Savage/Beastmen/Were-creature Faction - Getting hurt has never felt so good!

[Zelc]

Changed the two Elder Loxodon Druids' unique spells:

Ritual of Fury: (Blessing) Range Battlefield.  Cast at the end of your Movement and Command Phase.  Deal 1 damage to this unit (this damage does not cause rout checks).  Choose a unit you control with the Savage Fury ability.  It gains double the attack bonus from its Savage Fury ability.  This does not stack with any other ability that doubles the Savage Fury bonus.  If the unit fails a rout check, it loses this bonus, and reduce the result of the rout check by 1 if the unit is in the yellow and by 2 if the unit is in the red.

Bloodsucking Vines: (Curse) Range Battlefield.  Cast at the end of your Movement and Command Phase.  Curse one enemy with Bloodsucking Vines.  When you use a Command Card or a unit you control casts a spell that damages one of your units, you may remove this curse to redirect one damage from your unit to the cursed enemy unit.

Ritual of Fury got a deserved nerf, and Bloodsucking Vines is more interesting and less broken than Spirit Fire.

Also removed 1 red box from Elder Wild Centaurs.

[BubblePig]

This faction seems analogous to the Andromedan in Star Fleet Battles. Not sure yet whether that is a good or a bad thing.

[Zelc]

I think I have to change the army ability back to this:

Blood Magic: During your Movement and Command phase, you may spend one Command Action to mark up to three Blood Magic boxes split between any of your units.

At the end of any Movement and Command phase before attacks are declared, you can erase a Blood Magic box on a unit to deal one damage per box erased to that unit.  This damage does not cause rout checks.

At the end of your Movement and Command phase before attacks are declared, you can erase three Blood Magic boxes on a unit to heal 1 damage on the unit (this is a Heal ability).

When you play a Command Card or cast a spell that directly damages one of your units, you may erase two Blood Magic boxes on the unit to prevent 1 damage.

(After you erase Blood Magic marks for this ability, you cannot spend any more Command Actions to mark Blood Magic boxes this turn.)

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The problem is the other army ability can potentially make your entire line pass their first rout check for 1 damage each, in which case this army is at a huge advantage.  If people think this isn't too good or can think of a different way to balance the ability, I'm willing to put the old version back.

[RushAss]

Dumb question - Do multiple minotaurs actually make up a unit, or is it 1 minotaur per unit (large, scary creature)?

[Zelc]

Right now it's a pack of angry frenzied minotaurs.  Nothing in this faction is large, unless I decide to change something.

[RushAss]

OK, cool.  I prefer that to the large anyways.  You *may* want to make them fearsome though.  Just for added flavor and all that good stuff.

[gull2112]

I was thinking about this faction today, which I really like, and I came up with this for faction specific Command Cards:

Bring it!
Play on a unit that is getting pinched.
If the unit is defending it gives no pinch bonuses this attack.
If the unit is attacking it gets (-)/+1/+1.


This is a red/blue card. I don't know if this is obvious, but it only applies to combat with one of the pinchers, not all of them, i.e. it is like any other red/blue card.

I originally wanted it to also have the option of allowing the unit to automatically pass the pinch Courage check instead of the combat bonuses, but the mechanic of playing a card in the opponents pre-combat morale phase seems a little wonky.

                                       and

They've surrounded us...The poor bastards!
If a unit is being pinched it may roll attacks vs. all engaged opponents (must still suffer all appropriate penalties for flank and rear attacks).
Unit receives (-)+1/+1 and +1/+1 defense.

This would be a green card that could only be played on a pinched unit in the player's turn, so it would have already suffered one turn of pinch combat.

I wanted to capture/simulate the danger of a "cornered beast."

[elgin_j]

They've surrounded us...The poor bastards!
If a unit is being pinched it may roll attacks vs. all engaged opponents (must still suffer all appropriate penalties for flank and rear attacks).
Unit receives (-)+1/+1 and +1/+1 defense.

This would be a green card that could only be played on a pinched unit in the player's turn, so it would have already suffered one turn of pinch combat.

I wanted to capture/simulate the danger of a "cornered beast."

Nice concept but the nature of a cornered beast is that it will strike in a frenzy with nothing to lose.  That doesn't lend itself to defensive bonuses.  This should be a red card that gives attacking bonuses only.  Perhaps (+2) +1/+1...  Thematically, you see the unit go all out to lay waste to its enemy certain of its impending destruction - self-detonation, if you will - but only applicable for units that are pinched.  It should also have some pissy secondary ability to allow you to use it outside of a pinch.

[gull2112]

They've surrounded us...The poor bastards!
If a unit is being pinched it may roll attacks vs. all engaged opponents (must still suffer all appropriate penalties for flank and rear attacks).
Unit receives (-)+1/+1 and +1/+1 defense.

This would be a green card that could only be played on a pinched unit in the player's turn, so it would have already suffered one turn of pinch combat.

I wanted to capture/simulate the danger of a "cornered beast."

