AotV Playtesting Thread (Volunteers needed!)

[Confred]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

Help playtest or design?

Design, but both

[Pumpkin_King]

Awesome! Good to have you on.

[All Your Pie]

I recommend putting the link to the OHS Playtesting Sheet for AotV in this thread. It has very few units currently, but we'll be working to get that expanded to include anything currently in testing.

[flameslayer93]

Things that got tested: Tetsuo (current build with 5 range), Pillar of Har, Glyph of Knoweledge

Map: Castle Mont’ari (Wannok + Knowelegde)

Armies:
LoveElemental:
Tandros Kreel
Moriko
Ana Karithon
Tetsuo Tyrell
Deadeye Dan
Bol

Flameslayer93:
Moltenclaw
Deathwalker 8000
Mindflayer Mastermind
Me-Burq-Sa
Iskra Esenwein

Summary:
My troops were scattered among my startzone, while LE had hers all in the mountain region. I went for Wannok with MBS and started getting the MFM moving right away towards her heroes. She began by moving Tandros, Ana, and Bol closer to my side, ignoring Wannok/Knoweledge. I notice that MBS can hit Deadeye so I ignore the glyph and try to shoot him. It was a whiff. Second round I bounce the marro horsemen away from Deadeye, while she tries to chase him with Deadeye, Be-Burq-Sa got out of LOS just in time. I advance Moltenclaw and put him onto the pillar of har (I remembered this was a mistake by round 3, but it probably makes no difference this game). He tries using his SA, but it flopped. Tandros fires at the dragon and nothing happened. At some point Ana gets adjacent to Tandros and MBS gets to Wannok.

At this stage, when I remember that the pillar is Unstable, I also remember that only Small and Mediums can hop on it, so I put the mighty dragon on the ground adjacent to it.

Tetsuo comes out and actually pulls off a mindjack after overcloaking to inflict 1 wound. So a mindjacked Moltenclaw uses his normal on MFM for 1 wound. Not exactly inspiring, but since its a heroes game my troops are too scattered for the firebreath. Tandros shoots at the dragon, and the dragon keeps trying to deal damage but both are consistently bad at it. Tetsuo tries for another overclock and fails. Moltenclaw swoops in (using all 6 move, I believe), to land a 5-skull hit on Tetso. Tetsuo (with Ana’s defense bonus) only musters 1 shield, killing him. Moltenclaw holds up for a few turns against the broadsword, but ultimately the Ankle Shank takes him out. The MFM gets to the top of the mountain pillar of har, and shoots his psionic blasts down. Tandros knocks him off the pillar (1 wound to the Pillar, 0 to the MFM). I mix my OMs up between the robot, mfm, and marro, trying to find opening for all of them. Wannok is milling out Tandros, but thats irrelevant while Ana is in play. Eventually the MFM goes down, and its time for the robot to fight (finally getting by her figures. In a single turn, he rapid-fire kills Ana, Bol, and 1 hit to Moriko. LE engaged 8k with Tandros and Moriko and tries to kill him. Ultimately Wannok milled Tandros down and 8k wins the day. He rolled against a lot of attacks, going against the grain of the deathwalker curse.

Villains (mostly the glyph of wannok) win!

Thoughts and Highlights:
After this game, I’m finally moved to put Tesuo back into editing so he basically gets Enslave instead a wound-to attempt version of BJ.
5 range felt better and the longer range let T try to stay in the Ana Pod longer (although she wasn’t able to heal him because of the d20 and Moltenclaw obliterating him).
After instinctively hopping Moltenclaw onto the Pillar and realizing I had flubbed, I don’t know the best way to remind players that big boys can’t get on it. Although, to be fair I didn’t print any cards off, so Scaling’s power text might also help me and other players remember.
The Pillar actually blocked LOS once this game! Sure, it was Ana who was hiding but that does imply they can be relevant LOS blockers in games.
Standing on a Pillar gives a false sense of security to heroes, since it can only inflict 1 wound on them if they fall off it. I appreciate that.
Knowledge was irrelevant this game. LE didn’t go for it, and I didn’t have the man-power to try to hold it. I don’t think LE’s OM plays were deft enough to warrant it this game anyway. That is a dissapointment.

