The Spellbook of Crimson Bands of Cyttorak

[Ronin]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Crimson Bands of Cyttorak @80

Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Strange, Wong, Crimson Bands (470) vs Luke Cage, Blue Beetle, Firestar (470)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: not cast

Luke and Firestar manage to close the gap and engage Strange quickly here, denying him an opportunity to cast Crimson Bands. Firestar whips out a 7-skull Microwave Beam SA to OHKO Wong and wound Strange.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Luke Cage with 2 wounds, Firestar and Blue Beetle unwounded

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Strange, Wong, Crimson Bands (470) vs Captain America (C3G), Zombie, Oracle (470)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast on Zombie OM2. Prevented Zombie from moving (and therefore doing any damage) on his own turn, and then prevented Zombie from being able to use Walking Dead to engage Wong.

Wong and Strange manage to take down Cap while Strange uses the Bands to lock down Zombie (who inherits an OM from Cap with Contingency Plan). Strange manages to take out Zombie after a little back-and-forth, and Oracle doesn't prove much of a challenge either.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Doctor Strange with 3 wounds

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Strange, Wong, Crimson Bands (470) vs Captain America (C3G), Zombie, Oracle (470)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast on Captain America OM1. Didn't end up being useful because Wong improbably survived the whole round; Wong was tying Cap down and preventing him from moving onto Strange. Spell was cast with the expectation that Wong would go down and Cap would want to move on to Strange, but that didn't quite work out.

The match unfolds similarly to last time, but Zombie and Cap get a little more damage in, and Oracle manages to beat out Strange in clean-up.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Oracle with 1 wound

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Strange, Hawkeye (II), Atom, Ragdoll, Oracle, Crimson Bands (700) vs TMNT (700)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast on Michelangelo. Mikey came up with a 20 for his roll and broke out the first time he tried to move.

The Turtles have some rough luck and Raph goes down super-early. The Crimson Bands get no-sold, but Team Hawkeye does well for themselves anyhow.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Hawkeye with 3 wounds, Oracle and Ragdoll unwounded

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Strange, Hawkeye (II), Captain America (C3G), Zombie, Ragdoll, Crimson Bands (1000) vs Ms. Marvel, Valkyrie, Red Tornado (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast on Valkyrie. Prevented her from moving on her turn (and therefore doing any damage) 2 times. Deathglow Perception didn't come up while Valkyrie was Bound.

The Cap-Vengers get some good licks in here, and Strange manages to shut down a couple Valkyrie turns to give Team Cap a narrow win.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Ragdoll with 1 wound

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Doctor Doom (II), Kristoff von Doom, Doombot x3, Jason Voorhees, Crimson Bands (1000) vs Original X-Men (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast by Kristoff on Angel in the endgame, in order to prevent him from using Guardian Angel to get better positioning, or moving into position to keep depowered Doom from going after Professor X. Prevented Angel from moving 1 time. On second use, Angel rolled high enough to break free and get away.

Fairly typical match for Doom II, with him dominating early on, but then everything crumbling around him when his demons turn on him. Fairly mild Crimson Bands usage here; it gives Doom a chance to go after Professor X in the endgame.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Doctor Doom (II) with 2 wounds, Kristoff with 3 wounds, 1 Doombot unwounded

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Army Test
Map: Custom (Hydra Gehenna Base with houses instead of castle walls)
Units: Sage, Selene, Scarlet Witch, Quentin Quire, Jubilee, Crimson Bands (1105) vs Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, Plastic Man, Hellcat, Oracle (1105)

Spoiler Alert!

Spell use: cast on Thing to keep him from moving adjacent to Selene. The Adventurers opted to take turns with Plastic Man instead.

There was a big momentum swing in this one, with Selene hitting hard and giving the Mutants an initial edge, but then having her luck turn on her and losing a throw-down with Thing. (thanks to some excellent defense rolls from Thing, followed by dreadful Psychic Vampire rolls from Selene).

The Bands got the Adventurers to take a couple turns with Plastic Man instead of Thing early on; Reed died with a couple OMs on his card and Oracle had to Contingency Plan them somewhere - Crimson Bands discouraged her from giving them to Thing. Limiting Thing's offensive output helped the Mutants get that initial lead out, even though the Adventurers eventually turned it around.
Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Thing with 4 wounds, Plastic Man with 4 wounds, Hellcat with 2 wounds

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Might run another game or two here? Might be worth experimenting with non-Strange casters.

