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Just verified with DocBlizz. He was subtracting shields via Frailty Aura even when a solo shield was rolled. He did memtion its still a pretty good combo.
Game 5
500 Point Army
Map: Mole Hills
Glyphs: Glyph of Recall & Glyph of Dagmar
Army 1: Velnesh Alphas, Estivara, Ne-gok-sa, Brunak, Sylvaris
Army 2:Ukushisa Pride, Zettian Guards, Tandros Kreel, Ninjas of the Northern wind, & Dienekes
Which units survived?
1 Ninja, and 2 Zettian Guards
How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Team 1 Shift is really nice
Team 2
Dienekes, was nice and kept figures from being attacked, but then got mind shackeld 1/2 way through the game. 1st strike was super nice to get more move and get into battle quick.
Just verified with DocBlizz. He was subtracting shields via Frailty Aura even when a solo shield was rolled. He did memtion its still a pretty good combo.
Game 6
500 Point Army
Map: Mole Hills
Glyphs: Glyph of Recall & Glyph of Astrid
Army 1: Ozuul, Honored Soul Guides, Tetsuo Tyrell, Blastatrons, & Krav Magra Agents Army 2:Ukushisa Pride, Zettian Guards, Tandros Kreel, Ninjas of the Northern wind, & Dienekes
Which units survived?
1 Ninja, and 2 Zettian Guards
How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Team 1
Finally got to use Honored Soul Guides in a game...worked well. Need to build team better for more synergy with them (right now only Tyrell is the only unit I can bring back)
Team 2
First strike is nice...feels balanced.
Tether was fun to pull squads around for better positioning
vGame 7 400 Point Army
Map: Ruins of Rennoc
Glyphs: Glyph of Knowledge
Army 1: Theracus, Tetsuo Tyrell, Sgt. Drak Alexander (RotV), Venoc Vipers, Marrow Stingers, Marrow Drudge
Army 2: (RotV) Raelin, Taelord, Izumi Samurai, Ukushisa Pride & Honnored soul-Guides
Which units survived?
Sgt. Drake Alexander, Theracus, Tetsuo, 1 Venoc Viper, 3 Marrow Stingers
How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Team 1: Tetsuo was carried in by Theracus, and WRECKED Neura overclock +hight took a toll on Raelin, and it was down hill from there. (Never got Mind Jack)
Team 2: Ukushia Pride used First Strike nearly every turn they were alive and deffinately gave them a greater reach and dmg output
Honnored soul-Guides really sucked and havent been used to their potential.
Game was not close at all...Team 1 wrecked team 2
(edit: I missed that he had and extra ~170 points on team 2...still got wrecked)
Game 8
400 Point Army
Map: Ruins of Rennoc
Glyphs: Glyph of Knowledge
Army 1: Dienekes, Atrixus, Velnesh Alphas, Blastatrons
Army 2: Ozuul, Pyria, Ne-Gok-Sa
Which units survived?
Ozuul, Pyria, Negoksa,
How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Team 1: Shift used all the time. Fraillty Aura was nice but not game breaking
Team 2: Gravity pull and Vortex were fun used as much as possible, Twin Flame thrower was helpful but mostly redundant since I had AOE with Ozuul
Game 9
400 Point Army
Map: Ruins of Rennoc
Glyphs: Glyph of Astrid
Army 1: (RotV) Raelin, Brunak, Izumi Samurai, Ukushisa Pride & Honnored soul-Guides Army 2: Ozuul, Pyria, Ne-Gok-Sa
Which units survived?
Ozuul, Pyria, Ne-gok-sa,
How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
Team 1: First strike all the time Still no last will from honored souls, no one who has played ever felt like it was a benefit to use them just to loose them and loose the other figure they brought in (I feel its balanced as a 50pt unit but it does feel fatalistic, like its intended as a hail Mary, that takes a LOT a set up to work)
Team 2: Gravity pull and Vortex were fun used as much as possible, Twin Flame thrower used a lot...more as even a regular attack because its +1 atk of her normal atk so long as I was in range. (which usualy being in the thick of it she was)
I recommend putting the link to the OHS Playtesting Sheet for AotV in this thread. It has very few units currently, but we'll be working to get that expanded to include anything currently in testing.
