How balanced are AotP units to classic 'scape?

[joe5joe7]

Admittedly I haven't really thought of 'scape much for the past few years, but playing AotP down at my local gaming store really brought out the 'scape spirit. Giving a quick look at the cards they look /relatively/ balanced, with their increased life giving them arguably a slight edge. Has anyone played any mixed games? How did they turn out?



Just taking a quick look at these two units, they have comparable point values. The Aubriens have a much better ability, and comparable stats except for HP. Just giving a quick once over the points seem pretty balanced.

[Aldin]

I remember when Heroscape first came out that it revolved around 400 point armies and over the course of time standardized for the most part at 500 points, 24 spaces. Other formats felt like variations on that theme.

C3G, on the other hand, has long left 500 points behind as the standard. I think that's primarily because the cost of a 'typical' C3G major hero is around 300 points. So if you want to play with superhero teams, you simply can't do it at 500. With that in mind, where AotP has me particularly interested is in that the planeswalkers are 300ish points and the combination of Walkers, Squads and Magic is currently set at 700(500 units/200 magic).

I think it is clear that a single planeswalker and their 200 points of magic would lose to a typical 500 point heroscape army. I think it is less clear that a planeswalker with magic and their squads would lose to a 700 point HS army - especially if the 24 space starting zones were enforced. So I think that 700 points is the minimum threshold for AotP in much the same way that 400 was for HS. And I expect that it will ultimately standardize higher. With a 24 space starting zone restriction, I think HS and AotP are likely quite balanced at 800-1,000 points.

I do think that the price of a planeswalker is interesting, because it is buying several different things. It is buying the stats, naturally, but it is also buying access to summons and spell cards. Kind of a supersynergy. If we wanted to allow HS heroes to become planeswalkers, the way to do it would probably be to charge somewhere between 100 and 200 points for access to a single set of spells and summons. So if I wanted Charos as an alternate planeswalker to Gideon, my first instinct would be to charge a 150 point tax and make him a 360 point figure who now had access to the white magic and summons.

Too strong? Too weak? Not sure, but worth figuring out for balance purposes.

~Aldin, giving it some thought

ps This has me thinking we may have been doing it all wrong in HS for a long time. We should charge for starting spaces as part of the army cost! Think about it, the footprint of an AotP army is 700/1. A typical HS army is 500/18. If spaces had a 5-10 point cost, it might make for easier balancing. And it always would have made the squad/hero imbalance better.

[Tornado]

Very insightful Aldin. A hex tax is a really cool idea and could make for a fun format.
I am for anything that helps to put the Hero in Heroscape. I would have the tax for common figures only.
For reference, C3G is tested mostly at the 1000 point level. I am not sure if 300 points is the average cost of a hero but C3G does have iconic characters at that price point.

[quozl]

We've played one mixed game to see if the point costs in this game and in Heroscape matched up. So we went through the spell cards and determined that Chandra was the only planeswalker that did not have spell cards that referenced other spell cards. So my daughter chose Chandra and I took a strong 500-point Heroscape army: 2 squads of Knights of Weston, Sir Gilbert, and Nilfheim. We played on the Battlefields of Valhalla map Highways and Dieways.

We decided to use rounds in this game, with initiative being rolled every round but Chandra would not use order markers and she would use all the new rules from Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers. The knights just played by normal Heroscape rules.

Chandra moved up and summoned both her squads and took out a knight with the Firecats' Haste power and put some wounds on Sir Gilbert with her Double Attack. The knights and Sir Gilbert responded by taking out 2 of the 3 firecats. The phoenixes then took the glyps: they were Move+2 and Defense+1. The knights and Sir Gilbert responded by taking out 2 of the 3 phoenixes.

It didn't look good for Chandra. She played some spells and kept attacking Sir Gilbert. Nilfheim came over and wounded her with his dragon claws. But Chandra had some tricks up her sleeve.

She played a spell that gave Nilfheim 3 wounds and then played another spell that duplicated that spell, taking out Nilfheim. She then discarded a card to Superheat Sir Gilbert (who only had 1 life remaining) and take him out. She then moved up and attacked 2 knights with Double Attack and took them out. The fight was on!

