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The Book of Optimus Prime

Yodaking

Yodaking

C3G Landlord
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The Book of Optimus Prime

C3G IDW WAVE 29
CHRISTMAS IN JULY

C3G_OptimusPrime_comic.png

Comic PDF

C3G_OptimusPrime_mini.png

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:
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-
 
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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
 
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Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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. :p
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Oh I like that. Would love to see the Matrix as a glyph at some point.
Thanks Soundwarp.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Ugh, I mean, it's the same character. I think we should allow ourselves to play fast and loose with that kind of thing.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

I think all the Dark Judges besides Death are IDW art.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

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)
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

I wouldn't really worry about from whence the art comes, especially if the Tfs end up under Marvel. Marvel hasn't done a Tf comic since the early 90s, you're not going to find like any Marvel art that matches the aesthetic C3G goes for. The main thing would just be to find iconic looking body styles, I wouldn't use the 'Nobody Move!' pic for example. The last image you have actually is a picture of (a version of) Marvel Optimus though (you can tell by Meg's helmet). Pretty sure that pic is from Regeneration One (issue 85 I think) which is an IDW continuation of the Marvel Comics universe.

Ronin said:
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)
Click to expand...

There's no meaningful difference between IDW and Marvel Optimus as far as a C3G card would be concerned. They have different histories and somewhat different personalities, but they're still the same core character. I guess picking Marvel opens the door for a Powermaster Optimus card later (if for some reason anyone wanted that), though IDW would open the door for a badass supercop Orion Pax card (again, if someone felt the dire need for that).

I guess the big major difference between the continuities is Marvel Tfs are basically Angels directly created by Robot-God to fight Robot-Satan, where-as the IDW ended up ditching most of god stuff by the end (Unicron is a ancient doomsday weapon powered by a ghost for example, Primus is just a really old guy). Still a lot of mystical stuff in IDW though. None of that matters for C3G though outside of maybe for a Matrix design or stuff directly involving Unicron.

Differences between continuities that might actually matter for C3G cards that I can think of off the top of my head:

-IDW does have a few newer characters that weren't around in the Marvel days that are becoming fairly important within the brand. Windblade is the big one.
-IDW Soundwave is (eventually) more like the cartoon version most people think of (and just an awesome character), and always had a strong connection with the Decepticon Cassettes. Marvel Soundwave is kinda different (and purple), and didn’t really have that much of an association with the Cassettes until like... a text story at the end of the last issue of Regeneration One.
-Guys like Skywarp, Thundercraker, and Sideswipe have actual personalities in IDW, so that would make writing bios easier I guess.
-Marvel Insecticons can shrink, but don't make swarms of clones like people remember from the cartoon. IDW Insecticons can't shrink or make clones, but do come with a swarm included.
-Galavtron, Cyclonus, and Scourge are ancient Transformers connected to the Dead Universe in IDW, whereas the Marvel ones are servants of Unicron from the future (And Marvel Galvy is Megatron).
-Headmasters/Targetmasters/Powermasters/Pretenders/Micromasters all exist as actual widespread tech in the Marvelverse. IDW has all the characters, but most of them aren't actually whatever-masters in universe. I kinda doubt this will matter, as all this is for 87 and up characters which most people won't know or care about, and I can't imagine trying to replicate any of those gimmicks on a C3G card anyway.
-In IDW Ultra Magnus is secretly a tiny man with a mustache.
 
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Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Since some characters don't exist in both lines, I kind of figured that as different designers added to the Transformer collection they would pick the publisher they favored for their character. I just favor Marvel here as those are the comics I collected and read.

As for Soundwave and the tapes, I recall him ejecting them in the comic books but they also followed Megatron's orders and commands pretty closely. Laserbeak often landed on Megatrons' arm or shoulder. I was thinking if I got around to him he would have some kind of synergy with both Megatron & Soundwave's personality or class but not any of the other Decipticons.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Thanks for the breakdown, Soundwarp!

I think it's reasonable to tackle the publisher question on a case-by-case basis. That's the path we're taking with Doctor Who (kinda forgot we just set relevant precedent there), and it sounds like the different versions of most characters (especially the real icons) don't diverge in a major way anyhow.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Ronin said:
Thanks for the breakdown, Soundwarp!

