Man, Time Bombs suck. We make up a lot of crazy games at our store, so I know what a broken game mechanism feels like, and Time Bomb has it in spades. I put a lot of energy into defusing them, and it was just impossible, and cost me a lot of actions; I guess you're supposed to let them explode. Because the 14 attack total you need to defuse it is just impossible to achieve. I defused two all night, and I don't think that anyone else defused any... Anyway, Time Bombs were an intriguing take on the Event Dial concept, but now that I've played with them, they're dead to me.
I fielded an anti-time-bomb team. Defusing is optimized to work around an attack value of 7, so I fielded 5 pogs as engineers to take them out. Jarvis, Jarvis, Duane Freeman, Turk Barrett, and Prof. Broom came to 23 points. To cart them around, I used Green Lantern, and finished off my Justice League of America theme team with Carter Hall and Green Arrow (now Starro-free thanks to a Speedy head).
Jeff fielded a team made up of Star Sapphire, Phantom Girl, Jonah Hex, and Alan Scott Green Lantern. Hmm, I'm not sure that this made up the requirements of Floor, we'll have to watch that in the future. This was a really strong team when it could ignore the time bomb mechanism. GL had Stunning Blow, which was brutal, throwing around four damage like it was nothing.
Ferru fielded the Royal Flush Gang, with their friend the Red Hood. We saw a great showing from these kind of middle-of-the-road characters this week, just like last week with Jeff's Metal Men. I think this speaks to good game design: nobody wants a D-lister like Lead to be the most efficient powerhouse in the game, but these pieces offer weird combinations that are seldom available elsewhere, like Ace's giant-plasticity-for cheap combo that makes them strong in unexpected ways.
Bill built his team around Uncle Sam, with Liberty Belle and Wildcat filling out the 300 points. I think a blasting tentpole, Darkseid or the like, could have gotten through his suite of 18 Defenses, but our teams were caught unawares. Bill swept the night like every game in Crisis so far (that he's played in).
In the first game I played Jeff and Ferru played Bill. Jeff and I concentrated on the bombs, to no avail. He took out Green Arrow and Carter Hall without much effort, but Green Lantern sniped the weaker members of his team. Sadly it cost him a click or two, and then Hal's 9 attack couldn't break Alan's 17 with ESD. Ferru and Bill ignored the bombs, with Bill's JSA line cleaning up the Royal Flushes.
In the second game, I played Ferru while Jeff took on Bill. I finally got a bomb, but all the actions it cost me let the Royal Flush Gang dance around the League. All the shape change proved hard to target as well. The game was called on time, with Hal and Carter giving me more points than Jack, 10, and Jason. I didn't see that much of the other game, but I think Bill didn't KO everyone, and I would guess that meant Alan Scott or Phantom Girl survived.
In the final game, I played Bill with Jeff playing Ferru. Bill's JSA moved with surprising speed across the map, basing GA and GL before I knew what was up. I broke away and held on for a while, but I never got them down to below a 17 defense. When Uncle Sam goes up in defense it's just disheartening. Jeff and Ferru came down to Green Lantern versus Red Hood, which we alternatively titled "Red vs Green," or "The Battle of Four First Names." Jeff, Green, and Alan won the day.
So at the end of the night it was Bill in first place, Jeff second, and myself in third. We got our Maneuver feats and called it a night. Next week we'll be playing with a collapsing Anti-Matter universe, and everyone had already figured out how to take the fun out of auto-KO walls (Darksied, Supernova, Donna Troy, Drag, etc.) so we need some online discussion on how that will work before Friday.
5 comments:
Online discussion!
Alright - I mentioned to Brian this morning that the AM universe should do 3 non-penetrating damage to a figure at the end of that figure's controllers turn. This allows figures like Black Adam, Darkseid, etc. who have been in the AM universe to only take some damage and not get a cheap-o kill by getting knocked into the AM universe. This also means that say, Robin, who has no defense against AM would take 3 damage each turn by being in there.
If we do reduce the penalty this way - we could also increase the frequency that the wall retracts making it a greater element in the game...
If we're doing damage-dealing AM zones, we should make at least one point of the damage penetrating so that figures with Impervious can't potentially avoid all damage in a round. The damage should also be triggered if a figure moves through a zone but does not end its turn in a zone.
