Personally, I perfer Parademons over Humanoid Sentinel Troopers. I think the only Sentinels that are really needed/iconic are the big ones. With Darkseid just released, the Parademons would be cool.
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C3G Future Direction Thread
- Thread starter IAmBatman
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Personally, I perfer Parademons over Humanoid Sentinel Troopers. I think the only Sentinels that are really needed/iconic are the big ones. With Darkseid just released, the Parademons would be cool.
Eclipse
regurgitation cynic
That's not even current continuity...
It's definitely something I'd like to do at some point. The problem is fitting all of these in without feeling like we're leaving something out.
It's a delicate balance, but Griff and I worked out a possible path that would take us to Wave 6 (which includes Warmachine in a booster and Mandarin) that I think is pretty fair and balanced across the board.Spidey, I definitely would love to get your input about all of this - especially on the squads. I think you guys in general are apt to be more passionate about squads than I am. We're currently bumping squads every three waves to put in the Indy boosters, which I'm OK with as heroes are the main emphasis here.
If we try to balance between DC squads and Marvel squads, that means for Waves 1-6 we would have 4 squad boosters with 8 squads in them (and 4 DC squads and 4 Marvel squads over that period).
We're also tentatively looking at that Fantastic Four Master Set (maybe after Wave 3?) and Gotham Knights Master Set (maybe after wave 6?) which would each include two related squads.
I'd love if you could help me work out a squad release schedule everyone could be happy with, Spidey. I have some ideas about squads, but they're not fully fleshed out.
I do really want White Martians in wave one to go with Martian Manhunter, though.
Good to know!
Since when? That must be a really recent development. She is still a member of the Cabal in Dark Reign: the Seige.
Eclipse
regurgitation cynic
It was several months ago in JMS's actual Thor book, but the rest of the Marvel U has been really bad about how they handled it. I'm sure its a big part of why JMS stormed off the title along with being forced to include Siege in what he was doing. Marvel has largely been playing the continuity card on the matter, saying a lot of their other books just aren't moving as fast as Thor so they haven't caught up. I know there was a week that featured something stupid like Male Loki in one Avengers book and female in another. It shouldn't be there for Siege: The Cabal (I assume that's what you were referring to) but its possible Marvel just retconned it out entirely when they decided to give JMS the finger on the whole thing.
It's messy and complicated and it'll probably be a few months before it all gets fixed, but Loki is supposed to be male currently.
EDIT: I think its in Thor #602.
Hmmm. I don't read Thor, so thanks for the heads up. I know that just like in the original incarnation of Avengers, the current Hank Pym-led Mighty Avengers were formed by Loki (female version), but they have obviously not caught up with Thor yet. Out of curiousity, how did he switch back?
Eclipse
regurgitation cynic
He was reborn initially in his normal male body, but then took control of the body meant for Sif in order to better sell the "I've changed" angle. Once he'd accomplished has scheme (killing Bor and having Thor banished from Asgard) he returned to his normal form, mostly because it forces Thor to give up a ton of power to save Sif. Now that JMS is off the book though I'm not sure what Loki's deal is. It's possible someone's decided he can switch genders at will these days, but I thought I read in an interview that he's supposed to be returning to his male form across everything once they've finished up the stories they're running where he's still female.
I have been doing some thinking lately, and I have come up with some observations. Part of our issue with the Boosters, one that we haven't really addressed is that, as of right now, we seem to have to release Marvel together and DC together. The thing I have thinking of is how this really flies in the face of the idea of Heroscape. If you consider that Marvel Heroes, DC Heroes, Marvel Villains, and DC Villains are like the different generals in Traditional Heroscape, then a booster can and should vary as to which "generals" are contained in each pack. So, a pack of Thor, Black Adam, Captain Marvel, Storm, and Black Lightning makes sense as a booster called "Thunder and Lightning." This way theme can go over instead of just Avengers Assemble or whatnot.
Ideally, we would come up with a fancy background story that tied the four together under actual generals, i.e. Odin, Zeus, Pluto, Hela, maybe. Or Beyonder, Galactus, Anti-Monitor, Phantom Stranger. Just an idea, and this seemed like the place for it.
Ideally, we would come up with a fancy background story that tied the four together under actual generals, i.e. Odin, Zeus, Pluto, Hela, maybe. Or Beyonder, Galactus, Anti-Monitor, Phantom Stranger. Just an idea, and this seemed like the place for it.
