That's Tiny

So, I recently made a purchase from Auggies Online game store and got a bunch of cool things for about $35. I didn't realize just how small some of it could be though.

Here's a few pictures of the sizes of these new things...

The Imp is a lot smaller than what I was hoping for. I'll come up with something for it nonetheless. 5 point filler perhaps?

This is the Shadow Grappler.  Very glossy, and really cool. Quite pleased, and the store makes them  themselves, so I don't see "Stock" being a big issue.

The Crystal Cluster. Another piece they make on their own, and also a nifty gloss to it. This was a considerable gamble because I had no idea how big it would end up being (or small, rather haha).

During my free time, I've also been paining up some of my rock terrain to create...

A small, but still effective helping of molten rock terrain! I applied a thinned down layer-ish of red paint on those two central 1 hexes. Should be helpful for when I can't tell by the borders. I've waited a long time for these guys and they are finally here!! Woohoo!

Until the next time I actually post in here, 'Scape On!

The Phantom Rift

HeroScape has 2 ghastly squads, the first one being the Shades of Bleakewoode and the second being the Phantom Knights. Most players look at the Phantom Knights as being overall a much better unit than the Shades, but its still worth considering the Shades for play every now and then. Let's take a look at their card, shall we?

There is a major difference in cost (a whopping 30 points!), and both squads have fairly similar base stats. The Shades get a move of 7, while the Phantoms get an attack rating of 3. The Shades are Devourers, so they would get the attack bonus from the Dumetef Guard. The Phantoms, being Knights get Concan's attack bonus and increase Sir Dupuis's attack rating if they're near him. Also, both squads are naturally mobile, in large part thanks to Stealth Flying. So then, they biggest difference between the two squads is their first power and their cost per figure.

Soul Devour: An offensive minded power where the Shades no doubt get much of their cost from. Like Kee-Mo-Shi and Ne-Gok-Sa, their power isn't the easiest to get to work, but because it can be used multiple times, you can increase the potential of the of the Devour. With any luck, you can devour at least one of your opponent's heroes during the game (not only damaging their forces, but reinforcing your own).

Insubstantial 3: A defensive power that makes the Shades really tough to kill from afar. Sure it only works on Normal Attacks, but the natural defense that the Phantom Knights have can protect them from the special attacks easily enough.

I happen to prefer playing the Shades, but that might just because I embrace the suck (or so the phrase has been coined). In game I like the idea of engaging both a hero and a squad figure with the same Shade (it shouldn't be too hard to get to because of their 7 movement). This lets me attack the squad figure, and try to Soul Devour on the next turn. With the chance to have 2 weaker "attacks" in the same turn, the Shades are "stronger" than the Phantoms. But that's not the general consensus. The biggest reasoning that makes the Phantoms much stronger than the Shades is the difference in cost. You can have 10 squads of Phantoms, but only 7 squads of Shades for 700 points.

What helps the Shades out though, is their incredibly high speed.They can get to their targets quickly, perhaps so fast that they don't have to even worry about ranged units? This is certainly huge in HeroScape, as range is very powerful. So powerful that if the Phantoms didn't have Insubstantial 3, they would likely be considered extremely weak.

Hopefully you enjoyed seeing the 2 Ghost units being compared to each other! 'Scape On.

Wylfred and the Plume

Let me introduce Wlyfred, the newest of my customs for Utgar! He came from Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and in it he was able to turn his allies into demigods but at the end of the battle they died. His demigodifying power has been significantly decreased, but that doesn't mean its worthless!

Wlyfred (left) and his feather (right)

I'm going to base this off the idea that Wylfred killed his buddies and committed many acts of sin. Which would make sense for Utgar to nab him for his own army. And here's the stats (which are a work in progress):

Name: Wlyfred
General: Utgar
Race: Human
Rank: Unique Hero
Class: Swordsman (Champion perhaps?)
Personality: Bitter
Size: Medium 5
Life: 6
Move: 5
Range: 1
Attack: 3
Defense: 4
Point Value: 140 perhaps?

Abilities:
Double Attack: Allows Wylfred to attack twice.
Power of the Plume: After taking a turn with Wylfred, you may select a Unique Hero you control and place 2 Plume Markers on their Army Card and remove all Wound and Negation Markers from it. At the end of a round, remove a Plume marker from all Army Cards you control that have at least 1 on them. If a figure has its final Plume Marker removed, it is destroyed. Figures with at least 1 Plume marker add 1 to their move and 2 to their attack and defense.

Swiss Army Falchion

At a melee friendly tournament, the big red Mount could be pretty useful. He's basically a "Swiss Army Knife," capable of doing many different things but certainly not a master at any of them. In a room full of melee units, you may not regret taking him.

At the tourney, I used him alongside Grimnak, Nerak, Ornak, Marcu and 4 teams worth of Blade Gruts. Army has a real 'Nak' to it, heh.

