Re Open to the summons

Where the Virtual Boyz plan their latest capers
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

I like it, but you actually made it easier than what I proposed, haha! (get from sideboard, tap only 1 guy). It would be hard to cramp it on OttS though, that's true.
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
marcos
Council Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Location: Córdoba, Argentina

Thorsten the Traveller wrote:I like it, but you actually made it easier than what I proposed, haha! (get from sideboard, tap only 1 guy).
lol hehe, it happens when you shoot one suggestion after another :lol: Anyway, i think that tapping 1 character to bring from sb to Swag and 1 character to bring from Swag to play is enough tapping. So you actually need 3 characters, 2 for item and 1 for faction...
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:It would be hard to cramp it on OttS though, that's true.

A player will have to wait until he draws it. So you can't use it until the next turn you draw it unless you have it in the first 8 cards. You will draw swag during mov/haz phase for sure and the tapping to sb occurs during organization phase. I like it because it limits the card a bit :)
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

yeah but character tapping for Swag V doesn't need to be in same company, right? not that I disagree, but thematically seems a bit odd.

Of course if you make a separate card for the ability it makes it a bit slower and more difficult to play, which compensates for playing items from sideboard, but you have 2 Swags in the deck probably that do nothing, and that is always a shame :cry: Perhaps add an alternative short-event ability and add non duplication for the perm only?

You know what could be nice perhaps, if you could transfer trophies. Often you got them on the wrong guy and they don't do nothing, you have +1 di on a guy that hasn't any at all so can't control a character anyway. So since trophies are kind of swag as well, perhaps an alternative short-event could be, 'transfer a weapon or trophy to another character in the company without a corruption check.' Sharing the loot...of course minions are not really into sharing :wink:

Another thing to develop is of course stealing items from opponents characters, there's only influencing, but not stealing. Normally cards swopping sides isn't done in meccg, but Usriev V introduced this, so we could take it further with Swag, like: if all strikes of your characters in CvCC have been succesful, you may choose one item of opponent's characters and play it with one of your characters. Or: playable as a short-event after you succesfully eliminate a character in CvCC: you may take one item borne by character and place it with your character.
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
marcos
Council Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Location: Córdoba, Argentina

Thorsten the Traveller wrote:yeah but character tapping for Swag V doesn't need to be in same company, right? not that I disagree, but thematically seems a bit odd.
Yes, i thought on any character, will it be better if the tapping character has to be at baduila's company? I thought that it would be too much tapping, don't you think?
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:Of course if you make a separate card for the ability it makes it a bit slower and more difficult to play, which compensates for playing items from sideboard, but you have 2 Swags in the deck probably that do nothing, and that is always a shame :cry: Perhaps add an alternative short-event ability and add non duplication for the perm only?

You know what could be nice perhaps, if you could transfer trophies. Often you got them on the wrong guy and they don't do nothing, you have +1 di on a guy that hasn't any at all so can't control a character anyway. So since trophies are kind of swag as well, perhaps an alternative short-event could be, 'transfer a weapon or trophy to another character in the company without a corruption check.' Sharing the loot...of course minions are not really into sharing :wink:
I love this idea... we have to implement that right now :wink:
EDIT: just added the clause "cannot be played during the strike sequence to prevent the transfering of a single weapon to face 2 strikes of the same attack with 2 different characters and bearing the same weapon, that would have been too strong in CvCC and maybe facing a creature too
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:Another thing to develop is of course stealing items from opponents characters, there's only influencing, but not stealing. Normally cards swopping sides isn't done in meccg, but Usriev V introduced this, so we could take it further with Swag, like: if all strikes of your characters in CvCC have been succesful, you may choose one item of opponent's characters and play it with one of your characters. Or: playable as a short-event after you succesfully eliminate a character in CvCC: you may take one item borne by character and place it with your character.
I love this idea too, but i dunno if put it all togheter in Swag V, i don't want the text to be too long. Maybe we can make a separate card that does this

nice ideas, i like them!
edited Swag V with new suggestion
Last edited by marcos on Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
marcos
Council Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Location: Córdoba, Argentina

of course, this card...
Another thing to develop is of course stealing items from opponents characters, there's only influencing, but not stealing. Normally cards swopping sides isn't done in meccg, but Usriev V introduced this, so we could take it further with Swag, like: if all strikes of your characters in CvCC have been succesful, you may choose one item of opponent's characters and play it with one of your characters. Or: playable as a short-event after you succesfully eliminate a character in CvCC: you may take one item borne by character and place it with your character.
...had to be:

