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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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Joined: 6/25/2015
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     I have, over the last month or so, been working on a new set, A Galaxy Infested, representing zombies, undead, brain worms, vampires, necromancy and more. The name evokes a galaxy beset by plagues, mind-controlling worms, hive-nesting alien monsters and other terrible threats. The set is now complete, with 60 characters. Link here: A Galaxy InfestedA lot of time and attention went into all of these units to make them representative of what they are while also keeping them fun, interesting and balanced, and I'm still fine-tuning and tweaking them as I go along, but with the set done, I am now also working on an accompanying guide for these custom units, which explains in-depth the choices I made in designing them and why they are the way they are. The guide will address a lot of points, such as why they don't have Savage and why they tend to be rather wordy. All the units are based on in-universe examples of undead or similar creatures. The exception to this are the Xenomorphs, who are included for fun and are quite powerful in their own right. The units in this set are not really intended for competitive play, but I have used them in scenarios in home games with friends and my guide will also feature recommended theme squads and scenarios to play with. In the future, I hope to post custom undead minis I make in this thread as well, but for now I'd like it open it to discussion about the undead. I know that others have attempted their own undead units, namely AK Adam 118, Gungan Batman Clone, tx3252, Space Jawa, Venturion, darthsithis, Robobob, darth venom, wwmandalorian, pntkd2, markedman247, Teller, Cassus fett, CorranHornsux123, jak, HanSolo79 and General_Grievous, and I would love to hear their thoughts on the matter. I'm not done with the guide yet but I will also answer any questions about my units and their design here.     
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Rank: Ewok
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Seems like a really cool and fun set! Interested to see how they would do in a competitive setting.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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The set is a lot of fun. It synergises well with Squelchy, CerousMutor, Surf's customs that riff on similar source material (even if that wasn't a primary aim, it is a nice ancillary benefit) Preliminary playtesting (an aside on methodology; on an informal basis, with maybe 6 or so games per week interval, lots of different players, but few min-maxers. Most games were at 250pts, only 3 games played at 500ish points) the pieces are fun, people enjoyed the ability to recreate scenarios from comics or the books, so it was well-received. Consistent feedback was - these pieces are; i) undercosted (competitively priced was the consistent phrasing), ii) rapid infection spread rate. iii) very fast-moving pieces and dangerous. A few felt that, zombies being able to use weapons and SAs was not in keeping with the trope (they hadn't read the source books and "Star Wars not-Zombies comics etc, more they were approaching from Living Dead and Walking Dead etc) That concrit said - I countered with: Roland Barthes "Author is Dead" - these are your pieces and have a particular aesthetic, repositioning droid squads easily defeated the zombies, owing to Droid SAs AoE weaponry and direct damage was able to take them out. Seeing some sith-ish and smarter zombies was also refreshing, and made these pieces dynamic. The rationale is easy enough - the last ethical and personality parts of the zombies are attacking others to prevent them from spreading the contagion or risking others to come there to find out whatever activities led to the occurrence (if there is more of a sith dynamic at play) I'd like to see more creatures in the mix, and vehicle scale things, maybe with staggered activation? (thats an esoteric perspective though, moreso wanting to see vehicular combat in the SWMinis game) I'd like to see more abilities which encourage the zombies to congregate within 6 squares, simply to make them easier to mop up  Maybe, a little less survivability would afford the existing stuff to stay at the current cost point. I don't think the stat-cards for these would be cluttered - if they come with their own 'glossary'/rulebook, you'd be then able to just write the keywords, and prototyping on the old cards, they fit nicely with enough room for size 8/10point flavor text Great work, and thanks for sharing - so, when do we see proxy miniatures and customs for these?
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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Joined: 6/25/2015
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I had no idea that you had already tried them out, I am very interested in learning more. What kind of point cost do the players recommend for them to have? As for the zombies using weapons, as will be explained in the Guide to Playing the Undead that I am working on, the source material (primarily the novel Death Troopers) has the undead able to work together in a hive mind and regain knowledge from their past lives. That's where the blasters come in. The guide will also feature a rules glossary, explained and expanded rules, and will feature scenarios and custom squads for themed games. As for when I can make proxies, well, I am stationed in Korea at the moment. I can make them when I come back home. Until then, all I have are these neat tokens.     
