SuperHeroScape™: SHIELD and Skrulls 10/8

[Tornado]

Still weird.

[Ronin]

Been a while, but that just means I get a lot of cards to dig into!

Super Skrull
'Determined' feels a little off to me, personality-wise. You could probably put a number of different things in there, but I would say he's usually primarily characterized by loyalty and devotion to the Skrull Empire? Kind of a militaristic patriot type. At least, that's true in most modern stuff, which is more where my experience with him lies.

Anyway, pretty cool take mechanically - Elastic Wrap makes him a really nasty tie-down figure against anyone that doesn't have SAs or some other way to get around Rock Wall.

Punisher
This feels like a pretty logical implementation, if you have to roll with the Punishment Marker conceit. I actually don't really love that for him, though, because it feels a little like he's trying to avenge his fallen ally, and that's not quite the right vibe for him. I do like that he wants to run with and against squads more than heroes, though - that feels very appropriate.

Is it intentional that the marker moves around and his target can change before he's followed through on his vengeance?

Sandman
I like the powers, but this feels like kind of a low-rent take to me. A lot of Spidey villains could reasonably fall around this point level or lower, but I'd put Sandy closer to on-par with Spidey. Like I said, dig the powers, so maybe just up the stats; you could crank the Life up a lot. Sandman's always been really hard to take down just by pummeling him. He's one of those that Spidey always has to come up with some kind of tricky or science-y way to beat.

Sandman is also one of Spidey's least-evil villains. He actually reformed and was on the side of the angels for years, but then his character development got retconned and he was back to being a crook for no good reason. Since then, we have seen him in a more sympathetic light at times. Might be cool if his personality had some kind of nod to that? Not sure exactly what, but I think the fact that he's not all bad makes him fairly distinct among the Criminal set.

The Thing
More leftbox nit-picking, but Ferocious doesn't really work for me here. Makes it sound like he's gonna bite somebody's arm off. I really liked C3G's choice of Gruff, but anything along those lines works. He's your classic 'New York tough guy'.

Daredevil
Solid card for the canon. Everything looks pretty much right to me here, so I can't even lean on my usual 'find one thing in the leftbox to nitpick' strategy.

Kingpin
Really unconventional take here that I love. Hire a couple assassins, send em out to do your dirty work, emerge as the big bad when the dust settles. Nice. Kingpin's always an interesting one because there isn't really a single way to skin that cat, but I really like this take. I'm sure he'll only get more interesting as your Supers universe builds up around him, too.

Question that I think I know the answer to, but the card doesn't make entirely clear: if the Target gets destroyed and the Contracted figures are keep standing, do they get to keep activating each other, or are they no longer considered Contracted?

Loki
Not sure about Warrior as your class here. Honestly, I'm not that hot on Tricky either - I mean it works, but... 'Tricky' is such a vague personality, y'know? The fact that it works on both Spider-Man and Loki speaks to that.

Mind Exchange also feels a little off to me, thematically - Loki's generally a lot more subtle than out-and-out mind control. He's not taking control of Thor and making him go fight the Hulk, he's whispering in Thor's ear about how really he ought to go fight the Hulk.

Thor
Not too much to say here - hits the right notes, feels like a solid rendition. Triple-threat on offense with a solid normal attack, special attack, and auto-wounding power. Intentional that he'll catch an ally with Mjolnir if they get too close while he's swinging it around?

Magneto
Master of Magnetism damaging friendlies (except Mutant Outcasts) feels a bit weird at first, but it probably does make sense from a factional perspective.

I might go for something that speaks to his character a little more specifically for the personality - I think you could put Ruthless on most of the Brotherhood. Magneto is ruthless, but it's not the first thing I'd play up about him. (Heck, you could swap his personality and Super Skrull's - I think I'd like him a lot better as Determined and Super Skrull as Ruthless)

Storm
I like the low-key similarity to Thor here with the two once-per-round powers. Gale Force Winds is a cool centerpiece here - strong, distinctive, and useful in quite a few different contexts. Equally good as a sort of leadership power or just for smacking people around - very befitting of the character.