Thing stolen (V)
(2)
Short event
Balrog Specific. Playable only if Open to the summons (V) is in play and a character in the same company as Baduila has just eliminated an opponent's character in CvCC. You may take one item borne by such character and place it with a character in your company. Place this card with the item. This card is worth 2 marshaling points if target item is stored at The Under-Gates.

might 2 MPs be too much? maybe reduce it to 1?

thoughts?
Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Note that 138 words is the max that will fit on a card (see Morannon (V)).

When Thorsten said he used font size 5, he was referring to MSWord or a word prcocessing program. When Marcos said he uses font size 9, he was referring to an image program which used a different font number reference (their 9 is equivalent to a 5 in MSWord.)

I really like the direction this conversation on OTTS is going; it is highly creative and much more interesting than the original. We can of course always leave OTTS at or nearly the same as it is and create support cards to help it. More comments in a week.

Re: Word count. I keep LONGING for the courage to implement key words on MECCG cards like "Startable" instead of writing "May be included with a starting company in lieu...", but do you guys think this would be too resisted by the community? Or not if the keywords are obvious enough?

Frodo
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

Can think of 138 very loooong words :wink:
I personally think key-words could work, we should have the courage to use them. There's always the guys of Nitpicking Inc., that like to invent ways to abuse and shoot holes in it, making meccg more like a book of law. :cry: Try to remain a step ahead of them, I wish you good luck. We'd have to make a list defining the key-words, and nobody likes lists, there are too many lists already.

Thing Stolen is nice! but why limit to Balrog Baduila Marcos? I'd say even Sam can steal from Snaga if he manages to wack him. I would propose that item must be taken under control of the character that has won the fight. It's an extra drawback and makes more sense, if in CvCC everybody is fighting someone, then only the person that has killed his/her opponent has the time to quickly take something of the body. Also the big guys with weapons have more chances of killing, so they load themselves up with corruption. :wink:

MP's for any item, even a minor? I like mp's reward for Thing Stolen, of course its use can already be good since stealing something can be powerfull, but the cardmanagement is awful, so it might still not be deemed worthy enough. On the other hand, you also get mp's for the item, if only half, and the char. So, 1 mp if stored maybe, is nice for minor items...
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
marcos
Council Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Location: Córdoba, Argentina

so:

Thing stolen (V)
(1)
Short event
Playable only if a character has just eliminated an opponent's character in CvCC. You may take one item borne by such eliminated character and place it with your own character. Place this card with the item. This card can also be played as a hero resource. This card is worth 1 marshaling point if target item is a minor item and it is stored at a darkhaven/haven.

agree with the new keywords
Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Sorry for the late post on this--i forgot about the discussion.

I like the non-unique major item at a Man faction site idea. It makes the deck analogous to a dragon country deck where item play is often followed up by an ally or Thor’s Map. However, I don’t see a need at all for letting the items come from sideboard. Just like playing wolves, great bats, etc. the extra MP should be held onto.
Here’s what Swag would look like then:

Swag V:
Short Event or Permanent Event
Balrog Specific. Playable only if Open to the Summons (V) is in play. As a short event, an item (even a trophy) can be transferred to another character in the same company without a corruption check. Cannot be played during a strike sequence.
As a permanent event, tap a character to make one non-unique minor or major weapon/shield/helmet/armor item playable at the company’s current tapped site, if a Man faction was successfully influenced there, until the end of the turn. Cannot be duplicated by a given player.

By the way, it’s possible to add just the second paragraph (perm event) stuff to the current Open to the Summons, word-count wise. Maybe it’s not necessary, though.

Shall we also say that Swag, as a short-event, can pull Thing Stolen from playdeck or discard pile?