A few of the armies featured units who Brunak was quite happy to see including Zombies of Morindan, Roman Legionnaires, Samurai, and some Greenscale Warriors backed by Zogross Hardscale. I also brought Brunak to help combat against possible "FireStorms," who would've been tough for my Orcs to fight. Overall, Brunak's Blood Hungry Special Attack had plenty of viable options.

The primary reason to bring a Swiss Army Knife is to have the ability to cover a lot of different bases at once, and Brunak does that to some extent in my Orcs build. He does give a small advantage against the units mentioned above, but perhaps there is another reason to bring this Mount into combat? The Orcs Build as is already takes many of the advantages that Brunak normally offers (outside of Lava Resistance), but can usually perish to powerful ranged builds or units with higher stats and equal attrition levels. I chose Brunak, as opposed to another Orc Champion Tornak to both hide a few weaknesses and to power up the capabilities of the Gruts. Without Brunak, my army would only have 1 way to fight off evil things like massed commons in the form of an only average endurance unit, Grimnak. I'm not saying that Brunak is more survivable than Grimnak (in fact, he was killed in turn of Minions of Utgar strikes), but he does give the army a longer time for power-attacks. Tornak couldn't have done that, and Tornak's Orc Warrior Enhancement would've been a bit too unwieldy to try to use along with Grimnak's as I imagine Ornak would've been moving both at the same via Red Flag of Fury.

Speaking of Ornak, Brunak can actually Carry Brunak closer to the battlefield so that Red Flag of Fury is much easier to pull off. Sure 8 spaces is a long range, but once the battle starts, you don't want to lose turns with Grimnak just so you can move your flag-boy up a few spaces. I can understand moving Nerak with the Gruts (3 attack with a 9 space threat-range isn't too bad, especially if the rest of your Gruts benefit from the move), but Ornak is just too wimpy. His meager attack boost is nice to have, but as the Blade Gruts only feature a basic 2 attack dice, I don't see the Utgar Symbols helping much.

If you don't feel like moving Ornak (perhaps you don't see Red Flag of Fury being worth a damn this game...), I had the option to move up Marcu or a Blade Grut so that I could get a Glyph in a single turn (or in the Blade Grut's case 2 turns). Depending on the Glyph, this is actually a viable move. I used this to somewhat decent effect in the first game I played at the tournament, but because I lost that game I'm not sure you need to be taking my advice... Yeah, that was my attempt at humor.

When using Brunak, your going to have to remember that his big muscles only give him 3 hit points. He does have a nice 7 defense though, so let's focus on that for a second. Focused on it? Great. When using Brunak as a big hammer (his other role, the main one being a giant pony), its O.K. to charge him into a bunch of low attack squad figures. Bonus points if said figures have low defense for Blood Hungry Special Attack to kick in a few times. The goal for this is to paint a big red 'X' on Brunak so that your other heroes (Grimnak mainly), don't get swarmed so quickly. That 7 defense should give Brunak a turn or two to take out as much as he can, and if you can get him on height, he becomes a massive 8 Defense hero who's lost life won't ultimately make you lose. But, if you've been using Ornak to move Grimnak and Bruank on every single Turn 1, then your opponent might think otherwise. Of course, if your Power attacks do what they are supposed to (that is, eliminate all enemies ASAP), then you won't have to worry about trying to pull out tricky tactics with unsophisticated orcs.

Hopefully, this Swiss Army Falchion can serve you well in the future if you play him with Gruts anyways. 'Scape On

The Mercenary Samurai

As some folks know, I happen to love the board game Shogun (or Samurai Swords depending on when you've gotten the game). I also hold the belief that Shogun helped to "design" a few of 'Scape's units. As we know though, HeroScape never had any Ronin.

Thus,

The custom uses 3 Samurai figures (I like using the Tagawa Samurai for this purpose).

The Kokugura Ronin take many of the mechanics from Shogun's Ronin and implements them into 'Scape in a powerful way. In Shogun, players had to hire Ronin and could place them anywhere on the board which is a powerful force. At the same time, there was the chance that all of the Ronin would be "sold out", thus players would bid on use of them. That is basically incorporated into Payment Delivered.

Now let's look at the parts of the card that is all HeroScape. Among the first things you'll notice is that this squad doesn't have 6+ move like the other Unique Samurai Squads. Sure the Kozuke only have a base move of 5, but they still have their Charging Assault, and yes the Ronin are technically not Samurai (the class states Ronin), but Ronin are still as Samurai (in fact, they were Samurai before they became Ronin!). The question is why are they only moving at average speed? Well, that is because they are already able to move excessively fast thanks to their primary Payment Delivered Special Power. When used in sync with The Job Is Done, these guys can move all over the place in a few rounds. I'm not going to get too involved with strategy here (this isn't the main design post after all), so all of this can easily change in time. And of course, as they have training as Samurai, they know how to use the infamous CounterStrike.

'Scape On.