Tealord

[TheDruid]

http://www.heroscapehq.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2525&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Looks like were not the only ones who think that’s there's something not right about Tealord. The discussion is long, but there seems to be a general agreeance that Tealords 180pt cost cannot be justified in anyway.

I can't remember a single instance where any of us have drafted Tealoard. Although his skill is tempting, when you work out the cost, there is just so much more you can do with those points. Not to mention the fact that he could get summoned raped, disengagement ability or not.

It's a shame, because i really think his special abilities fit well into the game, and yet we joke about screwing people over by a mandatory draft of Telord if they are taking to long to decide on a pick

[Ustauk]

Could we not just house rule him at a lower value, say 160?

[TheDruid]

expert players on the boards say hes more in the 120-130 range.

The theres a lot of interesting ideas in the thread, about beefing him up to make him worth 180pts.

It's a touchy subject playing with points and abilities.

[Shayne]

I agree with touching the card, it gets to be a little tough to say what is and what isnt balanced.

I think that the agents are way to cheap at 100, we sort of balanced them by removing the range gliph bonus.  Sure, that balances them for a long map game, on a shorter map they are still overpowered.  I think at 125 they are a good bye, others think 150.  Tough call.

Taelord...ive drafted him, and he works well.  Touching the card is the easiest way to fix him, but is their any sort of house rule we can give him that doesnt effect the cards stats?

[Ustauk]

Perhaps we could playtest him at 120 or 130  with one of the four man groups, to see if he's overpowered.  Basically, he's the opposite number of the Rae-Lin.  He should probably cost a bit more then her because adding an attack die skews the odds a bit more then adding a defense die, but he shouldn't cost that much more.

[Shayne]

Why not use the flipside card for his attribute points.  4/6 instead of a 3/3.  Take it one step further and give the minions a full binding ability and not the half-assed that it is now.

[Shayne]

A lot of people make a good case for him to be just 80 points.

[TheDruid]

yeah, that was kind of a kick in the nuts, the fact that the minions werent a full binding.

[Lazybones]

Even with a point change he might be hard to draft because of the power in the new wave units.

[Shayne]

the new units look to be rather powerful.  lots of instant deaths.

[TheDruid]

Code: [Select]


         Raelin        | Tealord
_________________________________________
Cost:     80           |  180
Life:     5            |  5
Move:     6            |  5
Range:    1            |  1
Attack:   3            |  3
Defense:  3            |  3
                       |
Species:  Kyre         |  Kyre
Type:     Unique Hero  |  Unique Hero
Class:    Warrior      |  Warrior
Persona:  Merciful     |  Relentless
Height:   5            |  5


Realins Powers

DEFENSIVE AURA
All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Raelin add 2 to their defense dice. Raelin's Defensive Aura does not affect Raelin.

FLYING
When counting spaces for Raelin's movement, ignore elevations. Raelin may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. When Raelin starts to fly, if she is engaged she will take any leaving engagement attacks.


Tealords Powers

Attack Aura
All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Taelord get +1 to attack. Taelord's Attack Aura does not affect Taelord.

Flying
When counting spaces for Taelord's movement, ignore elevations. Taelord may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins.

So essentially the main differences between the two:

- Realin gets 6 movement over Tealords 5: +Raelin
- Tealord can leave an engagement without receiving an attack of opportunity: +Tealord
- Tealord cost 100pts more then Realin: ++Raelin

Realing gives +2 defense aura for 4 clear spaces, defense odds are 1/3
Tealord gives +1 attack aura for 4 clear spaces, attack odds are 1/2

I think the fact that the attack aura is 1 less then the defense aura balances the dice odds.

As far as binding goes, Tealord gets the minions, Realin gets the guys with the war hammers, and their powers can be applied to any unit in the game, so binding really aint much an issue here.

Really in the end it can be compared to whats better, the +1 attack glyph or the +2 defense glyph, because the effect is sort of the same.

+1 attack to a few guys within range of Tealord really aint going to swing the game, however his extreme cost may cause you to lose the game due to the sheer draft handicap alone (think < 400pt games).

