Making the RotV figures into Planeswalker heroes and squads

[quozl]

I've been really enjoying Arena of the Planeswalkers lately so I thought it might be fun to convert the RotV units into AotP heroes and squads. Is anybody here interested in collaborating on that?

I'm thinking we could start with Mimring:

Spoiler Alert!

This is what we are currently testing. Please playtest it and let us know how it goes!

Tests: #1, #2, #3

Mimring
Red Hero Creature - Dragon

Life 5 Note: We've decided to change the Life to 6.
Move 6
Range 1
Power 6
Toughness 3

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight with -2P this turn.

FLYING

Huge 9
Cost 120

FAQ - Cryptoliths and other objects are attacked as figures in AotP.

After the change bumping Life to 6, I ran another test here.

 

[Targanth]

I like the idea! I'm willing to be involved, but my skills would probably be in wording / proofreading as opposed to determining point values and overall value.

As far as color choices, perhaps there is an opportunity to deviate from the AotP standard a bit. Making a figure require a dual colored PW I think would be very limiting; however it could be possible to make a figure summon-able by either Red or Green. This would somewhat alter the drafting environment, but I don't think that it would be a bad thing to try.

The interaction of AotP Sorcery and Enchantment cards may need to be factored in to the point total

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

Sure! I would be up for collaborating.

Would you stick with the fantasy figures, and exclude KMA for example? Most everything else works.

Are you going to keep things Special Attacks? (ex. attack not modified by height or glyphs, but what about enhancements?)

Are you going to make new Army Cards in AotP style? (because I creative but not with photoshop).


For MIMRING, I think he is pure Red.

 

[quozl]

Great!

I was thinking a red/green creature could be summoned by a red or a green planeswalker but I'll need to look at the rules again to see if that interpretation fits within the existing rules or would be a change. (OK, I just took a quick look at the first rulebook and I believe it supports my interpretation - the army card just needs to share a color with the planeswalker or be colorless.)

I am planning on using all figures, not just fantasy figures.

I think we should probably drop special attacks, which may mean some modification of the power is needed.

I would like to make new army cards in the AotP style but I also have no graphic design ability.

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

I think this is the list of all RotV figures:

1. Agent Carr
2. Airborne Elite
3. Deathwalker 9000
4. Finn the Viking Champion
5. Grimnak
6. Izumi Samurai
7. Krav Maga Agents
8. Marro Warriors
9. Mimring
10. Ne-Gok-Sa
11. Raelin the Kyrie Warrior
12. Sgt. Drake Alexander
13. Syvarris
14. Tarn Viking Warriors
15. Thorgrim the Viking Champion
16. Zettian Guards

We could work on one a week : )

 

[quozl]

How does this look for the AotP version of Fireline Special Attack?

FIRE LINE
Choose 8 spaces in a straight line from Mimring. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Mimring's attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense separately.

Use this ability instead of attacking with Mimring.

 

[Targanth]

Generally looks good. A quick look at the Book of Mimring reminded me of the question of where line of sight should be calculated. Would it avoid questions to say it this way:

Choose 8 spaces in a straight line from Mimring's front space. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Mimring's attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense separately. Mimring may aim in any direction.

Use this ability instead of attacking with Mimring.

Should it specify the # of attack dice?

 

[quozl]

I think think changing it to "Choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces" should be fine.

As for the # of attack dice, it does get confusing when it says "instead of attacking". Let's try this without that line:

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Mimring's attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense separately.

Yeah, I like that better. He either attacks with a range of 1 or he attacks in an 8-space straight line and attacks all figures, not just enemy figures.

 

[TREX]

@quozl, I like the idea, it just seems like a lot of work. I think I like the approach of tweaking the crossover rules to use them both a bit better as we discussed in the other thread. I'll most likely check out you guys progress but I don't think I'll participate much.

 

[keglo]

Sweet! I asked for exactly this not very long ago in another thread.

I like this idea. And I know that this isn’t exactly what you are talking about but I wonder if anyone like the smart folks responsible for C3V, SOV, HOSS, and C3G could come up with a way to take, say all the RotV squads, and assign them a color, number of lives, and possibly even change their abilities, and create new cards in order to make them truly compatible with AotP. In other words, just make AotP customs out of our official Heroscape figures. This way we would have so much more to work with and could wait much more patiently for official WotC releases.

I'm super glad to see folks working on it. If I had any talents I would offer them to you.

 

[quozl]

One of the things we'll need is playtesting, which anyone can do, so we can get the points right and if questions come up about the powers (and their interactions with the spells), we can get that ironed out.

So thanks for you interest and I hope you help out in any way you can!

 

[Targanth]

I think the changes address the original questions 'scapers had on Mimring. Perhaps one more tweak to highlight the choice between Melee and Range, something along these lines:

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose a regular melee attack, or you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. All figures on those spaces who are in line of sight are affected by Mimring's attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Affected figures roll defense separately.

I am trying to keep the word count low, and it might not be necessary to make the distinction.

 

[Targanth]

Looking through the Red and Green spells, there are currently only 7 spell cards that might be played that would potentially impact when activating Mimring. The others either have an opponent as a target or target the owning player's PW or Squad.

RED
Senseless Rage Enchant UNQ Hero or Squad. Once per turn, you may re-roll all attack dice for enchanted hero creature or a creature in enchanted squad after seeing the defending player's roll.

