Epic
Impressive by virtue of greatness of size, scope or heroism.

This is going to be fun. I thought for my first entry it would be fun to post how to host an Epic Heroscape Game. I’ve been running big Heroscape games at my house ever since we came out with Heroscape. There’s nothing like drawing a little map and then building it on a big table.

Big Games with lots of people- If you’ve played Heroscape with more than 6 people as is, you quickly realize it’s not really designed to play with that many people. There is too much waiting in between turns. You find yourself saying things like: Is it my turn yet. Done. Finished. Pick up the pace. If you are hosting an Epic Heroscape Game and the game is for more than 6 people there are some rules you can use to make it fun for everyone.

What do you need to Host an Epic Heroscape Game? Lots of figures and lots of terrain, and some friends to play with. Oh yeah, you need a big table or 2. And some snacks and beverages would be nice.

The role of the Host-
You do not actually play.
You organize the event to find out who is playing and just how many players are playing.
You set up the map and usually all of the armies.
You organize the pregame activities.
You’re there to make sure everybody has a good time.

IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO HOST THIS EPIC HEROSCAPE GAME READ NO FURTHER.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO HOST, CONTINUE READING.

Epic Heroscape Game #1- Enchanted Grounds
This game is for 8 players and the host (who does not play).

The Batttlefield and the Set Up-
Build the Enchanted grounds battlefield. Follow these rough rules when building:
You will want to build a battlefield so that 8 players can play comfortably. I used a 4 by 6 table. The battlefield was basically one long rectangle. In the 6 ft direction the tiles stretched over the entire table. In the 4 ft direction, I counted 26 hexes across. This length is important for big games. If you start too far apart players spend too much time moving (yawn…boring). At 26 hexes, players can field large armies and advance in waves and players will also have room to roll dice and place army cards.

It’s 4 on 4. Teammates will sit next to each other facing their opponents. One team on one side of the table, the other team on the other side. Starting areas will be within 4 spaces of the edge of the table.

The Parting line-
As the host, you are going to run 2 (2 on 2) games simultaneously. This really makes for fast play. When you build the battlefield you need to have some clear indication as to where the parting line is between the 2 games. Sometimes, I’ll run a jagged single hex road down the middle of the battlefield and announce that the road belongs to the players on the left. If you do not have a lot of road tiles you can use sand tiles or some different color tile to indicate where the parting line is.

Rules for Running Simultaneous playing games:    
Passing Army Cards- Players can reinforce their teammates in the other game. All they need to do is move an entire army cards worth of figures into the other game’s area. The Army card is then given to any teammate in that game. In future rounds, the receiving player can then place order markers on the newly acquired card. You can also pass incomplete squads, if that’s all that is left alive. For example, if you have the Krav Maga agents and 1 was destroyed you could still pass the remaining 2 to your teammate.

Resolving Simultaneous play- Players can shoot over the parting line, so sometimes this is a little confusing. You as the host, tell the players what happens first. When a player moves an entire army card into the other game over the parting line to pass those figures and the army card, that player can attack or use any special powers that he would normally use. This is also a case where combat could be happening at the same time. You as the host, tell the players what happens first.

Placing the Enchanted Grounds- Place 6 holy grounds in the battlefield, 3 in each game. Use a 7-hex tile of a different color to clearly indicate the Enchanted Grounds. I used a lot of grass on most of the board so I used 7-hex sand tiles to indicate the Enchanted Grounds. These should be placed so one team does not have an advantage. Mix up the terrain in and around the Enchanted Grounds. For example, one Enchanted ground could on a hill, or surrounded by trees with only 2 entrances, or surrounded by water, or in a tower, or almost completely surrounded by lava. Be creative.   

Pregame and the Story-

It’s 4 on 4. Teammates will sit next to each other facing their opponents. One team on one side of the table, the other team on the other side. Starting areas will be within 4 spaces of the edge of the table. As the host, you are going to run 2 (2 on 2) games simultaneously.

