Allright, on Friday I went to my Heroclix tourney, and in my last game went up against a kid who had TF-themed pogs. At first I thought, hey the judge signed off on this, they can't be too bad. Well... I was wrong. For only being 22 point pogs, these where WAY too powerful for their points. With perplex and a defense of 19 on all of them, it grew abundantly clear there was no way to win this. So I ceeded, and pointed this out to the judge. And he got a better look at them, and agreed with me.

So, now I'm trying to build Heroclix based on Transformers. I made a Hot-rod (displayed on HC realms), and now I'm trying to figgure out Galvatron... well, actually 2 Galvatrons.

One from g-1 (toon/movie/comics), and the other... the life-force sucking IDW version.
And I don't know how NOT to make them overpowered.

First up... Good old G-1 galvy... I figure point-wise he'd be over 200 Pts, a goot 10, maybe 12 range, and either 10 or 11 clicks of life. He'd have Power Cosmic team ability (takes no push damage, and he cannot be outwitted).

Ability wise...
Movement(Flight): I figgure he'd start out with Running shot, then, as he takes damage, his mental instability starts showing. A special ability modeled after the Sentry's would replace it... Roll a die, and on 1-3, he's stuck with battle fury, 3-4 he's got charge, and 5 or 6 he retains running shot. Then near the end, when he's ready to tear his opponents to peices, he gets flurry.
Attack(Sharp-shooter): Well, as we saw what he did to screamer in TFTM... he starts off with Psychic Blast. Not sure what he should have midway, but near the end I've given him a special called " I'll crush you with my bare hands". He gets Plasticity and Close Combat expert. To top that off... if he gets doubles, he won't deal knockback. So his enemy is stuck there with his hands at their neck.
Defense: I don't think there'd be anything special here... As a chaos-spawn, he'd start off with Impervious, then Invulnerability, and maybe down to toughness. I had considered some Regen... but I don't know if he ever HAD thoes capabilities in the comics.
Damage(Giant): I'm a little confused as to what'd all go down here. While in the 'toon he wasn't fairly wiley (just... crazy), the comics he was a schemer... wich would lead me to think he'd warrant Outwit or Perplex... naturally near the end, he'd be bound down with battle fury... or maybe a BF/Exploit Weakness combo (he did BITE Fort Max there in issue 79...)

And now... for the big bad. IDW's 'Dead Universe' Galvatron.
He'd still have exceptional range, and maybe be full out for an 11 click lifespan (kind of unkillable, being dead and all). Though his abilities differ.
Movement: You recall what he did to the reaper captain? Infected him with death and suck him upon his comerades. I'd considered a Mind-controll variation on that... but I'm not sure how it would fly. I'm thinking of modding it down a tad, where, after he hits someone with Close combat, that charrecter would then deal penetrating Poison to any adjacent freindlies. I also thought Plasticity would be a nice touch at the end... considering one of his abilities wich is forthcoming.
Attack: High-output Psychic Blast, Followed by some Pulse wave... not sure if there's anything else to add on there.
Defense: Same as before.... Impervious, Invulnerability, Toughness...
Attack: His attack starts out a little different... he Starts out with Exploit Weakness (for his life-sucking touch), then... near the end, he gets another special... Granting him both Poison and Steal Energy, and pennetrating damage in close-combat. This, naturally, co-incides with his plasticity.

Any heroclix-savvy individuals got idears?

I'm not HeroClix savvy -- but I could tell you that if you're going for pure COMICS based Galvatron he doesn't need flight. I think he flies once in the comics -- in US issue 75. Otherwise he can't seem to fly, normally.

My HeroClix ignorance is probably showing a little bit, I admit, but I wouldn't really describe any incarnation of him as a "Sharpshooter" either. He's not a particularly fantabulous shot.

--Boltax.

I think to balance crazy-Galvy with schemer-Galvy, you're going to need a special ability. I'd go for something that gives him Perplex (or Outwit, or even Prob Control), but works like a sort of "reverse mastermind"... If he makes an unsuccessful attack against an opponent, the attack must be compared to a target-adjacent character friendly to Galavtron (with attack, damage, etc being applied as though Galvy had attacked his own teammate in the first place).

This shows his capacity for scheming (from the comics), but pairs it with a temper tantrum if the plan fails (from the cartoon). Potentially, a few bad rolls and he could devastate his own team.

Regen is nice mid-dial as a "life-extender", but the common complaint in HC is that when an opponent spies that black square, they're going to try to toast you. A solution might be to pair a single spot of Regen (call it "refuel") with a high Defense... in the alternative (to play up some of the crazy), you might have him degrade into Toughness by mid-dial, then spike back up (both in numbers and ability). This way he's tougher as he gets more desperate and the rage takes over.


This is a good point. The gun-themed TFs (Megatron, Galvatron, Shockwave, even Straxus) often seem to be WORSE shots than the average TF. I think, in fiction terms, this was meant to balance their (assumed) greater power.

Verry interesting.... I like it. Though I don't really see him having Prob...

Though, the way the Sharpshooter ability works, is to grant a charrecter the ability to make a Ranged attack against an opponent in Close-combat. I figgured it would be good to emulate some point-blank blasting. I actually gave it to Hot-rod. (him being a cavalier and a Target-Master)

I have also contemplated an ability for megatron, mimmicing his 'tactic' in TFTM, where he has Plasticity, and as long as he is based with an opposing charrecter(IE: holding a meat-sheild) All lines of fire are blocked.

I wrote and co-ran a Decepticons LARP at Vericon some years ago. Since I'm me, I had Galvatron really overpowered and munchkinny.

His special abilities included:
Disintegration--player could steal all the items and special ability cards from any other player
Psychotic Rage--player could drop 2 items or ability cards in order to ignore any attack
Mad Laughter--player could, at will and at no cost, bellow "All hail Galvatron!" and start laughing insanely. This would force every other character in the same room or hallway to get down on their knees and bow-and-scrape to him. This would continue for as long as the Galvatron player felt like laughing--when he stopped, normal gameplay would resume. He could take no aggressive action during the meantime. It was just to hug with people.

To compensate for how overpowered and munchkinny he was, we only introduced him in the second half of the game, when I, playing Unicron, randomly selected one of the players (in this case Dead End) to get upgraded. Galvatron also had to flip a coin every five minutes to determine whether he would be sane (attempting speech and strategy) or insane (just fighting the crap out of everything).

Eventually some other players grew sufficiently fed-up that Shockwave tricked a "sane" Galvatron into entering the spacebridge and then marooned him on one of the moons of Saturn. That was in VERY late endgame, so the player didn't have to spend too much time feeling left-out. (As opposed to Megatron, who had been frozen in gun mode in a staircase for over 45 minutes, forgotten by everybody including me and the other GM.... whoops!)

(P.S.--it was the nerdiest thing I ever did.)

I just looked up what a "LARP" is, and, honestly, I now think they should be compulsory for all Transfans.

Be careful mentioning LARPers. They're second only to furries in being vilified by the Allspark Hivemind.