How balanced are AotP units to classic 'scape?

[Targanth]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Do you have a source on a designer saying this? Otherwise, it's just conjecture, and I would disagree. chas' ruleset agrees with me, so I'm not alone in it.

I would agree that the PW cost includes the PW's Spell deck.
On Pg 14 of the rule book of the original base set:
Using Multiple Game Sets and/or Expansion Sets

Building Your Premade Army: Players may know exactly
which armies they want, based on the game scenario, the
cost values, their favorite figures, or other factors. The
scenarios will call out the total army points to build to. All
scenarios in this game set have a total build of 500 points
per army.
When building an army, you must include one and only
one Planeswalker. After you select your Planeswalker,
select which army cards you want to include in your army.
Each army card in your army must be of a color matching
your selected Planeswalker, or be an artifact army card. The
total of all army cards, including your Planeswalker card,
cannot exceed the total build number for the scenario you
are playing.

If the cost of the PW's spell deck was not included in the cost of the PW, none of the scenarios included in the base game would allow enough points for the PW to both bring creatures to summon AND a complete spell deck - The total build points are 500.

If you take a PW at 345 points, then add 200 for the spell deck, you are already over 500. To get down to 500 you would have to toss out spell cards. You have no army cards included.

However, if you include the spell deck points as part of the PW cost, then every color army in the base set has exactly a 500 point army.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by Targanth

I would agree that the PW cost includes the PW's Spell deck.
On Pg 14 of the rule book of the original base set:
Using Multiple Game Sets and/or Expansion Sets

Building Your Premade Army: Players may know exactly
which armies they want, based on the game scenario, the
cost values, their favorite figures, or other factors. The
scenarios will call out the total army points to build to. All
scenarios in this game set have a total build of 500 points
per army.
When building an army, you must include one and only
one Planeswalker. After you select your Planeswalker,
select which army cards you want to include in your army.
Each army card in your army must be of a color matching
your selected Planeswalker, or be an artifact army card. The
total of all army cards, including your Planeswalker card,
cannot exceed the total build number for the scenario you
are playing.

If the cost of the PW's spell deck was not included in the cost of the PW, none of the scenarios included in the base game would allow enough points for the PW to both bring creatures to summon AND a complete spell deck - The total build points are 500.

If you take a PW at 345 points, then add 200 for the spell deck, you are already over 500. To get down to 500 you would have to toss out spell cards. You have no army cards included.

However, if you include the spell deck points as part of the PW cost, then every color army in the base set has exactly a 500 point army.

Sure, that's because AotP is a different game with different deckbuilding rules. In AotP, you have a certain amount of points to spend on units (often 500 or 600), and a certain amount of points to spend on spells (always 200). In Heroscape, you just have one pool of points, which is spent on units.

The question isn't whether, in AotP, the points you spend on spells subtract from the amount of points you can spend on units--they obviously don't. The question is whether 500 points of AotP units (including a planeswalker) + 200 points of AotP spells is closer in power to a 500 point HS army, or a 700 point HS army. I believe it's the latter.

[obfuscatedhippo]

I always thought that the cost of the Planeswalker included the 200 point spell deck.

So Jace at 340 was really 140 point Unique Hero + 200 points of spells.

Yes, summoning is very powerful and spells can be as well .. but I am thinking that probably 50% of the spells will be ineffective against Classic Scape.

Jace can't "unsummon" the 4th Mass line, and making his opponent discard 2 cards won't help if the other player doesn't have a spell deck. And Liliana's 'killing wave' won't destroy Knights of Weston.

But enchantments - especially white - those are pretty strong for pumping defense. I think all of the enchantments currently only buff unique squads, but Firebreathing Tagawa Samurai would be cool!

They are certainly different games ('Scape and AotP). It might be interesting to tweak some wording, balance out a few cards and units, to test them out. But I think it would be a fair amount of work to balance appropriately.

[lefton4ya]

I like @obfuscatedhippo 's reasoning that when mixing, the planeswalker cost includes the spell cost and the summon power cost. I also look at multi-life squads like multiple common squads that have a power to bring up reinforcements once they die, or similar to how exoskelton markers work - although more than one extra skull/swords vs. shield will kill them quicker than 1-life squads. You could even convert heroscape common squads to multi-life squads by just changing the life value of squad members to multiples of army card cost instead of multiple squads, and the advantage of not having to pull up ranks vs. the disadvantage of them dying faster with multiple hits should wash out. However Magic:Aotp squads seem cheap when you compare that way, so I would either double the cost of Magic:Aotp squads, 1/2 the cost of heroscape squads, or just include two Heroscape squads (or life points) for the price of one when you combine games.