Mandarin
Kind of a crazy toolbox here - really high-variance unit, with the potential for those 20s to shake things up. This one wasn't quite clicking for me until I realized he had a melee normal attack. For some reason I was thinking of him as a ranged figure at first! (Not sure why, the C3G one isn't ranged either). That makes for some more interesting choices about whether to run him into engagement, or play him back a little bit and try to leverage his ring powers while keeping him safe.

(I've been trying to mull these cards over myself before I dig into your design notes, and most of these comments are written during that 'mulling' phase)

Mister Fantastic
I think that ought to be 'Unrivaled Intellect'.

I'd be tempted to drop the Reach stuff from Stretch and just keep the movement effects in there to simplify, since he's at four powers - you could always up his range to 2 to represent stretchiness. Doesn't feel like an issue for him to be able to attack more than 6 spaces up when he can climb 30 spaces in one step.

Looking back over the FF cards as a whole, I really dig the Reed/Johnny/Sue interplay... and the Johnny/Sue/Ben interplay, but it doesn't feel to me like there's a ton of direct connective tissue between Ben and Reed - they'll like to play together because Sue and Johnny facilitate that, I suppose, but I would expect their relationship to be a little tighter. I do think the team works, though.

Sabretooth and Wolverine
(He's usually 'Sabretooth' and not 'Sabertooth', I believe)
Covering these two in one comment due to the general similar aesthetic - really dig the approach to these two as counterpoints to each other. Really love the way I've been seeing the X-Men start to build up, too.

Another couple cards where I can't really find a lot to fault em for. One thing that did jump out at me was that that Wolverine using an SA means he won't especially want to run with Cap, but his X-Men connections are obviously a lot more important than his Avengers ones. (And even Iron Man has that issue with Cap, so whaddayagonnado)

Bulldozer
Dig the risk-reward of the Headbutt here - feels appropriate enough that it could backfire. Though of course, you could easily mitigate that risk by putting your OMs on other Wrecking Crew members, once they're designed.

And he's another Contract option for Kingpin, I see. So I could Contract Bulldozer and Sandman at the start of the game, then put my OMs on Bulldozer to activate him and Sandman, and get another activation with a second Wrecking Crew member if Bulldozer destroys somebody.

I think Kingpin's requirement that the Contracted figures go after the Targeted figure if possible would keep that from being too juicy... depending on the answer to that Kingpin question I asked way earlier in this post.

Cyclops
Aha, the best X-Man! Anyone who says otherwise is in the pocket of Big Wolverine.

Really dig the approach. Unconventional wording on the SA, but I think it makes enough sense (and heck if I can get to the same place so concisely). I actually have a similar Evil Eye type power on a Cyclops write-up somewhere, so naturally I approve of that.

Mutant Leadership is cool - my evaluation of that might shift depending on how the X-Men get fleshed out, though. It'll at least be nice for setting up Storm and Beast for their 'before moving' powers, which I already like!

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Ronin

Been a while, but that just means I get a lot of cards to dig into!

I'd love to get this much feedback combined, let alone in one go. Thanks!

Super Skrull
'Determined' feels a little off to me, personality-wise. You could probably put a number of different things in there, but I would say he's usually primarily characterized by loyalty and devotion to the Skrull Empire? Kind of a militaristic patriot type. At least, that's true in most modern stuff, which is more where my experience with him lies.

Anyway, pretty cool take mechanically - Elastic Wrap makes him a really nasty tie-down figure against anyone that doesn't have SAs or some other way to get around Rock Wall.

Personalities aren't usually the strongest point of my designs, partly because they also usually have no in-game effects. I'll look at my trusty buddy thesaurus.com with that in mind, though. It was difficult to combine F4-style powers without becoming completely overpowered, but he is very strong.

Punisher
This feels like a pretty logical implementation, if you have to roll with the Punishment Marker conceit. I actually don't really love that for him, though, because it feels a little like he's trying to avenge his fallen ally, and that's not quite the right vibe for him. I do like that he wants to run with and against squads more than heroes, though - that feels very appropriate.

Is it intentional that the marker moves around and his target can change before he's followed through on his vengeance?

