Thanks for the Feedback. interesting analysis.

So, to make up for it... did you try testing the scenario out for me ?

I'd love to get some realtime feedback and suggestions for any improvements from people who are against the whole thing, just as much as people who fall in love with it.

I can understand thinking that it 'throws things out of pace' because it's a change meant to alter the gameplay from Mageknight era strategy wargame, to a more Comic Book feeling frenetic brawl. Did you have any specific problems when playing with this mechanic that could be refined ?

What combination of powers or traits made these efficient figures so deadly ? With both teams sporting free move team abilities, I'd love to narrow down any specific problems to their source mechanics.

Have you tried playing a side-by side game using the regular rules with the same teams, and testing the tactics in both scenarios? If a tentpole picks off a few points and runs away in the standard rules, is it as bad as my scenario ? Easier to catch ? a slower chase ?


I was hoping to change the pace of the game AWAY from the strategy feel that the regular rules have. They originated in MageKnight, and I don't think they were particularly well suited to capture the feel of a Comic Book battle. Making positioning less important, closing the gap on ranged, and catching HSS figures were all benefits in my eyes. I want the Hack&Slash feel, as you put it.

I understand what you mean about retreating after an early KO being basically penalty free, but how does it compare to doing the same strategy within the normal rules ? I've had some nightmarish tournament experiences under the normal rules where a tentpole team did the same style of cowardly play.

Pushing figures to their better clicks is more difficult. Do you think using this as an optional rule, so you can opt to take a token if you like would improve the play for those pieces? When I ran the scenario, I just put characters who needed to push up into the fray, and attacked attacked attacked until they pushed to the better clicks. Then I attacked some more.

THIS HAS BEEN GREAT FEEDBACK

Please keep testing this out and if you have any suggestions for IMPROVING any problems you encounter then let them fly. The flames have died down a little, and real constructive progress has been made testing this thing out. Testing, tweaking, retesting, and more testing is the way to get this to a real level of playability. Lots of good opinions here, but more constructive ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I get to play if I am lucky once a week. Even then I have to say that I am overall very satisfied and content with the way the game plays as it is. The only way I could see myself and my small group even trying something this radical would be if we played every day and we were so bored that we would want to try something different. Heck, I am still trying to find others who want to try Heroclix Alpha and play it maybe once a month, and I am still waiting to find someone with the time to try a Mega Mega Crossover.

Just saying not likely to happen. I think I got lucky with my group and we all enjoy the game for what it is. Even if Batman can't draw LOF to himself sometimes.

I will make a suggestion to your rule. If you do move and you don't assign tokens I hope you are at least playing it where you do not clear tokens if you do move. Just saying if you took a shoot with say Doom, he should not get to move and clear next turn.

That is a FANTASTIC suggestion thank you very much !

Honestly, this sort of thing hadn't occurred to me. I played this through a couple of times, and HSS was quite a bit beefier, with them using a move action to clear the HSS token. This is a simple and effective way to fix that problem that I wouldn't have seen on my own... which is why I created the original thread in the first place.

I'm trying to think of a way to limit the abuse by free move teams (JLA, Avengers, Brotherhood) and I think changing those team abilities slightly might be needed too. A swarm of those guys can really gain the upper hand quickly as far as placement goes.

You could always half the movement if the action is granted by the TA.

I was thinking along the lines of Action Pool manipulation. Actions draw from the action pool like normal, until the pool is empty. Then any clear characters who haven't moved can do it for free. Not much of a restriction, but it might be enough....

You could also limit the use of the TA by not allowing to use it if you have a token already. Or the use of the TA would cause a token to be issued. So a 500 points JLA team would get 5 actions, then any with a JLA TA could also move, but these would get a token. I think the action pool manipulation makes it sound complicated.

I like your token idea, I think it's the most elegantly simple solution.

So, additions to test now:
1) moving doesn't let you clear existing tokens
2) and free move team abilities give you a token for moving

Time to test it out again

... for SCIENCE!