Summary:
My troops were scattered among my startzone, while LE had hers all in the mountain region. I went for Wannok with MBS and started getting the MFM moving right away towards her heroes. She began by moving Tandros, Ana, and Bol closer to my side, ignoring Wannok/Knoweledge. I notice that MBS can hit Deadeye so I ignore the glyph and try to shoot him. It was a whiff. Second round I bounce the marro horsemen away from Deadeye, while she tries to chase him with Deadeye, Be-Burq-Sa got out of LOS just in time. I advance Moltenclaw and put him onto the pillar of har (I remembered this was a mistake by round 3, but it probably makes no difference this game). He tries using his SA, but it flopped. Tandros fires at the dragon and nothing happened. At some point Ana gets adjacent to Tandros and MBS gets to Wannok.
At this stage, when I remember that the pillar is Unstable, I also remember that only Small and Mediums can hop on it, so I put the mighty dragon on the ground adjacent to it.
Tetsuo comes out and actually pulls off a mindjack after overcloaking to inflict 1 wound. So a mindjacked Moltenclaw uses his normal on MFM for 1 wound. Not exactly inspiring, but since its a heroes game my troops are too scattered for the firebreath. Tandros shoots at the dragon, and the dragon keeps trying to deal damage but both are consistently bad at it. Tetsuo tries for another overclock and fails. Moltenclaw swoops in (using all 6 move, I believe), to land a 5-skull hit on Tetso. Tetsuo (with Ana’s defense bonus) only musters 1 shield, killing him. Moltenclaw holds up for a few turns against the broadsword, but ultimately the Ankle Shank takes him out. The MFM gets to the top of the mountain pillar of har, and shoots his psionic blasts down. Tandros knocks him off the pillar (1 wound to the Pillar, 0 to the MFM). I mix my OMs up between the robot, mfm, and marro, trying to find opening for all of them. Wannok is milling out Tandros, but thats irrelevant while Ana is in play. Eventually the MFM goes down, and its time for the robot to fight (finally getting by her figures. In a single turn, he rapid-fire kills Ana, Bol, and 1 hit to Moriko. LE engaged 8k with Tandros and Moriko and tries to kill him. Ultimately Wannok milled Tandros down and 8k wins the day. He rolled against a lot of attacks, going against the grain of the deathwalker curse.
Villains (mostly the glyph of wannok) win!
Thoughts and Highlights:
After this game, I’m finally moved to put Tesuo back into editing so he basically gets Enslave instead a wound-to attempt version of BJ.
5 range felt better and the longer range let T try to stay in the Ana Pod longer (although she wasn’t able to heal him because of the d20 and Moltenclaw obliterating him).
After instinctively hopping Moltenclaw onto the Pillar and realizing I had flubbed, I don’t know the best way to remind players that big boys can’t get on it. Although, to be fair I didn’t print any cards off, so Scaling’s power text might also help me and other players remember.
The Pillar actually blocked LOS once this game! Sure, it was Ana who was hiding but that does imply they can be relevant LOS blockers in games.
Standing on a Pillar gives a false sense of security to heroes, since it can only inflict 1 wound on them if they fall off it. I appreciate that.
Knowledge was irrelevant this game. LE didn’t go for it, and I didn’t have the man-power to try to hold it. I don’t think LE’s OM plays were deft enough to warrant it this game anyway. That is a dissapointment.
Played a fairly quick playtest extravaganza with LoveElemental. Not everything is officially in Playtesting yet, but the idea was get a feel for various interactions with some of the proposed builds. Plus, this will help give us a feel about how certain things play.
Map: Castle Mont'ari (glyphs: Recall, Unique Attack +1, Lodin)
The map does feature 3 Pillars of Har.
Armies:
Me:
Deathwalker 9000
Krug
Honored Soulguides
Spoiler Alert!
Jandar
Honored Soul-Guides
Species Undead
Unique Squad
Class Psychopomps
Personality Stoic
SIZE HEIGHT Medium 5
LAST WILL After revealing an Order Marker on this card, instead of taking a turn with the Honored Soul-Guides, you may place one of them on the Army Card of a previously destroyed Unique Hero. At the start of any round, before placing Order Markers, you may remove enough wounds for that Hero to have 1 Life remaining and place it adjacent to any figure that you control. At the end of the round, remove the Honored Soul-Guide from that Army Card and destroy the Unique Hero.