Fun game, and also quite a bit informative.

[All Your Pie]

Some updates: Velkhor should be added to the OP, Tetsuo removed pending changes to Mind Jack.

[Captain Stupendous]

Played a game with Velkhor yesterday and just added a summary and thoughts to his thread: https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...&postcount=255

[Captain Stupendous]

Got another game in last night with Velkhor: https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...&postcount=258

[Captain Stupendous]

And another game with Velkhor in which he and Major Q10 destroyed four squads of Shieldsmiths of Granite Keep: https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...&postcount=259

[flameslayer93]

Played a fairly quick playtest extravaganza with LoveElemental. Not everything is officially in Playtesting yet, but the idea was get a feel for various interactions with some of the proposed builds. Plus, this will help give us a feel about how certain things play.

Map: Castle Mont'ari (glyphs: Recall, Unique Attack +1, Lodin)
The map does feature 3 Pillars of Har.

Armies:
Me:
Deathwalker 9000
Krug
Honored Soulguides

Spoiler Alert!

Jandar

Honored Soul-Guides
Species Undead
Unique Squad
Class Psychopomps
Personality Stoic
SIZE HEIGHT Medium 5

LIFE 1 (2 figures)
MOVE 5 / BASIC 7
RANGE 1 / BASIC 1
ATTACK 1 / BASIC 3
DEFENSE 5 / BASIC 7

50 POINTS

LAST WILL
After revealing an Order Marker on this card, instead of taking a turn with the Honored Soul-Guides, you may place one of them on the Army Card of a previously destroyed Unique Hero. At the start of any round, before placing Order Markers, you may remove enough wounds for that Hero to have 1 Life remaining and place it adjacent to any figure that you control. At the end of the round, remove the Honored Soul-Guide from that Army Card and destroy the Unique Hero.

STEALTH FLYING
When counting spaces for an Honored Soul-Guide's movement, ignore elevations. An Honored Soul-Guide may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. If an Honored Soul-Guide is engaged when it starts to fly, it will not take any leaving engagement attacks.

Marro Warriors (360)



LE:
Pyria

Spoiler Alert!

UTGAR
PYRIA
Elf
Unique Hero
Archmage
Relentless
Medium 5

LIFE 6
MOVE 5
RANGE 7
ATTACK 3
DEFENSE 2

POINTS 120

TWIN FLAMETHROWERS SPECIAL ATTACK
Range Special. Attack 4.
Choose one or two straight lines from Pyria, each 3 spaces long. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Pyria’s Twin Flamethrower Special Attack. Roll 4 attack dice for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense dice separately.

Arkmer
Velnesh Alphas

Spoiler Alert!

VYDAR
VELNESH ALPHAS
Velnesh
Unique Squad
Class Experiments
Personality Menacing
SIZE HEIGHT Medium 5

LIFE 1 (3 figures)
MOVE 4 / BASIC 5
RANGE 1 / BASIC 1
ATTACK 4 / BASIC 4
DEFENSE 4 / BASIC 4

100 POINTS

SHIFT
Before or after moving, you may place a Velnesh Alpha on any empty space within 2 spaces of its current placement. Velnesh Alphas will not take leaving engagement attacks while Shifting.

BLINK
After a Velnesh Alpha rolls defense dice against a normal attack and is not destroyed, it may immediately use its Shift special power.

Ukushisa Pride (360)

Spoiler Alert!

UTGAR
UKUSHISA PRIDE
Ukushisa
Unique Squad
Hunters
Wild
LARGE 4



Move: 7
Range: 1
Attack: 3
Defense: 4

Cost 90

UKUSHISA [HEAT, BLAZE, FLAME, INFERNO]
When attacking or defending with an Ukushisa Pride, add one additional die for each adjacent Ukushisa Pride.