My only caution to mixing them is that we run the risk of losing site on synergy. The idea of keeping the universes in one pack is only easier in that characters that blend together can be worked on together. You'd hate to have the problem where we want to go back and change a card because we thought of a cool idea when the second partner was finally released.
For example. Hank Pym and the Wasp have to be worked on at the same time. Sometimes it doesn't matter as much like in the case of Batman and Robin. Batman should stand alone and Robin should be a compliment with no need to go back and change Batman. But the FF should absolutely be done together.
I'm just suggesting that you use caution. That's why I like the idea of 2 pack waves with one DC and one Marvel. Gives the chance to mix and match but also maintain the ease in creation of the cards. Of course, nobody said the figures couldn't mingle across the packs as long as the necessary partnering figures are kept together (Wolverine and Sabertooth, Cloak and Dagger, Powerman and Iron Fist, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Pym and Wasp, Daredevil and Elektra, we already took care of GA and the Canary, etc)
For example. Hank Pym and the Wasp have to be worked on at the same time. Sometimes it doesn't matter as much like in the case of Batman and Robin. Batman should stand alone and Robin should be a compliment with no need to go back and change Batman. But the FF should absolutely be done together.
I'm just suggesting that you use caution. That's why I like the idea of 2 pack waves with one DC and one Marvel. Gives the chance to mix and match but also maintain the ease in creation of the cards. Of course, nobody said the figures couldn't mingle across the packs as long as the necessary partnering figures are kept together (Wolverine and Sabertooth, Cloak and Dagger, Powerman and Iron Fist, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Pym and Wasp, Daredevil and Elektra, we already took care of GA and the Canary, etc)
My idea was based on ease of deciding on who to do. Instead of forcing some people to fit for instance, I would like to see Doombots in this wave.
Doombots have nothing to do with the hero packs though.
I guess my thoughts are twofold:
1) I want to make sure we sure we see a balance of Marvel and DC as things come out and I feel the best way to do that is by keeping them in separate boosters. Otherwise, there will either be too much hair splitting in order to keep the number of Marvel and DC figures even every wave or we'll abandon that idea and one universe might end up dominating the other quickly, to the detriment of the overall project.
2) I already thought up tons and tons of themed DC and Marvel boosters for waves and waves in the future. Are you really going to make me scrap all that work and start again? Mean.
I guess my thoughts are twofold:
1) I want to make sure we sure we see a balance of Marvel and DC as things come out and I feel the best way to do that is by keeping them in separate boosters. Otherwise, there will either be too much hair splitting in order to keep the number of Marvel and DC figures even every wave or we'll abandon that idea and one universe might end up dominating the other quickly, to the detriment of the overall project.
2) I already thought up tons and tons of themed DC and Marvel boosters for waves and waves in the future. Are you really going to make me scrap all that work and start again?
Mean.
Well since we have three Hero Boosters per wave and one Squad booster I thought it might make it easier to make it closer. I mean its easier to put out 9 and 9 if you can mix and match the boosters.
On a related note, can Common Heroes be released with Unique Heroes? Perhaps we could go this route with Doombots allowing us to add it to this Wave. I think right now (please understand I really want to do White Martians.) Red Skull, Doom, and Darkseid are screaming for minions. If we could do Parademons and/or Doombots as Common Heroes, this would allow us to do White Martians (Who actually may be better as common heroes) and AIM or Hydra as Squads. (BTW, I like AIM or Hydra having 4 member Squads.)
On a related note, can Common Heroes be released with Unique Heroes? Perhaps we could go this route with Doombots allowing us to add it to this Wave. I think right now (please understand I really want to do White Martians.) Red Skull, Doom, and Darkseid are screaming for minions. If we could do Parademons and/or Doombots as Common Heroes, this would allow us to do White Martians (Who actually may be better as common heroes) and AIM or Hydra as Squads. (BTW, I like AIM or Hydra having 4 member Squads.)
I guess Red Skull and Doom's minions just don't seem as high priority for me until we do C3G versions of either character. Doom, especially, I'd like to see get this treatment. I had him slated for a Master Set 3 look. This would be a Fantastic Four Master Set and would include Doom Bots in the same release. If we're going to do a C3G version of a character at all, rather than releasing a squad that could bond or have synergy with them right away, why not wait until we do our version?
Parademons I completely agree with, and would love to see in the first wave.
I guess it'd be nice to do 10 Marvel cards and 10 DC cards per wave (counting squads), but I don't terribly mind the current set up where it'd be 12 of one and 8 of the other for one wave, then the other way around for the next wave. Though the Indy booster might throw this off a bit, so you might have a point here.
