Heroes within Kingdoms

[gull2112]

Building on the Legendary Units post, I thought "Why not use the same technique to add a hero to a game that had players crying for heroes. The advantage is that it would allow for a hero, but within the current rules framework.

If a hero is present in a battle, then the player recieves one less comand action. This is to address the imbalance created by the presence of the hero. A hero does not exist independent of the unit she/he is fighting with. In the movement/Command face a hero may forfeit his ability for that turn and move to any other unit in that player's faction.

A hero has the ability of any one card from the faction's deck. Assign the card to the hero and remove a copy of that card from the deck for reference and to remove it as a possible draw from the command deck. Once per turn, when appropriate, the hero may "play" the card. Unlike a Legendary Unit, a hero's card may effect multiple units if that is what the card effect states.

Any time a unit that the hero is with fails a courage check or is eliminated, the opponent rolls a die, on a one the hero is removed from the game. After the battle, the hero's player rolls a die, on a six the hero is dead, otherwise he may return on any following battle.

A hero improvement is built at a cost of 2 points. Only one hero per faction may be in play at any one time.

A player with the Tavern improvement may elect to select a "Mercenary Hero" rather then follow the regular tavern rules that turn. A mercenary hero selects its card from the mercenary deck. The advantage is that the player's regular deck is not then depleted.

As an alternative, the Mercenary Hero may select a faction specific card (21-30) from any faction. This would give a player an opportunity to try some different abilities out with your faction. If you choose a card from your opponents faction it in no way limits his deck. You need to supply your own card

A chit of some sort needs to be created to represent the hero. A player can give the hero a name and backstory to add color.

A Hero can associate with a  Legendary Unit and in this case the benefits do stack (add together).

[ajax98]

Interesting. 2 pts for a (mostly) permanent card? I can visualize that getting exploited. (And from an Orc player no less.)

[gull2112]

Interesting. 2 pts for a (mostly) permanent card?

And the loss of a command action. One less command action is pretty huge. There is no different cost for the unit itself per se, that is why it is limited to kingdoms. There is no reason these rules couldn't be used in a one off battle, but that would require a points cost and that would be for the YMG gnomes to figure out.

Also, it is difficult to balance battlefield effects with campaign build points. Obviously, I'm just throwing numbers out, it will require some play testing. I'm actually assuming that there are certain command cards that this concept will work with and some that it won't. Ultimately, it may come down to certain heroes and certain Legendary Units being created for a certain point cost, after much play-testing. My intention was for these special units to have a noticable effect without being unbalancing. By limiting them to powers and abilities already present in the game I was hoping to mitigate any unbalancing characteristics.

[ajax98]

Yes, you would need to limit the variables to get a reasonable amount of data to gather for a sense of "play balance".

Yes, the loss of a CA would be significant, but to me the upside to having/knowing that you had spent that CA for something pretty much assured, in my mind, more than makes it worth the price.

[cybertuna]

Yes, the loss of a CA would be significant, but to me the upside to having/knowing that you had spent that CA for something pretty much assured, in my mind, more than makes it worth the price.

However, if that hero unit dies, you have effectively lost a CA for the rest of the battle. It's a big risk for a nominal temporary reward, IMHO, particularly if your hero unit is a front-line infantry or cav unit.

If we are thinking along these lines, I would say just pay a flat rate (100 points or so) to permanently attach a solid blue or red card to a unit, giving that single unit the permanent benefit of that card, at the expense of never being able to play that type of card on the unit. You are paying 4 times the price of drawing the card to have it permanently there.

[gull2112]

That is a reasonable option cybertuna. It is also kind of a way to say that because these guys act like they always have X played on them, you can't play anything else. Alternately, you could say that it is an intrinsic characteristic of the unit so playing THAT card again has no effect, but other command cards could still be played on them. Alternatively(er) you could say that no command card of that color could be played on them, and if you had a red/blue card played on them then you couldn't play another card.

The final option wouild be my choice. Although its its a little more complex than I would ordinarily be comfortable with, it makes sense in that it allows only one command card to be in effect at any one time. Also, as this would be an optional rule, newbies have no reason to concern themselves with it and more experienced players should immediately grasp the intent.

[cybertuna]

Alternatively(er) you could say that no command card of that color could be played on them, and if you had a red/blue card played on them then you couldn't play another card.

That was what I meant before, but you said it better.  The only exception to this would be the dual-color cards, which would allow the card to be used as either color, but only for the benefit of that unit. Green cards in general could not be played on a hero, but the dual-color green/red or green/blue cards that the Dwarves have could be an exception there, since those seem to only affect the unit it is being played on. Regardless of the type of card played, the card's affect can only be used once per player turn, so if you have a red/blue card, you could only use it while attacking or while defending, but not for both in the same turn.

I actually like this idea a LOT. It would fill my desire to have heroes in the game, and be a simple enough solution to have as an optional rule.

Would 100 points be a good cost for a hero, though? Too high? Too low? From what I have heard somewhere before on these forums, command cards are designed so that their average net yield is one damage, meaning that on average rolls, a red card causes one extra damage or a blue card prevents one damage. If that is, indeed, the case, I think that this would be a good balancing point for the hero cost.

[gull2112]

The balance we need to look for is somewhere between so cheap that you gotta buy them and so expensive that you never buy them. IMHO One hundred points is a good starting point.

[gull2112]

The only exception to this would be the dual-color cards, which would allow the card to be used as either color, but only for the benefit of that unit.

I think cards that effect multiple units should be reserved solely for heroes. If it was too powerful for them to use every turn you could pull all copies out of your deck and place them aside, to be used whenever the hero chose, and then discarded. This seems more balanced, but feels less heroic and more "good generalic."

I would rather see a hero that automatically does one or more hits (like impact hits). The more I think about it, the more I like it. Not necessarily that every hero does that, but certainly that some do. Maybe some heroes do 3 impact hits and nothing else, some heroes do 2 impact hits plus a minor ability (like +1 courage), and some do 1 impact hit plus one major(attached unit is immune to courage/rout) or two minor abilities (+1 strength and +1 courage). For this 100 points seems like a good starting point.

I would also give Heroes and legendary units elite status so you could only field one per 1000 points. So for a 2000 point army for instance, you could have one hero and one legendary unit. I would also say that there is no need to track the history of a hero or LU. A kingdom advance would let you include them in your army and that would be that. Now, if you WANT to add the fluff for background and heroic escapes to your campaign, go for it!

[gull2112]

Wait, hold everything! Bill, call Starkist!

A hero adds one, two, or three, impact hits. Cost is 100 points per impact hit.

Nuff said. Simple. Compact.

See companion Legendary Unit rules.