Marvel pieces in regular games

[RageAngel]

We have no restrictions. However, with the exception of my 6 year old son, no one usually opts to field them. Even my 7 yer old son shys away from them almost all the time.

It's generally not a good idea to play them strategically, and I've always been kind of at a loss as to why people here *generally* were so adamant about not mixing. The rules even suggest mixing.

Anyway - it's a LOT of points to put in one "basket." Braxas, Grimnak, and Deadeye Dan were bad, squadscape made it worse, and now Sujoah and the spiders really make it tough to justify fielding more than a 200 pt hero.

That being said, Spiderman, Venom, Red Skull and especially Cap America work very well in mixed armies.

As for Thanos, if your opponent plays him just kill everything else first (not hard to do, since he costs so much there shouldn't bee that much else fielded). Then when Thanos dies, his power never gets a chance to work. Since that is accounted for in his cost, it really nerfs his value.

The player using the Marvel units assumes most, if not all, of the risk.

QFT!

It's like making a tourney rule that you can't play Dund because it's too poor of a strategic choice. Let people make their mistakes.

IMO since this is THE fan site for Heroscape and there has been such vehement rejection here of Marvel being played with classic despite Hasbro's recommendations in the rules they be mixed, that it has been a significant factor in the demise of the franchise and the current uncertainty that we will ever see "The Reinforcements Arrive"

[rdhight]

Essentially every casual Heroscape game I've played since The Conflict Began has been a mixed game. Even when superheroes weren't present in a particular game, we've been constructing armies and evaluating units with the understanding that they could come after you at any time.

Originally Posted by whitetiger

I was wondering how many people put Marvel characters into a regular heroscape game. It seems to me, that the Marvel characters are a quite a bit "beefier" than even most heroes. How does regular heroes stand up?

Regular heroes don't stand up all that well, actually. Cap and Red Skull are exceptions, but typically, the Marvel bruisers put heavy pressure on classic heroes. A single attack of 5-7 dice is far, far better when directed against someone who can take multiple wounds. Weaker classic heroes with mid-to-low defense are Marvel characters' natural prey. But many classic squads, as well as the better, more aggressively priced heroes, can hold their own just fine against their weight in superheroes.

[whitetiger]

Thank you very much for your opinions, sounds like he'll be throwing them in next time.

[GameBear]

Common squads are the obvious counters to Marvel heroes, but several Classic heroes are also capable of challenging the Marvel heroes. There are 7 heavyweight Marvel heroes: Captain America, Iron Man, Doctor Doom, Abomination, Silver Surfer, Thanos, and Hulk. Silver Surfer is particularly tough on Classic heroes; here are some options for countering the other 6.

Counters to All
Braxas, Deathwalker 7000, Grimnak, Krug

Counters to Captain America
Agent Skahen, Charos, Jotun

Counters to Iron Man
Charos, Major Q9

Counters to Doctor Doom
Cyprien (with Sonya), Charos, Major Q9, Sgt Drake (SotM), Su-Bak-Na

All of these units have an even chance or better of defeating the Marvel heroes (exceptions: Agent Skahen, Deathwalker 7000, Grimnak, and Krug vs. Hulk). Note that attacking Doctor Doom with heroes is risky due to Mind Exchange.

[acer1000]

If you ask me the marvel are kind of cheap compared to the other heros. they are like 300 some points but that doesn't make up for their kick butt powers and their crap load of life. i don't like them being in games with the regular heros. its just not fair.

[Jexik]

The one I dislike the most is Silver Surfer. He has the potential to single handedly break a lot of maps. Sure, if you get those 45 attacks against him, you might take him out, but his abilities allow him to have a lot of control over how many attacks he receives.

[guido]

Originally Posted by GameBear

Counters to All
Braxas, Deathwalker 7000, Grimnak, Krug

You're forgetting Sudema, Deadeye Dan, Cyprion, Morsebane, and any other auto wound/killers.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by acer1000

they are like 300 some points but that doesn't make up for their kick butt powers

Yes it does.

and their crap load of life.