I don't feel like the smaller games are that representative of what the Bands are bringing to the table, because those games have fewer opportunities to use the Bands well. The record here is one instance of shutting down 2 turns, one instance of shutting down 1 turn (and Walking Dead 1 time), and three instances of the spell not being cast, or cast to no useful effect.

UPDATE: Two more games. One solid use to pin down Thing and keep a couple OMs off his card, and one where it was just barely useful; Team Doom was already sure to win their game, but the Crimson Bands scuppered Angel's chance to get Professor X away from the von Dooms before being destroyed, dragging the match out a little.

[Viegon]

Yeah, it's going to see less use in smaller games. The more enemy figures in the game, the higher chance you'll find a good situation to use it. Maybe try it in larger builds with a pair of spellcasters? A Mutant build with both Selene and Scarlet Witch, for example.

[Ronin]

Something like that would be a good idea. I'm going to try two more games in the ~1000 point arena and probably call it good there.

[TrollBrute]

[Ronin]

Ran a couple more games here. It's looking pretty good to me at 80, though I'm willing to consider any counter-points people have to make about the cost.

[Yodaking]

I like the idea you had there to shut down Angle. His value is tied to his movement.

[Ronin]

Went ahead and switched the immunity to Event Heroes/Unstoppable Force. Slightly smaller set of figures, but I think it hits the theme better.

Proposing we move the Crimson Bands to Danger Room testing at 80 points.

@japes
@Viegon
@Tornado
@Yodaking
@TrollBrute
@johnny139

[Yodaking]

While I agree this should be a fairly expensive spell considering what it could do for you, I'm not 100% convinced that 80 is a realistic price point. The Angle shut down is a great example of what it could do, shutting down the movement of a figure whose value is greatly tied to being able to move is pretty significant. Yet Angle is a 90 point figure. Spending 80 points to shut down a 90 point figure for a couple of turns doesn't seem equitable to me. Once the spell wears off, you still have a 90 point figure in play, unharmed and ready to get back to work at full strength. While that window of opportunity could reap some nice benefits, getting in some attacks on a figure that Angle would have otherwise spirited away, all that is still dependent on a different set of dice rolls and OM investments. You could also use it to shut down a higher point figure like Archangel, but then all you are preventing is a couple of high %d20 rolls.

Has Dok stated what he values this spell at yet? I'd like to know what point value he is going to assign to it before we waste time testing it at a different point value.

[Ronin]

dok says he thinks it'll come in under 100. I wouldn't mind any updated thoughts after seeing the initial results, though. @dok

Keep in mind that the Angel one wasn't the highest value delivered there, so I wouldn't get hung up on the idea of that being the dream scenario for the spell. It wasted two of Valkyrie's turns (Red Tornado had already gone down and Ms. Marvel had no-one else to bond with), and it got the Adventurers to take two turns with Plastic Man instead of Thing. It made pretty significant differences in those matches.

[Viegon]

Yea

I think the bigger value comes from being able to lockdown the likes of an unengaged Superman or Thor while OMs are on their card. If the D20 favors you, you could be effectively canceling 2-3 turns on a bruiser like that.

[Yodaking]

Yeah, preventing a big melee attack from happening is certainly going to be pretty handy and should be priced high. I'm just not sure how high. Since you cast the spell on your turn, instead of moving rather than after moving, and the spell is limited to figures already within 3 spaces of you, that figure also has to have #ed OMs on their card to be most effective. If not, the bonded turn will often still happen just with another figure. Even then their are some figures where a #OM revealed on the bound figure can still net you a turn with someone else and you can't control how long the figure will be bound for. At the end of the day, what does 80 points of Fire Ants buy you in terms of wasted turns by a melee attacker stomping on ants instead of attacking your other figures? Superman surrounded by 6 ants would spend 6 turns before he could exit without taking a LEA.

[Ronin]

Superman rarely gets surrounded by ants, in my experience, since the ants average a couple spaces of movement per round.

The Bands felt like a worthwhile investment to me, and I'm not seeing anything in the initial results that disagrees with that. It's a fallible spell, but it has achievable high-end outcomes, and you can put it in builds where you get more chances to use it. It plays well off Hawkeye (II) stuff, as well as anything with multiple spell-casters. Doom (II) also likes it - coming back multiple times with Doombots means he ends up moving into battle more than once, so he gets more than one crack at it (plus he can run with Kristoff as a back-up caster).

I'm willing to tweak based on further testing, but I feel comfortable moving forward at 80. It's certainly draftable at that level.