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The Book of Viper

Yodaking

Yodaking

C3G Landlord
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The Book of Viper

C3G MARVEL SUPER SECRET EXCLUSIVE 65
FOR GOLD OR COUNTRY



C3G_Viper-OpheliaSarkissian_comic.png

Comic PDF

C3G_Viper-OpheliaSarkissian_mini.png

Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Captain America set.
Its model number and name are #026/Viper.​
_________________________________________________________________

Character Bio - After she severed ties with Hydra, Madame Hydra helped Jordan Stryke escape custody in Virginia, only to proceed in assassinating him and usurping his codename Viper along with his leadership of the group known as the Serpent Squad. Viper went on to become the founder and leader of an elite criminal underworld organization through sheer ruthlessness, treachery, and the cunning of her black heart. Now a professional terrorist with her own organization, she then employed a number of different super villains as her chief operatives, including Silver Samurai, Boomerang, and Constrictor. In one of her many terrorist acts, she would try to gain control of the snake-themed organization called the Serpent Society, with Slither, Copperhead, Puff Adder, Fer-De-Lance, and Black Racer as her operatives. The latter four operatives infiltrated the Serpent Society in an attempt to take it over. Later she blackmailed Wolverine into marrying her as a means to secure her criminal empire in Madripoor. For a time, Viper was the dictator of the nation of Madripoor, using the nation's resources to support global terrorism via Hydra until eventually being overthrown by new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Tony Stark and Tyger Tiger. (Wikipedia)
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-Rulings and Clarifications-
  • N/A
_________________________________________________________________

-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:
Outgoing Synergy:
  • Villainous Tactics allows you to add 1 to your initiative roll for each Terrorist and Criminal Unique Hero you control, up to a maximum of +5.
  • Underworld Contract allows you to have Viper bond with one Mercenary or Assassin Unique Hero you control.
Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses
_________________________________________________________________

-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-
  • N/A
-Heroscapers Community Contributions-
 
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Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

NAME = VIPER
SECRET IDENTITY = OPHELIA SARKISSIAN

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = TERRORIST
PERSONALITY = RUTHLESS

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 7
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 5

POINTS = 180

UNDERWORLD CONTRACT
At the start of the game, you may choose a Unique Assassin Hero or a Unique Mercenary Hero you control. After revealing an Order Marker on the chosen Hero's card and taking a turn with that Hero, you may take an immediate turn with Viper, and you may not take any additional turns with other figures you control.

SUBVERSIVE TACTICAL DEFENSE
When rolling for initiative, if there is at least one Order Marker on this card, you may add 1 to your roll for each Unique Criminal Hero and Unique Terrorist Hero you control, up to a maximum of +5. If you win initiative, until the end of the round, Viper and any Unique Heroes you control within 6 clear sight spaces of Viper add 1 to their Defense number.

POISONED STRIKE
After attacking a Unique Hero within 3 clear sight spaces of Viper with her normal attack, if at least one skull was rolled, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card to inflict one unblockable wound on the defending figure. Androids, Constructs, and Undead are not affected by Poisoned Strike.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Been a while since we last discussed this design so I just posted where we left it off. I already see a few things I want to change though. Thinking the initiative bonus from Tactical Mind needs a cap, +6? Also want to update Poisoned Blade to better fit with what we did for Cheshire's poison tipped claws, so have the X reveal an option after rolling a skull.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yodaking said:
Been a while since we last discussed this design so I just posted where we left it off. I already see a few things I want to change though. Thinking the initiative bonus from Tactical Mind needs a cap, +6? Also want to update Poisoned Blade to better fit with what we did for Cheshire's poison tipped claws, so have the X reveal an option after rolling a skull.
Click to expand...

I was going to remind you of Cheshire when I first read through. Good idea.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

As for the mini, I personally like this one quite a bit.

315461.jpg

Captain America Set #026/Viper

Unless someone has an objection it is the one I'll list in the FP. I can also get us pics once Spring gets here is no one else can do it earlier.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Some art options.

viper02.jpg


ebfd1b668e4559081bea7f0ef676d7a0.jpg


VenomousMadameHydra5.jpg


The last two look a little too similar to what we used for the Madame Hydra card though so I'd go with the first one if it is usable.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Very interesting... she's going to have a tough synergy web with four different named classes in her powers. I'd prefer a more specific name for the first one though, in case we every want to reuse it with a different class. I'm also a bit iffy on the third power's theme... to me it reads "poisonous sword" which isn't really her style. Needs a theme tweak is all, though I can't think of any in particular.