Hardly. Iron Man and Doom only have 4: low, 20% of Marvel. Cap, Red Skull, Spider-Man, and Venom have 5: average, 40%. Silver Surfer and Thanos have 6: above average, 20%. Hulk and Abomination have 8: high, 20%.

16 Classic Unique Heroes have 4 life. That's 18% of Classic heroes.
26 have 5. 30%
19 have 6. 22%
5 have 7 or more. 6%
(21 or 24% have 3 or less life.)

Marvel has a higher percentage of high life characters, but that's because there are only 10 characters to begin with. Otherwise, the Life distribution is pretty similar. (Now if you had said Life when coupled with Defense...)

[GameBear]

Originally Posted by Jexik

The one I dislike the most is Silver Surfer. He has the potential to single handedly break a lot of maps. Sure, if you get those 45 attacks against him, you might take him out, but his abilities allow him to have a lot of control over how many attacks he receives.

Silver Surfer does appear to be the biggest challenge to Classic Heroscape, but even he will likely fall short against certain armies. The statistics I posted earlier were only meant to show that the Marvel units are no more likely to survive repeated attacks than Classic units. 45 attacks of 3 does sound like a lot; fortunately, Silver Surfer has a better than 50% chance of succumbing within the first 23 attacks.

5x Stingers should be able to handle Silver Surfer pretty well. If Silver Surfer focuses on survival (using Hyper Speed 5), he will need 22 turns to kill the Stingers (49% certainty). As long as the Stingers can average better than one attack per turn, they should emerge victorious. If Silver Surfer instead relies on Cosmic Force Blast, the Stingers should be able to respond with at least 2 attacks per turn, again giving them the edge.

13 attacks of 4 are also sufficient to kill Silver Surfer more than 50% of the time. When facing heavyweight Marvel Heroes (e.g. Silver Surfer), Stinger Drain might actually be worth considering. Timely use of Stinger Drain could shift the odds even further in the Stingers' favor.

3x Gladiatrons + 1x Blastatrons could be another option against Silver Surfer on certain maps. As long as the Glads can pin down Silver Surfer within 6 turns (without losing any Blasts), they should be ok.

Even some of the ranged squads with weaker attacks have a chance of defeating Silver Surfer. 53 attacks of 2 (18 turns, 3 attacks per turn) will prevail 52% of the time. I would not recommend trying to defeat Silver Surfer with attacks of 2, but armies of 4th Mass, 10th Reg, or Ashigaru Harquebus will occasionally succeed.

There are probably other Classic armies that would be just as effective; these are just the first that come to mind. Identifying other counters to Silver Surfer may require extensive testing. There is an easy way to accomplish that: start allowing Marvel units in tournaments.

[Elginb]

If it's just the Silver Surfer against those armies, then he's vulnerable. But when you team the Surfer up with Classic Heroscape support, he becomes as unbeatable as you can get. Give the Surfer some Deathreavers or Gladiatron/Blastatron combos and his mobility becomes outright unfair. I find when he's teamed up with Kelda it can be especially disheartening-- he solves Kelda's biggest problem by being able to go to her instead of her having to go to him.

When I play the Surfer, he usually needs just a few support figures to thin and spread out the ranks of the opposing army, and then the Silver Surfer becomes the ultimate clean-up unit... only he can start batting clean-up earlier than any other clean-up unit.

I think the best counters to the Surfer are the Hulk, Thanos (though neither are cost effective), Braxas, Sujoah, Venom, Cyprien and Retchets/Iskra (if you're feeling lucky)-- none of them, however, are reliable Surfer killers. I think with most squads, it's too easy for the Surfer to run circles around them (pulling them one direction, then another, until they're spread about the board), and certain maps (as Jexik says) will make the Surfer as close to unbeatable as you can get.

Originally Posted by GameBear

Silver Surfer does appear to be the biggest challenge to Classic Heroscape, but even he will likely fall short against certain armies. The statistics I posted earlier were only meant to show that the Marvel units are no more likely to survive repeated attacks than Classic units. 45 attacks of 3 does sound like a lot; fortunately, Silver Surfer has a better than 50% chance of succumbing within the first 23 attacks.