One side is evil- Utgar. The other side is Good- Jandar, Vydar, Einar, Ullar, & Aquilla.

Generals- Pick a player to be a general for each team. Generals will assign legions, assign where their team’s players will start. The generals also play.

Legion Cards- On index cards write up some legion cards. What’s on these legion cards depends how big your collection is. Each legion should be around 400-800 points armies. Make 10 legion cards for each side. Make sure the overall point total per side is equal. The evil side should contain all Utgar figures. If your collection cannot accommodate these point totals just make one side mostly Utgar. If your collection is not this big, you can scale down the legion cards to 200-400 point armies.

Here are some examples of Legion Cards:

EVIL ARMY LEGION I
Marro Hive 120
Marro Stingers (x4) 240
Marro Drones (x2) 100
- total points 460

EVIL ARMY LEGION II
Minions of Utgar (x3) 330
Taelord 180
Runa 120
- total points 630

EVIL ARMY LEGION III
Cyprien Esenwein 150
Sonya Esenwein 45
Iskra Esenwein 50
Marcu Esenwein 20
Rechets of Bogdan 50
Zombies of Morindan (x4) 240
- total points 555

GOOD ARMY LEGION I
Templar Knights (x3) 360
Knights of Weston (x3) 210
Sir Denrick 100
Finn 80
- total points 750

GOOD ARMY LEGION II
Venoc Warlord 120
Venoc Vipers (x3) 120
Aubrien Elves (x3) 210
- total points 420

Making the Legion cards is fun. I usually group by General, but feel free to group your legion however you want. Make sure you put figures that work with each other together.

Pregame for the Generals-

Give them this information before the game (see below). I usually give the generals information a couple days ahead of the actual game night so they have time to discuss their plans with their teams.

The Objective- Your Valkyrie has seen visions of Enchanted Grounds in Upper Bleakwoode. Possession of these lands will aid in locating one of the undiscovered wellsprings. There are also ancient artifacts scattered throughout the area.

At the end of round 9 the game is over and victory points will be awarded. 6 7-hex sand tiles positioned close to the middle of the battlefield will be the 6 enchanted grounds. Each figure on one of these 42 spaces is awarded 100 victory points. There are 6 artifacts worth between 100 and 500 victory points. The team with the most victory points wins.    

Generals, your team of 4 will be playing 2 (2 on 2) games simultaneously right next to each other. All of your team will be on one side and your team’s armies will be placed close to the edge of the battlefield closest to your team. You will be able to pass armies back and forth. More on how that works later (you can explain this in detail later).

As Generals you will do the following:
-Play
-Assign legions to you and your players
-Assign which players will play in which game, and where they will sit.

Here is a picture of the battlefield.
(As the host, if you cannot take a picture, just write a brief description of the battlefield. Here’s an Example of a brief description. There are 2 side by side battlefields separated by a single hex strip of sand. Each battlefield contains 3 Enchanted Grounds. One battlefield has lots of water, in the other battlefield one of the Enchanted grounds is in a tower. The good general will have the tower on his left, and the evil general will have the tower on his right.) 

Here are your 10 Legion Cards (Give each general their 10 Legion Cards). You will need to assign 2 Legions to each player including yourself. There will be 2 extra legions, which you may assign to whomever you wish. Note: one player may not be assigned more than 3 Legions. Give this information to me one day before the game night so I can set all the armies up. When players arrive on game night night everything will be set up and ready to play.

So, generals I am looking for something like this:
Chris Evil General will command legions 1 and 8
Wayne will command legions 2, 3 and 6
John will command legions 4, 7 and 10
Rob will command legions 5 and 9

Chris and Wayne will fight on the Battlefield containing the tower enchanted ground. Wayne will be in the center. Chris will be on the outside flank. John and Rob will fight on the Battlefield without the tower enchanted ground. John will be in the center. Rob will be on the outside flank.