I am committed to the marker, since we know he officially had one. I'm curious how you'd write a 'punishment' power if this it too 'vengeancy'? As for the marker moving, you're probably right, I should probably re-word it to only move off his card and return to his card when he's dished out the punishment.

Sandman
I like the powers, but this feels like kind of a low-rent take to me. A lot of Spidey villains could reasonably fall around this point level or lower, but I'd put Sandy closer to on-par with Spidey. Like I said, dig the powers, so maybe just up the stats; you could crank the Life up a lot. Sandman's always been really hard to take down just by pummeling him. He's one of those that Spidey always has to come up with some kind of tricky or science-y way to beat.

Sandman is also one of Spidey's least-evil villains. He actually reformed and was on the side of the angels for years, but then his character development got retconned and he was back to being a crook for no good reason. Since then, we have seen him in a more sympathetic light at times. Might be cool if his personality had some kind of nod to that? Not sure exactly what, but I think the fact that he's not all bad makes him fairly distinct among the Criminal set.

Noted on the personality again. I mentioned before that I had thought about healing 2 on sand spaces, 1 on other land spaces, but felt that was a bit much compared to other characters who were also known for healing (like Wolverine). He is a bit too niche right now, though, so maybe heal 1 after every turn if on land, heal an extra 1 if on sand at end of round (also similar to Healing Factor X)? Healing Factor X would still have the edge in the ability to heal multiple figures at EoR and it can heal even in water (or other non-land spaces). I think I like that, I'll have to revisit his card and cost.

The Thing
More leftbox nit-picking, but Ferocious doesn't really work for me here. Makes it sound like he's gonna bite somebody's arm off. I really liked C3G's choice of Gruff, but anything along those lines works. He's your classic 'New York tough guy'.

Noted. Ferocious is one of my favorite personalities (I blame Nilfheim.)

Daredevil
Solid card for the canon. Everything looks pretty much right to me here, so I can't even lean on my usual 'find one thing in the leftbox to nitpick' strategy.

Ha! Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead. To be fair, Fearless kind of writes itself...

Kingpin
Really unconventional take here that I love. Hire a couple assassins, send em out to do your dirty work, emerge as the big bad when the dust settles. Nice. Kingpin's always an interesting one because there isn't really a single way to skin that cat, but I really like this take. I'm sure he'll only get more interesting as your Supers universe builds up around him, too.

Question that I think I know the answer to, but the card doesn't make entirely clear: if the Target gets destroyed and the Contracted figures are keep standing, do they get to keep activating each other, or are they no longer considered Contracted?

Nice catch. I'm not sure what you think the answer is currently, but obviously it should be made clear. The Contract is supposed to end when the Target dies.

Loki
Not sure about Warrior as your class here. Honestly, I'm not that hot on Tricky either - I mean it works, but... 'Tricky' is such a vague personality, y'know? The fact that it works on both Spider-Man and Loki speaks to that.

Mind Exchange also feels a little off to me, thematically - Loki's generally a lot more subtle than out-and-out mind control. He's not taking control of Thor and making him go fight the Hulk, he's whispering in Thor's ear about how really he ought to go fight the Hulk.

Point taken about Tricky, but it does fit and honestly it'd take an extremely compelling argument for something else given he's the trickster god. Warrior I'm not as in love with and may look around for other ideas. I think Mind Exchange works for him as a power, but I understand the usual theme for it isn't a perfect fit, so this may be a case were the power stays but gets renamed (which is something I usually try not to do, though obviously Advanced Armor, Vibranium Shield, and Enhanced Tough all co-exist...). Possibly "Silver Tongue" or something like that.

Thor
Not too much to say here - hits the right notes, feels like a solid rendition. Triple-threat on offense with a solid normal attack, special attack, and auto-wounding power. Intentional that he'll catch an ally with Mjolnir if they get too close while he's swinging it around?

To my mind, it's basically just a spin and toss with Mjolnir, not much time to watch for collateral damage. Plus, Thor would likely have a hearty laugh about it and slap his pal on the back going on about what a wonderful fight it is. Thor is one of my favorite cards to play.