Rush of Adrenaline Move a creature you control up to 4 spaces, then deal 1 damage to it.

Dual Casting Play a red sorcery from your graveyard that you played this turn.

GREEN
Skyreaping Choose a green creature you control. Deal 1 damage to all creatures with flying that are adjacent that creature and draw a card.

Titanic Growth A creature you control within 6 clear sight spaces of a green Planeswalker you control gets +3 (Power) until end of turn.

Rabid Bite A creature you control fights target adjacent creature an opponent controls.

Earthen Arms Remove up to 2 damage markers from a friendly hero creature. It gets +2 (Power) until end of turn.

So looking at how these might affect Mimring, here is what I see.

Senseless Rage could cause a rules problem since multiple figures would roll defense dice.

Rush of Adrenaline could be used to re-position Mimring before selecting his card to get a better firing line

No difference with Dual Casting except that the two cards I mentioned can be brought back.

Skyreaping could affect more creatures but AotP currently has such a small number of fliers that it is not probable that Mimring would ever get surrounded by fliers.

Titanic Growth would add 3 Power. This would give Mimring 7 attack against multiple figures.

Rabid Bite could target Mimring but would not allow him to use fire line.

Earthen Arms would add +2 Power. This would give Mimring 6 attack against multiple figures.

If Mimring is RED, then we need to explain how Senseless Rage would work.

If Mimring is GREEN, Titanic Growth and Earthen Arms would give him quite a boost - for one turn.

 

[quozl]

Good job going through those! I wonder if it might be more AotP-like for Mimring to attack each figure separately in the fire line. Like this:

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight.

Nice thing about that is it simplifies the text even more.

 

[Targanth]

I agree, this would improve clarity. I double posted, and don't know if you saw my previous thought on melee attack vs ranged attack choice.

When Mimring attacks, you may choose a regular melee attack, or you may ...

It probably isn't needed, but if there is room on the card, it might avoid questions.

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight.

There are some card templates over on the Arena of the Planeswalkers board. I'll see if I can do a mock-up in a bit.

 

[quozl]

I did see that and that's why I changed the wording to "if you do" in order to differentiate a fire line attack from a normal melee attack.

 

[Targanth]

Got it - thanks!

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

Good job going through those! I wonder if it might be more AotP-like for Mimring to attack each figure separately in the fire line. Like this:

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight.

Nice thing about that is it simplifies the text even more.

If we are making modifications, I could actually see "fixing" Mimring to have a normal Range attack. How much modification do you want?

Probably not an issue to attack each figure separately as, on average, you are probably only catching 2-3 figures in the Fire Line (and not all 8 ). Are you using Mimring's normal Attack of 5 becoming 5 Power? so Fire Line rolls 5 dice? or adjusting Power to 4?

If Power = 4 (mostly for Fire Line), you could add something that gave Mimring +1 Power when attacking an adjacent figure.

What are traditionally Special Attacks being boosted by Enchantments and Spells and Glyphs can be interesting. What you (we) decide her could set a precedent for other units.


As for multi-colored creatures .. I think we should stick with mono-color. The Planeswalkers being dual-color is fine but I think creatures should be solid color.

 

[quozl]

Mimring has 4 Attack in Heroscape and the Fire Line also has 4 attack but I do like giving him more Power when he doesn't use Fire Line. We could just set his Power at 6 and change Fire Line like so:

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight with -2P this turn.

(P=the crossed-swords Power symbol)

Also, I'm fine with making Mimring red and tabling the multi-color creature discussion for now.

 

[Targanth]

Mimring's base attack is 4, his life is 5.

I agree to mono-color, but I think it could be possible to make Mimring summon-able by more than one color - a subset of the Eldrazi Ruiner who is summon-able by any color. It could be as simple as providing both a red and a green card.

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

Mimring's base attack is 4, his life is 5.

I agree to mono-color, but I think it could be possible to make Mimring summon-able by more than one color - a subset of the Eldrazi Ruiner who is summon-able by any color. It could be as simple as providing both a red and a green card.

Ha! I was thinking of Moltenclaw : (

On the Red/Green .. what about something like

GREAT WYRM
You may include Mimring in an Army with a green planeswalker. Before summoning Mimring, a green planeswalker you control must place one spell card from their hand on the bottom of their library.


Though I think a single color is best to focus on for our early conversions/play-tests.

 

[Targanth]

This might be a sample card - if it works. The image may be too small.

 

[quozl]

Cool! What did you think of raising his Power to 6 and making Fire Line -2?

Also, we could use this picture:

 

[Targanth]

If he is a RED Hero, I think it would be OK to make the power change to 6 and -2. If he was GREEN, then with the right spell cards he would be 8 or 9 Melee and still be 6 or 7 range. That might be OK, or it might hit too hard.

thanks for the better pic!

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight.

Can you update to:
FIRE LINE
When Mimring attacks, you may choose 8 spaces in a straight line from one of Mimring's spaces. If you do, you must attack each figure and destructible object on those spaces who are in Mimring's line of sight.

And I might just be conditioned from Heroscape but I think rolling attack dice once is probably best. More words but less dice-rolling for a quicker battle. I would then keep him at 4 Power but add something like +1P when attacking figures that he is engaged with.

Titantic Growth would be pretty awesome though. That's why I am wondering if we need to figure out something for Special Attacks not being modified by Enchantments, etc. I'm not advocating that, per se, but wondering if we have a direction one way or another for consistency.