The demoralized knights moved up, trying to surround her. They battled back and forth and, finally, the knights took out Chandra. There were 4 of them left and just one firecat left in Chandra's army. The firecat got one of the knights before succumbing to the other three.

It was a close game and it seems the point costs between the two games are pretty balanced. I look forward to more games and seeing how they can best be combined.

[GeneralRolando]

regarding Quozl's match, it would suggest that the 200 pool of spell card are included within the cost of the planeswalker. Thus to give and heroscape hero the spell casting power, maybe add 200 points and give the hero a color. I feel like for any in-depth crossover, all heroscape units are going to need to be assigned a MtG color in addition to their General that they follow.

The "hex tax" idea is kinda neat but that would nerf a lot of squad based armies. Gruts would need to pay for every space used and that spells disaster for swog riders. I know it's just an idea thrown out there but it creates some subtle problems for the core game.

I like the idea of a Heroscape army starting on the field but I also like the idea of being able to now summon in a squad using a planeswalker rather than having my minions of utgar spend 3 order markers to enter the fight. -mine is an evil laugh-

[quozl]

I'm not sure if colors are really required. I'd like to do/see testing with decks built with no restrictions on color and squads and planeswalkers mixed with no color restrictions. Personally, I hope it's just a flavor thing like generals in Heroscape.

[GeneralRolando]

Originally Posted by quozl

I'm not sure if colors are really required. I'd like to do/see testing with decks built with no restrictions on color and squads and planeswalkers mixed with no color restrictions. Personally, I hope it's just a flavor thing like generals in Heroscape.

The color restriction in AotP was surprising when I heard about it. MtG has no restriction on color you just have to have the mana to summon whatever you want to play. Of course in MtG you ARE the planeswalker so it's kind of a "who's to say you aren't a multicolored planeswlaker?" situation. I'm interested to see if they add multicolored units or multicolored planeswalkers in future expansions. I have the feeling that the color restriction is there for a reason, perhaps certain spell combos are just crazy good, but I have no way to tell. I forget, how many spells can you play per turn?


Also, this is just a personal thing, but I would actually prefer a hard color restriction because I have always been a fan of faction based combat games. Gives each faction that much more unique flavor. Even within those faction based games there is usually some breakdown of the factions though, like in the recent Summoner Wars Alliances Master Set.

[Dysole]

Originally Posted by quozl

I'm not sure if colors are really required. I'd like to do/see testing with decks built with no restrictions on color and squads and planeswalkers mixed with no color restrictions. Personally, I hope it's just a flavor thing like generals in Heroscape.

In Magic, you can't cast a spell of a certain color without the mana for that color. You need some very special cards to get a red deck to cast a blue spell. I do not see that aspect changing but I do see multi color planeswalkers in the future.

~Dysole, unsure how quickly the game would expand

[quozl]

3 spells per turn, General.

Dysole, I know Magic and this game is not Magic. It could totally be just Magic flavor added to a point system that does not care if you mix colors.

[GeneralRolando]

3 spells per turn with no extra restriction is a decent amount to work with. Without a color restriction I see this in future: +3/+3 -> Move unit 5 spaces -> Add 3 wounds to unit adjacent to one of yours -> Then attack normally for the kill D=

I've already mentioned before that I'm afraid of the game becoming "snipe the king."

[quozl]

Remember, the decks still need to be 12 cards and 200 points so you may get a killer combo like that but then have jank for the rest of your deck.

[Dysole]

Originally Posted by quozl

3 spells per turn, General.

Dysole, I know Magic and this game is not Magic. It could totally be just Magic flavor added to a point system that does not care if you mix colors.

Okay it was unclear from the way you phrased it. It feels most intuitive to me to be unable to mix colors without the given Planeswalker and most akin to Magic. Rolando and you seem to feel otherwise. If I had to guess, I'd think WotC will not endorse color mixing without a planeswalker who lets you.

~Dysole, speculatively