Cryonnakis and the Pit of Doom

I usually try to get a game over the Thanksgiving weekend, and this weekend we had some of our Scaper friends over to play.  I designed a kind of an arena board called the "Pit of Doom" for up to six players that has sand, lava, grass, snow, water, and swamp versions.  We decided to build the snow board for Friday afternoon.

Here's a picture of the acutal board from near the end of the game:

As you can see from the picture, the trees plotted on the VirtualScape image aren't really the trees from the Road to the Forgotten Forest, but frosted pine trees that are readily available at this time of year from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Lowe's, K-Mart, or any place that sells those Department 54 and other miniature houses.  I saw a pack at Lowe's today (Carole Town 21-Piece Trees) for something like $12.99.  For that, you get the 21 trees (seen below). 

I don't usually use the two largest ones, but the other ones are perfectly suitable for Heroscape use.  I have two sets of these that I use.

It was a great game that lasted about 7 hours (including drafting and a short supper break).

Here's a picture of the final shot as Agent Uniqua shot down the last Sentinel of Jandar and our final two players:






















Though it was a difficult game for him (my boys learned a lesson about how life and gaming intersect...which may be the subject of an upcoming blog entry), Benjamin won the day with his army of agents.  Congratulations, Ben!!

One of the most significant aspects of this particular game for me though, was that this game was the debut game for one of my favorite custom creations...Cryonnakis!

As I said in one of my previous entries, I like dragons a lot.  When I found the Dungeons & Dragons gargantuan white dragon for a good price from Auggie's Games, I couldn't resist getting it.  There aren't too many boards on which a Gargantuan dragon like Cryonnakis can play, but Friday's board was designed with that possiblity in mind, and Charles drafted him.

Cryonnakis was quite intimidating.  The fear was that in drafting such a large and powerful dragon, it would become a very large target, but as it turned out, when Charles drafted him, it brought a chorus of, "Truce!" from several of our younger players.

When making custom figures for Heroscape from D&D figures, I try to translate the figure's special D&D powers to the Heroscape custom as best I can (and, yes, he fits on a two-space base). 

Here's the card for Cryonnakis:

Here's some of the things I learned in watching him being played:

(1) A 10-space Ice Breath line is pretty powerful, especially when it affects figures adjacent to those in the line of attack.  Charles used this power against Ezra army of Romans and Greeks.  He significantly wounded Marcus Decimus Gallus and Parmenio and destroyed a couple of Sacred Band (who were in the line of attack) and destroyed 3 more Sacred Band and 2 Roman Legionnaires (who were adjacent to them) all in a single attack.  Whoa!!!

(2) I think most of Cyronnakis' stat values are good.  I'm not sure about his point value, though.  He may be pointed too highly.  We wanted to make Cryonnakis the most highly pointed figure (more than the Hulk), but I'm not sure, even with his high life value and great strength, that he is worth 380 points (see (3) below), though J.P. said he think he could be worth it in the hands of the right player.

(3) When the game started Ezra had a bunch of Legionnaires and Sacred Band squads and we all thought he was crazy for taking some many squad figures, but as it turned out, Cryonnakis is extremely vulnerable to large squads.  His Gargantuan power allows him to be swarmed with squads, all of whom get a disengement shot at him if he should try to fly away.  There is the possibility of Cryonnakis being engaged with up to 22 figures simultaneously.  Whoa!!!

This presumes that a bunch of squad figures could reach him which, in our game, they did, and Ezra's Sacred Band finished off Cryonnakis on the turn after Cryonnakis' devestating Ice Breath Special Attack on his forces.

All that is to say that Cryonnakis can get trapped pretty easily making me question whether he's worth the 380 points.  We'll play him again and see what how valuable he is in another player's hand before I decide on his points.

It was fun to watch him in the game, though.  Another great adventure in Heroscape!