How balanced are AotP units to classic 'scape?

[Tai-Pan]

It would interest me to hear what Craig and the other designers think about combining the two....


What about charging the Magic Player for any and all spells he brings? I know a lot of people are of the opinion that the 200 points worth of spells are built into the cost of the Planeswalkers, but maybe the ability to summon the figures is worth over 100 points and we would get closer results (with average HeroScape armies) by having the Magic Player pay for spells. He could also decide then to take fewer than 12 spells if it works better for his point total, or a real hotshot could play just a planeswalker and a whole fistful of spells.

[wriggz]

Originally Posted by TREX

I'm not sure why you couldn't mix HOSS figures in with classic scape, they are play tested with classic figures. Their point values are designed to be with classic scape. The only difference is that some figures have force user abilities in which case they are raised/lowered accordingly in point value. Being on the HOSS team, I highly recommend playing HOSS with regular Heroscape. They are not broken that way. On the original said statement that AOTP is not recommended, but can be played with Original scape, I agree.

Corrected my original Post!


Recommended: Heroes of Starwars Scape, C3V, SoV, Scytale's Customs
Not Recommended: Marvel Heroscape, C3G,
On the fence: AotP.


As afar as pricing in the spell cards I think a 200 point tax on a 600 point AotP would cripple the army as a whole. However filling out 12 cards necessitates that you have some less useful cards in your hand. Being able to play Chandra with only 8 of the "really good" red spells might actually be better than having to take all 12.

[Tai-Pan]

Originally Posted by wriggz

As afar as pricing in the spell cards I think a 200 point tax on a 600 point AotP would cripple the army as a whole.

How much are AotP armies winning by against normal HeroScape armies?

[wriggz]

Originally Posted by Tai-Pan

How much are AotP armies winning by against normal HeroScape armies?

I don't think it is a matter of win percentage, is that with at 300 pt planes walker and up to 200 points of Spells, you don't have much room for summons. The structure of the game out of the box was a 500 point army with no cost for spells (700 with). It gets even worse with the expansions.

Board control and order marker management are valuable, but I don't think 200 points valuable.

Oh, and my experience the Planeswalker armies seem fairly balanced, but with the new expansions and a few really deadly combo's I think the impact on the meta is too severe to call them truly balanced. This is why projects like C3V take so long. Each unit has to be evaluated on how it would effect all the other units and the overall meta. This is why you will never see a cheap Taelord with a smaller aura, +1 attack to range would have too strong an impact on the meta.


The questions of balance is not if they can be played together, or match up with MOST units. To be truly balance the merger cannot leave some units completely nerfed with others overpowered. There can be a shuffle in ranking, but not a wholesale shift.


For example, pushing Dund out of contention is okay (although purists wouldn't even allow this), however the Runier and Avacyn basically make all melee squads unviable in a competitive sense. The rangers and Nissa can kite so many units into oblivion. On the other side a Pure heroscape army really hurts Blue and to a lesser extent Green planeswalkers since many of their spells loose their utility. This is what it means to be unbalanced. You would find the same issue if Heroscape had no squads, and then suddenly they were added into the mix. (This is why the Hero's only meta is different,)


It is like we have been fighting a ground war all along and someone shows up with airplanes. Sure we can shoot into the sky and take the airport, but we are fighting two different wars.

[caps]

Originally Posted by Tai-Pan

How much are AotP armies winning by against normal HeroScape armies?

In our event in Saturday, there was no game featuring a Planeswalker in which a Planeswalker did not win.

[Tiranx]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

In our event in Saturday, there was no game featuring a Planeswalker in which a Planeswalker did not win.

So far in my AotP vs. 'scape I have had these results..

Chandra Vs. Knights of Weston build - Knights won in a very close game
Gideon Vs. Knights of Weston build - Gideon won in a close game
Kiora Vs. ranged vydar builld - Kiroa destroyed the ranged units mostly due to summoning adjacent to ranged units.

[TREX]

Planeswalkers armies have won 8 out of 10 of our AOTP vs Heroscape games.

[caps]

Originally Posted by Tiranx

So far in my AotP vs. 'scape I have had these results..

Chandra Vs. Knights of Weston build - Knights won in a very close game
Gideon Vs. Knights of Weston build - Gideon won in a close game
Kiora Vs. ranged vydar builld - Kiroa destroyed the ranged units mostly due to summoning adjacent to ranged units.

I'm not surprised. Knights are an A-ranked Heroscape squad that get a 5 attacks each turn. I would expect Gideon (like Sorin) to do well against them as a melee squad. Try those games again with Avacyn and the Ruiner and let us know what you think.

[Dysole]

Originally Posted by TREX

I'm not sure why you couldn't mix HOSS figures in with classic scape, they are play tested with classic figures. Their point values are designed to be with classic scape. The only difference is that some figures have force user abilities in which case they are raised/lowered accordingly in point value. Being on the HOSS team, I highly recommend playing HOSS with regular Heroscape. They are not broken that way. On the original said statement that AOTP is not recommended, but can be played with Original scape, I agree.

Figure movement is powerful like super good powerful. Also some people like Boba Fett and Lando are in my opinion too good for their price. Just like AotP values autowounds too low, HoSS values figure movement too low. C3G has both in plentiful numbers so that's a really good showcase but none have figure movement equivalent to HoSS or autowounds equivalent to AotP. I'm not on the HoSS team but I'd be leery of mixing HoSS and scape.

~Dysole, who placed first and second in the HoSS/scape mixed tournaments so you can factor that into her thoughts

[Tai-Pan]

I meant by how many points are the planeswalkers winning. If 200 points more classic would cause a close game, my suggestion may not be too off.

[Tornado]

I think trying to factor in spell card points is a tricky gambit.

Can AotP beat pure HS cheese?

[dok]

I don't remember the final result in my game against @GeneralRolando ; perhaps he does. I don't think I lost many figures there.

In my game against Seth, Nahiri's army won pretty much without taking a scratch. I think Nahiri had two wounds at the end and I might have been down one squad figure? I had burned through most of my spell deck, though. That was a mixed PW/Scape army against a pure Scape army.

In my game against caps, it was similarly lopsided, only the other way. If I had won a key initiative then it's possible that a 5-attack Hydra would have killed (or nearly killed) the Ruiner in one shot, but instead the Ruiner autowounded and killed the Hydra (spell giving multiple attacks) and things snowballed.

Basically, I didn't play a close game.