Basic Action Cards
Blessing - this is pretty straight forward. For 3-cost you could possibly buff up each character on your field by +1A and +1D. If you can roll a double burst, two characters actually end up going up by +2A and +2D. Not too bad, but I don't see a wow factor out of this card.Charm - this 4-cost card reads "Draw 3 dice. Roll any NPCs you drew. Place the others in your used pile. **You may instead choose to roll one of the dice and place the other two in your used pile." Ok. So this card allows you to get 3 NPC dice out of your bag at the risk of sending unknown dice into used. With a double burst face you can instead just keep one and send two of them to used. I'm not a big fan of the burst face because of the almost anti-churn that it is - unless your bag is nice and empty - but I actually like this. Now, across sets with consideration for the Professor X Global, this is far too much to spend for ramp. But if you're strictly talking D&D, this doesn't seem so bad. It could certainly be useful.
Magic Missile - Fireball first and now a Magic Missile? Wow - my inner junior high nerd rejoices! So much nostalgia in this set. How does magic missile add up? Well, it's a nice little 3-Cost that says, "Deal 2 damage to target character or player. ** Deal extra damage to a character equal the level of your highest level adventurer in the field." Also, we've got a Global Ability here: "Pay [1 bolt]. Deal 1 damage to a character. Hello Hulk Green Goliath! A nice little Basic Action with such a useful global. The card text itself is pretty decent, but that global...that's game changing considering that it's getting harder and harder to pick your starting 8 and any globals that feed into your team are going to be cash money.
Polymorph - Polymorph sounds interesting. It's a 3-Cost card and the text reads: "Swap a fielded character with a non-NPC character from that player's used pile. Spin the character to level 3. This does not trigger 'when fielded' effects. It also has a Global Ability that reads, "Pay [1 mask] to spin one of your characters down a level and spin another character up a level. Hmmm. I'm not sure how useful this card could be, considering that you usually want character with 'when fielded' effects to...be fielded. But it could have its uses. It certainly helps spell out that NPC/Sidekick dice in used are also considered character dice.
Stinking Cloud - This 2-Cost BAC reads, "Deal 1 damage to all characters (both players'). Level 1 characters can't attack or block this turn." This is another one that feels interesting to me but doesn't wow me. It's a great way to clear a weenie board, sure, and that's gonna be helpful. Also the "no blocking by level 1" sounds interesting. For 2-Cost, though, I'm interested enough to give it a try.Emerald Enclave
Next up are adventurers who have the Emerald Enclave affiliation.
Dwarf Cleric - Uncommon. The first adventurer we see is Dwarf Cleric - very classic. He has the Experience mechanic which all adventurers have. This dwarf is Good Aligned and he has the Equip icon, which means you can attach gear to him. He's a 3-Cost Shield and his card text ability reads, "This character takes no damage from undead monsters." Pretty standard and thematic. As far as stats go...they're ok. For a TFC of 1, he tops out at 2/5, so he's certainly defense heavy.
Half-Orc Fighter - Common. Next up is my favorite of the Emerald Enclave, because I love fighters and this guy gets the job done. Like the Cleric, he's Good Aligned with both Experience and Equip icons. His text ability is plain and simple: "Gets +1A and +1D while it has gear equipped." Simple, effective and useful. I think he's a bargain for what he is, a 3-Cost Fist with his TFC topping out at 1 with 3/3 on his top level. Throw some gear on him, level him up and he could become a simple and easy beatstick.
Halfling Thief - Common. Last for the Enclave is the party archetype: the Halfling Theif. The Thief is Neutral alignment but has the same perks the other two above do: Experience and Equip, and he's a 3-Cost Mask. The Thief's card text reads "When fielded, your opponent draws 2 dice (this triggers no effects). You can choose wether to place each die back in the bag or in the used pile." I don't really love this card that much. With a TFC of 3, each die level costs you 1 to field. his ability is meh and again - I don't know why they are singling these cards out - the drawing isn't augmented by any effects. In other words you can't set any tricky traps. Hopefully the other version of the Thief will be more interesting.
Lord's Alliance
We only have one so far from the Lord's Alliance, so here he is.
Human Paladin - Common. Enter the good guy, right? Well...maybe. The Lord's Alliance Paladin is a 4-Cost Shield who is good aligned and has the Experience and Equip mechanism. This has become the template for adventurers - an affiliation, alignment, Experience and Equip. Groovy. The Paladin has a hefty TFC of 2 for his best die level topping out at a 2/4. His text ability is interesting, which is "While active, you take no damage from your opponent's "when fielded" effects (your characters are not protected)." So wait...you - as in the player - take no damage from when fielded effects? Wait a second. This could be good. :)
The Harpers
Again, only one character here, but she's certainly interesting.
Elf Wizard - Common. Here comes our first real magic user from this preview: the WIZARD! (Can you hear the gusto in my voice?) Unsurprisingly, she's your typical adventurer. She's neutral alignment and has the Experience and Equip mechanisms. She's a 3-Cost Bolt with a nice and neat TFC of 1, topping out at 2/4 on her level 3 die. Her card ability is: "When fielded, action dice cost 1 less to purchase." Notice this is when fielded, not while active. But wait, there's more! "When assigned to attack, move an action die from your used pile to your prep area." Wait a New York minute...you mean when she hits the field you can buy an action die - of which many are spells - and then when she attacks you can prep that action die from used? Theeeeeeemmmmmeeeeee SYNERGY! I love it. The wizard grabs up a spell and preps it for next round. Sheer beauty. With the several interesting BACs that are spells and the many spells you can employ in your team build, I really like the Elf Wizard. I really do.
