The Book of Erevan Sunshadow

[spiteofthedice]

The Book of Erevan Sunshadow​

Master Set III - Battle for the Underdark​

If you cannot see the Army Card graphic, check Hasbro's Unit Page for stats and special powers, plus "character biography" and other non-game unit info.

Character Bio (from back of box): Erevan channels raw arcane power into mighty spells that scorch the battlefield. Like any good wizard, he puts monsters in their place. Anything that stands in his way is blasted to bits.
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-Rulings and Clarifications-

Q. FEY STEP: SUBJECT TO ELEVATION?
Regarding Fey Step, the card says "any empty space within 5 spaces of his current location"--does height elevation matter? for example, could I fey step to the top of a castle?
A. "Elevation does not matter" when using Erevan's Fey Step Special Ability. (-The Guru)​

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Synergy Benefits Received

N/A
​

Synergy Benefits Offered

N/A​

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

TBA
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-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

Erevan Sunshadow Pre-Release Discussion Thread

Table of average wounds/kills than Erevan's Special inflicts

Power Rankings

Jexik: Erevan Sunshadow- He's like a budget version of TBR. Wait, is that a good thing? C+

OEAO: C+

Cleon: Tier 2 (198/208)

dok (VC inclusive): C

Unit Strategy Review

TBA​

 

[Chardris1287]

I believe this man will be more effective against squad units, who normally have lower defense than heros. But regarding his Fey Step ability. it says any empty space within 5 spaces of his current location does height elevation matter? for example, could I fey step to the top of a castle, which i believe is 10 height spaces, in one turn?

 

[Geryon]

This guy is pretty bad. How often are you really going to be able to reliably roll all skulls?
And for 80 points? This guy is darn near undraftable.

 

[Creationist]

This guys is too frail to do much. All of the heros in the set seem to be really frail. They need more beefy guys like Tandros. Giving Erevan 1 or 2 extra defense would help.

 

[GromBloodboy]

It does suck that he is not an Elven Wizard for Ullar, because he can't pick up Ulginesh's bonding, the only reason I would consider taking him. He also can't get the defense bonus fron Kyntel Gwyn nor the last-ditch resort from Acholarch. I think that he will be played with the scenario, but other then that, he will sit in the box with Kumiko unless I decide to play just for fun game.

 

[Sujoah]

I hope this guy plays better than how he does on paper. But, the playtesters wouldn't have made an almost useless figure. But Fire Blast seems like it could have potential.

 

[Creationist]

Its really unfortunate. He looks really cool and his powers are interesting. But his stats suck.

 

[GromBloodboy]

Read dok's post in the other thread about this guy. You never should attack with less then 4 dice. He states that the other ones will actually hurt your odds.

 

[theGuru]

I believe this man will be more effective against squad units, who normally have lower defense than heros. But regarding his Fey Step ability. it says any empty space within 5 spaces of his current location does height elevation matter? for example, could I fey step to the top of a castle, which i believe is 10 height spaces, in one turn?

elevation does not matter.

 

[vertigosmooth]

Man, this is one guy that I'm really let down by(at least on paper). His stats/specials seem really weak to not have any bonding/synergy going on. If he were an elf wizard it would at least make him more playable with Uglinesh. Unless im totally surprised by how he actually plays (or by a future release making him more viable), he doesn't seem like much use of his points. But having said that, I'm still stoked to get him and the rest of the new set in the mail haha.


Dustin

 

[dok]

As promised, here are the tables of average wounds/kills that Erevan's special inflicts. Each entry in this table averages 50,000 trials and is rounded to the nearest 100th.

In both cases, defense is on top, and Erevan's dice choice on the side.

Average Damage (multi-life heroes)

      0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9
2   1.33  1.00  0.74  0.55  0.40  0.29  0.21  0.15  0.10  0.07
3   1.73  1.39  1.10  0.86  0.66  0.51  0.39  0.29  0.22  0.16
4   2.13  1.79  1.51  1.23  0.99  0.78  0.63  0.50  0.39  0.30

Average 1-life figure kills

      0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9
2   1.00  0.77  0.59  0.45  0.33  0.24  0.17  0.13  0.09  0.06
3   1.00  0.86  0.71  0.58  0.47  0.37  0.28  0.21  0.17  0.13
4   1.00  0.91  0.81  0.70  0.59  0.49  0.41  0.33  0.27  0.21

Moral of the story - roll 4 dice.