I was going to say it feels weird that she costs more as Viper than as Madame HYDRA, but evidently, she was Madame HYDRA first, changed to Viper, and then got possessed by Hive and became the new Madame HYDRA again. So she should be pricier as Viper! The more you know...
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yeah I've been brushing up on her history and skills now that I've started this thread and she uses poisons in many different ways and not just on blades so I too was thinking of a name update.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

This is the territory I'm trying to cover with her second card.

Bio- After she severed ties with Hydra, Madame Hydra helped Jordan Stryke escape custody in Virginia, only to proceed in assassinating him and usurping his codename Viper along with his leadership of the group known as the Serpent Squad. Viper went on to become the founder and leader of an elite criminal underworld organization through sheer ruthlessness, treachery, and the cunning of her black heart. Now a professional terrorist with her own organization, she then employed a number of different super villains as her chief operatives, including Silver Samurai, Boomerang, and Constrictor. In one of her many terrorist acts, she would try to gain control of the snake-themed organization called the Serpent Society, with Slither, Copperhead, Puff Adder, Fer-De-Lance, and Black Racer as her operatives. The latter four operatives infiltrated the Serpent Society in an attempt to take it over. Later she blackmailed Wolverine into marrying her as a means to secure her criminal empire in Madripoor. For a time, Viper was the dictator of the nation of Madripoor, using the nation's resources to support global terrorism via Hydra until eventually being overthrown by new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Tony Stark and Tyger Tiger.

And then here is her list of powers and abilities:

Viper has no superhuman abilities but her strength, speed, reflexes, agility, dexterity, coordination, balance and endurance are on the order of an Olympic athlete. She is a great swordswoman and even greater markswoman with most long range weapons, and has extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. Viper occasionally employs poisoned weapons with snake-motifs, such as venomous darts or artificial fangs filled with poison. A brilliant strategist and tactician with extensive combat tactical experience, Viper is highly skilled in the management of criminal organizations and very well connected in the international criminal underworld. She is also a master of stealth and espionage. Perhaps her greatest strengths are her influence, the financial resources at her disposal due to her stature in organized crime, and an uncanny luck which has allowed her to cheat death in situations where lesser people would have died. Viper may or may not have supernaturally augmented longevity.


Viper is usually armed with various ray pistols and conventional handguns. She formerly possessed a teleportation ring. She has also used various other special weaponry, including poison-tipped throwing darts, knives, and whips. She has sharpened and elongated canine teeth with hollows inside them. She keeps a special poison in them, to which she has an immunity.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Leadership of some sort to tie in a possible future Serpent Squad or Serpent Society Mercenaries, Terrorist, Criminals and Assassins does seem like a lot but they all seem like they'd fit. Probably need to make a list of all her thematic ties current and future designs and see where they stack up in the Class debate. Maybe we can adjust. Perhaps just use the Contract power to change the Class of a single figure to one of the others.

Some type of Poison power.

All her physical abilities can be taken care of with stats so we can probably use two powers for her Leadership and Tactical abilities...one recruitment power and one tactical-leader power.

Though the Teleportation Ring from Silver Samurai would be iconic as well unless that was more her thing as Madame Hydra...I can't recall.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

I like the overall direction, very cool. I agree that she has a lot going on synergy-wise; seems like it could almost be too difficult to build armies around...

Seems like she should have 7 range to match her Madame HYDRA card. 6 life also seems really off; we almost never give normal humans more than 4 life.

Worth noting that I hope to run with a HYDRA Infiltrator design in the not too distant future, which its main appeal would be an initiative boost for Strucker and Kraken; not sure if the crossover with Tactical Mind would be in issue or not...
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

As to army building, the idea is not to try and have her in an army with all 4 classes at once but rather have her able to easily fit into several different types of armies. The Mercenary power has you choose one assassin or merc, not both so you only add one of either class to be her chief operative or bodyguard. Then the Tactical Mind power allows her to be the head of a terrorist or criminal empire. So when it comes to army building, the best approach would be to draft her with other terrorists or other criminals but not try to mix them, then add in one 'free agent' merc or assassin to help shore that army up a bit. Her defense boost is clearly good for squads should you want to go that route, but she gains the initiative boost from having 'lieutenants' (ie. heroes) around to carry out her plans. As mentioned above I do think the initiative boost should have a cap so it doesn't feel like you are hurting yourselves by drafting squads.