Maybe another problem I'm having is that after spending so much time really refining an approach to at least the first several waves, I'm reluctant to lose anything I've got there (as I really like how it's looking). For instance, who would you lose from one of the Marvel boosters in Wave One and what DC heroes would you replace them with? Or would you mix and match all three boosters?
If you were doing Wave One by this plan, how would it look?
Parademons I completely agree with, and would love to see in the first wave.
I guess it'd be nice to do 10 Marvel cards and 10 DC cards per wave (counting squads), but I don't terribly mind the current set up where it'd be 12 of one and 8 of the other for one wave, then the other way around for the next wave. Though the Indy booster might throw this off a bit, so you might have a point here.
Maybe another problem I'm having is that after spending so much time really refining an approach to at least the first several waves, I'm reluctant to lose anything I've got there (as I really like how it's looking). For instance, who would you lose from one of the Marvel boosters in Wave One and what DC heroes would you replace them with? Or would you mix and match all three boosters?
If you were doing Wave One by this plan, how would it look?
Should I, maybe, just post (in a spoiler) everything I've got mapped out thus far (all the hero boosters for 27 waves, or maybe just the first 10, as they do peter off a bit) and see what you guys think of it before deciding to redo all that work?
Well, for instance, Lets say we wanna do 9 and 9. We can say we also want to try to keep it 9 Heroes and 9 Villains as well. So that means 4/5 Heroes and 5/4 Villains or maybe even 5/4 and 5/4 (still closer than 12/6 ) So my top 9 DC peeps would be Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman as heroes with Lex Luthor, Zoom, Sinestro, Grodd, and Circe. Now recognizing that we can't really do all the heavies in one wave, lets replace GL and Flash with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Now Zoom, Sinestro, and Grodd don't seem to fit as well, so lets replace them as well with Deadshot and Brainiac. This leaves an empty slot in our DC number so lets do a Common Hero of White Martian. That leaves a DC squad of parademons to round out our DC slots to J'onn, Booster, Beetle, WW, Parademons, White Martian, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Deadshot. This means we have some of the heavies MM, WW, Luthor, Brainiac, and Circe; and some lesser known Booster, Beetle, Deadshot, with essentially a squad to augment Darkseid and a perfect counter to MM, which may also be less well known.
Lets do the same for Marvel. Ok, Squad is easy, we will go Hydra or AIM. For Heroes, since we went 4/5 DC we will go 5/4 Marvel. Thor and Wolverine seem like musts, so that is two down. Other Mutant Heroes would be nice, but not necessary. To make the Marvel:The Conflict Begins feel more like an Avengers set, we can steer that way. So, Giant-Man, Wasp, and Hawkeye seem like three of the better candidates. We did however just do an Archer recently, so lets pull something out of left field. How about Firestar? She was A)both an Avenger and an X-Men, and B) is a mutant so she can bond with our previous X-Men set. In addition, she is not as famous as many of the names we have thrown out so far for Marvel. So that just leaves the villains. Well, we have already decided on Juggernaut and his best bud Black Tom should come with him for another taste of obscurity. This leaves 2 Villains left. To really stand toe-to-toe with the big guns we named here, we need a heavy baddie. Some may disagree, but I feel Kang really fits this bill. He has fought the Avengers in multiple incarnations as both Kang and Immortus and alongside them as Iron-Lad. And he can Time-Travel! Who doesn't wanna work out that dynamic for Heroscape? Which just leaves the one spot for Villain. I tend to agree with Bats on the Marvel Heroes and Villains in the M:TCB, many could use a touch of the C3G but it is too early. So going back to our squad, how do you create minions of Doom or Skull if we are gonna redo them later? Answer, Create a right hand man for Skull or Doom whom they also bond with. Hence my suggestion of Baron Strucker and Hydra Agents. Skull is a member of both Hydra and AIM. So we can build bonding into both, but if we tweak it later and lose the bonding, we can set it up to still bond with Strucker.
So our list looks like this:
Unique Heroes
MM
WW
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle
Wolverine
Thor
Giant-Man
Wasp
Firestar
Lex Luthor
Brainiac
Circe
Deadshot
Kang
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Baron Von Strucker
Common Hero:
White Martian
Squads: Agents and Demons
Hydra Agents x4
Parademons x2
We could have one set called Brains and Brawn
Lex Luthor
Blue Beetle
Giant-Man
Thor
MM
Booster Gold
And one called Despots and Destroyers
Kang
Baron Von Strucker
Brainiac
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Deadshot
And finally, Beauties and Beasts
Wasp
WW
Firestar
Circe
White Martian
Wolverine
What do you think?