Getting the Artifacts ready-
Now, you as the host just need to make the artifacts.  
The Artifacts and other stuff- Cut out 10 small pieces of paper, about the size of a glyph. Write the following 10 things on the 10 pieces of paper:

Enchanted Artifact worth 100 victory points
Enchanted Artifact worth 200 victory points
Enchanted Artifact worth 300 victory points
Enchanted Artifact worth 400 victory points
Enchanted Artifact worth 400 victory points
Enchanted Artifact worth 500 victory points
Trap- This figure receives one wound
Sword of Doom +2: A figure using this sword adds 2 to its normal adjacent attack (you as the host decide which figures can use the sword, for example- you may want to say that dragons cannot wield the swords)
Bow of Doom Range 20. Attack 4.: This figure gains a special attack. Range 20. Attack 4. (you as the host decide which figures can use the bow, for example- you may want to say that dragons cannot use the bow)
Ring of Gelda +1: Addds one to this figures defense. (you as the host decide which figures can use the ring, for example- you may want to say that dragons cannot where the ring)

Put these pieces of paper face down spread out near the center of the battlefield. Put 5 in each battlefield.
Rules for passing weapons and artifacts. Any figure may pass a weapon or artifact to another figure at the end of its turn. Note: Squad figures cannot abuse this rule by using a weapon, then passing it to another figure in the same squad. All movement and all attacks need to be completed, then you may pass the artifact or weapon. You cannot pass a weapon

Attack from the woods (optional)- Sometimes to add a surprise. I’ll put a group of trees near the center of the board. The first player to move a figure adjacent to the woods gets attack by a squad of something (could be shades or zombies, whatever you have). You immediately attack with this squad, then in future rounds take turn with them at the end of each round.

In closing- If you are unclear about anything above, you as the host can decide what you think will be fair and fun for all players. Feel free to add, adjust, and or delete anything written above. Some added surprises will keep your players on edge, especially if you think they are reading this blog entry.   

Epic Heroscape Game #2- Taelord’s Coliseum
This game is for 6 players and the host (who does not play).

The Battlefield-
Build a Coliseum. You can use multiple tower packs, or build up terrain to make stepped seating. It really doesn’t matter what it looks like. It kinda depends on just how big your Heroscape collection is (my collection is kinda big). When building your Coliseum, you will need a clear visual clue as to where the fighting area is and where the figures in the audience are placed. This visual clue could be raised tiles, different color tiles, or any other clue you might think of. I build up the stands with raised tiles.  

You’ll need 18 Unique Heroes to run this game. You will also need some other figure to represent the crowd watching the event, and some squads to represent the wild animals that will be released during the game.

The Story-
(I am not a writer, so I usually write just enough to set the stage.)
Taelord, lord of battling and Utgar’s current right hand man, holds gladiator competitions to find who are the most fearsome warriors in his army. He also forces captured heroes to fight in the battle, just for added extra fun.

The Pregame-
In this game, before the game, each player needs to spend 100 gold. Tell them before they even see the arena (if possible) they will need to decide how much gold they will spend on each of these four things. They will need to bring a piece of paper to the game stating where their gold will be spent.
Give them the following in an email or on a piece of paper:

Gladiators, here are your options:

Bribe the Gladiator Trainer
(this will better your chances to get the Gladiators you want)

Donate to the Temple of Dagmar
(this could increase your initiative roll during the game)

Throw Gold into the Crowd
(this might help you win the favor of the crowd)

Bribe the Animal Trainer
(I think you can guess what this will do)

So...
You can spend your 100 gold however you like.
Here’s an example:
Bribe the Gladiator Trainer - 10 gold
Donate to the Temple of Dagmar - 50 gold
Throw Gold into the Crowd - 0 gold
Bribe the Animal Trainer - 40 gold

Please return this to me before the game begins.

Also, let the players know that they will be choosing from 6 sets of 3 Gladiators. You, as the host, pick these groups. Just use what you have. When selecting, make sure the sets of 3 heroes are not equal in points total.