STEALTH FLYING
When counting spaces for an Honored Soul-Guide's movement, ignore elevations. An Honored Soul-Guide may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. If an Honored Soul-Guide is engaged when it starts to fly, it will not take any leaving engagement attacks.
Marro Warriors (360)
LE:
Pyria
Spoiler Alert!
UTGAR PYRIA Elf Unique Hero Archmage Relentless Medium 5
LIFE 6 MOVE 5 RANGE 7 ATTACK 3 DEFENSE 2
POINTS 120
TWIN FLAMETHROWERS SPECIAL ATTACK
Range Special. Attack 4.
Choose one or two straight lines from Pyria, each 3 spaces long. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Pyria’s Twin Flamethrower Special Attack. Roll 4 attack dice for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense dice separately.
Arkmer
Velnesh Alphas
Spoiler Alert!
VYDAR VELNESH ALPHAS Velnesh Unique Squad Class Experiments Personality Menacing SIZE HEIGHT Medium 5
SHIFT Before or after moving, you may place a Velnesh Alpha on any empty space within 2 spaces of its current placement. Velnesh Alphas will not take leaving engagement attacks while Shifting.
BLINK
After a Velnesh Alpha rolls defense dice against a normal attack and is not destroyed, it may immediately use its Shift special power.
Ukushisa Pride (360)
Spoiler Alert!
UTGAR UKUSHISA PRIDE Ukushisa Unique Squad Hunters Wild LARGE 4
Move: 7
Range: 1
Attack: 3
Defense: 4
Cost 90
UKUSHISA [HEAT, BLAZE, FLAME, INFERNO]
When attacking or defending with an Ukushisa Pride, add one additional die for each adjacent Ukushisa Pride.
LAVA RESISTANCE
I've included the builds tested in the game in the spoiler tags. For the Pillars of Har and Glyph of Recall, I used the current builds listed on the respective OPs.
(Proxied Feral Troll for Krug, but you can vaguely see the map positions).
I didn't write things down, but the game is fairly fresh in my head.
R1. My init.
I began by moving the Soulguides to stall (keeping them behind the castle walls).
LE moved the Pride into the center of the arena area.
I moved Krug along the road to a spot where only 2 pride could attack him.
LE rushed Krug, only dealing 1 wound off 2 attacks of 6 dice. (Height + 2 Combined Heat dice).
I moved DW forward, and fired at the pillar in the mountain area for no wounds.
LE moved the Velnesh forward, keeping them adjacent.
R2. LE init.
LE's Pride hurt the heck out of Krug, dealing 3 more wounds off 3 attacks (6/5/4 attack dice respectively).
DW killed all three Velnesh with one Explosion SA.
The Pride finished off Krug, same attack pattern.
Krug's turn is skipped.
Pyria approaches, but is well out of range of anything my troops.
Marro Warriors start to raid the Ukushisas, killing 1. One hopped on the pillar that was obnoxiously placed adjacent to my startzone.
R3. LE init.
The Pride swoop in, killing 2 MW's. They each had 4 attack dice, though one was on lower ground.
The Marros plink at the kitties for 0 wounds.
Pyria gets closer to DW9K, but is still too far for the 4A SA. Her attack is easily blocked by 10 defense.
Marros kill 1 more of the Ukushisa.
Arkmer approaches the battlefield.
Burn a soulguide for Krug's card.
R4. My init.
Krug is Last Willed into play (placed adj to DW9k).
Krug's mega-smash turn. With 9A x2, he guts Pyria in one turn (the second hit was 9 skulls).
Game is effectively called, winner me.
Thoughts:
Recall: Neither of us were able to leave our battle locked positions to grab it. We would have had to give up a lot to go for it for either the MWs or the Ukushisa even though both squads wanted it.
Pillars of Har: When I used my big raging robot to attack it because it was "in the way" and useless for its purposes, that felt like a giant theme win. I didn't mind that the attack was ineffective, because of that thematic turn was just too good feeling.
Marro Warriors on them will be scary, but since they probably can't clone while on them, its not as bad as it could be. Plus, since I suspect they usually won't be clustered, it will be even less of an issue.
Pyria: She felt good for cleanup, but Krug just got to her too easily.