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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@Warev, Thank you for your service  Good luck, given that sankakuu situation and all... Geopolitik tangent aside, yeah - these are a lot of fun, and the locals (those who're left playing these days) had a lot of fun. It was mainly newer-to-the-game or first timers who played with these who had the negative concrit. The price points... there's been a few people over the years providing 'costing formula' - people reverse-engineered the pricing formula and such, - each ability was costed with negative or positive contributing points which led to the overall cost --- that said, I think whatever cost you want your figure to have is the cost it has (it's your custom after all) other methods are just comparing a bunch of different stats for a given price point and hovering around that. I don't know what method was used to price these zombie cards, but whatever it was, the result is pretty consistent and near price point. So, from that light, some customs in this set are, when juxtaposed with other similarly costed statcards, they're about 7-13pts undercosted. (mostly the heavy-hitting zombies, not so much the fodder or uniques) Others, when compared with similarly costed statcards or the rapport options available, are over costed by 3 or 4 points. (the "fodder" is probably a little over-costed all said and done). (This is mostly applicable to the Zombies who can still use other abilities, and not so much to the melee orientated virus spreading figures). The players would prefer more separation between 'fodder' and 'beasts or tanks', sorta like the Left 4 Dead motif, and being able to field more 'grunts' which don't spread the virus etc, at around the 5-8point cost region --- reason being, a lot of games were over on Turn 3 - 45 mins into a game, and to be in situations where a lot are within 6 of each other and thus have had 2 turns of attrition from AoE, theres not a lot left to work with, for multiple vectors or pincer movement (which gives that "im surrounded by zombies" feel) Though, melee heavy jedi squads with just human mercs or antarian rangers for guns had a hard time, and the zombies won by turn 2 round 4 60% casualties by the jedi, due to poor positioning and 'friendly fire' from Force Repulse hehehe Turning to the source materials, as a whole custom set of stats, these are very true to what we see in a bunch of the Comics and Expanded Universe books, and it makes things interesting to see some 'smart' Zombies too - they fit with various narratives, it's fun. There are various non-combatant and civilian cards too, which can make for great scenario recreations alongside these and CerousMutor's stuff, or really any of the similarly themed stuff. Hopefully the scenarios will involve them too Thanks for sharing.
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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Joined: 6/25/2015
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As far as pricing goes, I try to compare them to other units from official/virtual sets and see which ones are more well-received by the players. I then try to find a decent compromise for stats and cost based on the range I want the unit to fit into. I actually do have a formula for stats that I got from a forum, but I don't use it as much anymore, since it was a bit outdated. I can see some of the zombies being undercosted (like you said, the harder-hitting ones) though I haven't had a chance to playtest all of them and stat them mostly based on how they relate to the standard Zombie unit (in regards to more HP, Attack, Defense, Damage, special abilities, etc.). I would be very interested in a slightly more in-depth analysis of which undead specifically need to cost more or less, so that I may address the individual costs more closely. On the note of fielding grunts around the 5-7 point cost region who lack the power to spread the virus, my set does include undead who do not directly infect units (Brain Dead Geonosians, the Army of the Dead Nightsisters, the Sith Undead) but they aren't really in that cost range. This is due mostly to their stats and special abilities, and I'm not sure I want to lower or remove anything from them as they are just yet. The standard Zombies are meant to be able to spread, that's partially the point--although I could easily implement a form of an "Immunity" house rule that would allow Unique pieces to be immune to turning. I didn't really set out to make the set to feature low-cost Undead units, as the same kind of effect could be achieved with some notable units in the base game, and without the ability to spread, they lose a bit of the Undead quality that I'm going for, in my opinion. The Army of the Dead, Sith Undead and Brain Dead Geonosians cannot spread by themselves (the Geonosian Brain worm is technically a different version of spreading and isn't really connected to the Brain Dead Geonosians mechanically) but they are designed around entities from the lore with specific limitations. I'm not entirely against the idea, and will consider designing them in the future (perhaps with some more Left 4 Dead-style variations) but for now, the baseline Undead are designed with the purpose of spreading the infection.   
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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thanks for the rapid response, I'll be sure to convey this when next the gamers assemble for gamage and freethinking. (hopefully I'll have more specifics then also)
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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Here's a preview for the guide. This is Section 2: Anatomy of the Basic Zombie It explains all of the zombie's special abilities and offers insight into why they are designed as such. http://pastebin.com/KXqMUP9G  
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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Thanks for the comprehensive guide. Please disregard prior feedback concerning previous playtest feedback where I erred and allowed 'treated Zombie as living enemy' - those are instead 'informal play reports' where I'd put fun ahead of following the customs and testing hehe, I goofed. [oops] The analogy of 'like Cyborg, or droid, but a separate category - Undead" from the guide made things crystal clear. I can also see why the 'no CE" element happens - that's the best compromise towards savage, like savage lite. I also understand now how Re-Animate is designed to function, so I'll be sure to convey that and point other players to this guide if there's any questions. It's a variant of Avoid Defeat already, so a further 'avoid defeat' would be redundant, and as previously said, other fodder options could be used in conjunction with this and other customs Maybe shield barriers or other objects could be things the Zombie player could place ahead of time, (or, the zombie player can bring more fodder, whatever works). That said, I do have further feedback from todays gaming; The Zombie Mandalorian is consistently felt to be undercosted by 7 points, due to being a high damage output piece and quite survivable. For context, the other player only had gotal fringers and some Rebel Commandos running super stealth and grenades. Big D happened 3 times in the match, but wasn't a reliable counter - the superstealth seemed to stall well for time, allowing commandos to sideskirt the main force and flank. Lord Drear is felt to be overcosted by around 6 points, because he was easily superstealthed again. in 200, he seems to crumple too easily for what is such a formidable character. I'd like to hear other players thoughts also... how are people resolving the checks for Re-Animate in the scenario of Deathshot squads? I have had that come up... and it was odd. Force Wave and Force Repulse 3 - do people feel it oughta happen after a zombie successfully avoids falling into a pit? are there any other problems or complicated scenarios where multiple things occurred at once, so as we can test the weirder scenarios?