I feel most if not all the serpent society/squad would fit into one of the four classes: Terrorist, Criminal, Assassin, Mercenary. Does someone see it differently?

It has been a while but I believe the high life was to help her survive as a 'leader' type figure. I didn't want to give her CCE or something similar (even though she seems to qualify for it) to make her harder to kill as I was more interested in exploring other power ideas. So I leaned on this tidbit for justification: an uncanny luck which has allowed her to cheat death in situations where lesser people would have died. Viper may or may not have supernaturally augmented longevity. Essentially the higher life than a normal human was to show her ability to cheat death, where as another human would go down after 4 or 5 wounds she manages to stick around just a bit longer. If the life number goes down, then I'd want to move the defense number up.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yodaking said:
an uncanny luck which has allowed her to cheat death in situations where lesser people would have died. Viper may or may not have supernaturally augmented longevity.
Click to expand...

Unless anyone can testify to this being a consistent thing in the comics, I wouldn't give it any weight. Most characters have cheated death at least a handful of times, often to ambiguous implications about it possibly being an ability of theirs or something magical, but is then never used again.

I'd suggest dropping her life to 4 and bumping her defense to 5. You could also allow the boost from Tactical Mind to affect her, giving her 6 defense when you win initiative.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yeah, Life to 4 and Defense up seems like a good idea. Also agreed that Tactical Mind needs a cap. I wouldn't mind keeping it low either, or adding an OM requirement. I don't want to see too many unrestricted Init boosts hanging around. It's not always too strong, but Joker, Mad Thinker, and a couple other make it an usable boost.

Army building could be a challenge with so many different boosts that don't cross over well. Kind of a fun challenge I think. I do worry that she'll either come off as too hard to make work well, or that one or two builds will stand out as much better than the rest and she'll need costed around those. As long as you're okay with that though, I can get on board.

Interestingly, there are a few squads that would love the defense boost, but that makes it harder to get the Init boost and really make the power shine. I'm looking forward to trying her in a Star-Lord build, with a non-Human Assassin or Mercenary.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Gamora & Deadpool come to mind, which could certainly be a fun/powerful combo.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Was thinking about how Deadpool (Merc) & Marrow (Terrorist) would combo well with her since they both have the X Healing Factor power but then I realized that would mean she would lose out on her X OM required poison auto wound. Seems like a good trade off, use the X to heal or use the X to deal 1W but you can't do both.

Anyway after hearing all the feedback thus far, this is what I'm currently thinking.

NAME = VIPER
SECRET IDENTITY = OPHELIA SARKISSIAN

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = TERRORIST
PERSONALITY = RUTHLESS

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 7
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 5

POINTS = 170?

TACTICAL MIND
When rolling for initiative, add 1 to your roll for each Unique Hero you control up to a maximum of +5. If you win initiative, Viper and all Terrorist and Criminal figures you control within 3 clear sight spaces of Viper add 1 to their defense dice for the remainder of the round.

UNDERWORLD CONTRACT
At the start of the game, you many choose any one Mercenary or Assassin unique hero you control. After revealing an Order Marker on this card and taking a turn with Viper, you may immediately take a turn with the chosen figure. If you do, do not take any other turns with figures you control.

POISONED STRIKE
After Viper attacks an adjacent figure with her normal attack, if she rolled one or more skulls on that attack, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card and deal one wound to that figure. Androids, Constructs, Undead, and Destructible Objects are not affected by Poisoned Strike.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

I'd like to see Tactical Mind require an OM on her card, to limit abuse with Joker and Mad Thinker.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Can do.