) So my top 9 DC peeps would be Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman as heroes with Lex Luthor, Zoom, Sinestro, Grodd, and Circe. Now recognizing that we can't really do all the heavies in one wave, lets replace GL and Flash with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Now Zoom, Sinestro, and Grodd don't seem to fit as well, so lets replace them as well with Deadshot and Brainiac. This leaves an empty slot in our DC number so lets do a Common Hero of White Martian. That leaves a DC squad of parademons to round out our DC slots to J'onn, Booster, Beetle, WW, Parademons, White Martian, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Deadshot. This means we have some of the heavies MM, WW, Luthor, Brainiac, and Circe; and some lesser known Booster, Beetle, Deadshot, with essentially a squad to augment Darkseid and a perfect counter to MM, which may also be less well known.Lets do the same for Marvel. Ok, Squad is easy, we will go Hydra or AIM. For Heroes, since we went 4/5 DC we will go 5/4 Marvel. Thor and Wolverine seem like musts, so that is two down. Other Mutant Heroes would be nice, but not necessary. To make the Marvel:The Conflict Begins feel more like an Avengers set, we can steer that way. So, Giant-Man, Wasp, and Hawkeye seem like three of the better candidates. We did however just do an Archer recently, so lets pull something out of left field. How about Firestar? She was A)both an Avenger and an X-Men, and B) is a mutant so she can bond with our previous X-Men set. In addition, she is not as famous as many of the names we have thrown out so far for Marvel. So that just leaves the villains. Well, we have already decided on Juggernaut and his best bud Black Tom should come with him for another taste of obscurity. This leaves 2 Villains left. To really stand toe-to-toe with the big guns we named here, we need a heavy baddie. Some may disagree, but I feel Kang really fits this bill. He has fought the Avengers in multiple incarnations as both Kang and Immortus and alongside them as Iron-Lad. And he can Time-Travel! Who doesn't wanna work out that dynamic for Heroscape? Which just leaves the one spot for Villain. I tend to agree with Bats on the Marvel Heroes and Villains in the M:TCB, many could use a touch of the C3G but it is too early. So going back to our squad, how do you create minions of Doom or Skull if we are gonna redo them later? Answer, Create a right hand man for Skull or Doom whom they also bond with. Hence my suggestion of Baron Strucker and Hydra Agents. Skull is a member of both Hydra and AIM. So we can build bonding into both, but if we tweak it later and lose the bonding, we can set it up to still bond with Strucker.
So our list looks like this:
Unique Heroes
MM
WW
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle
Wolverine
Thor
Giant-Man
Wasp
Firestar
Lex Luthor
Brainiac
Circe
Deadshot
Kang
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Baron Von Strucker
Common Hero:
White Martian
Squads: Agents and Demons
Hydra Agents x4
Parademons x2
We could have one set called Brains and Brawn
Lex Luthor
Blue Beetle
Giant-Man
Thor
MM
Booster Gold
And one called Despots and Destroyers
Kang
Baron Von Strucker
Brainiac
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Deadshot
And finally, Beauties and Beasts
Wasp
WW
Firestar
Circe
White Martian
Wolverine
What do you think?
OK, I forgot to answer this before, but I would be against doing common and unique heroes in the same booster. Just doesn't feel "authentic" to me. If it's common, it should be in the squad pack in place of a squad with a common squad beside it.
I'd rather wait a lot longer for Von Strucker and Firestar and Deadshot personally - you can get much more well known and exciting characters without blowing all the giant names in one wave. After going through about 27 waves of hypothetical listings over the last few days, I realized just how long it takes to get to some of the ones I really want to see. And this is just sticking with some of the ones I feel are more iconic.
Now don't get me wrong, Strucker's not terribly unknown, he's a fairly iconic one, he just isn't likely to make the most interesting Heroscape card, IMO.
I guess my question is, which of these fills you with more excitement for the future of the project?
This -
BOOSTER ONE: BRAVE AND THE BOLD
Martian Manhunter
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle
Zatanna
Etrigan
Gorilla Grodd
BOOSTER TWO: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE
Thor
Scarlet Witch
Quicksilver
Vision
Kang the Conqueror
Ultron
BOOSTER THREE: BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS
Juggernaut
Sabretooth
Avalanche
Black Tom
Mastermind
Wolverine
Or this -
Brains and Brawn
Lex Luthor
Blue Beetle
Giant-Man
Thor
Martian Manhunter
Booster Gold
Despots and Destroyers
Kang
Baron Von Strucker
Brainiac
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Deadshot
Beauties and Beasts
Wasp
Wonder Woman
Firestar
Circe
White Martian
Wolverine
I'm not asking this ironically either, it's a serious question. I want to know what people think. If people are digging the Spidey approach more, I'll gladly hand over future wave planning to him.