I think we should drop Tealords disengage bonus to bring him in line with Realin (really, attack of opportunity isnt that big of a deal to a unit with more then 1 health point anyway), make his cost 80 and call it a day. They are virtually counter parts of each other.

[TheDruid]

Now heres a guy in wave 4 who could sway the tide in a game:

Morsbane

Code: [Select]


Cost:     100
Life:     6
Move:     5
Range:    1
Attack:   3
Defense:  2
                   
Species:  Elf
Type:     Unique Hero
Class:    Wizzard
Persona:  tricky
Height:   5


Special abilities

Rod of Negation
Start the game with 3 brown Negation Markers on this card. At the end of the turn, if you have at least 1 Negation Marker on this card, you may choose any opponent's unique figure within 6 clear sight spaces of Morsbane. Roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-15, nothing happens. If you roll a 16-19, place a Negation Marker on the chosen figure's Army Card. All of that figure's special powers are negated for the entire game. If you roll a 20, destroy the chosen figure.


Now thats what i call a powerful ability, if Tealords was even close to this powerfull then maybe the 180 could be justified, but this hero is only 100pts! i don’t get it.

Could you imagine drafting Tealord at 180pts, then getting hit by this guy's special ability... game over.

[TheDruid]

Annother interesting point.

For the same cost as Tealord, you could draft Realin and morsbane (above post) at 180pts (Realin 80pts + morsbane 100pts)

Its kind of sad really, and thats just one combination of so many that makes a Tealord pick so shamefull.

For the second most expensive unit in the game hes not very impressive. The more and more I look into it, the more disapointed i am. Lets compare the 3 most expensive units in the game: Charos (Green Dragon), Tealord, Su-Bak-Na (Bone Dragon)

Code: [Select]


         Charos        | Tealord        | Su-Bak-Na
________________________________________________________
Cost:     210          |  180           |  160
Life:     9            |  5             |  5
Move:     5            |  5             |  6
Range:    1            |  1             |  1
Attack:   5            |  3             |  7
Defense:  5            |  3             |  3
                       |                |
Species:  Dragon       |  Kyre          |  Marro
Type:     Unique Hero  |  Unique Hero   |  Unique Hero
Class:    King         |  Warrior       |  Hivelord
Persona:  Valiant      |  Relentless    |  Tricky
Height:   9 Huge       |  5 Medium      |  12 Huge


Special Abilitites: Charos

Counter Strike
When rolling defense dice against a normal attack from an adjacent attacking figure, all excess shields count as unblock able hits on the attacking figure.

Flying
When counting spaces for Charo's movement, ignore elevation.  Charos may fly over water without stopping.  Charos may pass over figures without becoming engaged.  Charos may fly over obstacles such as ruins.  When Charos starts to fly, if he is engaged he will take any leaving engagement attacks.

Lets face it, Charo's is a masher, he can take it as well as he can dish it. Opponents will lose equal point value in army just to take him out. Easily the most feared unit on the board. The only way to take this guy out is head-on brute force, and many die in the process. While your opponent is investing all his resources in taking this guy out, it buys you time regroup, go on an offensive, secure glyphs. If left to fend for himself, he'll hold his own for several rounds buying you precious time. For such a high price (210pts) you never feel like your sacrificing the cost, draft well spent.

-------------------------------------------

Special Abilitites: Tealord

Attack Aura
All figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Taelord get +1 to attack. Taelord's Attack Aura does not affect Taelord.

Flying
When counting spaces for Taelord's movement, ignore elevations. Taelord may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins.

Since i have never actually drafted Tealord its hard to comment on him. Although i often play with Realin, finn and other heroes with *similar* abilities, not to mention the attack +1 glyph which is a better bonus than Tealord can give since its across all your units. Just get higher then your opponent on attacking and you've matched the bonus. But i guess it's all about the stacking with Tealord, if you have a height bonus + glyph bonus + maybe a binded hero bonus, then add Tealord you *could* boost the base attack of a unit by +4, could be powerful, but its just as easy to create a similar if not higher defense bonus. Units like the snipers and minions i think may benefit the most. There is defiantly a use for his skill, but no more then any other mid level skill.

