Crew/Captain Suggestions/Ideas#1238

So, after picking up the game and playing a lot, I gotta say I really love what you guys have made here. I have been bursting with ideas for units I’d love to see, so here are some suggestions I have.

I hope this inspires someone in the dev team!

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“Caliban” - Small Melee Unit
My idea around Caliban is to have a duellist ninja. Caliban is a fast, hard-hitting melee unit that jumps in and forces people to fight him. His big weakness, though, is that he’s rather flimsy and needs protection from ranged attackers, because otherwise he’s going to end up in an Indiana Jones situation.

Built kind of like a melee Dark Vengance with a splash of Maximus with his movement shenanigans, Caliban is a 2-cost with 3 melee and has about 10-12hp. He’s got a wicked passive and an ability that will lock people up in a duel, forcing them to attack him close - which is where his passive shines.

Designed as a Methedori, I imagined he has a modern Olympic fencher but in Methedori navy blue and gold, with a long, thin rapier as his main weapon. I also imagined him as being one-armed and left handed; a heavier right shoulder pauldron giving him balance.

Keywords: Ambush

Passive ability; Pre-emptive Strike. When attacked while touching, instead of retaliating after being hit he strikes first instead, then takes damage from the attacker (if they are still alive).

• Ability: Challenge “I challenge you to a d-duel!
  Caliban casts the ability at an enemy within his movement range (so this is amped by being given Fast). He moves towards that enemy Unit, and both he and the enemy Unit gains the Duel condition; they cannot move and can only attack each other (though they can still retaliate against other people attacking the duel) and this Duel condition lasts until one or the other is moved (by a movement ability) or one or the other is defeated.

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“Wallace” - Large Melee Unit
He’s a control piece who wants to create chokepoints and disrupt movement/fire lanes in the mid or late game, coming in to save the day once the fight has been committed.

As a unit, he’d be a large melee base with a generous health bar but not-so-great melee attack for his cost; a big beefy unit that would cost 4 to 7 leadership, have 2-3 melee damage, and around 12-16 health.

Thematically, I would make him a cheerful ‘trench knight’ with a large shield and a short sword - mixing the aesthetics of a WWI trench fighting soldier and a medieval knight or roman legionaire, which might be interesting if his design was clearly Methedori in origin but with layers of Smuggler and time added, his armor now half-hidden under layers of patchwork welds and his weapon has been replaced by something improvised yet still echoing his origins.

Passive ability; Dug in. While he’s standing still, Wallace gets Armor and regenerates 1-2 health per round.

• Ability: Get behind me! - 1 or 2 cinder depending on Immovable.
  Casting the ability gives Wallace 2-4 temporary health that will drop away when he next moves. A 2-cinder option is if he also becomes Immovable (unable to be moved by abilities like Jax’s gravity trap or Crankbait’s chain).

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“Trench” - Small Ranged Unit
Thematically similar to Wallace, ‘Trench’ is a ranged support piece that’s meant to work around exploiting cover rather than physically imposing himself in front of the enemy.

As a small ranged unit, he’s got the ‘usual’ kit; 3dmg ranged, with a long drop-off in accuracy typical of snipers, and not a lot of health - 8 is what I’d ballpark him at. Despite this I’d put him as a 4-cost, because of his abilities.

I imagine that, design-wise, Trench fits the mold of a slender sniper, and personality wise would fit more the cold, camouflaged killers seen in WWI’s trenches, with a deep hood and long trench coat masking his body’s outline while a long Methedori-made rifle has been wrapped in tape and camouflaged up. This might open up some kind of connection to Aria.

Passive ability; Braced. When touching a piece of Soft Cover or another Unit, shooting through it does not penalise accuracy. This might come with another form to balance it, where you only get this bonus if Trench has not moved this turn and still has his green ‘tick’.

• Ability: Entrench
  Casting this ability on the ground creates a rectangular barricade a little wider than a small base that acts as Soft Cover. Casting again on an existing Entrenchment will make it bigger and repair it or gains more health. Entrenchments would have anywhere from 3-5 health.

• Ability: Intercept
  Casting this ability in a very long cone, and requires him to have his attack available. Instead of attacking, Trench saves his bullet to use it as an Overwatch. If an enemy Unit moves into or ends a move inside the cone, Trench attacks them.

Another idea I had:

“Protector Mother” - Large Melee
A large melee unit with Yi-aweti aesthetics, Mother is a unit that needs to be taken down fast when she arrives, or she might maul you in the next turn if you keep focusing other units.

She’s a tank based around the theme of a mother bear - and how dangerous they can be around her cubs, with 14-18 health and melee 1, which would put her around 4-6 cost.

Keywords: Armor

Passive Ability: Protective Programming
Each time a nearby allied unit is damaged, gain +1 attack.

This passive is what makes Mother so dangerous, and can build her up into a huge threat very quickly to punish someone being able to throw out a lot of damage but not focusing it on her, and why its so key to bring her down quickly.

Ability - Brutal Backhand
Mother’s next attack gives Stun.