Here are the teams of 3 heroes you will be selecting from for Taelord's Coliseum:

(this is who we played with)
Cyprien, Mimring, Krug – 420
Ne-Gok-Sa, Deathwalker 9000, Su-Bak-Na – 380
Finn, ROTV Raelin, SOTM Sgt. Drake Alexander – 330
Sonlen, Morsbane, Syvarris – 360
Spartacus, Retiarius, Crixus – 380
Sudema, Agent Carr, James Murphy – 315

Getting Ready to play- OK, you have built your Coliseum. You will need to place 6 glyphs Symbol-side up anywhere on the coliseum floor near the edge, not in the middle. Spread the glyphs out evenly. Cut up 6 small pieces of paper (about the size of a glyph) and write the numbers 1-6 on them. Place the pieces of paper on the glyphs. Place your groups of 3 heroes adjacent to the each of the glyphs, so each glyph will have a set of three heroes nearby. These glyphs represent doors and no figure is allowed to occupy them. You will need 3 squads to represent the animals that will attack during the game. I used Marrden Hounds, Anubian Wolves, and Deathstalkers. You can use any squads you think will work. Hide these squads from the players. They will come into play later. Now, fill the stands with the rest of your Heroscape figures.     

Rules for the players:
Object- To survive and destroy the other gladiators. The instantly game ends when there are only 6 Heroes left and victory points are awarded. Each surviving Hero receives 100 pts + their point value. During the game players should keep the Army Cards that their gladiators destroyed. Each player receives the point value of each hero their team of gladiators destroyed.  The player with the most points wins. However, you must have at least one surviving Gladiator to win.

So how does this stuff work during the game?

Bribe the Gladiator Trainer – The player who spent the most gold gets first pick of his 3 heroes, the 2nd most gets second pick and so on. All ties are decided by a 20-sided roll.

Donate to the Temple of Dagmar- The player who spent the most gold adds 10 to every one of his initiative rolls. If there is a tie decide it by rolling the 20-sided die. All other players add 1 to every one of his initiative rolls for each 10 gold they spent (round      down). 

Throw Gold into the Crowd- The player who spent the most gold is never attacked by the Crowd (see The Crowd below), and never is Sniped (see End of the Round Sniping). All ties are decided by a 20-sided roll. All other players add 1 to every one of his Crowd Rolls (this includes Crowd Approval Rating rolls and Crowd Attack Rolls) for each 10 gold they spent (round down) (see The Crowd below). 

Bribe the Animal Trainer- The player who spent the most gold will receive control of the first squad of animals unleashed. See      End of Round Animal Attack below. The 2nd most will receive control of the second squad released after the second round. The 3rd most will receive control of the third squad released after the third round. All ties are decided by a 20-sided roll.

End of the Round Sniping: This crowd is evil. At the end of each round, each player, except the player who through the most gold into the crowd, must roll for his or her Crowd Approval Rating. All players, except the player who through the most gold into the crowd, roll the 20-sided die. The player who rolled the lowest will receive sniper shots. Sniper shots are taken one at time for each of this player’s heroes. The host rolls the 20-sided die. If a 19 or higher is rolled that hero is destroyed.

End of the Round Animal Attack: After the Sniping (see above) the animals are released. You will need 3 squads to represent the animals that will attack during the game. One squad will enter the Coliseum after each of the first three rounds. I used Marrden Hounds, Anubian Wolves, and Deathstalkers. You can use any squads you think will work. Prior to the game, pick the order in which the squads will enter the Coliseum. After the first round announce that animals are being released (one squad). Give the appropriate squad card to the player who spent the most for Bribe the Animal Trainer. Roll a six sided die. The animals are placed adjacent to the door glyph rolled. The player controlling the animal squad may immediately take a turn with them. After round 2, the first squad of animals takes a turn, then the new animals are released. Roll a 6-sided for a new door glyph. The player who spent the second most gets to control this new squad and takes a turn with them immediately. After round 3, the first squad of animals takes a turn, then the second squad of animals takes a turn, then the third squad is released. Roll a 6-sided for a new door glyph. The player who spent the third most gets to control this new squad and takes a turn with them immediately.. After round 4 and on, continuing taking turns with the animals (in the chosen order) if they are alive. Any heroes destroyed by the animals count for victory points for the player controlling the animals. Note: Order markers are never placed on these animal squad cards. They move and attack at the end of the rounds only.    