Nice concept but the nature of a cornered beast is that it will strike in a frenzy with nothing to lose.  That doesn't lend itself to defensive bonuses.  This should be a red card that gives attacking bonuses only.  Perhaps (+2) +1/+1...  Thematically, you see the unit go all out to lay waste to its enemy certain of its impending destruction - self-detonation, if you will - but only applicable for units that are pinched.  It should also have some pissy secondary ability to allow you to use it outside of a pinch.

The actual intent is to cancel the Pinch bonus for the pinchers, or to lessen it in the case of multiple pinchers. I was just going to have it say "cancels all pinch bonuses" but, in the case of multiple pinching units, that would make the card too powerful, so I lessened it to only canceling the first pinch bonus, the simplest least wordy way to do that is to give the unit a +1/+1 defense. So to restate, I'm not giving them a better defense, I'm removing the penalty already given to defense for a pinch, which is why this card can only be used in a pinch. Let's add wording that would allow the card to be used outside a pinch, in which case it just gives (-)/+1/+1. That way a player doesn't have a dead card in his hand waiting for a pinch. It is a powerful card if used in the ideal situation, but since that doesn't happen as often (being pinched) it balances out.

[elgin_j]

They've surrounded us...The poor bastards!
If a unit is being pinched it may roll attacks vs. all engaged opponents (must still suffer all appropriate penalties for flank and rear attacks).
Unit receives (-)+1/+1 and +1/+1 defense.

This would be a green card that could only be played on a pinched unit in the player's turn, so it would have already suffered one turn of pinch combat.

I wanted to capture/simulate the danger of a "cornered beast."

Nice concept but the nature of a cornered beast is that it will strike in a frenzy with nothing to lose.  That doesn't lend itself to defensive bonuses.  This should be a red card that gives attacking bonuses only.  Perhaps (+2) +1/+1...  Thematically, you see the unit go all out to lay waste to its enemy certain of its impending destruction - self-detonation, if you will - but only applicable for units that are pinched.  It should also have some pissy secondary ability to allow you to use it outside of a pinch.

The actual intent is to cancel the Pinch bonus for the pinchers, or to lessen it in the case of multiple pinchers. I was just going to have it say "cancels all pinch bonuses" but, in the case of multiple pinching units, that would make the card too powerful, so I lessened it to only canceling the first pinch bonus, the simplest least wordy way to do that is to give the unit a +1/+1 defense. So to restate, I'm not giving them a better defense, I'm removing the penalty already given to defense for a pinch, which is why this card can only be used in a pinch. Let's add wording that would allow the card to be used outside a pinch, in which case it just gives (-)/+1/+1. That way a player doesn't have a dead card in his hand waiting for a pinch. It is a powerful card if used in the ideal situation, but since that doesn't happen as often (being pinched) it balances out.

That is a decent enough bonus as is.  Giving it offensive bonuses makes it the most powerful card in the game by a considerable margin.

[Zelc]

gull, I think it's an interesting concept and it has a lot of flavor.  Still, I really like the damage-for-benefit mechanic in the current cards.  I think the mechanic really ties the faction together.

The other thing I'm worried about is this card is very narrow.  It's only useful if your unit is pinched, and you don't want your units to get pinched even if you have this card.

[gull2112]

I guess my main thought was that with a wild berserking army it would be likely that the player might find a lot of pinches.
So maybe the second suggestion is a little too much, but the first card Bring it! just nullifies pinch bonuses if used as a blue card and gives a simple (-)+1/+1 if used as a red card.

 

[RushAss]

I'm not sure if something like this may fit into this particular faction, but how about a Rhino Herd unit?  I'm thinking it would act similarly to a Triceratops Herd.  Maybe less impact hits and give them a permanent close standing order and of course vary the stats a bit.

[gull2112]

I'm not sure if something like this may fit into this particular faction, but how about a Rhino Herd unit?  I'm thinking it would act similarly to a Triceratops Herd.  Maybe less impact hits and give them a permanent close standing order and of course vary the stats a bit.

I like this idea a lot, but I'd rather the units were Yaks. A big yak attack just sounds too cool!

[elgin_j]

[Ritual of Decrepitude
Play at the end of any Movement and Command Phase, before any attacks are declared.
Choose one:
Choose a Beastman unit you control and deal 1 damage to that unit.  This damage does not cause rout checks.  One enemy unit of your choice engaged with that unit suffers a (-2) -1/-1 penalty to all engaged attacks this turn.  You cannot play blue Command Cards while the enemy unit is attacking this turn.
OR:
One enemy unit of your choice engaged with a Beastman unit you control suffers a (-2) -0/-0 to all engaged attacks this turn.  You cannot play blue Command Cards while the enemy unit is attacking this turn.

Just reading through and noted something that I think makes this card unduly powerful.  Note the highlighted sentence.  Now, if I were a thorough bastard, and I pride myself on being exactly that, I would time the use of this card to drop into the yellow and avoid having to take a rout check. 

In effect, you are giving a unit an auto-pass on a courage check for the measly cost of one hit - too powerful.

Remove that part of the card and it looks good to me.