5x Stingers should be able to handle Silver Surfer pretty well. If Silver Surfer focuses on survival (using Hyper Speed 5), he will need 22 turns to kill the Stingers (49% certainty). As long as the Stingers can average better than one attack per turn, they should emerge victorious. If Silver Surfer instead relies on Cosmic Force Blast, the Stingers should be able to respond with at least 2 attacks per turn, again giving them the edge.

13 attacks of 4 are also sufficient to kill Silver Surfer more than 50% of the time. When facing heavyweight Marvel Heroes (e.g. Silver Surfer), Stinger Drain might actually be worth considering. Timely use of Stinger Drain could shift the odds even further in the Stingers' favor.

3x Gladiatrons + 1x Blastatrons could be another option against Silver Surfer on certain maps. As long as the Glads can pin down Silver Surfer within 6 turns (without losing any Blasts), they should be ok.

Even some of the ranged squads with weaker attacks have a chance of defeating Silver Surfer. 53 attacks of 2 (18 turns, 3 attacks per turn) will prevail 52% of the time. I would not recommend trying to defeat Silver Surfer with attacks of 2, but armies of 4th Mass, 10th Reg, or Ashigaru Harquebus will occasionally succeed.

There are probably other Classic armies that would be just as effective; these are just the first that come to mind. Identifying other counters to Silver Surfer may require extensive testing. There is an easy way to accomplish that: start allowing Marvel units in tournaments.

[fomox]

Have we ever had a tournament that allowed both? I bet if we did, you'd still see some winning armies without Marvel in them.

(The GenCon "Power of One" tournament is the only one I'm aware of that allowed Marvel at all. I believe it actually required exactly one Marvel character, so it's not the same.)

Flying ranged characters are certainly 'broken' on certain maps. But that's the maps' fault, not the character. You don't design maps with high water to avoid having the Microcorp "break" them. Don't make unreachable perches for Iron Man and Silver Surfer, either.

If we actually allowed Marvel on a regular basis, we'd see tournament-worthy maps that fit with that. They'd become part of the metagame, and we'd adjust. I really doubt that any of the Marvel characters would "break" the game any more than deathreavers did. They'd change the game, though, just as every new wave does.

--

(If I thought anyone was willing and able to drive to southeast-SD, I actually would host a tournament allowing the full variety of Heroscape goodness. I'd bet money we'd see some winning armies with no Marvel.)

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by fomox

Have we ever had a tournament that allowed both? I bet if we did, you'd still see some winning armies without Marvel in them.

Aside from 'the power of one' there have been a couple others here and there. The first tournament that Ollie participated in allowed (might have even required 1) Marvel, as did a tournament in KY.

I guess my biggest concern with a mixed event isn't that they change the balance of the game too much, but they change the feel of the game too much. Some people think of 'squadscape' as an evil to be eliminated, but it's the reason I play this game. I enjoy games that involve the constant give and take between 3-5 figures per turn. I like scattering my Deathreavers to a perfect spot that shifts control of a map to my favor.

That's not to say that I don't like Heroes. Nilfheim is a lot more fun to play when he has to fly around hordes of little ones than when he's simply rolling 6 attack dice against another dragon. One of my all time favorite armies to play is the Arrow Grut army. Choosing which heroes to activate and what to do with your little disengaging orcs is fun. They've got so many options each turn. The give and take between heroes and squads is what makes the game interesting.

In an event where Marvel is allowed, it's highly likely that at some point you'll have a Hulk v. Thanos or Silver Surfer match, and to me, that'd be bland. I've expressed similar worries about the potential of winning or losing classic matches to just Cyprien or Major Q9. A good run of dice and moving just one figure isn't a satisfying way for me to play the game. Unless I'm doing it with Nilfheim, then it's totally cool. The big thing about Nilfheim, Braxas, and Zelrig is that they are rather killable by pretty much anything.

One thought I've had before is that maybe we could introduce them on a scale based on points. As soon as there is a Classic figure that costs as much as a Marvel figure, they'd be added to the normal pool. (So right now, everything below Jotun- Captain America, Red Skull, Spiderman, and Venom would be allowed).