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The Workbook of Orc Deep Drummer - Playtesting(Fellowship A)

Chris Perkins

Maker of the Chrispy Army Builder heroscape.org
Site Supporter
NAME = Orc Deep Drummer

GENERAL = UTGAR
SPECIES = Orc
UNIQUENESS = Common Hero
CLASS = Drummer
PERSONALITY = Fearsome
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM/4

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 1
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 35

DRUMS IN THE DEEP
After revealing an Order Marker on Orc Deep Drummer and before moving, you may roll the 20-sided die.
* If you roll 1- 3, nothing happens.
* If you roll 3-10, you may move up to 4 unengaged Orc Squad figures you control 3 spaces each.
* If you roll 11-19, you may move up to 8 unengaged Orc Squad figures you control 3 spaces each.
* If you roll 20 or higher, move up to 12 unengaged Orc Squad figures you control 3 spaces each.

Doom, Boom
Anytime you roll the 20-sided die for an Orc Army Card, you may add 1 to your roll for each Orc Deep Drummer you control. Orc Deep Drummers are affected by Doom, Boom.

Character Bio
"We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and Second Hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there bravely while the rest retreated to the Chamber of…Mazarbul. We are still ho{ldin}g...but hope …Óin's party went five days ago but today only four returned. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin--we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep. They are coming."
—Ori's last entry in the Book of Mazarbul

-RULINGS and CLARIFICATIONS-

* ORC SUPREMACY: Each War Drummer that you have in your Army will increase the potency of this ability. Each War Drummer will add 1 to the d20 rolls of Orcs that use a d20 power to include other War Drummers.

-COMBINATIONS and SYNERGIES-

Synergy Benefits Received
(Insert links to figures that benefit the unit, and short explanation of synergy)

Synergy Benefits Offered
(Insert links to figures that this unit benefits, and a short explanation of synergy)

-TENTATIVE FIGURE-
D&D Orc Wardrummer #56 (or #32)
 
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Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Previous Version History:

6/24/2020
Spoiler Alert!


7/10/2020
Spoiler Alert!


9/17/2020
Spoiler Alert!
 
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Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

War Drum seems like a really low payoff. I don't see a reason to ever put an OM on this guy instead of the orcs themselves. I would beef up the number of spaces and have the d20 vary from no figures moved, to 4, to 8, to possibly 12.

@Chris Perkins @Shiftrex
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Initial Design:

WAR DRUM
After revealing an Order Marker on Deep Drummer you may roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 1- 3, nothing happens. If you roll 3-10, you may move up to 4 unengaged Orc squad figures 3 space each. If you roll 11-18, you may move up to 8 unegaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each. If you roll 19-20, you may move up to 12 unengaged Orc squad figures you control up to 3 spaces each.

ECHOING BEAT
Whenever an Orc that you control makes a 20-sided die roll they may add 1 to it.

How about this angle? Much more pay off, low chance of failure if you run multiple boosters. By the way, as written this guy boosts his own d20 roll.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I like him moving that many orcs - gives a reason to include him.

Not sure that I like him boosting his own D20 - classic scape generally avoided that. If we're in agreement with that I can update the OP to say 'Echoing Beat' does not affect a Deep Drummer.

Would we want one Deep Drummer to improve another's roll? Say you include 2 of them, could they then increase the d20 by 1? That seems reasonable to me
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I think them boosting eachother is totally fine and works with the idea of drums being "rchoed" by other drummers. Easily fixed by adding the word "other Orc" into the power.

I'm excited with this version of the power because you can see a literal swarm of Orcs charging in. Hits the Moria vibe well for me
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

We're on the same page here. Moving 12 figures is pretty unprecedented (Gilbert could do it with a 1-in-a-million roll) so lets set the target for that to 20.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Relevant here:
Before we go all gung-ho on boosting d20 powers of orc figures, we need to look at the Orc figures in Classic.

Off the top of my head there is Grimnak's CHOMP and Hrognak's TRAMPLE AND GORE. I think I want to avoid boosting those too much, to be honest. I could see an argument for changing the drummer to only affect common figures for this reason (the drummer should probably be a common hero).
I think the drummer should be common. No need to go Uncommon here.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Initial Design:

NAME = Deep Drummer

GENERAL = UTGAR
UNIQUENESS = Common Hero
CLASS = War Drummer
PERSONALITY = Wild
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM/5?

LIFE = 3
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 1
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 75?

WAR DRUM
After revealing an Order Marker on Deep Drummer you may roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 1- 3, nothing happens. If you roll 3-10, you may move up to 4 unengaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each. If you roll 11-19, you may move up to 8 unegaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each. If you roll 20, move up to 12 unengaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each.

ECHOING BEAT
Whenever an other Orc that you control makes a 20-sided die roll they may add 1 to it.

I think those adjustments would bring us to something like this. Is our point value on? What do we see with this draft?
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Common heroes need to have only 1 life.

If common, I think 40 points is a good place to start testing at.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I would think 25 points
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Maybe 40 is a bit high, but I think this kind of board control is worth more than a single swog rider (25) is to arrow gruts.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I think you're forgetting how unreliable this power is, and how few spaces 3 move is.

Let's start at 30 or 35.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I'm on board for 35, 3 spaces is honestly a crawl. This guy isnt sir gilbert.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I looked at Gilbert's card again. Bonding makes a big difference but on an 11 or higher this guy's ability is arguably better than Gilbert's. Let's start at 35.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

NAME = Deep Drummer

GENERAL = UTGAR
UNIQUENESS = Common Hero
CLASS = War Drummer
PERSONALITY = Wild
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM/5?