Soulguides: There's clearly going to be some army combinations that will just be too much. I don't like overcomplicating things, so any version of LW might end up breaking things too hard... in certain builds. We will certainly need to test the frak out of these guys, because their value is seemingly limitless. But also, they felt like a gamble, because you placed the revived character before OMs get placed.
They will certainly be an issue with the Recall glyph though.
Velnesh: They died too quickly to be relevant this game. I did like how they are inherently weak to SA's, so that gave me a reason to try DW's SA out instead of gunning them one at a time. That counterplay bit will be helpful for the actual MS when these guys be blinking a lot more often.
Ukushisa: These guys were amazingly fun to play against. Remembering all the bonus dice might be difficult, but with only 3 I think most players can manage. This is an excellent package for around 90 points, and gives players a real dimishing rewards feel.
I also like how their adjacency bonus rewards tactical thinking, as most times its better to try to go for 3 attacks, but sometimes you are better served by only doing 2 bigger attacks.
Their move also helps them stay together and cross more difficult terrain, making it feel like essential part of the design rather than just a stat thrown on there for craps and giggles.
Hero Draft! LoveElemental and I did a draft game today.
Map was a custom map, with the Attack +1 Glyph and AotV Healing Glyph both revealed faceup prior to drafting.
Draft Pool
Spoiler Alert!
430 points per player
Ozuul
Velkhor
Wo Sa Ga
Pyria
Tetsuo
Sgt Drake (rotv)
Dund
Syvaris
Feral Troll
Dienekes
Saylind
Finn
Erevan
James Murphy
Zetacron Culisquito
Blue Wyrmling
Blue Wyrmling
Black Wyrmling
Black Wyrmling
White Wyrmling
Armies ended up being:
flameslayer93
Tetsuo
Dienekes
Finn
Zetacron
Blue Wyrmling
Black Wyrmling
LoveElemental
Pyria
Sgt Drake (rotv)
Syvarris Culisquito
Black Wyrmling
White Wyrmling
Summary:
The game started out with shots being fired right away, as her Syvarris managed to punch 3 wounds into Dienekes's paper thin shield. Zeta fired back, but his aim must have been poor, even though he had height on the elf. We slow rolled in our bigger heroes, while still taking shots at each other's units with the high range heroes. Finn snatched the Attack +1 Glyph, which attracted both of LE's Wyrmlings. While they only dealt 1 wound to the viking (and a wasted OM1 on Finn that I used to try to bait Drake into Combat Challenge/Tether of Logos range with Dienekes that would both not work and still result in no wounds vs the baby dragons), LE moved Pyria up to unleash a hellish 4-skull normal attack+height advantage that would kill Finn. Surprisingly, LE didn't attempt to use Fireline vs Dienekes and Tetsuo who were lined up for it. After putting Finn on Tetsuo, I ran Mr. T into Pyria for an impressive 5 wound attack (+3 dice thanks to Finn and Overclock). No Mindjack. And from that point on, my game just fell apart. Sure, Tetsuo killed off Pyria the next turn, but my figures just started to miss their attacks and slowly perish. I tried to Mindjack thrice, but even with the best odds possible on the last attempt (5 wounds on Tetsuo), I just couldn't get the job done once. Afterwards, I spent much of my time just trying to kill off wyrmlings and throw wasted attacks at Culisquito (who just Fluttered away). In the end, LE's Culisquito finished off my Blue Wyrmling.
LoveElemental wins. Drake (2 wounds), Culisquito (full health, 1 wound healed via Life Drain) remaining.
Notes:
Culisquito being a personal custom is probably a cardinal sin of playtesting, but since this was a heroes format (and literally 4 other customs were being played anyway) I figured it doesn't matter nearly as much. Plus, this game is mostly to see how the AotV units would fare in a draft and uniques heavy setting, of which I felt they were well suited to.
Glyph of Healing: I wasn't able to pull attention away from the main firefight to grab it, and I doubt it would have helped me much.
Tetsuo: I mean, I had stacked his card with Finn, so it should come as no surprise that he dealt 144 points of damage. However since a lot of those points came in the form of self damaging (and a viking spirit), they aren't as good. Not triggering Mindjack once did hurt me, but that just makes him really swingy. I can't say if upping his price will help him or not. Since I don't see any of the AotV stuff as being mega-destructive powerhouses that will scale his swing down quite a bit.