The Zhentarim
The last faction has our last Adventurer preview.
Half-Orc Fighter - Rare. Here comes our final Adventurer and our first rare - the Paragon version of the Hal-Orc Fighter. This guy is a 3-Cost Fist with a tidy TFC of 1 that tops out at 3/3. He's your standard adventurer, although he's evil aligned, and he's got Equip and Experience. His text reads: "When you field this character, you may immediately use the Equip ability to equip a gear die to it." and "While it has a gear is equipped, Half-Orc gets +3A when engaged with a good character." So this guy likes to hunt good guys, and he's good at it when he's got some gear equipped, which he can get when he drops. Ok. Seems situationally useful, but for TFC 1, I'd give it a whirl.
So that's it for the Expanded View Part 1 - BACs and Adventurers. We'll be back with the next two parts covering Monsters, Spells and Gear in the next few days. Stay tuned in and we'd love to hear your thoughts below.
Until next time!
- Chris
UPDATED: Thank you to everyone who pointed it my TFC errors. I don't know where my head was at when I rushed this out. Also, someone pointed out my mis-ruling on Tsarina above as well. I
appreciate your keen eyes and promise better editing in the future! :)
I'm a little confused as what your definition of TFC is. It's buying the die cost plus the total to field?
ReplyDeletetotal fielding cost is the number that you get if you add up the field and cost on all three character faces of a die. in this game, they range from 1 to 6. it's a quick way to judge how expensive a die is going to be as you try the field it. it's just a step away from using the average, but the average would involve decimals in some cases, and that's no fun for anybody.
DeleteThe article doesn't accurately reflect the TFC of certain characters, though. Your numbers are off, for example, on the Cleric. His TFC is 1.
DeleteIt appears they took the sum of all three fielding costs from the die and added the purchase cost of the die.
DeleteChris fixed the TFC issues above.
DeleteI caught that. Good work, Chris.
DeleteThat's what I thought it was till I read the article and noticed something was off
DeleteTsarina isn't a "when fielded" ability, is it? Doesn't she trigger on attack?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but it would protect you from, say, Human Torch. Or many of the other baddies in this particular set.
DeleteYeah, but I've only ever seen TFC as being the total amount printed on the die, not the card.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most interesting aspects of the adventurers is the experience mechanic. Each adventurer is an easy 1st turn purchase, and you want to keep them on the field and start KOing your opponent's monsters. Because they get a permanent +1/+1 when your opponent's monsters are defeated (and, to my knowledge, that's even if they personally don't do the KO!), they can easily become extremely powerful TFC 1 character dice. Their lower-than-average stats are meant to thematically reflect their low-level prowess, which radically swings in bigger fights.
The adventurers, then, are going to be a huge part of the tactical strategy of this game. I cannot wait.
I'm also going to disagree with Chris on the usefulness of the Thief. Forcing an opponent to draw two dice from his bag and put them either back in the bag or in the used pile can really throw a wrench in his system. Say you know he has a few big characters in his bag--you force him to pull out two, and he's got that Red Dragon you've been dreading. No problem! Into his used pile it goes.
ReplyDeleteIt can also mean that you can more readily clean his bag out of sidekick dice to force him into rerolling more of his characters to hopefully prevent him from making his fielding cost. Keeping his dice bag free of characters or of potentially useful dice is a great control mechanism, and I wouldn't overlook it.
That's a fair point, Trevor. I think in a D&D only situation, this might be true. But when you mix sets in and you've got someone with really low buys and constantly cycling dice through with PXG, I dunno. Seems like he might be a waste of that much energy to drop him.
DeletePerhaps if you're mixing sets. Then again, if you're mixing sets, you really aren't going to use any of the adventurers anyway, since they become so situational as to never quite be as useful as a 2-or-3-cost Ant-Man (except for the wizard). The main use of an adventurer is in the experience mechanic. Nobody's going to use a Cleric that's immune to undead when you're building against a superhero team.
DeleteBut in a D&D only game, I think the Thief is likely to end up being one really interesting character in the game of bag control.
There's another thing about the wizard that I think was overlooked: this is, to my knowledge, the first character die to have a 0 attack on a die face. That's right. A zero attack face.
ReplyDeleteThe possibilities are really quite astounding. Using her to prevent certain characters from going into used is great, you could use her to do no damage whatsoever to certain offenders (if we're mixing sets, Hulk is no longer an issue, although I'm sure there are monsters in this set that remain similar), and she could easily be used for simple blocks that bounce her into the prep pile quickly.
It should also be really easy to get her into the used pile quickly, which is great if you know you have a bag refill coming up and could use the bolt energy or another die face. If an opponent doesn't block her, your opponent doesn't take damage but you still get her in your bag for a potential quick turnover. It's less efficient than bumping her over to the prep area, but it can still be an interesting and unexpected strategy to keep things fresh against an opponent.
Perhaps I'm overstating her significance, but I really think WizKids is doing some interesting stuff with this set.
^^^^^ :)
Delete