Personally, I would just set a point vale for a Magic AotP army and an additional point value for a Heroscape army and have both people draft the same amount of points in each army type, give or take 50 points. For instance a friend and I played a 500 point magic army + 370 point hulk vs a 550 point magic army + 320 point silver surfer, and it was fairly balanced. We did not allow enhancing heroscape figures, but I could see allowing it.

[Prometheus]

@obfuscatedhippo Yeah, Jace will be weak against classic 'Scape in any case because of how much of his deck is targeted against other spells. I think the rest of the planeswalkers will be fine (assuming you count HS units as creatures--if you don't, then red and black are hurt badly as well).
@lefton4ya If you both play blended armies, then yes it's simple to both take the same amount of AotP units and the same amount of HS units. That doesn't really feel like bringing AotP units into HS to me though, it feels like playing a game of AotP with a few HS units thrown in.

So I'd like to get an estimate of how to play AotP vs. HS with balanced armies, and I think a point tax on the AotP player is fair, not only in light of their spell deck but also in light of their cheaper units (for example, this guy):

This thing gets 8 life, 6 attack, and 5 defense against range, and if you engage it at melee, it destroys every squad figure next to it automatically--and it's cheaper than Nilfheim. If I were to see that in a HS game I would want to know the person playing it had paid some kind of point penalty, because that's not a 150-point HS hero.

Yes, it would be more thorough to go through and assign completely new point values to all the AotP units, but it would be a huge pain to do so. My experience so far leads me to believe a 500-point AotP army with 200 points of spells is vastly overpowered against a 500-point HS army, and reasonably balanced against a 700-point HS army. For simplicity's sake, I want to leave it there, but if testing reveals I really need to I can tweak that ratio.

[Tornado]

Comparisons are difficult if you have a limited playing group.

Just because things play out one way with one group does not mean it will be that way for all. It all comes down to the competitive level of the players involved and the builds and strategies they use.

This was evident for me at Gen Con when my group got a chance to play new people. I found we were pretty strong players(even me who is the biggest loser in the group) but we completely lacked any sort of Glyph strategy because we never used them.

I think it will be some time before we can say what is the best way to combine the two games.

[caps]

I think the Eldrazi Ruiner is only a little underpriced when you add in the Planeswalker. 500 points for 3-5 figures is a pretty light army and would not necessarily instastomp a competitive Heroscape army at the same point value.

[Tai-Pan]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I think the Eldrazi Ruiner is only a little underpriced when you add in the Planeswalker. 500 points for 3-5 figures is a pretty light army and would not necessarily instastomp a competitive Heroscape army at the same point value.

I figure this is part of the whole equation too. Almost as if the cost of summoning is considered in the cost of a figure, but that cost is put on the planeswalker.

[Targanth]

The stats for the Eldrazi Ruiner are quite similar to those of Krug from Heroscape, who costs 120 points. The skills are a bit different, but overall seem to be a reasonable comparison.

[caps]

Originally Posted by Tai-Pan

I figure this is part of the whole equation too. Almost as if the cost of summoning is considered in the cost of a figure, but that cost is put on the planeswalker.

I have made that exact argument.

--

I think the Eldrazi Ruined is significantly better than Krug in many matchups.

[obfuscatedhippo]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I have made that exact argument.

--

I think the Eldrazi Ruined is significantly better than Krug in many matchups.

Agreed. If Lash of Tentacles was a d20 power like Marro Plague (maybe a 16+) then it would be powerful but not as broken as an auto-wound on Heroscape squads.

Might be an easy way to modify him (... or it).

[caps]

While Lash of Tentacles is very good, an army of Ruiner + Planeswalker lacks any blockers and so still gives an opposing melee army plenty of chances to get a first strike and whittle down the Ruiner before the game ends. I'm not convinced that the Ruiner is broken unless he is allowed to be mixed into a Heroscape army without a Planeswalker (which would be illegal by the rules I made for mixing the game, as well as several other peoples's rulesets).