The Book of Optimus Prime

[Yodaking]

The Book of Optimus Prime

C3G IDW WAVE 29
CHRISTMAS IN JULY


Comic PDF


Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Walmart Exclusive Transformers Titan Guardians non-transforming figure made by Hasbro *sold in store only*.
Its name is OPTIMUS PRIME.

Alternative Comic Art

Spoiler Alert!

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Character Bio - Some are born to follow, some are made to lead. After millions of years of civil war the natives of the distant world of Cybertron has learned this lesson well. For the Autobots, there is no one better suited to carry this burden than Optimus Prime. In every battle, on any world, he leads his soldiers into battle without hesitation, and his brilliant strategic mind has led them to victory time and time again. But it's not simply his pragmatic skill that has cemented his legacy as the leader of the Autobots. It's his character - his self-sacrificing nature, his generous soul, and his commitment to the fight for the freedom and rights of all sentient beings.
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-Rulings and Clarifications-

• Base Clarification: Optimus Prime is a double-based figure.

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• As a Cybertronian, Optimus Prime has these Cybertronian Synergies.
• As a Leader, Optimus Prime has these Leader Synergies.
• As a figure with the Super Strength special power, Optimus Prime has these Super Strength Synergies.
• As a Huge figure, Optimus Prime has these Huge Synergies.

Outgoing Synergy:

• N/A

Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses:

• As a Valiant figure, Optimus Prime interacts differently with these special powers.
• As a huge figure, Optimus Prime interacts differently with these special powers.
• As a figure with the Super Strength special power, Optimus Prime interacts differently with these special powers.
• Common and Squad figures cannot be prevented from leaving an engagement with Optimus Prime by his One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall special power.

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• Bumblebee's Slug Bug Scout Special Power allows him to move both revealed or unrevealed Order Markers from his card to the card of another Cybertronian card you control. Since Optimus Primes' Leading the Charge power boosts allies based on the number of revealed Order Markers on his card, this can be a particularly good pairing of Autobot allies.

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: Yodaking
• Second playtest: LordVenoc
• Third playtest: fret gurglo
• Fourth playtest: MrNobody
• Art: Comic, Figure, Background
• Comic art by Alex Milne
• Art by Scapemage

[Yodaking]

NAME = OPTIMUS PRIME

SPECIES = CYBERTRONIAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = LEADER
PERSONALITY = VALIANT

SIZE/HEIGHT = HUGE 15 (DOUBLE-SPACED)

LIFE = 8

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 6
ATTACK = 6
DEFENSE = 7

POINTS = 410

LEADING THE CHARGE
After revealing an Order Marker on the card of another Unique Hero you control, while taking a turn with that Hero, if Optimus Prime is within clear sight of that Hero and engaged, you may add 1 to that Hero's Attack number for each revealed Order Marker on this card.

ONE SHALL STAND, ONE SHALL FALL
Add 2 to Optimus Prime's Attack number when attacking an adjacent figure. While Optimus Prime is engaged with exactly one Unique or Event Hero, neither figure may leave that engagement.

INSPIRING LEADERSHIP
When an Order Marker is removed from the card of a figure you control by an opponent's special power, or when an Army Card you control has its last figure destroyed and before removing that figure from the battlefield, you may choose Optimus Prime or a figure you control within clear sight of Optimus Prime. Place the removed Order Marker or any unrevealed Order Markers on the destroyed figure's card on the chosen figure's card.

SUPERSTRENGTH

[Yodaking]

Not sure about the figure info section, I'm going to bring it up in the workshop. Pretty happy with where the design ended up, he should be fun, useful, and feel like Prime.

The attack bonus is something I'll try to exploit fully in testing but I think it's manageable. It is written in such a way that the bonus only effects the figure that is revealing the OM on it's card rather than working with bonding pairs, it's limited to either two +1 bonus turns or one +2 bonus turn that can't be normally used on OM1, meaning Prime most often will need to survive till the OM3 reveal to get the most out of it, plus Prime needs to be engaged which could be foiled should Prime defeat his foe. Will need to look at some of the OM managers to see how I can reveal OM's on Prime's card and take turns with someone else. I know Zemo has an X power that can let you reveal an OM on one card and then take a turn with a different card. Just not sure who you are going to want to take a turn with instead of Prime as he has some good base stats himself. Would need to be a multiple attack figure that will like the +1 att. boost, Punisher or Cable on HG come to mind.

