The Book of Venom (Mac Gargan)

[Ronin]

The Vote That Maybe Didn't Pass isn't as punchy as some.

[Ronin]

Planning on running him in a Sin Six build twice, but shaking up the kind of army he's up against. Let me know if there's something else you'd rather see.

[MrNobody]

Honestly I found S6 to be one of the less effective builds for him. I think you said it somewhere; his Shark-y nature means he wants more activations per round than Ock usually gives. It’s not the worst army ever by any stretch, but I don’t think it’s his 100% optimal competitive build. Maybe like...1 S6 game and 1 LexCorp game or something like that?

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

Honestly I found S6 to be one of the less effective builds for him. I think you said it somewhere; his Shark-y nature means he wants more activations per round than Ock usually gives. It’s not the worst army ever by any stretch, but I don’t think it’s his 100% optimal competitive build. Maybe like...1 S6 game and 1 LexCorp game or something like that?

Hmmm. I should remember what I have to say more often. Maybe not Sin Six then.

EDIT: Might go for Suicide Squad, looking over what you ran? Really spoiled for choice with Criminal stuff.

[Arch-vile]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Venom (Mac Donald)

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Venom, Red Skull (Hasbro), Iron Monger (665) VS Spider-Man (C3G), Falcon, Groot (Adult) (665)

Spoiler Alert!

Venom moves out. Groot carries Falcon out. Venom wounds Groot with collateral damage, then is blocked. Groot rolls 4 skulls to Venom’s 0 shields, severely wounding Venom. Venom moves 0 but still rolls for collateral damage, wounding Groot, then attacks him for an additional 2 wounds. Spidey Web-Slings adjacent to Venom and deals him a wound. Groot heals a wound.

Spidey moves away from Venom and attacks from range but is blocked. Venom moves 0 but still rolls for collateral damage, wounding Groot, then attacks him for an additional 1 wound. Spidey web-slings Venom away, then attacks him and kills him. Iron Monger attacks Spidey, who dodges. Falcon attacks Monger but is blocked. Monger puts 3 wounds on Falcon. Groot heals a wound.

Monger kills Falcon. Spidey attacks Monger but is blocked. Monger is blocked. Spidey is blocked. Monger puts 2 wounds on Spidey. Spidey is blocked. Groot heals a wound.

Spidey is blocked. Monger is blocked. Spidey wounds Monger. Monger is blocked. Spidey is blocked. Monger is blocked. Groot heals a wound.

Spidey fails. Monger fails. Spidey wounds Monger. Monger fails. Spidey kills Monger. Red Skull advances. Groot heals a wound.

Red Skull advances. Spidey wounds Red Skull. Red Skull fails. Spidey puts 3 wounds on Red Skull. Red Skull fails. Spidey kills Red Skull.


Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Spider-Man (2 wounds) & Groot (1 wound) win.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Custom
Units: Venom, Green Goblin, Doc Ock I (690) VS Cyclops I, Storm I, Wolverine (690)

Spoiler Alert!

Cyclops moves out. Doc Ock moves out. Cyclops attacks Doc Ock but is blocked. Doc Ock puts 3 wounds on Cyclops. Storm puts 2 wounds on Doc Ock. Green Goblin kills Cyclops.

Storm uses Lightning Tempest, which wounds Green Goblin. Green Goblin wounds Storm. Storm is blocked. Venom engages Storm and kills her with a 5-skull attack. He then uses the additional turn to engage Wolverine and put 3 wounds on him. Storm had OM3. Venom kills Wolverine.

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Venom (0 wounds), Green Goblin (1 wound), Doctor Octopus (2 wounds) win.

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Venom offers a lot of offense and speed with an average amount of defense, so he can go down quickly. He worked a lot better in my second game, saving him for after I had some heroes already in the fray so fire wasn’t focused on Venom. Cannibal Craving is hard to activate but fun and very powerful when it does.

This is a simple design so I don’t think there are major competitive concerns, and the points seem fairly close to me considering the opposite results in each game.

[MrNobody]

Awesome, thanks Archie!

I'm fine with him being a bit fragile (relative to his weight class, at least.) And hopefully the eventual addition of Sinister Spider-Man will leave the character feeling more long-lasting as well.

[Ronin]

C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Venom (Mac Gargan) @245 points
(playtested against LV)

Army Test
Map: Ivy's Greenhouse
Units: Venom (Mac Gargan), Amanda Waller, Rick Flag, Vulture, Deadshot, Purple Man, Scarlet Spiders (1100) vs Lady Shiva, Cheshire, Elektra, Scarlet Spider (Kaine), Hand Ninja x4 (1100)

Spoiler Alert!

The Suicide Squad got off to a real strong start here, but things went sour when the Hand's auto-wounders managed to take out the Scarlet Spiders and make the betrayal rolls start really mattering. Only one criminal betrayed the Squad, but that criminal was Venom. Who still had 5 Life. That was a big turning point, and the Hand cleaned up from there.