I also wish there was some other light benefit or difference that playing Baduila introduced. Even the major item playing doesn’t make the deck THAT different than other minion decks; you are playing a big faction and instead of following it up with an ally you follow it with an item! These are preparations for war, right? Hmm… if only all those major items could be used for some other ability…
Perhaps when we make the faction-battling idea those items will come into usefulness somehow. Or, for now, can anyone think of some novel benefit that tapping the Man factions would give to your wandering companies? Maybe a spell, or resource card that they get? The “faction as ally” option: these Man factions actually travel around with Baduila’s company? (Prowess equals MP value, body equals roll required; +1 prow to faction/ally for each non-unique major item in company.) This would actually be a rather cool way to represent the gathering of minion armies against the heroes. (Maybe this should only be allowed if the Balrog is not being used as an avatar?)

Btw, we are going to make Usriev unique, by the way.

I don’t like the change so far on the “avatarless” Open to the Summons because I don’t think it’s enough. You will get man factions slowly, and these benefits to Baduila are even slower than trophy bonuses! Even if they were quicker I don’t think they’d really compensate for loss of avatar—it’s the loss of the fana cards that really hurt. You can’t even SB this card if opponent gets Balrog first because of the playability line. Also, huge prowess provides a rather one-sided bonus, and it’s strange that they could become more powerful than the Balrog in this fashion. At the very least, +2 DI for each token and no prowess penalty would be better; but there has to be something else, too. (Thematically, the loss of mind is odd too, but I understand the utility value.)

Thoughts? We’d like to have a version ready for playtesting… although I guess technically we can’t put Swag in this set, unless we cut something else (like I know much about you).

Frodo
Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Okay, I still love the Swag option above, but I take back the idea of using the "faction-as-ally." Though I love the concept of the items in the company somehow increasing the worth of the Man faction, creating a really large "ally" does not do anything new for the Balrog at all.

I wish we could add Swag to this set but I'm not sure what other cards we could pull out. I guess we'll have to wait...

All right, so Open to the Summons will currently stay the same. However, I'm thinking of adding the following clause to at least introduce a little bit of fun to this deck. Can people weigh in?

"Baduila may tap to take Stabbed Him in His Sleep, Swag, or Foul Trophies into hand from play deck or discard pile."

Stabbed Him opens up a nice 1 MP combo at the site too, Swag is thematic, and Foul Trophies is a not often played card (perhaps reflecting that he had to kill a few Dunlendings--and he saved their heads--before the rest would join him). Essentially, these are all border/free hold resources, and all together suggest a sort of hatred towards his own race, or at least avarice.

Thoughts?

Frodo
marcos
Council Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:41 pm
Location: Córdoba, Argentina

stabbed him is only playable by a covert company, baduila will only play it if he is in a company with a bunch of half-orcs :?
Jambo
Posts: 888
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 3:01 pm

and Foul Trophies isn't playable on Baduila... :)
Jambo
Posts: 888
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 3:01 pm

What with Baduila being a ranger of the Misty Mountains how about linking him with cards like The Undeeps of Anduin, The Misty Mountain Deeps and The White Mountain Cavern-ways? Makes sense, and might offer a different style of Balrog play...

Think of Baduila as some kind of guide for the Balrog's minions. :)
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

Stabbed him bit strange, Foul Trophies could be funny. Misty Mountain Deeps is nice indeed, maybe even bit too good to play each turn though, hl reduction is big.
I would stick to Swag for now. Pitty it's not in the set though.

Catch Elusive Scent would help gathering more items, and Baduila's also a trapper and scout....
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Hey Jambo, I was actually thinking about those region cards too!

Remember Baduila must tap to to retrieve these cards so perhaps HL reduction within limited regions isn't too extreme.

Could we say something like:
"Baduila may tap to take Swag or any resource with "Mountain" in the title into hand from play deck or discard pile."

I didn't actually check to see what this would cover, but Baduila certainly knows his mountains. If the Anduin card seemed very cool for him (don't have it in front of me), we could add "or "Undeeps" ".

Can somebody else scan the V-set of cards and tell me if any card is expendable so we can add Swag? I really couldn't find any that didn't seem like too many people had already grown used to them.

Frodo
Locked

Return to “Development”