LAVA RESISTANCE

I've included the builds tested in the game in the spoiler tags. For the Pillars of Har and Glyph of Recall, I used the current builds listed on the respective OPs.


(Proxied Feral Troll for Krug, but you can vaguely see the map positions).

I didn't write things down, but the game is fairly fresh in my head.

R1. My init.
I began by moving the Soulguides to stall (keeping them behind the castle walls).
LE moved the Pride into the center of the arena area.
I moved Krug along the road to a spot where only 2 pride could attack him.
LE rushed Krug, only dealing 1 wound off 2 attacks of 6 dice. (Height + 2 Combined Heat dice).
I moved DW forward, and fired at the pillar in the mountain area for no wounds.
LE moved the Velnesh forward, keeping them adjacent.



R2. LE init.
LE's Pride hurt the heck out of Krug, dealing 3 more wounds off 3 attacks (6/5/4 attack dice respectively).
DW killed all three Velnesh with one Explosion SA.
The Pride finished off Krug, same attack pattern.
Krug's turn is skipped.
Pyria approaches, but is well out of range of anything my troops.
Marro Warriors start to raid the Ukushisas, killing 1. One hopped on the pillar that was obnoxiously placed adjacent to my startzone.



R3. LE init.
The Pride swoop in, killing 2 MW's. They each had 4 attack dice, though one was on lower ground.
The Marros plink at the kitties for 0 wounds.
Pyria gets closer to DW9K, but is still too far for the 4A SA. Her attack is easily blocked by 10 defense.
Marros kill 1 more of the Ukushisa.
Arkmer approaches the battlefield.
Burn a soulguide for Krug's card.

R4. My init.
Krug is Last Willed into play (placed adj to DW9k).
Krug's mega-smash turn. With 9A x2, he guts Pyria in one turn (the second hit was 9 skulls).
Game is effectively called, winner me.

Thoughts:

Recall: Neither of us were able to leave our battle locked positions to grab it. We would have had to give up a lot to go for it for either the MWs or the Ukushisa even though both squads wanted it.

Pillars of Har: When I used my big raging robot to attack it because it was "in the way" and useless for its purposes, that felt like a giant theme win. I didn't mind that the attack was ineffective, because of that thematic turn was just too good feeling.
Marro Warriors on them will be scary, but since they probably can't clone while on them, its not as bad as it could be. Plus, since I suspect they usually won't be clustered, it will be even less of an issue.

Pyria: She felt good for cleanup, but Krug just got to her too easily.

Soulguides: There's clearly going to be some army combinations that will just be too much. I don't like overcomplicating things, so any version of LW might end up breaking things too hard... in certain builds. We will certainly need to test the frak out of these guys, because their value is seemingly limitless. But also, they felt like a gamble, because you placed the revived character before OMs get placed.
They will certainly be an issue with the Recall glyph though.

Velnesh: They died too quickly to be relevant this game. I did like how they are inherently weak to SA's, so that gave me a reason to try DW's SA out instead of gunning them one at a time. That counterplay bit will be helpful for the actual MS when these guys be blinking a lot more often.

Ukushisa: These guys were amazingly fun to play against. Remembering all the bonus dice might be difficult, but with only 3 I think most players can manage. This is an excellent package for around 90 points, and gives players a real dimishing rewards feel.
I also like how their adjacency bonus rewards tactical thinking, as most times its better to try to go for 3 attacks, but sometimes you are better served by only doing 2 bigger attacks.
Their move also helps them stay together and cross more difficult terrain, making it feel like essential part of the design rather than just a stat thrown on there for craps and giggles.

[Astroking112]

@Pumpkin_King :
The Velnesh Alphas have moved on to testing.
Velkhor should also be listed in the OP as well.

[Pumpkin_King]

Done and done.

[Captain Stupendous]

Played a couple games with Velkhor and the Velnesh Alphas last weekend.

Velkhor and Velnesh: https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...&postcount=294

Velnesh: https://www.heroscapers.com/communit...&postcount=295