Another mechanical issue to consider if these zones aren't insta-kills is how lines of fire are drawn to/from characters inside of them. Should they just be considered hindering terrain (and, for that matter, would this hindering terrain supercede all terrain laying below it)? That would reduce the movement rate of characters escaping the zones, which makes for more potential "hey-look-I-escaped-oh-crud-just-got-knocked-back-in" moments. Objects should also disappear from the game instantly if they enter zones or zones envelop them so that they don't interfere with what type of terrain exists there.
Other issues: Will this damage be subject to Super Senses rolls? Does only one base of a double base figure have to be in the zone to cause the damage?
I saw the advancing anti-matter walls as representing the things that kill worlds throughout Crisis on Infinite Earths. If you can survive going into one, then there should be nothing there... so just clear terrain, even if it used to be hindering, blocking, whatever. Making it hindering is a decent idea, but I think it puts non-fliers at an unfair disadvantage... nobody is able to best use an anti-matter universe. Objects overtaken by the wall are removed from the game. The world that was there has been eaten.
But the walls are solid white, so they should block line of fire, even if we are allowing figures to pass through. So no assistance from the rest of the team.
I agree with Jeff: the wall shouldn't be used as a shortcut around the battlefield, knowing that the figure will only take damage if it ends there. Being knocked back, dragged, or voluntary movement should stop on the wall border, as if the figure was grounded and entered hindering terrain. The figure should immediately take damage, as if they hit a wall.
They should also take damage at the start of the controlling player's turn, like Poison.
As for the damage, I'm on the fence as to a high, non-penetrating value, or a lower penetrating value. Either is a super-Poison effect, which is what I want.
Bill brings up the subject of a faster wall. The rate of map contraction was designed to be pretty conservative when it was an instant kill. At a square every other turn, the game was over in 24 rounds (two player turns equals one round... I think). It's simple to make it retract at the end of every round, but we only play 12 rounds. That's a pretty fast game.
Out of all the options raised, my gut is to go for a sudden-death design (well, duh, I originally designed for insta-kill). Walls advance once at the end of each round, figures take damage upon entry and at the start of the player's turn, figures take four non-penetrating damage. So if you have no armor and get knocked in, you take 4, then 4 again, which is probably KO.
I think we need to separate out the attributes under discussion and put it to a vote.
I kind of agree with Jeff's comments - I think the reason we came up with 3 damage was to cause damage to figures with reducers but still have it kind of true to the figure that they have some resistance.
I'd like to throw out that the if we made it so that the damage has the armor piercing effect - where it does at least 1 damage that can't be reduced, that's fine. I also think it's kind of dumb that Super Senses would allow for reduction - how does a martial artist dodge anti-air or avoid anti-ground? I guess "dice rolls that reduce damage will not be done". Something that removes this - cause then the AP thing I mentioned before is moot on impervious as well as the damage is 3 - 2 = 1.
I like the idea of "if you pass through AM" you take damage - but I'm not sure how the borders will = a short-cut - unless we completely 11th hour the rules/game and have AM zones originate from special squares placed in the middle of the map, like time bombs. That could be a fun idea for a revisit to this type of game in the future ;)
I think making the dice not work to reduce, heal, or otherwise avoid damage while in an AM zone is a good idea because it kills about twenty birds with one stone. Impervious, Super Senses, Shape Change, Support, and Regeneration (and even PC, with regards to these powers at least) could all be hindered in an AM zone.
When the walls were insta-kills, we balanced it by saying that figures killed by them didn't score victory points for the opponent. Should that rule still be in effect for damage-causing walls?
No opinion on the double-base thing? I think we should make it so that figures like this, upon entering the AM zone in any way, have an effective AM zone appear over the part of them that isn't in the true AM zone. That way, they're automatically consumed by the zone, can't have lines of fire drawn to/from them, and are subject to all of the modified AM rules with no confusion. The effective AM zone disappears as soon as the character leaves the true AM zone.
As for the zone advancement rates, I'm not sure it's going to make much of a difference. If even half of us exploit the living daylights out of the new rules, then even 400 point teams won't stand up for long anyway, regardless of how far in the walls are. Hell, we could probably play insta-kill walls first, then play damage-causing walls to see which one we like better, and still be done before the store closes.
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