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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Joined: 6/25/2015
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I will definitely take the comments on Darth Drear and the Mandalorian Zombie into consideration when I next review them. As for the Force Push/Wave situation, I would personally resolve the damage first (for Re-Animate) and then the pit save second. It's something I haven't run into with the undead, but with a game as big as this, there's bound to be all sorts of weird combinations.
Thanks for playtesting and let me know about any other sessions that feature them in the future.
EDIT: I made changes to Drear and Scabrous (since Scabrous himself is a lesser Drear, stat-wise) by lowering them both by five. I increased the Mandalorian Zombie by 7 to make him an even 30.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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the art work in your posts is so cool!
where did you get those images?
read the zombie stats.
one suggestion, if the zombie is killed with a crit(head shot) they can not re-animate.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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@Jak
hehe, ja that is a good idea,
it comes up more often than not - yet, it is the zombie form of Avoid Defeat as per the design brief,
and the re-animate ability is what makes these some fun,
though it effectively adds 50-70pts worth to their squad.
@all
That said, direct damage and flamethrower etc,
or AoE force powers (lightning, push, repulse etc), these seem to mitigate the zombies.
the smart zombies have been rebalanced a lot with the points change, and being able to squeeze in 3 more acts. helps the zombies,
as to-date, we've found from 78 games played (with about 23 games where I'd interpretted the rules incorrectly hehehe, and let the players get away with more)
the Zombies aren't auto-win with a Win/Loss ratio around 60-40, and we're trying some tough squads.
The subset of Droid and Paratus mirror droid squads though, these do much better - 18 games, and they're 80:20.
Droids seem to dodge most of the nasty, and with sheer outactivation, at 200pts per squad,
the zombies are relatively straightforward to 'contain'.
Moving to Dynamic Duos, the zombies pieces were good - there's a lot more options at the 100, 101, and 103pts ranges,
and making a Vong, Zombie combo is definitely Broken (but fun, which leads to ranged duos or more negotiation during squad constructions hehe)
250 and up, this is where Zombies become very interesting;
we've only managed 9 or so games in the 250-500pts range,
but the zombies seem to have a clear advantage even over droids in these much larger numbers -
an entire faction with avoid defeat, lots of fodder, it was nice.
Big D and the Gotals are go-to's for a lot of locals when they see a lot of zombie figures placed on the table.
What figures are people using as proxies?
@Warev,
do you have 2D/3D pepakura-papercraft tokens as proxies?
Pepakura would be ideal if you're in a highly mobile situation (if laminated or scotchguarded) or have limited storage space.
|it may be possible to have cnc'd plasticard 2D/3D tokens soonish, I've been investigating those options for 18months or so,
and they're almost viable hehehe, it would be a similar style token to "Pirates of the Spanish Main" or the SW:PCG|
locals have a lot of other zombie figures - mostly that "bag full of zombies" 114 zombies for $8USD figures, or from Kickstarters they've backed.
Wargames Factory also makes/made AWESOME zombie and historical recreation figures
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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jak wrote:the art work in your posts is so cool!
where did you get those images?
read the zombie stats.
one suggestion, if the zombie is killed with a crit(head shot) they can not re-animate. I google them and then use a program called Token Tool to make them into tokens for my online games. I'll definitely consider the critical hit negating Re-Animate, thanks for the input. Have some more tokens.      @kobayashimaru I had no idea so many games were being played. Makes me wish I was stateside to participate. kobayashimaru wrote:@Warev,
do you have 2D/3D pepakura-papercraft tokens as proxies?
Pepakura would be ideal if you're in a highly mobile situation (if laminated or scotchguarded) or have limited storage space.
|it may be possible to have cnc'd plasticard 2D/3D tokens soonish, I've been investigating those options for 18months or so,
and they're almost viable hehehe, it would be a similar style token to "Pirates of the Spanish Main" or the SW:PCG|
locals have a lot of other zombie figures - mostly that "bag full of zombies" 114 zombies for $8USD figures, or from Kickstarters they've backed.
Wargames Factory also makes/made AWESOME zombie and historical recreation figures Well the games I play over here in Korea are on a purely computer-based system. I have actual miniatures and maps back home but not here. That's what I use my tokens for, to represent the units.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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We're pretty lucky that there are some vibrant local league options.
A lot of former groups dried up, but thanks to MeetUp and local tertiary education options,
there's usually a folk or two who care for some physical game (rather than online or at distance hehehe).
It is extremely rare to find folks prepared to play games 500pts+ though hehehe,
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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.... and the undead keep coming back I see. If you Google "Bloomilk Zombie Cards" the two images you'll see will take you to the old Zombie thread from a few years ago Warev .... As I've stated before, Not a Zombie guy myself but the group hashed out some previous ideas and I made a few cards.  the Return of the Undead indeed ..... 
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Rank: Hailfire Droid
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surf_rider56 wrote:.... and the undead keep coming back I see. Well that is what they do.
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