While he was alive, Venom was pretty cool. Super fast on the road, and he was able to run in and mess up some ninja pretty good. He also landed the killing blow on Elektra. Rick moved him to trigger Collateral Damage one time, but it didn't pay off.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): destroyed 1 Hand Ninja in 2 attacks, 1 wound to Elektra (destroyed) in 1 attack
• Expert Climbing: helped deploy (much) faster
• Collateral Damage: 6 rolls by me, 2 wounds. Destroyed 2 Hand Ninja. 0 rolls by LV.
• Cannibal Craving: healed 2 wounds, granted 1 additional turn
• Damage Taken: 1 wound from Elektra in 2 special attacks, 3 wounds from Hand Ninja in 7 attacks, destroyed by Amanda Waller with 5 Life left

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Shiva and Cheshire unwounded, 1 Hand Ninja figure

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Ivy's Greenhouse
Units: Venom (Mac Gargan), Amanda Waller, Rick Flag, Vulture, Deadshot, Purple Man, Scarlet Spiders (1100) vs Graviton, Red Skull, Baron Zemo (Heinrich), Angel (Warren), Blob, Lurker (1100)

Spoiler Alert!

The Mastermind/Graviton team got off to a real hot start with their disruption powers: Graviton was slamming Venom into everything like a wrecking ball. Thanks to the mobility boost offered by Rick Flag, Venom was able to try and blitz Zemo early to take out a bunch of OMs, but it didn't quite pan out.

The momentum of the match slowly shifted in favor of the Suicide Squad as Purple Man started taking control of enemy figures: first he got Graviton, then Blob, and then eventually he won the game by taking control of Angel, the Mastermind team's last player. Zemo, thanks to Mental Shield, was able to bypass Reactive Mind Control and got a couple shots in on Purple Man, but PM was weirdly resilient and stuck it out to win the game for the Suicide Squad.

Weird game because the margin of victory looks huge for the Squad, but Purple Man could have easily dropped at any point and then I would have been in real hot water with Graviton/Blob/Zemo destroying my turn efficicency.

Worth noting that there was a misplay early on here where Venom drifted out of Staying On Task range and I forgot to roll for Suicide Squad. LV pointed it out and I rolled, coming up with a 2... but there'd already been a turn of stuff that Venom had been involved in, so we kept playing like we were in the universe where Amanda Waller hadn't blown up Venom's head. So, technically Venom might have dropped a lot earlier in this one and dealt 2 fewer wounds to Zemo. It might have impacted endgame stuff a bit, but Venom wasn't exactly a key figure after the misplay, so I don't think it hugely affected the final result or my feelings on Venom's performance. Worth getting LV's take on that, though.

Unit Summary:

• Damage Done (Normal Attack): 4 wounds to Zemo in 2 attacks (not destroyed because Skull had healed him 1 with the Cube), 0 wounds to Blob in 1 attack
• Expert Climbing: helped movement throughout
• Collateral Damage: 3 rolls by me, 0 wounds. 4 rolls by LV, 2 wounds. Destroyed 2 Scarlet Spiders.
• Cannibal Craving: never destroyed anything
• Damage Taken: 1 from Cosmic Cube, 3 from Reverse Gravity, 1 wound from Red Skull in 1 normal attack

Who won? List figures remaining in the winning army (include life remaining for heroes): Venom with 5 wounds, Purple Man with 3 wounds, 1 Scarlet Spider, rest of Suicide Squad unwounded, mind-controlled Graviton with 2 wounds, mind-controlled Angel and Blob both unwounded

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: So... a couple weird games where Venom wasn't the biggest deal (though he could have been bigger in that first game if he hadn't turned on the Squad and been prematurely killed). He does feel fun, though. He's an intimidating, sharky figure that can dash across the map. With all the road on Ivy's Greenhouse and Rick Flag helping him out, he was crazy fast. He only ended up doing it once or twice, but he's also fun for Rick Flag to move just to trigger Collateral Damage. Definitely felt like Gargan's Venom to me.

Unfortunately I'm not sure these games speak hugely to his balance (beyond him being a great target for both enemy and friendly movement powers), but I like the feel of him.

Worth also getting input from LV, who played the enemy teams in these games.

[LordVenoc]

He's definitely great fun to play against when you have things that can move him. He can feel like a bit of a nightmare if you've got lots of squads, as he has the life and defense to stay fairly sturdy against them and can devour his way back to healing. Maneuverability was surprising as well. Dude can clear the map pretty quick.

Worth noting that the bigger flub in game two was my failure to remember I had retaken the cube with angel and could have wiped Purple Man out. Bad call that cost me the game. Venom wasn't nearly as big a player that game as was my inability to hurt Purple Man.

[MrNobody]

So by my count that's 3 losses, 3 wins, and 1 really big win that probably would've been different if units were played more accurately.

I'm okay with moving ahead with these current results, but I would understand if we felt one more set of tests was needed.

[IAmBatman]

Pre-yea for Final Editing.

[MrNobody]

Okay then, let's get the ball rolling here! I'll call a VOTE for Final Editing!
@Ronin would you be willing to do a bio here?

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Yea