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Feral Predator (Public Playtesting)

Personally out of Arch and Japes' proposal I'm leaning on it being conditional on a shield instead of a skull to reduce the chance down a bit- if it still feels too tough like that I'm willing to drop defense to 2 as well but my preference at the moment is to keep the defense stat as is at 3.
 
I'd be fine seeing that change tested in public testing. My gut says it'll still feel strong, but maybe that will be enough of a nerf.
For the record my concern with the idea of it being conditional on him taking no wounds is that I don't want big-single-attack figures to be able to reliably just ignore the risk constantly- they're already advantaged against him as you've pointed out, but I do see that as it stands it's overtuned a fair bit especially against figures that expect to be hitting him multiple times.
 
C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Feral Predator

Version tested:
Spoiler Alert!


Army Test
Map: Conflict Chernobyl
Units: 1000 pts – Predator Elder 280, Feral Predator x2 480, Predator 240 VS 1000 pts – Captain America 240, Iron Man 270, War Machine 260, Black Widow 230
Spoiler Alert!

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Army Test
Map: Cell Games Arena
Units: 1000 pts – Predator Elder 280, Feral Predator 240, Cheetah 275, Kraven 200, Fighting Chance 5 VS 1000 pts – Magneto 320, Wild Child 120, Wolverine 280, Sabretooth 280
Spoiler Alert!



GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: I like the concept here but they might be coming in slightly hot. Either I just had crazy luck with Razor Shield or it's a little too strong, with it doing 7 wounds in my 2 games. It did hit well above average so we can wait and see what other playtesters get before deciding to make a change. Not 100% sure what the solution is there though, could limit it to once a turn so multi-attackers like Iron Man or bonding teams don't get burned so easily. His other powers are solid, although I think the Tri-Bolt SA could use a small change. I always attacked with 6 dice, and didn't see a situation where an attack of 4 and then 2 are really useful. Maybe two attacks of 3 against squads could work but an attack of 2 is almost useless in C3G. Seems like a neat design that works really well with the current Predators and Hunters.
 
Do we reckon it's worth applying a nerf to Razor Shield before I run my own tests on it or should I hold off and see how I find it in my playtesting before making a change to it?
 
C3G STANDARD PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Feral Predator


NOTE: For these playtests I had misunderstood the Bio-Mask Targeting ability on the regular Predators and thought they cancelled height advantage, but that shouldn't have impact on how the Feral Predator did in these tests.

Army Test
Map: Sacred Shrine
Units:
Predator Elder (280)
Feral Predator (240)
Predator (240) x2 (480)

vs

Mister Fantastic (235)
Thing (325)
Human Torch (225)
Invisible Woman (215)

Spoiler Alert!

Spoiler Alert!


___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Sacred Shrine
Units:
Predator Elder (280)
Feral Predator (240)
Predator (240) x2 (480)

vs

M.O.D.O.K (380)
Scientist Supreme (220)
A.I.M Agents (80) x5 (400)

Spoiler Alert!

Spoiler Alert!


THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: Cost-wise, Feral Predator feels maybe a little too high in my opinion now. I think nixing him from 3 Def to 2 Def has somewhat hurt him because not only has it reduced his ability to survive but it's also reduced his ability to dish out damage. In the first game Razor Shield never kicked in because Feral Pred only got to roll two defense rolls and rolled no shields on either due to Ben pasting him in just two attacks. In the second game, the only times Feral Pred got to roll for Razor Shield was against other mind-controlled Predators. Granted, the story would probably be different if I was running exclusively Feral Preds, but I wanted to try him as a melee-oriented unit in a larger Predator team instead of as a pure swarm tactic. I also wanted to try the Tri-Bolt Gun against squads and so pit him against AIM, but across six two-dice attacks with rerolls with it he only managed to kill two AIM Agents, which felt pretty underwhelming.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: I think currently he felt like he's getting a bit outshone by the regular Predators, largely because they have an easier time of just not dying. Personally, I think keeping him at 2 Def is probably the move, because Archie and Eric both were of the opinion that Razor Shield at 3 Def is just too strong and punishing even if it's on shields, but I'd like to maybe propose upping him to 6 life to give him a little longevity to match his fellow Predators. While 2 Def +1 block is more consistent than 5 Def it also means that Feral just couldn't tank high attack rolls at all. I'd also like to change how the Tri-Bolt Gun works to moving it from a dice pool to making it a choice of 3 attacks of 3 dice or 1 attack of 6 dice. While this would make it quite a lot stronger for squads, I think that fact is mitigated by the fact that it's a once-per-round ability.
 
For Razor Shield, what if you upped defense back to 3 but instead of an auto wound on 1+ shields make it a damage die? Might be a happy midway point.
 
You mention "no re-roll" a few times in your games - does that mean the rerolled die was not a skull? Also during the second game, it looks like you had AIM Agents activate, then MODOK, then MODOK activate Feral Predator. The "you may not activate additional figures this turn" on the AIM Agent bonding should cut off any additional activations besides MODOK's.

I'm cool with either +1 Life or Eric's suggested change for Razor Shield.

That suggestion for Tri-Bolt Gun is definitely a power up but I think it's good to have the option that isn't 6 dice to be worthwhile. I like that idea.
 
You mention "no re-roll" a few times in your games - does that mean the rerolled die was not a skull? Also during the second game, it looks like you had AIM Agents activate, then MODOK, then MODOK activate Feral Predator. The "you may not activate additional figures this turn" on the AIM Agent bonding should cut off any additional activations besides MODOK's.

I'm cool with either +1 Life or Eric's suggested change for Razor Shield.

That suggestion for Tri-Bolt Gun is definitely a power up but I think it's good to have the option that isn't 6 dice to be worthwhile. I like that idea.
On the rerolls, yeah, I was using that to signify that the reroll was used but accomplished nothing
On the Psionic Command- damn it. I actually checked this last time I used AIM in a playtest and totally forgot about it this time. That does mean the AIM playtest would've been more skewed towards AIM than intended- should I rerun the test before making any changes to the design?

I think I'd go with Eric's 3 def and a damage die idea instead of the 1 life now that he's said it.
 
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