
R4T1: Cage attacks Gamora, receives 3 wounds from MMA.
R4T3: Gamora kills Cage with Godslayer.
R5T3: Gamora puts 3 wounds on Wolverine.
R6T1: Wolverine puts 2 wounds on Gamora.
R6T2: Gamora kills Wolverine.


Gamora with 4 wounds.

This was a much closer matchup, came down to 1 wound in the end. Cosmo teleported all 3 on turn 1, but had to sit the rest of the round out. It felt worth it, but Star-Lord did get stomped quickly. Cosmo managed to prevent some big attacks, but the 2 turns per marker was too much for him to keep up with. Cosmo was disposed of after Star-Lord, and Gamora managed to barely eek out with a win.

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Army Test 3
Map: Custom
Units:
Cosmo(165), Liz Sherman(180), Harley Quinn(130), Human Torch(225) (700)
vs.
Luke Cage(190), Wolverine(280), Shang-Chi(230) (700)

Spoiler Alert!

Attack Damage:
R3T3: 1 wound on Wolverine.

Continuum Cortex
R1T1: Reveals 3 and X, teleports Harley and Human Torch to the middle fo the map.

Telepathic Paralysis
R3T3: failed roll (4).

Psychic Defense X
R3T3: Reveals X to prevent 2 skulls and end Wolverine's turn.
R4T1: Reveals X to prevent 2 skulls and end Wolverine's turn.

Notes:
R1T2: Harley puts 1 wound on Cage, 2 wounds on Wolverine with her Smilex Bomb.
R1T2: Wolverine puts 2 wounds on Harley.
R1T3: Wolverine kills Harley, Cage puts 1 wound on Torch.
R2T1: Torch puts 2 wounds on Cage with Fo4, then puts 1 additional wound from attacking.
R2T2: Cage kills Torch.
R2T3: Liz kills Cage, puts 4 wounds on Wolverine and 3 wound son herself with Firestorm SA.
R3T1: Wolverine kills Liz.
R3T2: Wolverine puts 1 wound on Cosmo(botched defense).
R4T1: Wolverine puts 1 wound on Cosmo(botched defense).
R4T2: Wolverine kills Cosmo.


Wolverine and Shang-Chi with 0 wounds.

The start zone bombing strategy didn't work well here, likely because it was a smaller game with few figures, so it was easier to avoid. However, it still doesn't seem like a great option, because your opponent is guaranteed to be able to take at least 1 turn before your figure teleported in will be able to attempt anything. Overall, Cosmo's Psychic X worked decently, his Cortex felt like a useful but costly support option, and his Telepathic Paralysis feels like it's going to be hard to pull off with such a low attack.

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THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY:

Overall, he's pretty fun, but I feel some slight adjustments are necessary to make him a little more draftable. As-is, he feels like he's one and done. He blocks an attack, maybe teleports someone in, but once he's in the thick of it he's stomped easily. He himself isn't an offensive threat unless he gets lucky rolls and his opponent botches, so taking turns with him feels like you're wasting time. I feel the Cortex feels pretty reasonable as-is, but I think his attack could be bumped to 4. As-is, I'd imagine his point value could be around 140-150, I'd say we bump the attack to 4, and consider dropping his defense to 4 and raising life to 4 as a trade off. Rocket is 4 life with 4 defense, and I'd imagine Cosmo could reasonably be in the same boat. Not sure, but I think he's a little too glassy, without any sort of real gimmick to him that makes him worth the "glassiness" so to speak.

[Arkham]

So, proposed tweaks would be either to bump his Life to 4 and lowering his Defense to 4, which would be on par with Rocket, or an alternative could be to bump his Defense to 6(smaller size, quick, and has strong telepathic defenses, thus harder to hit)? Bump attack to 4.

Specials feel reasonable, other than maybe the slightest tweak to the Cortex to make it not as taxing, but then you run the risk of making it great. So we could probably just tweak the stats to make him feel a little more reliable/useful with an Order Marker beyond the X?

[Viegon]

Eh, not really a fan of bumping his stats up. Cosmo is the kind of character where his usefulness should come from his powers, not good stats. I don't remember him fighting a whole lot in the comics, and if you get through his psychic defenses, he really should go down quickly.