 

[killergoat72]

wait wait I just figured out why this guy doesn't suck

5 range 4 dice

pretty sweet not many units compare

ok well he sorta sucks...

 

[dok]

5 range 4 dice

pretty sweet not many units compare

Nilfheim, Q9, Sonlen, Q10, Mimring, DW9k, Kaemon, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Roman Archers, Arkmer. And many, many more if they have height advantage.

 

[Kroc]

The Rev and I would like to encourage pre-release theoryscaping to be done in Tai-pan's cool thread.

 

[spiteofthedice]

Having proxied Erevan last night, I have to say, he performed much better than everyone seems to think.

2 great things about Erevan I haven't seen anyone mention yet:

1) Fey Step is great just to get Erevan into battle from the start zone late in the game. Rather than taking multiple turns just to walk him into battle and get him in a good position, jump up out of the start zone and up levels with Fey Step, then immediately take a full turn getting him up near support. (Granted, our battlefield was small, but so is Erevan's range, so he probably is better-suited to a smaller map anyway).

2) Fire Blast is IDEAL for taking out:

a. 8-Life, 1-Defense units with Regenerative abilities (a la Troll).
b. Expensive squad figures with special defensive abilities that don't work against Special Attacks (a la Drow).
​

Turns out Erevan is very good at both of these things. He definitely needs support, and Raelin and Ana were both working to keep him alive, but that's what they're supposed to do, and it was a very solid win.

 

[dok]

2) Fire Blast is IDEAL for taking out:

a. 8-Life, 1-Defense units with Regenerative abilities (a la Troll).
​

Ideal in what sense? A figure with only one defense is actually quite vulnerable to multiple relatively weak attacks. Erevan does 1.79 wounds per turn, on average, to the troll. By contrast, something as weak as 3 attacks of 2 inflicts an average of 2.25 wounds - that's 25% better than Erevan. Compare Erevan's turn to a typical squadscape attack (3 attacks of 3, over 3.6 wounds on average) and it's less than half as effective.

(And, although it's a side point here, Erevan's high life total is exactly the sort of target the Troll wants to seek out.)

b. Expensive squad figures with special defensive abilities that don't work against Special Attacks (a la Drow).
​

Here you're almost certainly right - having a ranged special, or really any special at all, is great against Drow or Nakitas or G-Nators. This is really the ideal situation for Erevan. All I'd say is that other figures can do this job in a more point-efficient way.

 

[spiteofthedice]

2) Fire Blast is IDEAL for taking out:

a. 8-Life, 1-Defense units with Regenerative abilities (a la Troll).
​

Ideal in what sense? A figure with only one defense is actually quite vulnerable to multiple relatively weak attacks. Erevan does 1.79 wounds per turn, on average, to the troll. By contrast, something as weak as 3 attacks of 2 inflicts an average of 2.25 wounds - that's 25% better than Erevan. Compare Erevan's turn to a typical squadscape attack (3 attacks of 3, over 3.6 wounds on average) and it's less than half as effective.

(And, although it's a side point here, Erevan's high life total is exactly the sort of target the Troll wants to seek out.)

Fair enough. I guess I just had him very well-protected, so he got to do a little more damage.

 

[The Mi-Go 13]

Can Erevan's extra attacks (for rolling all skulls) be used on different figures? I would think so as it says 'extra attack" but he's fresh and shiny and I want to make sure.

Thanks gang,

M13

 

[spiteofthedice]

Can Erevan's extra attacks (for rolling all skulls) be used on different figures? I would think so as it says 'extra attack" but he's fresh and shiny and I want to make sure.

Thanks gang,

M13

Yes, because there just isn't any reason to think he would have to keep hitting the same figure over and over. The card says "attack again with FBSA," which strongly suggests starting the attack over from its targeting phase.

 

[NecroBlade]

I agree that yes, you can target different figures each time.

I was going to cite Nilfhiem, Captain America, and Kumiko as examples of figures that specify what you can and can't target. But then the designers felt the need to specify on Q9 and Q10 that you could target the same or different figures each time... (I'd really like to know how they determine the wording for various cards. Some clarifications are made on some cards but not others. Who knows.)

Anyway, rest assured the answer is 'yes.'

 

[Aquatix]

note that Fey Step means "before moving" - that means he can move after using Fey Step.
If they had made Erevan a valiant figure, and an elf, he would be great. I'm sure my friends and I would make such a change when playing for fun. But until they release Eladrin support, this guy won't be seen much in tournaments, when you could draft Raelin for the same points - or if you're an elf fan, Emirroon.