Taelord’s Ruling- If a Hero figure receives wound(s) and now has one life left, the crowd will vote to see if that hero is automatically destroyed. Roll ten combat dice, if you (the host) roll 5 or more skulls the figure is destroyed, if you roll 4 or less the figure remains on the table. Note: For scoring, any hero destroyed by Taleord’s Ruling counts for the player who brought that hero down to one life left.

The Crowd- You as the host control the crowd figures. You do not use order markers. They only move and attack if a player fails a Crowd Attack Roll. A Crowd Attack Roll takes place when a player’s Gladiator goes into the crowd or attempts to move while in the crowd area(the crowd area). That player immediately rolls the 20-sided die. If the player rolls a 15 or higher, the crowd does nothing. If the player rolls an 14 or lower you can attack with any Army Card nearby. Note: If you are the player who through the most gold into the crowd, the crowd ignores you.

In closing- If you are unclear about anything above, you as the host can decide what you think will be fair and fun for all players. Feel free to add, adjust, and or delete anything written above. Some added surprises will keep your players on edge, especially if you think they are reading this blog entry.

Designing Heroscape to most gamers seems like a dream job, but as blasphemous as it sounds, not all aspects of designing Heroscape are fun. However, one of the most fun things to do is to design new characters (by this I mean the powers of the figure, not the actual look). So when Craig Van Ness told me to design a samurai army, I dove into it with great enthusiasm. I wanted an army that would be powerful but not overpowering. It had to be an army where all the figures worked well together within the context of the samurai theme. Here was a perfect opportunity to create an army that could be designed from the start rather than be designed piecemeal as new expansion packs came out.

While I’m no real expert on samurai armies, I am familiar with the samurai warrior and their way of life, having researched this topic waaaay back when I was designing the figures (actual look) for the original Shogun Gamemaster game by Milton Bradley Co. that was designed by Michael Gray. I read several well-written books on the subject that covered the samurai in-depth and visited the Springfield MA Museum, which actually has an excellent collection of samurai weapons and armor. Anytime I design a game that may use some historical reference, I try to learn as much as possible about the subject. I think it’s important to be reasonably accurate with the details. Accuracy adds to the realism of the game making the fantasy more believeable. If you have an old Shogun Gamemaster game, get out the figures and look at them through a magnifying glass. You’ll be amazed at the detail.

I started with ashigaru squads such as the harquebus and yari common soldiers. Obviously, these are squads that are cheap enough to allow you to field more than one card of the same figure. A defense of 1 is not going to make any opponent shiver in fear, but multiple squads allow you to move a full squad even after losing several of them.

Next, I wanted to step up a notch in value and power. This would be the Tagawa Samurai Archers and a squad of figures that didn’t make the “cut” – samurai mercenaries or ronin. Ronin played an important role of any samurai army, but there are limits to what we can produce for Heroscape because there are so many other figures that we need to bring out such as the elves and the knights and other Kyrie figures. We can’t make everything all at once. Maybe in the future you will see the samurai mercenaries in an expansion pack. I’ll be working on Craig to add these in the near future.

For unique squads we had the Izumi Samurai from the Rise of the Valkyrie, and the Tagawa Samurai were already designed, but not on the market yet. To give the samurai a first strike capability, I designed the Kozuke Samurai with Charging Assault. I wanted the samurai to be feared in different ways. The samurais’ signature power is the Counter Strike, but with Charging Assault, the Kozuke Samurai now had large movement capability with an attack of 5.