Not sure where I should start the testing at points wise, any suggestions on that front are welcome as he's clearly a team guy rather then a one on one testing kind of card.

[Yodaking]

[IAmBatman]

Digging this!

I really like how Leading the Charge has a pretty reusable name but also has highly reusable mechanics to match. With the Order Marker restriction it's not going to stack in problematic ways if we do reuse it either.

One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall is really evocative and encourages a certain type of gameplay that feels thematic and works well with Leading the Charge.

Matrix of Leadership is a good factional power that should help Optimus fit into a lot of armies. I think he's going to feel a lot like a robot Captain America or Star-Lord, but the Order Marker requirements on him prevent him from stacking well with those two (as does the Leader Class).

If I have one complaint it's that thematically I still think a "spirit" power makes sense for a guy who has such a messiah complex.

[IAmBatman]

Tooling around with the points calculator for him, his base stats are good for 295 points. After that, it depends on how much value you assign to his powers. Based on potential for exploitation/competitive I gave them 3, 3, and 4, but that's really a spitball. Anyway, that valuation spit out 135 points for his special powers, which would put him at a combined 430 points. That feels a little high, but I'm thinking 400+ is likely as is.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Technically, if you’re doing a Marvel version of Optimus he shouldn’t have the secret id of Orion Pax. That comes from the cartoon and though it has been applied in a lot of other G1 branches and some other continuity families, it isn’t universal and I don’t think it has ever been retconed into Marvel G1. Marvel Prime presumably has a ‘real name’ since they did retcon in the idea that ‘Prime’ is a rank (early stories just treat it like a normal name, some of his original bios basically have the robot’s name as ‘Prime’ and ‘Optimus Prime’ is like specifically the name of the Robot plus Roller and the Combat Deck like an Anime power-up kinda deal) but as far as I know there isn’t any reason to think it’s specifically ‘Orion Pax’ and not just ‘Optimus’ or whatever else.

If you do want a comic G1 Prime that’s definitely named Orion Pax, you could always do the IDW version, who’s real name is ‘Orion Pax of Iacon’.


Likewise, while the power is fine, the name for ‘Matrix of Leadership’ doesn’t really work. For one thing in the Marvel continuity it’s usually called the ‘Creation Matrix’ or just ‘the Matrix’ (I’m not sure if it’s ever called the Matrix of Leadership there, but it’s not something I really kept track of). Also in the Marvel continuity its function is giving life to things/killing Unicron, and it spends like half its time being evil. Even in other continuities the Matrix is more a mystical bauble than anything else, it doesn’t really do anything that I’d associate with the power you have under it’s name.

If you really want to keep a shout-out to the Macguffin... I mean Matrix, I’d just name the power ‘Matrix Bearer’ or something to that effect. Which kinda works at a stretch since most continuities do attach a certain prestige to being able to carry/currently carrying/having carried a Matrix and I guess you could translate that into an OM save. That would also give a power to tag on any future Matrix E-Glyphs if someone wants to go that route.

[Tornado]

Oh I like that. Would love to see the Matrix as a glyph at some point.
Thanks Soundwarp.

[Yodaking]

Yeah, I like that take of Matrix Bearer with the actual Matrix saved for a glyph if someone wanted to do that. I'm perfectly fine with dropping the secret identity, will make it easier doing other Transformers going forward if I don't feel the need to try and dig up an obscure 'real' name for them. I only included it because it was some info that popped up while researching the character and I was trying to be thorough.

My intent is to have them with the Marvel icon as that is what I know them from, but I know they had a long run at IDW too. Which brings up the issue of comic art, I posted up art that looked great but none of it appeared in a Marvel comic book. I went looking for Marvel specific comic book art a few weeks back and it just isn't very crisp or clean in comparison. I can look for Marvel specific comic book art if that is going to be an issue.

[IAmBatman]

Ugh, I mean, it's the same character. I think we should allow ourselves to play fast and loose with that kind of thing.

[Tornado]

I think all the Dark Judges besides Death are IDW art.

[Ronin]

I wouldn't sweat whether or not the art is coming from the publisher we choose, so long as it's clearly Optimus.

There's probably an argument for going IDW over Marvel just for more publisher diversity.

I don't know enough about the different versions of the mythos to know if there are some long-term implications of going one way over the other. (Or any impact to Optimus besides the secret identity)