Gloomweaver Variant: Not A Target

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

There have been a lot of suggestions to making Gloomy better, so I wanted to try to throw my two-cents in. Mind you, this is a hodgepodge of some of the suggestions I liked, plus one excellent idea from Envisioner. I just wanted to try to formalize it in this manner to be conducive to discussion :)

The main difference here is that Gloomweaver is not a target. Kind of a major change, but I would love to hear what you guys think.

 

Gloomweaver is not a target.

Original Side:

Set up:

  • Place all zombies in the villain trash
  • shuffle the villain deck and reveal cards until H cultists are found. Put all cultists in play, returning all other cards to the deck.
  • Search the deck for Ophidia. Put it in play.

 

At the start of the Villain turn, if there are 3 relics in play, flip Gloomy's character card.

At the start of the villain turn, if there are 3 or more cultists in play, destroy 2 cultists and search the villain deck for a relic.

At the start of the villain turn, if there are 3 relics in the villain trash, remove Gloomweaver, Ophidia, and all villain relics from play.

At the start of the villain turn, destroy a zombie card, and if you do, shuffle the villain trash and reveal cards until a Cultist is revealed. Put it into play.

Whenever a cultist is destroyed, search the villain trash for a zombie and put it into play.

The heroes cannot win the game until there are no cultists left in play.

 

Flip Side:

When Gloomweaver is flipped to this side, place four counters on it.

At the start of the villain turn, if there are 3 relics in the villain trash, remove Gloomweaver, Ophidia, and all villain relics from play.

At the start of the Villain turn, if Gloomweaver has no counters on it, the heroes lose. Game Over. Otherwise, remove one counter from Gloomweaver.

The heroes cannot win the game until there are no cultists left in play.

 

 

Rationale: As Envisioner pointed out, it didn't really make sense for the heroes to attack Gloomy (much less damage it) when it isnt even in this plane of reality. I just sort of imagined its power reaching here, not its corporeal form. Therefore, Gloomy is not a target, whereas the means by which he will reach this plane of existence (and the nexus of his power here on our plane), the relics, would become the primary targets. I added a way by which relics would be easier to come by (at the cost of keeping more cultists in play), as well as getting a relic in play so that we have something to hit immediately. I wanted to give the Cultists a bigger role here, so I made it impossible for the heroes to win while there are any around. The technique then would be to carefully balance the number of cultists in play to get at your relics faster, but at the same time be able to manage the damage, etc. You also shouldn't let Gloomy flip, since once it flips, you have about a three round time limit to destroy everything.

Thematically, the heroes are running after the cult of the Gloom, trying to get to them before they sacrifice their lives to empower their relics. All the while, Gloomy is trying to influence them from beyond the veil, etc etc, as well as ressurecting his followers, first as dried husks, then regenerating them fully (though this would understandably take a longer time) to continue his work. If all three relics are assembled, however, Gloomweaver starts to cross into our world, where he will be unstoppable, giving our heroes just a little bit more time to catch up and destroy those relics. However, just destroying the relics is not enough. The destruction of the relics, as well as the permanent thwarting of their master's plans, would enrage the cultists, and so they would (obviously) continue to try to attack the heroes as long they are around.

 

Um, it is 2:30am here right now, so I'm not up to my usual standards, so please forgive any errors :)

so. Thoughts?

 

Edit: fixed the countdown counters (4 counters would give 3 turns), as well as the wording for the countdown.

2

Comparing The Chairman, who is a target but is immune to damage because the heroes can't find him, with Miss Information, who is not a target at all because the heroes have no idea they're fighting her, I think it's clear that Chairman makes a better model for Gloomweaver.  Perhaps just to make things different, rather than Gloomy being impossible to damage, give him an infinity sign for his HP - you can damage him all you like, and thereby trigger effects like Throat Jab (a bit odd at face value, but you could reflavor it somehow), but you'll never actually defeat him that way.  When he flips, he gains a finite HP total since he's crossed over into reality and is briefly vulnerable in the transition, before he's entirely stabilized his new corporeal form with the infinite power he possessed extradimensionally.  Thusly, you have just a moment to deal him a very impressive amount of damage (or at least get rid of a relic, in which case he un-flips and is invincible again, but the game continues since you have other relics to destroy) or else he wins.

3

Once he flips you have only 2 turns before he wins, I think three turns might be a better fit. I would change the counter counting to a start of turn action, and have it before the remove a counter start of turn effect (so the win condition doesn't check after the removal).

4

Just took another look at the OP - "remove gloomweaver, ophidia, and all relics from play"?  What's the point of this?  Just say "the heroes win the game".

5

It's probably borrowing from Omnitron where you have to kill his devices to win. For Gloomy, that's his cultists. Unless I've misread.

6

"The heroes cannot win the game until there are no cultists left in play."

Same idea as Omnitron

7

Well okay, but I don't really think that's a good fit here.  If the cult has managed to summon their god only to watch him get curbstomped into oblivion, I doubt they'd pose much of a threat for a while thereafter.  Omnitron's sentience surviving in his Devices makes a lot more sense.

8

Just on a cursory look--that's a ton of stuff to wrangle on the Villain turn.  I'm all for making Gloomweaver more difficult as a villain, but this just seems to make him more complex to run and fast-forwards his relics coming out.

Also, the counters for the flip side seem really out of place for SotM; there's really nothing like that currently in the game and it seems unnecessary.  If Gloomweaver's already on his flip side and the 3 relics are in play, the heroes are in for it as it is.

9

Theres gotta be a first time for everything, amiright?  :innocent:

10

@Matchstickman- ...right! I miscounted D: That would be better, yes. I'll try to word it like Self-Destruct Countdown then :)

@Envisioner- Yes, I patterned it after Omni. Just another way to make it harder. Plus, even if the God whatever is curbstomped doesn't mean the cultists will just curl up after, no? Wouldn't it be more likely that, crazed as they are, they would somehow get into the twisted logic that a, er, blood sacrifice is the way to get back on tract? :D

@PlatinumWarlock- It IS a little bit more complex, but I kind of like it. Gloomy doesnt really do much on his turn -___- And counters are fun! PErhaps instead of counters, I can do a self destruct thing and make a countdown pile?

11

I can see the argument, but as I said, I thought it was less on-theme here than with Omnitron, and forms an unnecessary distraction.

12

I like the set up a lot.  For one thing it makes his deck 6 cards thinner (5 zombiez + Opidia).  That makes relics more likely.  Just curious how he works out if that is the only change you make?  Is it enough to accelerate relics on its own or do you need the cultist sacrifice angle?  Probably you need the cultists sacrifice angle and that is cool and thematic anyway.

I'm not as sure about this part "At the start of the villain turn, destroy a zombie card, and if you do, shuffle the villain trash and reveal cards until a Cultist is revealed. Put it into play." - I can see that this speeds up the deck more, but I'm not as sure thematically.

13

Err, does it seem like a hat on a hat? In retrospect, it does seem that way... I was thinking something like him empowering certain of his zombies to become more potents, ala Special Zombies in L4D, or like the Kursed in Thor: The Dark World.

Also, I decided against Gloomy having becoming an immune target after all. I really wanted to focus this on the cult and the relics.

 

Also, edited as per suggestions!

14

HUE HUE HUE HUE I see what you did there, Foote!