Unique heroes are always interesting to design. How will they fit into the existing fabric of Heroscape? How will they interact with other heroes and squads of the same army? How can I make them different? Kaemon Awa came about after seeing the original sculpt. He was so cool looking! And he was only in green sculpting epoxy at the time. His final paint deco is absolutely gorgeous! Because he had a sword and a bow, I knew I had to make him powerful. An attack of 4 and a range of 7 makes him competitive with Syvarris who, in my mind, sets the bar for performance by an archer. Obviously, Kaemon would have Counter Strike like all good samurai, but I wanted him to have something more without being over the top. Over and over in my mind, I saw this figure shooting quickly into a crowded battlefield, like a quick one-two! Thwip! Thwip! Taking a page out of Syvarris’ Double Attack, I gave Kaemon Awa a Quick Release Special Attack. He gets two quick shots with his bow but is limited to a range 4, much like shooting into a close range crowd of advancing enemy.

Now for the little known facts. I originally gave the Tagawa Samurai Archers bonding with Kaemon Awa. Holy guacamole! Can you say broken? This combination destroyed everything in sight. What a powerhouse! We played with high points values to try to balance it out but in the end, it was too much. Needless to say, we deleted the bonding. Let me just say here that I’m leaving out the details of play testing. Many of the powers I inititally come up with do not necessarily make it to the final print. In some cases, they do and then I feel really good that my design passed through very rigorous play testing and wordsmithing by our internal group here and another even more meticulous group on the outside.

The most important piece of the samurai army is Kato Katsuro, the daimyo, who coincidently happens to look just like the original daimyo from the Shogun game that I mentioned above… funny how that happens. This time he sports a deco job that humiliates any other painted figure I’ve seen! Absoultely awesome! So what do you do with the most powerful samurai on the battlefield? Make him control the battlefield! Much of my frustration when playing Heroscape is the lack of control I have when I place my order markers down at the beginning of a round only to find out things are not going according to plan, which seems to happen all the time. Maybe I needed long range attack figures to destroy a threat, but my order markers were placed on the hand-to-hand combat squads because my opponent didn’t do what I thought he was going to do. Oops!

With the daimyo, Kato Katsuro and an all samurai/ashigaru army, I can control any samurai or ashigaru that he can see on the battlefield. Placing the order markers is as simple as putting all 4 or maybe at least 3 order markers on his Army Card. Kato allows me to take a turn with either 1 samurai hero, 1 samurai squad, or both 1 ashigaru harquebus squad and 1 ashigaru yari squad. The real show of power comes when you field several squads of ashigaru harquebus and yari. That’s a potential 8 attacks during my turn! Add in height and some special powers that they have and this becomes one of the most formidable powers in Heroscape… and I can adjust on the fly to strategy that my opponent makes because I have the choice to take a turn with any samurai or ashigaru!

Does Kato sound boring? Too easy. Not enough strategy? Not if you like winning and seeing the other players getting frustrated. Is Kato and the samurai/ashigaru army perfect? Of course not. There’s a balance to everything in Heroscape, which brings me to the last figure I’ll talk about here, who upsets the balance even more in favor of the samurai/ashigaru army. Hatamoto Taro is a samurai Flag Bearer. He may be hard to find in stores but he is worth every point you pay for him when creating a samurai/ashigaru army. His Heroic Defense Aura (8 clear sight spaces) gives samurai and ashigaru the equivalent of a 50% chance of rolling a shield on defense (when attacked by an adjacent figure) rather than the normal 33% defense ratio. Did I mention that the signature power of this army is the Counter Strike?

Let me end this by saying that this is the first of an essentially complete army. I still want to do the Ronin (Craig?) and maybe throw in some mounted samurai for good measure. Then I’ll feel like my army has been completed and ready for the Battle of All Time!

Possibly the most powerful Heroscape figure in the game, the Incredible Hulk smashes through walls at a massive 370 points of pure terror. Attacking him is the only way to remove him from the battlefield, but woe to the general who enrages this creature and doesn’t destroy him. He is definitely no puny Banner, but he wasn’t always this way.
 