 

[mathguy]

Yes, the average number of wounds or squad figure kills per turn is better with Fire Blast 4. So if that is the goal, it is always better to use Fire Blast 4.

However, there are actually circumstances (albeit few) when using Fire Blast 2 might be better. This can happen at the end of a game in a death match situation when Erevan Sunshadow is pitted against a squad, For Fire Blast 2 to be better, one needs the average kills fairly close to that of Fire Blast 4 (such as versus defense 0, 1, or 2) and one needs to take advantage of the difference in variance; one will need there to be more than one full squad so that having higher odds of killing off more figures work to the advantage of Fire Blast 2. Here are three two examples.

Erevan Sunshadow's win percentages versus 4 Venoc Vipers:
Fire Blast 2:   15.0%
Fire Blast 3:   12.3%
Fire Blast 4:   10.5%

Erevan Sunshadow's win percentages versus 5 Roman Archers:
Fire Blast 2:   11.1%
Fire Blast 3:   10.679%
Fire Blast 4:   10.682%

The reason that you need more than one full enemy squad for Fire Blast 2 to show better is because if there were only one squad, then killing at least one figure is very important because if reduces the enemy's attacking power immediately and so in that situation Fire Blast 4 would be better. That is why the above examples all have the enemy having more than one full squad. The above numbers were gotten from my just updated Matchup Calculator. Happy New Year and I can't wait to get the new D&D figures.

 

[dok]

Yes, the average number of wounds or squad figure kills per turn is better with Fire Blast 4. So if that is the goal, it is always better to use Fire Blast 4.

However, there are actually circumstances (albeit few) when using Fire Blast 2 might be better.

Great to have confimation of that stuff, mathguy. I think you missed the most significant one, though:

Erevan Sunshadow's win percentages versus Krav Maga Agents at range:
Fire Blast 2:   [URL="http://math.lfc.edu/~yuen/heroscape/testing/matchup.pl?quickp=225&ptp=80&psquad=single&herop1=5&squadp1=1&ps=0&p2=2&p3=2&quickq=89&ptq=100&qsquad=squad&heroq1=1&squadq1=3&qs=3&q2=3&q3=3&q10=1&p107=1&pmoff=0&qmoff=0&pattlim=0&qattlim=0&pmdef=0&qmdef=0&p0=0&q0=0&pminit=0&qminit=0&request=findprob"]18.5%[/URL]
Fire Blast 3:   [URL="http://math.lfc.edu/~yuen/heroscape/testing/matchup.pl?quickp=226&ptp=80&psquad=single&herop1=5&squadp1=1&ps=0&p2=2&p3=2&quickq=89&ptq=100&qsquad=squad&heroq1=1&squadq1=3&qs=3&q2=3&q3=3&q10=1&p108=1&pmoff=0&qmoff=0&pattlim=0&qattlim=0&pmdef=0&qmdef=0&p0=0&q0=0&pminit=0&qminit=0&request=findprob"]10.6%[/URL]
Fire Blast 4:   [URL="http://math.lfc.edu/~yuen/heroscape/testing/matchup.pl?quickp=227&ptp=80&psquad=single&herop1=5&squadp1=1&ps=0&p2=2&p3=2&quickq=89&ptq=100&qsquad=squad&heroq1=1&squadq1=3&qs=3&q2=3&q3=3&q10=1&p109=1&pmoff=0&qmoff=0&pattlim=0&qattlim=0&pmdef=0&qmdef=0&p0=0&q0=0&pminit=0&qminit=0&request=findprob"]7.3%[/URL]

 

[wriggz]

It is worth noting that you can start with Fire Blast 2 and then move on to Fire Blast 4. So you could take out a couple of vipers and hit Venoc warlord with a 4. Heck, you would always use 4 on the last figure in your range.

I would likely use Fire Blast 2 or even 3 much of the time with the hopes of Hiting the 2 or 3 Skulls and getting a second hit of 4. This may not be the most "mathmatical" advantagous plan, but the my gut says its worth it.

 

[dok]

I would likely use Fire Blast 2 or even 3 much of the time with the hopes of Hiting the 2 or 3 Skulls and getting a second hit of 4. This may not be the most "mathmatical" advantagous plan, but the my gut says its worth it.

You and Steven Colbert can go with your gut, then...