Cpt. Stupedendous Customs 9/5/21 SirGilbert Dragonslayer

[Captain Stupendous]

Hello all, I'm fairly new here but have a couple ideas for custom cards bumping around in my head so I figured I'd share them and see what people thought. Any feedback is appreciated.

[Captain Stupendous]

My first custom is a unique take on Ulrick. The idea originally started out as a hero based on the Shades of Bleakwood. However, the mechanic which involved placing the hero's figure on the card of the possessed unique hero reminded me of Finn and Thorgrim's Spirit abilities, and I thought how cool would it be if the hero were an evil viking spirit? Conveniently, Ulrick is a canon heroscape character who hasn't already been covered yet by c3v/sov so I figured he would work. As far as his backstory goes, I thought it would be neat if Ulrick suddenly found himself abandoned in the middle of a battle with the Tarn Vikings as his Dreadgul Raiders were unexpectedly summoned to Valhalla by Einar. As the Tarn Vikings eventually took him down, Utgar would summon the spirit of Valguard's father, offering him a chance to avenge himself against both the Tarn Vikings and his own warriors who deserted him in his time of need.

As far as the figure goes, I would love any comments regarding his point cost as to whether he is too expensive or inexpensive. Also, if there is any way to trim down the wording on his Cursed Attack Spirit without changing how it actually works, that would be great. As it is I may need to cut the Stealth Flying in favor of readability.

This card is very much still a work in progress, hence the missing hit zones. It will just be a standard all red hit zone; no Varja craziness here =)

[Ixe]

Thanks for sharing such a cool custom! It's always great to see a new creator putting their customs out here.

Ulrick
While at first I was a little apprehensive to see Ulrick for Utgar instead of Einar, it fits perfectly for him being and undead ghost. I love the evil inversion theme on his Cursed Attack Spirit and almost everything seems to match up great. I especially like how he can possess your opponent's hero (at the expense of boosting their attack) but also be used in your own army to help out your heroes and give some order marker flexibility at that. He seems like a ton of fun to play! Points seem like a decent first stab although its hard to say for sure since it can be pretty dependent on the armies that you're facing. The only point against for me is that his move feels a bit low for a shade type monster. I'd expect it to be a bit higher, which could give you the added benefit of making the curse power only work on adjacent figures to tighten the theme and cut down on wording. It works as is in any case. Also to limit wording, you could reduce it (and use a little of the interaction) by forcing one option on a low roll and giving you the choice

As far as wording is concerned, I'd try something like this (with my functional changes in bold that you could obviously change back to your original idea). I'd hate to see you give up stealth flying over space issues.

Instead of attacking, you may choose any Unique Hero adjacent to Ulrick and place Ulrick on that figure's Army Card. Ulrick's Spirit adds 1 to the normal attack number on that card. When revealing and Order Marker on Ulrick, after taking a turn with Ulrick, if Ulrick is on an Army Card, you may take temporary control of that Hero and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the Hero reverts to its previous owner and roll the 20-sided die. All order markers that were on that figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card. If you roll a 1-10 place Ulrick adjacent to the possessed hero. If you roll an 11 or higher, you may instead choose for Ulrick to remain on that Army Card. If the possessed Hero is destroyed while Ulrick is on that figure's Army Card, you may place Ulrick onto a space that figure last occupied.

I hope this helps. I look forward to seeing more of Ulrick and other of your designs in the future!

[Captain Stupendous]

Thanks for the comments Ixe! I really like your idea to limit his possession to adjacent heroes and increase his movement stat. I somewhat arbitrarily made his stats the way they are to mirror Finn and Thorgrim since thematically and, to some extent, mechanically, I see him as a corrupted version of the Viking Champions. However, I wouldn't have a problem with boosting his movement or adjusting any other stat if it would help to balance him. I'm thinking I would probably boost his movement to seven; play testing will see if that works or not.

Also, thank you so much for providing help to tighten up the wording on his admittedly lengthy special ability. I had one question about your new wording, however. You write that "When revealing an Order Marker on Ulrick, after taking a turn with Ulrick, if Ulrick is on an Army Card, you may take temporary control of that Hero..."

