[Pod 0] Honored Soul-Guides - Editing

[Captain Stupendous]

Evar Scarcarver is a thing

[Muskie]

Thinking through my MacDirk battle. I was blessed with the initiative twice. If Tiamat had range (we were testing an army without it) and won init, he could of taken Alistair out quickly and the power would have been moot. I think the power works well and is a cool end game power with lots of different heroes. It just works great with Alistair with perfect Initiative rolls.

[NecroBlade]

That's true, a small/medium Krug (Evar, kinda, although again that's a unit I'm OK with helping) would matter. It's a shame that having 1 Life does make the Souls too easy to kill, because I really like the synergies it offers.

And I did have another idea I was working on, but I'm reviewing what we've come up with already and letting this most recent discussion settle in my brain, to see what I can come up with.

Should we maybe move back to Design here?

[Astroking112]

Evar could be very unfun to come back at 6A/7D with Double Assault, but needing to win initiative to hit that makes it a bit iffy as to whether it'll actually work or not. He definitely doubles down on the "needing to win initiative to get use out of the revival" aspect a lot.

I'd rather stick it out for a few more tests to verify that the HSGs being best with bonding armies is a problem that we want to try and fix, personally. I'm not convinced yet that we've seen them in action enough to warrant a redesign, or that we have our finger on the right issues to fix if we do jump back.

[Muskie]

The thing with Evar is that you have to move the HSG into harm's way to set up the great attacks. With Alistair, I could still hide them in the back. I think the one live balances it out. If I am going against these guys, I am sending someone after them early.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

or that we have our finger on the right issues to fix if we do jump back.

Still been thinking about these guys, and I think the problem (what's been bothering me at least) isn't so much that Bonding is best with them, rather it's that the power feels less like guiding the Hero and more like an excuse to put the Hero back on the board one more time.

[NecroBlade]

HSGs were used in one of two quick playtests at ScapeCon.

Grimnak, Sgt. Drake (RotV), Tetsuo Tyrell, HSGs
vs
Pyria, Velnesh Alphas, Finn, Thorgrimm

The map was a multiplayer map that we simply used small sections of. This was along one edge of the map with a few small hills between start zones.

Grimnak and Tetsuo lead for Team 1, Chomp steadily taking care of the Velnesh when they also lead. Pyria came out to set up Firelines, and Tetsuo was able to boost and attack her, the wound to himself giving the exact roll needed to use her to crisp Finn a little. Drake came up and unfortunately Pyria was able to hit all 3 Heroes. Grimnak was badly wounded and Testuo died, but so did Pyria and Finn, who went on Thorgrim. HSGs revived Tetsuo next round, and he managed to get a turn with Thorgrimm, again with the perfect roll thanks to having max wounds, though there was no one left to use Thorgrim on. I think Thorgrim got Grimnak, but in the end Drake got Thorgrim and the HSGs never left the start zone.

Despite the neat synergy with Mind Jack, this more or less confirmed my feelings that in their current form the HSGs are little more than an extra life for a Hero. Not moving or even getting an Order Marker meant they didn't feel like Guides at all.

[Captain Stupendous]

I'd be very open to considering a redesign for this unit. The current implementation, while arguably well-balanced, seems overly fiddly and less thematic than it could be.

[Astroking112]

I'm a bit wary of a heavy redesign, but I wouldn't mind streamlining the power at all. I hate the negation language in the power and would definitely like to see it removed, especially given how rare negation is already and that including that phrase would require us to explain it in our rulebook. @NecroBlade 's suggestion of making the power once per game could be an opportunity to replace the negation clause.

Personally, I don't mind that the Guides don't take an active role in leading the hero--if anything, I think that the core fantasy of this unit is serviced well by placing the focus squarely on the revived hero rather than themselves. It's okay for them to mostly highlight what makes another unit cool given that that's likely why they'll be drafted anyway.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

I'm a bit wary of a heavy redesign, but I wouldn't mind streamlining the power at all. I hate the negation language in the power and would definitely like to see it removed, especially given how rare negation is already and that including that phrase would require us to explain it in our rulebook. @NecroBlade 's suggestion of making the power once per game could be an opportunity to replace the negation clause.

Personally, I don't mind that the Guides don't take an active role in leading the hero--if anything, I think that the core fantasy of this unit is serviced well by placing the focus squarely on the revived hero rather than themselves. It's okay for them to mostly highlight what makes another unit cool given that that's likely why they'll be drafted anyway.

I'm not sure how much you would consider @Captain Stupendous and my idea a "heavy" redesign. It does, however, involve becoming once-per-game and losing the negation clause.

Focus on the Hero is great and should be part of this power. But my concern is with any power that basically just exists without the unit itself having to do anything. Sort of like how a blanket OM hub would be a terrible idea.

That said, given the lukewarm feelings about the current version and that it's largely a series of patches to try to get it to do what we intended, I propose we move back to design and pursue a slightly different angle.

[Captain Stupendous]

As mentioned earlier, I bringing this figure back for a bit of a redesign. I think the current iteration is a bit too complicated and unintuitive for its own good.

[Astroking112]

If nothing else, I'd support moving back to Design to iron out those patches and remove mention of negation from the Master Set. We can hash out to what degree a redesign should take there.

to move back to Design.