TACTICAL MIND
When rolling for initiative, if there is at least 1 Order Marker on this card, add 1 to your roll for each Unique Hero you control up to a maximum of +5. If you win initiative, Viper and all Terrorist and Criminal figures you control within 3 clear sight spaces of Viper add 1 to their defense dice for the remainder of the round.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

The one Mercenary or Assassin is starting to bother me in the Serpent groups builds. A few of them (more than one of the current drafted ones anyway) will be a Mercenary or Assassin which would mean no Serpent Society/Squad with more than one of them. Also the two figures you mentioned above aren't even thematic. I can't think of a way to adjust anything and keep her thematic ties viable. As is I see her being priced out much higher with non thematic armies.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

POISONED STRIKE
After Viper attacks an adjacent Unique Hero with her normal attack, if she rolled one or more skulls on that attack, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card and deal one wound to that figure. Androids, Constructs, and Undead are not affected by Poisoned Strike.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

japes said:
The one Mercenary or Assassin is starting to bother me in the Serpent groups builds. A few of them (more than one of the current drafted ones anyway) will be a Mercenary or Assassin which would mean no Serpent Society/Squad with more than one of them. Also the two figures you mentioned above aren't even thematic. I can't think of a way to adjust anything and keep her thematic ties viable. As is I see her being priced out much higher with non thematic armies.
Click to expand...

Silver Samurai is one of her key enforcers on multiple comic runs so mercenary bonding is going to be part of the design even if Deadpool is a mercenary. You can't force people to play only thematic builds. If you want to expand on her Serpent Squad/Society leadership roles we can include Mercenaries (assuming most of them would be mercenaries) in the first power, giving Silver Samurai and his counter strike power and extra defense die would certainly make him a more attractive partner. But then you also give Wade Wilson an extra defense die too and his Wisecracks will be used to direct attacks his way. As it stands now simply drafting her with 3-4 other members of the Serpent Society will get you a +4-5 initiative boost (since it counts all unique heroes you control) while giving her bonding with one of them (assuming at least one is a merc or assassin).
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yodaking said:
japes said:
The one Mercenary or Assassin is starting to bother me in the Serpent groups builds. A few of them (more than one of the current drafted ones anyway) will be a Mercenary or Assassin which would mean no Serpent Society/Squad with more than one of them. Also the two figures you mentioned above aren't even thematic. I can't think of a way to adjust anything and keep her thematic ties viable. As is I see her being priced out much higher with non thematic armies.
Click to expand...

Silver Samurai is one of her key enforcers on multiple comic runs so mercenary bonding is going to be part of the design even if Deadpool is a mercenary. You can't force people to play only thematic builds. If you want to expand on her Serpent Squad/Society leadership roles we can include Mercenaries (assuming most of them would be mercenaries) in the first power, giving Silver Samurai and his counter strike power and extra defense die would certainly make him a more attractive partner. But then you also give Wade Wilson an extra defense die too and his Wisecracks will be used to direct attacks his way. As it stands now simply drafting her with 3-4 other members of the Serpent Society will get you a +4-5 initiative boost (since it counts all unique heroes you control) while giving her bonding with one of them (assuming at least one is a merc or assassin).
Click to expand...

Not trying to force people to play thematic builds but in this age of Heroscape it is a major issue with me when a figure's cost is over dependent on non thematic competitive builds to the point when it's the opposite effect...you can afford to play her in a thematic build because she is over costed in them.

I'd almost say drop the terrorist and put Mercenary there. Terrorist is more the Hydra/AIM side which this version is supposed to represent her post HYDRA. Silver Samurai getting the boost does make him more attractive and the X marker ordeal you mentioned earlier does balance the scales more to Silver Samurai from the others you mentioned.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Yes, she left Hydra and became Viper but she then founded her own terrorist organization, committed numerous terrorist acts, and later continued to help and aide Hydra from her new position of power as Leader of Madripoor. Seems to me she should still have terrorist ties/synergy, it's not like their is a whole lot of it in C3G already.

I'm not overly concerned about theoretic costing issues right now. If actual testing shows her to be worth 30-40 points more in a Star Lord build than all other builds we can try to do something about it. Until then, I see lots of different interesting army builds I'd want to try out with her. I will conceded that Gamora is a concern of mine as she is far and away the most dangerous assassin, so perhaps limit the bonding to human or mutant mercs & assassins in an effort to cut that one tie. I'll take a look and see what kind of list that would leave her with.
 
Re: Book of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian)

Human & Mutant Assassins: Boomerang, Bullseye, Elektra, Lady Shiva, Merlyn, Talia al Ghul, Tamoe Gozan, Ubu, Winter Soldier, X-23

Non H & M Assassins: Gamora, Lady Deathstrike (Cyborg),

Human & Mutant Mercs: Batroc, Deadpool, Diamondback, Omega Red, Silver Samurai, Titanium Man

Non H & M Mercs: Deathstroke (Metahuman)

Any Serpent Squad/Society members not either a human or mutant? Mutate maybe?
 
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