My concern is what would happen if Ulrick was on another figure's Army Card at the start of his own turn. With your wording, would you still be able to take temporary control of the possessed Hero since you technically haven't been able to first take a turn with Ulrick, since he was not in play when you revealed the Order Marker? This is a rules conundrum I was puzzling over when originally deciding upon the wording myself, and settled upon the current wording ("After taking a turn with Ulrick or revealing an Order Marker on this card, if Ulrick is on an Army Card...") so that you could still take a turn with the possessed Hero whether or not you had already taken a turn with Ulrick. However, I may well be wrong in assuming that you can't take a turn with a unit that is out of play. (I think the nearest thing to this scenario in canonical scape would be to ask if you could technically "take a turn" [even though you wouldn't be able to do anything] with the Airborne Elite by placing an order marker on their card before they have made The Drop, or whether you would skip their turn because they aren't in play yet). When I was designing the card I figured that you probably couldn't take a turn with a figure that wasn't defeated yet but for some reason wasn't currently in play, however, if someone with a greater knowledge of the deep magic of Heroscape rules intricacies could provide an argument to the contrary, I think your wording would be preferable.

I also really like your suggestion to simplify the die roll choices after taking the possessed turn. It makes it quite a bit harder for him to stay "inside" the possessed target, which decreases his survivability quite a bit, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. I think that just from the point of view of mechanics alone I might like my original die roll results a little better, but if space requires me to choose between your revised version and cutting stealth flying I'd definitely adopt your wording to keep stealth flying.

Right now, one concern I have about the figure is how his ability would play out if you have also drafted Migol or Zetacron. I fear that the smart thing to do if playing with either of those two characters would be to just put your first Order Marker on Ulrick, possess Zetacron, then don't place any more order markers on Ulrick until Zetacron is dead. While I don't think this strategy is necessarily "broken", I am worried that it would be clearly better than using Ulrick offensively to possess your opponent's figures, which I see as his most interesting use.

One obvious fix would be to restrict Ulrick to being able to possess only your opponent's figures. However, I also really liked the possibilities arising from possessing your own heroes. I especially loved the thematic implications of possessing your own Finn or Thorgrim and then charging your possessed Viking champion into the middle of your opponent's army. When he dies not only would you get Finn or Thorgrim's attack spirit, but Ulrick would then be in perfect position to wreak havoc in your enemy's start zone by possessing their unique heroes. Any thoughts on this? Again, thank you for your kind comments; I'm glad you liked him!

[Ixe]

Originally Posted by Captain Stupendous

My concern is what would happen if Ulrick was on another figure's Army Card at the start of his own turn. With your wording, would you still be able to take temporary control of the possessed Hero since you technically haven't been able to first take a turn with Ulrick, since he was not in play when you revealed the Order Marker? This is a rules conundrum I was puzzling over when originally deciding upon the wording myself, and settled upon the current wording ("After taking a turn with Ulrick or revealing an Order Marker on this card, if Ulrick is on an Army Card...") so that you could still take a turn with the possessed Hero whether or not you had already taken a turn with Ulrick.

I believe you are right but I tried to cast it in a way I thought you meant. I think the wording would have to be something like:

Immediately after Ulrick possesses a hero or after revealing an Oder Marker on Ulrick's Army Card, if Ulrick is possessing another Hero, you may take temporary control...

Something like this would probably address both cases where he can take the turn after possessing something and when you can take the turn on his next order marker.

Originally Posted by Captain Stupendous

I also really like your suggestion to simplify the die roll choices after taking the possessed turn. It makes it quite a bit harder for him to stay "inside" the possessed target, which decreases his survivability quite a bit, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. I think that just from the point of view of mechanics alone I might like my original die roll results a little better, but if space requires me to choose between your revised version and cutting stealth flying I'd definitely adopt your wording to keep stealth flying.

You could also set the die roll result to whatever you want. I also liked your original idea but it did add to the complication of the card. I think it would be cool to keep around if you could.

Originally Posted by Captain Stupendous

Right now, one concern I have about the figure is how his ability would play out if you have also drafted Migol or Zetacron. I fear that the smart thing to do if playing with either of those two characters would be to just put your first Order Marker on Ulrick, possess Zetacron, then don't place any more order markers on Ulrick until Zetacron is dead. While I don't think this strategy is necessarily "broken", I am worried that it would be clearly better than using Ulrick offensively to possess your opponent's figures, which I see as his most interesting use.

Ulrick is severely overpriced if all he does is give an attack boost to different heroes. You'd be better marching Finn into lava or just drafting Taelord for 30 points more the vast majority of the time. Sure a high attack on Zetacron is nice but it is only one attack. A squad based army will overwhelm the soulborg as it can only shoot once a turn. I like that Ulrick has the flexibility to help your figures, but his main merit is being able to steal your opponent's to use them against their own army while putting them into different compromised positions for their turn.

[Captain Stupendous]

Originally Posted by Ixe

Ulrick is severely overpriced if all he does is give an attack boost to different heroes. You'd be better marching Finn into lava or just drafting Taelord for 30 points more the vast majority of the time. Sure a high attack on Zetacron is nice but it is only one attack. A squad based army will overwhelm the soulborg as it can only shoot once a turn. I like that Ulrick has the flexibility to help your figures, but his main merit is being able to steal your opponent's to use them against their own army while putting them into different compromised positions for their turn.