Now don't get me wrong, Strucker's not terribly unknown, he's a fairly iconic one, he just isn't likely to make the most interesting Heroscape card, IMO.
I guess my question is, which of these fills you with more excitement for the future of the project?
This -
BOOSTER ONE: BRAVE AND THE BOLD
Martian Manhunter
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle
Zatanna
Etrigan
Gorilla Grodd
BOOSTER TWO: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE
Thor
Scarlet Witch
Quicksilver
Vision
Kang the Conqueror
Ultron
BOOSTER THREE: BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS
Juggernaut
Sabretooth
Avalanche
Black Tom
Mastermind
Wolverine
Or this -
Brains and Brawn
Lex Luthor
Blue Beetle
Giant-Man
Thor
Martian Manhunter
Booster Gold
Despots and Destroyers
Kang
Baron Von Strucker
Brainiac
Juggernaut
Black Tom
Deadshot
Beauties and Beasts
Wasp
Wonder Woman
Firestar
Circe
White Martian
Wolverine
I'm not asking this ironically either, it's a serious question. I want to know what people think. If people are digging the Spidey approach more, I'll gladly hand over future wave planning to him.
Deadshot and Strucker were just off the top of my head. I literally came up with this as I typed. I think some of your stuff could be reworked to fit in as well. Personally, I think we do have some niche fans interested in Firestar though, not that I am really one of them. My point was to think outside the box, like we did with Vertigo. I am sure I could sit down and come up with a better list, but i also know relative mini prices off the top of my head. Originally, I was gonna go with Prometheus over Deadshot, but he is about $9.60 cents more. I could also go with Taskmaster instead of Strucker as a righthand to Doom. We could then do a common hero Doombot instead of Hydra Agents and have two common heroes and one squad.
And Wave planning should not be one persons' responsibility, to me that takes alot of the fun out of this project. I don't feel any of us signed on to be dictated to. The beauty of this is that it is a community effort from who we do, to how we do them, to when we do them. I think we have done a great job debating in the past some of these sets and who to include/exclude, we just need a little more voice from some other members right now.
And Wave planning should not be one persons' responsibility, to me that takes alot of the fun out of this project. I don't feel any of us signed on to be dictated to. The beauty of this is that it is a community effort from who we do, to how we do them, to when we do them. I think we have done a great job debating in the past some of these sets and who to include/exclude, we just need a little more voice from some other members right now.
Nor am I. Maybe we should confirm that someone working on the project is before putting him into the wave.
Honestly, as much as I enjoyed putting his card together and like how he turned out, something in me almost regrets putting Vertigo in the Master Set.
The way I see it is this - this project has a finite life to it. As much as Griffin and I joke about working on this for the next thirty years, that's just not a realistic expectation. For that reason, I think to an extent we need to treat every wave like it's our last. Get out thematic boosters that can stand alone. Get out big names early and leave fringe characters for a bit down the road. And the thing is, there are soooo many big names that they can fill the boosters to a large extent for a good ten waves without trouble. That, and a couple more Master Sets and a couple Large Figure Expansions as well. That's enough material there for years of work, without someone as niche as Firestar ever showing up (and I'm OK with that, because the characters that would be included would be more iconic and higher priorities to me as a creator).
I agree with this, and I'm not suggesting anyone dictate. It certainly should be a shared approach. If anything, I'm questioning the shift in approach from separate DC and Marvel boosters than shifts within individual boosters.
I also don't believe I'm doing any dictating if that's the insinuation here. All of my suggestions thus far are merely suggestions and have been made with the input of many members here and anyone who's chosen to comment on this thread.
Giant Man was included because people said they were interested in Giant Man. The DC booster was based around the theme of Brave and the Bold because that's the theme we chose as a group. And so on.
I'm all about getting more input from people, don't get me wrong, but there's something to be said for strong leadership that pushes a project forward as well. If we do nothing but debate and vote and debate and vote, it slows down the process incredibly. Having someone willing to take the lead and show initiative can be very useful and, no offense, is something that's made this project work so far. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I've spent hours pushing this project forward and I think the results speak for themselves.
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