-------------------------------------------

Special Abilitites: Su-Bak-Na

Hive Supremacy
Anytime you roll the 20-sided die for a Marro or Wulsinu Army Card, you may add 1 to your die roll.

Flying
When counting spaces for Su-Bak-Na's movement ignore elevation.  Su-Bak-Na may fly over water without stopping.  Su-Bak-Na may pass over figures without becoming engaged.  Su-Bak-Na may fly over obstacles such as ruins.  When Su-Bak-Na starts to fly, if he is engaged he will take any leaving engagement attacks.

+1 to d20 roles dont seem like much at first, but the fact that all marro type unit special abilities require a d20 roll, the +1 is often all you need to tip those close roles in your favor. Not to mention that if your army is heavy marro, your instantly immune to mass curse. Unlike Tealord, the bone dragons ability is automatically applied to all marro units, whether close to him or not, just keep him alive. Need a thrasher? well the bone dragon also has the highest base attack in the game, 7 attack is enough to take out *almost* any squad member or hero in the game with one swipe, not bad.

What else can i say, they all fly, so no advantage there. The only other difference is the fact that the Dragons are size Huge, which makes them immune to most kill-on-roll special abilities.

[Lazybones]

Almost looks like the 180 on Tealord is a Typo when you stack him against the rest  

[Shayne]

Many people in that topic say that.  I agree though, 80 is the way we should go.

[Ustauk]

The typo speculation was that they meant to increase the unit cost to 100, becasue of his disengatement ability, but forgot to change the eight to a zero when they added a number up front.  

I don't think they have to do a mail out to do this.  They should simply do a large batch run of the corrected card, and then distribute them to Toys'R'Us and Walmart.  The set owners could then go in and exchange the original card for the corrected one, should they wish to.

[TheDruid]

I don't think they have to do a mail out to do this. They should simply do a large batch run of the corrected card, and then distribute them to Toys'R'Us and Walmart. The set owners could then go in and exchange the original card for the corrected one, should they wish to.

And cost Hasbro millions of extra dollars, wouldn’t it be easier to hide the truth by saying his cost was intended due to upcoming other heroes? (that have yet to significantly surface even 3 waves later).

What’s worse; publicly admitting to a mistake and having to pay millions to correct it (Look how Hasbro has already cheeped out on the quality of cards, its not hard to see where their priorities are).

The other option is to insist it was intended, save money and reputation, and let the real pissed off players edit them with house rules anyways. Really, it’s only a small percentage of players dedicated enough and have the whit’s to put two and two together.

I think the fact that the mistake falls in such a grey area being at 180pts, its not totally unbelievable that a unit could cost this much, especially at the time of release (wave 1). But with the release or additional waves, they have done little to justify his cost, and in a sense highlight their mistake with the continued release of more powerful characters worth less points.

Im proposing right now that we house rule Tealord to 80pts, and drop his free disengage bonus. Im looking for a majority of agreement here.

[Ustauk]

Im proposing right now that we house rule Tealord to 80pts, and drop his free disengage bonus. Im looking for a majority of agreement here.

I agree.

[Shayne]

I agree.  I was gonna print off a couple cards with our change, but ive had issues with my printer (printer head i think is dead, gotta take it in to Futureshop for warrentee).  I could print them at upside i suppose

[Lazybones]

Do we really need to mess with his specials as well?
make him 100 and he is still MUCH MUCH more affordable than when at 180.

We don't want the house rules to turn int a manual XX pages deep.

[Shayne]

The thing about his flying ability is they just omitted the part about getting hit for dissengagement.  I dunno.  I like 80 as all the other similar are 80, though 100 and keeping his dissengagement is cool to me.

I sitll vote for the 80.

[TheDruid]

Im easy either way, Disengage is kind of nice.

[Ustauk]

Im easy either way, Disengage is kind of nice.

I'm fine with disengage and the cost of 100.  We can just put a round sticky over the eight

[Mr. Analog]

Who woulda thought that the Tea Lord would be so... old.



Sorry, sorry

[Lazybones]

LOL Tea Lord...