The difference between dumping Ulrick onto Zetacron or Migol at the beginning of the game and marching Finn into lava or drafting Taelord is that Ulrick's usefulness continues after Zetacron or Migol dies. Generally, drafting Taelord or Finn JUST for their fantastic synergies with Migol or Zetacron isn't going to be worth it in the long run, just because the benefit derived from Finn's spirit is lost, or in Taelord's case, significantly diminished, once Zetacron/Migol dies. With Ulrick, however, there's no reason not to just drop him onto Zetacron with your first order marker and enjoy having a unit with 8 range and the equivalent of 6 attack (actually slightly better than 6) until Zetacron dies. After Zetacron dies, you can then still use Ulfrick to possess your opponent's figures and use them against his own army. I just don't see the point to doing that until AFTER Migol or Zetacron has already died. I hope I'm wrong though; if it turns out that most of the time this is a subpar strategy I would much rather see Ulfrick used primarily as an offensive unit possessing your opponent's figures.

[Captain Stupendous]

Here's a new squad, when I have time later I might post something explaining some of my thoughts behind their design; in the meantime any comments are appreciated!

Zettian Swarmers
Miniatures: Clone Wars Risk super battledroids

Soulborg
Common Squad
Drones
Loyal

Life 1 (6 figures)
Move 5
Range 1
Attack 1
Defense 2

Small 3

Utgar Soulborg Bonding

Before taking a turn with Zettian Swarmers, you may take a turn with any Soulborg Hero you control who follows Utgar.

Cluster

Up to three Zettian Swarmers may occupy the same space. Zettian Swarmers in the same space are considered to be adjacent to each other for all purposes. If a Zettian Swarmer is chosen as the target for a special power and it is destroyed, all Zettian Swarmers in the same space are destroyed also.

Emergency Power Boost

When a friendly Soulborg Hero who follows Utgar is attacked and at least one skull is rolled, before defense dice are rolled you may destroy up to three Zettian Swarmers you control who are adjacent to that Hero. Add one automatic shield to that Hero’s defense roll for each Zettian Swarmer destroyed in this way.

Climb x2



At this point I'm thinking they might be worth around 60 points; they're kinda comparable to the Nagrubs, but I could be way off.

[Ixe]

Zettian Swarmers
This is a pretty original bunch. I was about to say that 60 points sounded way to high given their abysmal stats but then I realized that there are 6 of them to a squad (for 10 points a figure). They still won't do much offensively but aren't really meant to. The soulborg heroes are the true fire power of their operation. Cluster is another unprecedented power that can at once cut down on some start zone space limitations (although many will still limit figure count) and set up a sturdy screen to protect your walkers. I really like the dynamic of Emergency power boost and trying to decide how many to burn to keep your walker safe. I can see some real feel-bad moments when you greedily rely on 9 defense to save you from 1 skull and find the infamous walker roll instead.

These guys are have some unique aspects to them that make them a little tricky to judge but I suspect they'll do a good job of showcasing and protecting the walkers in any case.

[Captain Stupendous]

Here's a couple new primadon squads, using more of the excellent at-43 miniatures.

Gorillitillery

Primadon
Common Squad (2 figures)
Artillerists
Resolute

Life 1
Move 5
Range 1
Attack 3
Defense 4

Heavy Artillery Special Attack
Range 8, Attack 3

A Gorillitillery may not use this special attack if it moved this turn. A Gorillitillery may use this special attack 2 times in the same turn. The Gorillitillery may target the same figure or a different figure with each attack.

Supporting Fire

After an opponent’s figure receives one or more wounds from Artillery Support Special
Attack, you may move one agent or primadon figure you control up to three spaces. You may not move a Gorillitillery with this special power.

130 points?

[IMG][/IMG]

Gorilliterminators

Primadon
Common Squad (2 figures)
Troopers
Disciplined

Life 1
Move 5
Range 5
Attack 4
Defense 2

Tough

Overheating Weapons

After attacking with a normal attack, if a Gorilliterminator rolled at least two unblocked skulls, immediately end your turn and remove all order markers from the Gorilliterminators’ card.

110 points?



Any thoughts or comments are appreciated!

[Pumpkin_King]

I know this is a four-years necro, but can I just say the name "Gorillitillery" is just wonderful.

[Heroscaper 101]

It is nice to see some primadon customs on this thread.

[Captain Stupendous]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

I know this is a four-years necro, but can I just say the name "Gorillitillery" is just wonderful.

Hahaha, thanks Pumpkin King! I love the primadons and Gorrillitillery is just such a fun word to say!