Magneto
Master of Magnetism damaging friendlies (except Mutant Outcasts) feels a bit weird at first, but it probably does make sense from a factional perspective.

I might go for something that speaks to his character a little more specifically for the personality - I think you could put Ruthless on most of the Brotherhood. Magneto is ruthless, but it's not the first thing I'd play up about him. (Heck, you could swap his personality and Super Skrull's - I think I'd like him a lot better as Determined and Super Skrull as Ruthless)

Magneto cares a lot for homo superior and not much else. Interestingly that makes it sound like Determined would work for both, since they're both determined in the name of a cause.

Storm
I like the low-key similarity to Thor here with the two once-per-round powers. Gale Force Winds is a cool centerpiece here - strong, distinctive, and useful in quite a few different contexts. Equally good as a sort of leadership power or just for smacking people around - very befitting of the character.

Another winner, I'll take it!

Mandarin
Kind of a crazy toolbox here - really high-variance unit, with the potential for those 20s to shake things up. This one wasn't quite clicking for me until I realized he had a melee normal attack. For some reason I was thinking of him as a ranged figure at first! (Not sure why, the C3G one isn't ranged either). That makes for some more interesting choices about whether to run him into engagement, or play him back a little bit and try to leverage his ring powers while keeping him safe.

(I've been trying to mull these cards over myself before I dig into your design notes, and most of these comments are written during that 'mulling' phase)

He's definitely a puzzle to play since you want to maximize his potential but still play it safe long enough to realize that potential. Also a lot of fun to play.

Mister Fantastic
I think that ought to be 'Unrivaled Intellect'.

I'd be tempted to drop the Reach stuff from Stretch and just keep the movement effects in there to simplify, since he's at four powers - you could always up his range to 2 to represent stretchiness. Doesn't feel like an issue for him to be able to attack more than 6 spaces up when he can climb 30 spaces in one step.

Looking back over the FF cards as a whole, I really dig the Reed/Johnny/Sue interplay... and the Johnny/Sue/Ben interplay, but it doesn't feel to me like there's a ton of direct connective tissue between Ben and Reed - they'll like to play together because Sue and Johnny facilitate that, I suppose, but I would expect their relationship to be a little tighter. I do think the team works, though.

No matter how many revisions I do, there are still typos (there's one on Doom no one mentioned but I found long after posting the card). They'll get fixed eventually (having to learn GIMP is slowing that process way down). I'm not a huge fan of Range 2, but that is a very good point so I'll think about it here. I think the Reed/Ben connection is simply that Reed holds the enemy in place while Ben throws lots of dice at them.

Sabretooth and Wolverine
(He's usually 'Sabretooth' and not 'Sabertooth', I believe)
Covering these two in one comment due to the general similar aesthetic - really dig the approach to these two as counterpoints to each other. Really love the way I've been seeing the X-Men start to build up, too.

Another couple cards where I can't really find a lot to fault em for. One thing that did jump out at me was that that Wolverine using an SA means he won't especially want to run with Cap, but his X-Men connections are obviously a lot more important than his Avengers ones. (And even Iron Man has that issue with Cap, so whaddayagonnado)

I swear I had looked that up at some point... I'm really happy how they turned out as counterparts, so I'm glad you like that, too. Cap's Assemble can be pretty potent, so I'm not too concerned when the synergy isn't as strong as it could be (though I agree it would be nice if it was stronger with the "right" characters than others).

Bulldozer
Dig the risk-reward of the Headbutt here - feels appropriate enough that it could backfire. Though of course, you could easily mitigate that risk by putting your OMs on other Wrecking Crew members, once they're designed.

And he's another Contract option for Kingpin, I see. So I could Contract Bulldozer and Sandman at the start of the game, then put my OMs on Bulldozer to activate him and Sandman, and get another activation with a second Wrecking Crew member if Bulldozer destroys somebody.

I think Kingpin's requirement that the Contracted figures go after the Targeted figure if possible would keep that from being too juicy... depending on the answer to that Kingpin question I asked way earlier in this post.

All valid points. Kingpin will only get stronger as the game grows because of that. And due to the earlier point about the Contract, that triple-turn can only happen once per game, which I like.