I think it's reasonable to tackle the publisher question on a case-by-case basis. That's the path we're taking with Doctor Who (kinda forgot we just set relevant precedent there), and it sounds like the different versions of most characters (especially the real icons) don't diverge in a major way anyhow.
Click to expand...

That's probably what I would do.

Another option is to use IDW as the publisher but not bother specifying if we're talking about the in house universe that just ended, the new one coming up, or the Regeneration One universe (which is the Marvel Universe) and just go kinda lunchboxy. That would basically cover almost any version of anyone that would be desired except for like... cartoon style Shockwave.

Or just do like Hasbro as the publisher and say 'screw it, it's some kinda Optimus from somewhere that fits what I want to do', there are canonically several billion to pick from.

Yodaking said:
As for Soundwave and the tapes, I recall him ejecting them in the comic books but they also followed Megatron's orders and commands pretty closely. Laserbeak often landed on Megatrons' arm or shoulder. I was thinking if I got around to him he would have some kind of synergy with both Megatron & Soundwave's personality or class but not any of the other Decipticons.
Click to expand...

In the Marvel comics Soundwave does store the Cassettes and eject them and stuff on occasion (I only remember like two times off the top of my head), but nowhere near as often as in the Cartoon or... pretty much anything else. I think Rumble and Frenzy hitch rides with the Seekers as often as they do with Soundwave. They're not a team/family like they are in most other things, so it would be a bit harder to justify as much synergy between them as other versions could have.

Marvel comic Laserbeak is like a weird living totem of Decepticon leadership, he hops on the shoulder of whoever is in charge at the time. It's kinda funny actually, especially since for some reason Buzzsaw (aka 'yellow Laserbeak') gets to be a terrifying force of destruction that inexplicably took out Omega Supreme one-on-one one time. :lol:
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

I think I'm growing to favor IDW from this breakdown. There is one, very minor mechanical consideration (Stan the man).
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

IAmBatman said:
I think I'm growing to favor IDW from this breakdown. There is one, very minor mechanical consideration (Stan the man).
Click to expand...


As it relates to Stan Lee, he really didn't have much to do with the Transformers comic book line as far as I know. Both G.I. Joe a Transformers were toy company creations first, which then approached the comic and cartoon companies about creating content to advertise the toys for them. That is also why the Transformer's movie killed off most of the known characters right away and introduced a bunch of new characters, they had a new toy line they wanted to sell to the kids.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Stan had like 0 involvement in Transformers as far as I know, he doesn't have an article on the TF wiki which is pretty telling (the wiki is crazy detailed), though I think he would have been involved with Marvel Productions (the tv/film studio branch of Marvel at the time that worked on the Transformers cartoon) at some level at the time they were working on the cartoon. Either way, Transformers is a Hasbro brand that happened to be advertised by Marvel at one point, not a 'real' Marvel comic. Though pretty much all the original mythos/names/etc. do come from (at the time) Marvel employees, mostly Bob Budiansky and later Simon Furman, and Marvel does actually own two semi-important Transformers characters (Death's Head and Circuit Breaker).
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Alright, 24 hours have passed so I updated the SP, cutting the Secret Identity and changing the name of the Martix power. I ended up going with Inspiring Leadership rather then Matrix Bearer. I'm going to run tests at 420 and see how if feels, then adjust up or down from there. With that, I propose we move Optimus Prime into Initial Testing.

YK - yea
T - yea
Scape - yea
quozl - yea
Bats - yea
Ronin - yea
 
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Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Breathing

Yodaking said:
IAmBatman said:
I think I'm growing to favor IDW from this breakdown. There is one, very minor mechanical consideration (Stan the man).
Click to expand...


As it relates to Stan Lee, he really didn't have much to do with the Transformers comic book line as far as I know. Both G.I. Joe a Transformers were toy company creations first, which then approached the comic and cartoon companies about creating content to advertise the toys for them. That is also why the Transformer's movie killed off most of the known characters right away and introduced a bunch of new characters, they had a new toy line they wanted to sell to the kids.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know he doesn't have an historical link to Transformers of any significance. I'm just pointing out that if you go Marvel here, he'll have a mechanical link to them.
 
Re: The Book of Optimus Prime - Vote Initial PT

Meant to bring this up earlier, but is it intentional that he can boost squads and event heroes? Might be pretty attractive to run him with squads right now.
 
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