The AotP ceiling! What is it?

[The B.I.V.]

This post got me thinking. Is there a ceiling for AotP point values?

In classic Heroscape, you can have massive battles with 1,000+ point armies (if you have the stomach for it). There's really no limit.

AotP is different. It's a clash between two Planeswalkers, not necessarily two armies. The Planeswalker's creatures, are more like additional spells he has at his disposal, rather than an army. Makes sense, since that's what MtG is, pretty much. What makes it that way is the rule that you can only summon 2 Heroes or Squads per turn.

At 500 points, you only have 2 units in your "army" and you can get them to the battlefield relatively easily in a single turn. As point values increase, and you get more units in your "army," the chance that you'll be able to summon them all to the table decreases slightly. It's a function of the survivability of your Planeswalker to the number of army cards in your "army." So what's the ceiling?

The post I referenced above, indicated that in a 1,000 point AotP battle, the Planeswalker often died before he could summon all his units to the table. So 1,000 points is probably a little high (although it was also a 4-player free-for-all, so that probably factors in as well). Many of you have indicated that 600 points is a good point value. My gut tells me that that's probably the sweet spot (or maybe 700) but we need some more units to play with before all the colors can compete at 600 points. What do you guys think? Is 600 the ceiling for AotP?

 

[obfuscatedhippo]

1,000 points is fine. Strategy is probably a little different and the board needs to be larger to support more summoning opportunities/less quick assassination of PW.

600 seems about right though.

If you wanted to do larger battles, I could see 1,200 but with 2 PW's each 600 each). You could either have separate or combined spell decks - and maybe drawing 1 card per active PW (so 2 card draw).

 

[mistercharlie]

1,000 points is fine. Strategy is probably a little different and the board needs to be larger to support more summoning opportunities/less quick assassination of PW.

600 seems about right though.

If you wanted to do larger battles, I could see 1,200 but with 2 PW's each 600 each). You could either have separate or combined spell decks - and maybe drawing 1 card per active PW (so 2 card draw).

The wife and I have been toying around with a way to play like this (mostly me tinkering with rule tweaks to make it work), and our first match with 2 PW's was really fun. Both of our PW's had 600 Point armies and separate 200 point decks.

 

[lefton4ya]

The max I have done is 600 points AotP army + 250 points of Heroscape army (which start on the board) playing according to TREX's Heroscape/AOTP Mixed Play Rules. I think 750 is probably a max you want to do with summoning because, as you said, you may not be able to summon everything before your Planeswalker is dead, unless you just spend the first 3 turns in your start zone summoning. That is why I think mixed Heroscape/AotP is probably best if you want to do high point games. But of course, since points in each game are not equivalent, you have to have each player have relatively the same amount of each type of army (I always do you can donate up to either 25 or 50 points between AotP army, AotP spell deck, and Heroscape army).

 

[Confred]

I have not played large battles, but not being able to summon everything sounds strategic value added as if decisions matter more.
I am however unsure of spells in long game, because as is, it's easy to draw them all.

 

[HeroscapeMaster]

700 points seems to work well for me! Not to big, not to small, but just right!��

 

[Unhinged Manchild]

Hmm, there is certainly something to be considered here. I hadn't thought much about this, since I'm certain that 100% of my AotP games have seen players with 500-700 points armies and the standard 12 card/200 pt library of spells.

I'm not so certain that there is a ceiling for creatures, or if there is, I bet it's higher than 1000 points. Actually... I'd start to wonder if higher creature counts would cause the games to drag on way longer, at least in a game with highly skilled AotP players. Just due to the fact that you may summon up to 2 army cards per turn, you should generally be able to keep your walker protected especially against range 1 threats; just surround your walker with warm bodies and force attrition (assuming the enemy has no trample, though.)

Ranged figures will probably have a few more opportunities to poke your walker, and some of the nonsense that blue can pull off with Unsummon, Welcome to the Fold, and Jace B's MIND STEALER will probably create some opportunities (albeit risky) for quicker kills.

Anyway, I wonder if scaling the spell libraries would be where the real ceiling lies. Drawing 3 cards at start and only 1 per turn is probably slow/unusable if you play with decks of 25+ spells and 400+ points.