What about changing Telepathic Paralysis to triggering every time he attacks, even if he doesn't inflict wounds? That way, even with a poor attack roll, you still have a good chance of taking out one of your opponent's turns, sort of balancing out your own "wasted" turn on Cosmo.

That said, I also think he'd be fine with his points landing in the 140-160 range, seems about right for the character in my opinion.

My .

[Arkham]

Not a bad suggestion, I would accept that.

TELEPATHIC PARALYSIS
After attacking a figure that does not have the Mental Shield special power, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 11 or higher, remove one Unrevealed Order Marker from the figure's Army Card.

Bumping the roll required to 11.

[Yodaking]

I'm not overly concerned about start zone bombing but rather the pod teleport at once move, that is where the competitive guys will finds ways to abuse his power set. I also think he may have a potentially larger impact as a support unit in higher point games where he can end up ignored by the opponent for quite a while and thus able to teleport more units around the map. He didn't seem to teleport anyone back to heal up or ride around for free with Groot.

[johnny139]

I don't mind Cosmo being a one and done. Frankly, he's not that big a character. I think it's fair to have a unit that helps you move your team around at the start of the game, then maybe gets a good hit or two in when things get rough. If he's not feeling impactful we can just drop his points.

No issue with Paralysis triggering on each attack, which should help give him some pop when the aforementioned roughness begins.

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

He didn't seem to teleport anyone back to heal up or ride around for free with Groot.

It's a tough call to forgo a turn just to teleport someone back to base, so I didn't really have a great opportunity/need here.

As for the Groot carry, I don't foresee that being an issue as that's part of Groot's cost to carry 2 Small figures.

I do hope to see some big games tested in the Public testing, as well as games with Groot. I'll likely follow up with 2 more tests when it goes to Public testing, one of which I'll do a larger scale one with start zone bombers as you said, and another with some to focus more on buffing up Cosmo's attacks. I just wanted to get a feel for where his strengths and weaknesses are, as well as his fun factor/draftability, in a typical sized game.

If we take Viegon's suggested change, I believe he'd hit around 140-160 points all things said and done, which is certainly reasonable. Once the 24 hours is up, I'll call for a vote to move to Public Testing with that change at 160.

Do we want to roll with 9, 10, or 11 for the required roll on Telepathic Paralysis? If it's after attacking, what do you feel is fair at that point range?

[TrollBrute]

A 50/50 chance to remove OMs in really great. I'd go even higher than 11. 14? 15?

I also don't think his stats need to go up. Psychic Defense X makes him a big target, but if you throw another defensive figure or two in (many of them are already good with Star-Lord), he'll stick around plenty long enough.

[Arkham]

Definitely wouldn't want to go that high on it off the start. He's likely going to do 0 wounds when he attacks, so might as well make him be able to strip markers somewhat efficiently if he's taking a turn. That's his main use of his powers, and logically it's what allows him to mess with characters who would obliterate him once they finally get passed his defenses. So we can roll with 12 and see how it goes at 160, adjusting from there during testing. If it's too good, we can consider raising cost or the roll.

[TrollBrute]

If he's removing turns, he doesn't really need to be dealing wounds. Pair him with Ms Marvel or Zombie and he can wreck most of an opponent's round, while his ally dishes out wounds​.

[Arkham]

I'm actually thinking we base the OM removal on the attack itself, so that Sta-Lord's bonus plays a factor.

Mixy uses exactly what I was thinking:

5TH DIMENSIONAL BEING
When rolling attack dice against an opponent's figure, you may remove one unrevealed Order Marker at random from the defending figure's card if at least one blank is rolled.

But we still need the Mental Shield aspect added in, so we could go with this:

TELEPATHIC PARALYSIS
When rolling attack dice against a figure without the Mental Shield special power, you may remove one unrevealed Order Marker at random from the defending figure's card if at least one blank is rolled.

That means on his own he's got a low chance to make it happen(around the same odds you're suggesting), but with Star-Lord it gets better(closer to the odds I'd like), and from height even better. I like this version so we'll roll with it into testing.

[Arkham]

I propose a vote to move to Public Testing.
@Viegon
@TrollBrute
@Yodaking
@japes
@Tornado
@johnny139