Dienekes: I did a poor job with using him, and feel that maybe drafting him will be in poor taste since he doesn't really counter heroes. Maybe next time I do a draft I'll throw in the AotV squads, so that he can maybe be a better roakblock. In this game, his tankiness just got blown open by Syvarris, greatly hindering his later effectiveness as cleanup.
Pyria: Not much to say here. She only took 2 turns, but thanks to her range (and the fairly smaller board), both of those turns meant she could attack (although I'm fairly certain her first attack did nothing). She was able to kill Finn on a lucky attack, but not much else. Definately was fun to try to counterdraft against her, and I suspect we're going to want at least 1 or 2 good antirange units in the game to counter all this ranged hero-ness.
It's the battle of all time! It's... a playtest report from last night's game between LoveElemental and I.
Being cheeky, I decided to make both armies all AotV units now that we have enough units that I can make a couple smaller armies with them.
Map is pictured above, it was a custom tundra and road map with some snow on the mountain path. We used 3 Treasure Glyphs, the Glyph of Defense +1, and the Glyph of Knowledge.
After a flub of a game where LE was still getting into the groove with her units (and I had suggested that she lead with Ozuul, not the Ukushisas), she opened by charging the Demon and Voidspawn down the road into my startzone. I scattered my Soulguides, flying one into the mountains behind a giant glacier and the other one onto the ice in front of the same glacier. I tried to have the Velnesh form a barrier so that Ozuul couldn't slam into my magic users while having another one aim towards the glyph of defense. Once Ozuul came out, he started shaking the world with his 6 attack swings, and was doing a good job blocking wounds (he would still take one from Tetsuo's overclocked attack.) After using Gravity Pull, Ozuul was hitting Velnesh and Pyria with only mild attack rolls, but since Velkhor was in the vicinity... a Velnesh died! From there it was Pyria between Velkhor and Ozuul, she was loosing twin firelines as big Purple was clubbing her with 6A swings. Velkhor died, cursing Tetsuo. Pyria went down shortly after that, losing one of my Order Markers in the process. Tetsuo got smacked around (adding insult to injury was only getting to roll 1 Defense Die), but he did hit Ozuul hard back and got the Mind Jack roll off (15 + 5 wounds = 20)... although since there werent any enemy figures around it was pointless. I did reposition big purple down into the ice for next round... I sac'd an Honored Soulguide to bring back Pyria on the mountains. Next round, Pyria killed Ozuul! But since LE's Ukushisa Pride were waaaaay back in the Startzone, it was impossible to reach them from her position. Next round, the firecats cleaned up giving LoveElemental the win.
Remainder: 3 Ukushisas.
Thoughts:
Pyria: Solid showing, played pretty much fantastically as usual. I wanted to rush her in to deal as much damage as possible, even charging right at a Demon and Purple Alien to do it. She died really quickly when she pulled this manuever, which feels on character.
Tetsuo: This really wasn't the map or matchup for him, and that's ok. When he did pull of Mind Jack I was happy, until I was disappointed there weren't any units around for him to do it against. Overclocking against the big bad feels good though.
Honored Soulguides: I took 1 turn with them, just so I could set them up. Their power did make a difference this game, but it wasn't as big as you'd think. Probably where they need to be, but it would be good to see them get a little extra something. Range 4? Defense 5?
Velnesh: I didn't get to pull off any cool Shift manuevers this game, although I did shift onto the glyph of defense with one. Hmm, rereading the power I may have made a mistake. Can't remember if empty counts for glyphs or not now
Ozuul: He was a beast this game! He was fun to play against, as I had to try to figure out the fastest way to kill him without losing all of my troops. I wonder if I had used Katryn Vade instead of Tetsuo if the game would have ended differently (as Katryn currently ignores Gravity Pull and can smack up to twice with her 5A).
Velkhor: I think was 110 points worth of debuffness this game, letting Ozuul take out a Velnesh thanks to Frailty Aura and making Testuso about as weak as butter with his -2D Spirit. Are the wings supposed to be targetteble? I had the oppurtunity to attack his wings, but since I wasn't sure I just skipped the attack.
Ukushisa Pride: They cleaned up well this game. Combined Heat's let them just cut through my units like butter, and let them shrug off an attack from Tetsuo.
Glyph of Knowledge: It wasn't used this game. I might find a different spot for it and see if its in a more tantalizing spot next game.