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 1
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 35

WAR DRUM
After revealing an Order Marker on Deep Drummer you may roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 1- 3, nothing happens. If you roll 3-10, you may move up to 4 unengaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each. If you roll 11-19, you may move up to 8 unegaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each. If you roll 20, move up to 12 unengaged Orc squad figures 3 spaces each.

ECHOING BEAT
Whenever an other Orc that you control makes a 20-sided die roll they may add 1 to it.



Havent seen comments on this in a few days. Let's get momentum back. I like this draft, anyone see problems with it currently.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I'm pretty happy with it; I just updated the OP to have this version of the text.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I suspect we'll want to move that 11-19 up to 12, 13, or higher... but maybe not.

I'm happy with this and we can probably start the editing checklist for it.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I really like this card, I am happy with the results.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

Spoiler Alert!


Spoiler Alert!


Updated for OP.


NAME = Deep Drummer

GENERAL = UTGAR
UNIQUENESS = Common Hero
CLASS = War Drummer
PERSONALITY = Wild
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM/5?

LIFE = 1
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 1
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 35

WAR DRUM
After revealing an Order Marker on Deep Drummer you may roll the 20-sided die.

* If you roll 1- 3, nothing happens.
* If you roll 3-10, you may move up to 4 unengaged Orc Squad figures 3 spaces each.
* If you roll 11-19, you may move up to 8 unegaged Orc Squad figures 3 spaces each.
* If you roll 20, move up to 12 unengaged Orc Squad figures 3 spaces each.

ECHOING BEAT
Whenever another Orc that you control makes a 20-sided die roll they may add 1 to it.


Character Bio: (taken from Tolkien Gateway, I think we should do something like this for Bios instead of writing original stuff)

"We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and Second Hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there bravely while the rest retreated to the Chamber of…Mazarbul. We are still ho{ldin}g...but hope …Óin's party went five days ago but today only four returned. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin--we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep. They are coming."

—Ori's last entry in the Book of Mazarbul



-RULINGS and CLARIFICATIONS-

* Echoing Beats: Each War Drummer that you have in your Army will increase the potency of this ability. Each War Drummer will add 1 to the d20 rolls of Orcs that use a d20 power to include other War Drummers.

-COMBINATIONS and SYNERGIES-

Synergy Benefits Received
(Insert links to figures that benefit the unit, and short explanation of synergy)

Synergy Benefits Offered
(Insert links to figures that this unit benefits, and a short explanation of synergy)
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I like that HoME Internal Checklist. Was that something we had from before or did you come up with it?
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

So we need to consider:
should "Moria" be in the character name?
should "Orc" be in the character name?
Deep Drummer vs. War Drummer?

I prefer Deep Drummer and I'm a yes on Moria but I'm apathetic about Orc. Consistency would probably dictate we include Orc.

Regarding general, I would say Utgar, no question in my mind about that.

Regarding Cave Dweller, I'm happy to leave it off here.

I think we should put a "before moving" clause on the movement power: "After revealing an order marker, before moving" just so it is crystal clear when it occurs.

Regarding miniature I think our "default"/"official" miniature should be the D&D Orc Wardrummer #56 (or #32, I can't tell for sure). Although it is absurdly priced so this will be one we'll want to be sure we have plenty of proxies for, either unpainted or even 3d-printed.

138395.jpg


@Chris Perkins I looked over the editing checklist, and with the caveats above it looks good to me. Would you give it a look?


Thanks again for doing this @Shiftrex
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I think that Orc should be considered in the name of this card to stay consistent with the rest of the cards that we make.
 
Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I also prefer "Deep Drummer" - it both fits the narrative better (drums in the deep) and gives us more flexibility later if, say, we wanted a troll drummer like what appears in the siege of Minas Tirith in the RotK movie.

Definitely Utgar - all metrics we have considered so far agree on that.

I agree with @capocrates on the change to "before moving".

I have no problem with that miniature - in general, I'm not the most knowledgeable about miniatures (I've never collected the physical C3V figs) so I'll probably end up deferring a lot in that regard.

I'm torn on inclusion of cave dweller; it certainly fits thematically, but if we include it here we must include it for all moria orcs & trolls we create as the only real reason to include it here is for consistency among those cards. Also, being aware of the fact that many people did not want overly complex cards, having 3 powers per card may be excessive, and I don't think the movement boost does this figure a lot of good anyways.

So I lean towards not including cave dweller, just to reduce the average number of powers on the secondary moria orc cards, but I wouldn't hate it if it ended up on the card (extra powers doesn't bother me much, but a good portion of our intended audience has asked to avoid it).

Regarding "Moria" being in the character name, I think we should only include regional information when necessary to identify the character; i.e. an orc could be from the Misty Mountains or Mordor, but a "Deep Drummer" can only be from Moria, so I think inclusion in the name is unnecessary and redundant.
 
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Re: The Workbook of Moria War Drummer - Design (Fellowship A

I vote not to include cave dweller as well, was just part of the checklist and review process.

That miniature looks dope, I like it a lot. Though I don't know how much my judgement of figures should be relied on, i'm just using a gamesworkshop unpainted miniature for this.

Moria is indeed redundant, I'm on board with that reasoning. Consistency dictates we include Orc, I think we should.

[mention]Chris Perkins[\mention] Can you make the proposed edits to the ability/name of the army card/thread? If we are all on board with that miniature then we could also have someone do a mock up of the card since we appear to be entering into a "finalization" or a "test this thing" soon kind of state.

And yes, I created an internal checklist. Looks like I'll probably have the motivation to learn to be our checklist guy so I added some more qualifiers to it.
 
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