Play reports are pretty sparse. Mon_Ami and I get together after I send him 5 or 6 feats to build around. We try them out and get a feel for how effective (or not) they are. Discuss afterwards why its awesome or why it sucks. Point value becomes more clear - (I start with a guide) after I comb the Unit sections for those pieces that really take advantage of it.

As far as teams that use the feats, you can always check my tourney report in my sig where I've been listing all the teams and what they used.

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There are a few reasons I added that "fluff":

A) I love the idea of specialists. Putting someone on your teams to do something specific. Now 99.9% of the time we already see Specialists that bring support powers to the fray for cheap. But what about some fighters? Take BN Hawkgirl - I love her anti-flier capability. If Hawkgirl is going to attack someone and you have a choice, you will send her after a flier. That feels very comic-accurate as teams break off to go after certain targets all the time.

B) Why heightened senses? Wolverine (think 80's), Lizard, etc frequently attack opposing characters who are inside, sneaking around themselves, etc. You really don't see 80's Wolvie and Lizard or even Sabretooth frequently attacking someone in the middle of the street, charging up the gut.

C) Not all figures have Shape-Change. Until the last 4 sets, it was an infrequent power, at best, saved for characters who actually change their shape. So rather than point a gun at 1 power, I wanted to broaden it.

D) So what else would be beneficial about having Heightened Senses? Harder to sneak up on. I didn't want a defensive ability with this - I wanted to promote fighting.

Viola! You get a +1 when attacking a target who is in Hindering Terrain. Now if you see a Batman skirting the edges or some cheap probber making trouble you can send your Wild Child to hunt them down.

Love it!

And there you have my thinking process. The cost is low because the pre-reqs are highly specialized. I've had complaints from Blackheart25 about how it should have been just BCF or Battle Fury. The problem is this:

84 characters (roughly) have the current pre-req Of them about 80% you can come up with a justification for Heightened Senses (Terrax the Tamer is tough).

213 characters (roughly) have Battle Fury. Of them, about 50% can justify "Heightened Senses".

441 characters (roughly) have just Blades. Less than 40% can justify "Heightened Senses".

Ever have a character with a 9 attack, 3 damage, Psychic Blast and Prob Control and said, well sure I can attack and hopefully hit - but instead I am going to Barrier!!!

Yes, it does happen. I won a Marquee doing that (I kept KC Superman from KOing my ENTIRE team and won on overall points as a result), but really, Barrier is a completely defensive move.

So you drop a barrier (burning one of your actions) and dealing no damage to the opposing team and what happens? Well if you DON'T put the Barrier between the barrier piece and the opposing character they will just shoot him, knock him off Barrier and then do what they wanted anyway. So is Barrier limited to bottlenecks and burning actions? I say thee nay! If its going to be used defensively, why not beef it up a bit:



It was originally costlier - but then I realized if wasn't going to get much play if it reduces the offensive feats most players will reach for. But the problem came up with those Barrier pieces that can attack or get to drop barriers for free. They can highly abuse this feat. So I added the tweak of needing to place at least 1 barrier piece adjacent so the barrier figure. It reduces its effectiveness but if you really want a barrier piece, a 5 point commitment isn't to bad to get a +2 defense and damage reduction. Not a world beater but adds a little flavor.

Doesn't the Power Cosmic always grant some level of cosmic awareness?

I love the Prereq's on that.

Fortify is great. Needing one piece of Barrier adjacent makes lots of sense for it too. I see it as them forming a shield around themself.

I know lots of people have already done this before, but I thought it was lame we got a 3-d special object with nothing special about it. So after reading what Mjolnir could do, it only seemed natural to give Stormbreaker something:



Very simple: I just used the original's wording and added something complementary to Mjolnir but not quite as powerful while adding some effects Stormbreaker has done.

I feel like it should be slightly more powerful. It shouldn't be as good as Mjolnir sure, but it should be almost as good.

emphasis mine.......

slapping this puppy on Bagman would be a sweet deal :D

I take no responsibility for WizKids' mistakes.

I got what you are saying. I didn't want to take away from the Mjolnir prize at all. And I wanted something that complimented Mjolnir where someone could theoretically pick up both.

I do think it is pretty powerful - ES/D can be a boon on the right figure and it goes well with gaining range. A Hulk that could "shoot" for 5 damage is pretty darn powerful and it sure beats getting Energy Explosion with a 0 range...

Oh, the way you won this at my venue was each time you rolled a crit miss you immediately rolled a 1d6. If you roll a 6 you won a Stormbreaker. Oddly, I think I gave out about 5 of them during the Marquee...

I think it is just hard to compare to Mjolnir's +2 attack and +2 damage, which can be huge. I picked it up with Zoom once and became a golden god for the rest of the game.

Then again, for a 0-cost object I would argue that Mjolnir is really the one at fault, not Stormbreaker. The roll to pick it up makes it tricky because there is a better than average chance you are just going to be wasting your actions, so players may not want to waste points on it as well. But on the other hand I tend to bring it along to every tournament I go to in case I go up against a team that I could use a little extra edge against, because why not? It's free.

But just for balance between the two hammers, Stormbreaker could have an 8 range, and/or grant Running Shot to the character and it would still only be about even with Mjolnir.

Definitely good points. In hindsight, you are probably correct.

My goal was and is that I have some cool additions to a cool game but nothing that a new player showing up would be at a disadvantage playing against. I've tried to avoid the Protecteds, Lunges, etc and I think I've been fairly successful.

Sometimes it works. Other times it seemed like a good idea at the time. This was one on those times.

I still think it's a good idea (the pointless silver hammers are rather lame) but just that it ought to be a touch more powerful. Mjolnir is a bit ridiculous though. Our venue's cheesiet player slaps it down every week (which suits me, as he wastes a lot of time trying to pick it up and rarely gets it).

When approaching feats one thing I may have mentioned before was getting as much bang for the buck on top of comic accuracy. How many times has this happened to you - you have a figure with Psychic Blast ready to cut open some beat stick's mind and that beat stick just bases you.

Suddenly your 2 Damage Value is completely useless and you are struggling to break away to reposition to push to assault said figures mind.

But wait, why would someone who attacks the mind need to be at a distance? Isn't the mind just as vulnerable to these Psychics as up close?

I thought so, so I give you Mental Assault:



The first gripe many have is the 1 damage. Why couldn't it be your unmodified base damage? 1st Answer: Exploit Weakness. Second Answer - because Bricks need to still have a reason to base said figure. By making someone able to deal 3 straight whether close or away is just too game-breaking potentially. But characters like Chamber, Cassie Nova, Jean Grey, etc SHOULD be able to hurt someone close to them.

So I made this cheap utility Feat to give a little nudge to those 2 and 1 damage Psi-Blasters. And even figures with 4+ damage and Psi-Blast may consider the guaranteed 1 over the chance an opponent might Imperv out of it.

These are pretty good. I'll have to see if my judge would allow them.

I like Mental Assault from a gameplay perspective. I have no doubt it would find it's way onto many teams, especially given it's low cost.

Thematically I wonder if perhaps the "Psychic" keyword might not also be an appropriate requirement? Then again, that might just be my theme-loving side showing through.

Also, regarding the Stormbreaker/Mjolnir discussion: I just realized how silly it is that in the comics, Stormbreaker is the golden hammer, and Mjolnir is the silver/gray one.