Cyclops
Aha, the best X-Man! Anyone who says otherwise is in the pocket of Big Wolverine.

Really dig the approach. Unconventional wording on the SA, but I think it makes enough sense (and heck if I can get to the same place so concisely). I actually have a similar Evil Eye type power on a Cyclops write-up somewhere, so naturally I approve of that.

Mutant Leadership is cool - my evaluation of that might shift depending on how the X-Men get fleshed out, though. It'll at least be nice for setting up Storm and Beast for their 'before moving' powers, which I already like!

I think WOB is the only other shape that really needs defining (lines are easy, hexes are covered by "within X clear sight spaces", and anything else is just weird; I do have a few other powers that do something slightly different, but don't recall if any made it into the first 50) and hope I did it justice. There are a couple other "before moving" powers in the faction (at least one more showing up in the first 50, I believe).

Again, really appreciate the detailed feedback. As soon as I have more time to work on editing, I'll get fixes posted.

[IAmBatman]

If I had to bet, I'd say that marker with Punisher was probably a grenade.

[Tornado]

Good call Bats.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Still weird.

Didn't mean to ignore this, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I also don't think it's worth adding a bunch of words for something that will happen less than 3% of the time.

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

If I had to bet, I'd say that marker with Punisher was probably a grenade.

Ooh, a Bats sighting! In my thread! I sort of addressed that in the original Punisher post:

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

We may not know much about the official figures, but we do know Punisher came with a white marker, so here's my take on that (it could've just been a grenade, but I feel like we had confirmation somewhere it wasn't).

I might poke around one of these days to try to confirm that, but I could also just be misremembering it.

[IAmBatman]

For sure. Confirm if you can.

With this design bug does this mean you're going to run an LD for the C3G Anniversary Wave? There's still time, I believe.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

For sure. Confirm if you can.

With this design bug does this mean you're going to run an LD for the C3G Anniversary Wave? There's still time, I believe.

So far all I've found is speculation. That's probably all there is.

Last time this came up I had a few designs that were halfway decent, but you guys have since released several of them. I think I'll just let you do your thing and I'll do mine.

===============



Another Mutant and, oh look!, another "Before moving" power. One of her other 3 powers is also "Before taking a turn". For a while I think she had 5 powers, but that was just too many, not to mention there is certainly a lack of space on the card. Diamond Form used to be a little more complex, but I think the simplicity of turning your powers into a +2/+2 buff instead is nice enough on its own. Psychic Sedation is pretty straightforward and introduces us to another light synergy among SuperHeroScape™: Telepaths! When many mind readers can link their minds together, things can get pretty easy for you. Telepathic Amplifier means Emma will probably be a centerpiece in that army (effectively giving +2 on her own). Psychic Proxy is a powerful way to help keep her protected yet still get work done when she has OM's.




Spider-Man has many classic villains. Green Goblin isn't very complicated. Pumpkin Bomb does introduce the idea of targeting spaces and being adjacent to spaces. In order to determine if a figure is adjacent to an empty space, you basically just pretend the attacker is standing there. So if a figure would be adjacent to a Medium 5, it is adjacent to an affected space. Not everything will work this way, but it makes sense when we're talking about grenade-type weapons (and it does make them a little more potent). Goblin Glider is Stealth Dodge against non-Flying figures. Finally, being Insane gives Goblin an odd point cost.

[NecroBlade]

I think I'll take a break here (it's already been 10 days since the last update) for something a little different. (And one quick note that Green Goblin will be updated to a Crime Lord or something else, not a Criminal because he shouldn't be working for Kingpin.)

===============



Thanks to the MCU, I got an itch to try my hand at the Infinity Gauntlet. It's a Treasure Glyph (SuperHeroScape™'s first) that includes the phrase "you win the game". Who doesn't want to do that, right? It also adds a Defense, but that's marginally less exciting. Just the glove for now, to leave time to wonder what the Gems do.

[Tornado]

Oh Snap.

[IAmBatman]

You should only win half the game.

[NecroBlade]

Thanos didn't kill all* of the Avengers, yet I'm reasonably sure he won Infinity War.

*any**

**yet.