The original Hulk design, while being a massive gamma monster and the dread of most Unique Heroes, lacked the power to attack multiple foes. But as a comic hero the Hulk is known for laying waste to the military forces of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross; so with this in mind, we believed that he deserved to match his points in puny common troops. That means pitting him against 4 squads of 4 Roman Legionnaires (Collection 1), one squad or Roman Archers (Collection 1), Marcus Decimus Gallus (Collection 2), and Isamu (Collection 7), for a grand total of 22 figures. That is a whole lot of figures versus only one purple pants-wearing monster of a menace. He definitely needed a multi-attack power, we came up with Stomp Special Attack. Stomp Special Attack is a version of Deathwalker 9000 Explosion Special Attack, but instead it is centered on a big green foot and not a ballistic missile. Creating the Stomp Special Attack gave the Incredible Hulk a chance against multiple squads and added to the overall feel of being the playing the Hulk.
 
Craig and I had lots of fun pitting the Hulk against the Roman Legionnaires and Roman Archers (Collection 1), Marro Drones (Collection 3), Microcorp Agents (Collection 4) and more. Each time the battles were close, brutal, and fun. So if you want a challenge, bust out the Incredible Hulk and take on your friend’s 370 points of troops. I’m sure it will be an interesting match-up.
 
PS. It’s a proven fact that if you yell “HULK SMASH!!!” every time you roll dice against an opponent’s figure, you will roll more skulls and they will roll fewer shields. Believe me, I do it every time. It works.

Einar is getting his dragon.

Six months ago (give or take) Craig asked me to think of some powers/themes for the next large creature set. This is my favorite part of design, especially for a game like Heroscape. At this point, it’s figuring out what the "feel" of the piece should be and how it should fit into the overall Heroscape universe.

We had four dragons already so this one had to do several things:
1. Be different from the other dragons
2. Address some gaps in the Heroscape universe (so it was a good draft and a good counter-draft)
3. Feel like an Einar unit.

I started thinking about the last part first: Einar. Imperial. Organized. A Valkyrie who liked majesty and a clear show of power. Then I started thinking about dragons and how they worked in D&D (which I played a lot of as a kid and still play as often as I can -- only about 2x a year these days). They had a sense of awe which lower level characters were suspect to but higher level characters were immune to.

That led me thinking to some sort of awe power that affected weaker characters but not more powerful ones. So far this fit the Einar theme and it is something other dragons didn't have. So far, so good. As for fitting gaps in the Heroscpe world, this was working. Squad armies can be powerful so it would be good to have a figure that was a good counter to a mass squad army.

Here was my first take on his power:
Majestic Fires Special Attack affects its target and all figures adjacent to the target. Squad figures whose army card is 110 points or less do not roll defense dice against Majest Fires Special Attack

I was going for points as my cut-off between those that were immune to this power and those that weren't. This presented a number of issues to the playtesters. They didn't like the fact that some unique squads were right on the edge (like the Airborne Elite) and that some common squads weren't affected while unique were. Also, it was a bit too deadly.

So we went to a new version, which was:
Majestic Fires Special Attack affects its target and all figures adjacent to the target. Common Squad figures whose army card is 110 points or less do not roll defense dice against Majestic Fires Special Attack.

This was closer, but still had its issues, mostly that it was still waaaaaay too powerful. So we adjusted it to be a penalty, not a death sentence.

Majestic Fires Special Attack affects its target and all figures adjacent to the target. Squad figures whose army card is 110 points or less roll 2 fewer defense dice against Majestic Fires Special Attack.

Counting points seemed fussy and the dragon was really supposed to intimidate commoners. So here was our final power tweaked to fit with the rest of the heroscape cards.

MAJESTIC FIRES SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 7. Attack 3.
Choose a figure to attack. Any figures adjacent to the targeted figure are also affected by Majestic Fires Special Attack. Common Squad figures roll 2 less defense dice against Majestic Fires Special Attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense dice separately. Zelrig cannot be affected by his own Majestic Fires Special Attack.
There was a long back and forth at this point as to the other stats to this figure, getting the wording right, and balancing the points.

But, at the end, we had a nice, Einar-themed dragon.