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And so we have 2 more lovely aliens found here:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3027
Personal thoughts:
- Poison is a VERY well thought-out power that offers some sweet uniqueness to the game utilizing hazard symbols without requiring hazards in play. Really good idea.
- Sting is effectively nerfed, and rightly so. He was a Zombie on crack that also could double as Vaccuum. Now that only half his ships can survive he is not as overpowered and takes more thought. Though the story makes less sense though if they can;t reproduce at all.
Poison is my fav previewed alien so far.
Current list of known CA Aliens:
- Animal
- General
- Gorgon
- Schizoid
- Cyborg
- Pygmy
- Poison
- Sting
- Horde
- Crystal
- Extortionist
- Winner
- Butler
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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I don't think I want any more previews ... they are too discouraging.
Poison is two completely unrelated and arbitrary effects jammed together on one sheet, FFG is achieving new heights of violating their own conventions, and Poison is a MANDATORY power with a may use clause ... WTH?!?
For crap's sake FFG, do a freaking professional job, would you? We can already download all the sloppy-ass homebrews we want for free. We're paying you real money for this stuff. Earn it.
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Well I agree that the MANDATORY on Poison is pretty dumb, as it should say "VARIES" or something to that effect. However I don't think the power is bad.
It reminds me of Filth, cuz Filth has a the effect of owning planets on his own even with allies, but also has the secondary effect of when losing as defense with ships he stops his enemies from gaining a colony on that planet.
I can understand the frustration with the layout errors, but I guess I don't see Poison as being two arbitrary effects, I see it as 2 effects that are too weak to stand on their own and make sense for a poisonous being.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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I disagree, Bill. If you get too close to Poison, you get hurt. That's reflected in the Attack card number thingy. They couldn't make it just like Filth, after all, so this is an interesting way of approaching it.
I don't recall another alien having a mandatory and an optional use for different parts of its power. I can see why that would throw you. I wish that it said "VARIES" instead of "MANDATORY," too, but otherwise I have no problems with how it works. I'm not sure why Poison would decline the instant win, but that may become clear during play.
Overall, I think Poison is pretty neat. I'm glad to see an alien that makes use of the hazard warnings in some way. It encourages people to keep multiple ships on their foreign colonies. It creates interesting decisions during the planning phase. I think it's one of the better aliens we've seen in the preview.
I'm glad to see Sting come back with a good revision, too.
Anyway, I, for one, welcome our new Cosmic Alliance overlords, and I'm looking forward to playing some games with them.
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: I don't recall another alien having a mandatory and an optional use for different parts of its power. I can see why that would throw you. I wish that it said "VARIES" instead of "MANDATORY," too, but otherwise I have no problems with how it works. I'm not sure why Poison would decline the instant win, but that may become clear during play.
One word: Loser.
But yeah, stylistically it's a little odd because this is the first alien with multiple use clauses that are entirely unrelated. (As opposed to, say, Reserve or Warhawk, which have different triggers but the same phase and player status)
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Oh, right! I can also imagine scenarios involving Parasite where Poison might decline an instant win. Interesting.
I'm glad to see FFG publish an alien like this. Now that we have a precedent for different "use" clauses, some alien designs might become easier to do. Naturally, aliens should be as simple as possible. On the other hand, unzappable power clauses should be avoided, if possible. Some aliens in this edition that do multiple different things resort to making one of those things unzappable. I prefer multiple "use" clauses to unzappable ones, generally speaking.
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Adam McLean
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I also think Poison will be a fun alien to play, making those 4 - 8 attack cards more interesting, and I like Sting ... I'm not a fan of "rounding", but I think that the original needed to be scaled back a bit.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Now that we have a precedent for different "use" clauses, some alien designs might become easier to do. ... Some aliens in this edition that do multiple different things resort to making one of those things unzappable.
There are already plenty of aliens that have two distinct use clauses that happen at different times and/or in different player roles and/or with completely distinct effects, including Filth, Fungus, Glutton, Hacker, Observer, Relic, Remora, and Reserve. If there is a "new precedent" here, it is basically a brand-new way to print icons that make no sense.
I have no objection to distinct use clauses; I have an objection to inconsistent, confusing, and completely avoidable stupid presentation. The orange bar should say "Varies" and the blue bar should NOT say "Varies" (it should simply present the union of both clauses' prerequisite needs, as has been the case in all previous sets and as is already the case for the timing bar on this very alien).
It's as if they tried to get it as backwards as humanly possible.
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I think someone at FFG has employed an RPG (i.e. random power generator).
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Messianic wrote: Well I agree that the MANDATORY on Poison is pretty dumb, as it should say "VARIES" or something to that effect. However I don't think the power is bad.
It reminds me of Filth, cuz Filth has a the effect of owning planets on his own even with allies, but also has the secondary effect of when losing as defense with ships he stops his enemies from gaining a colony on that planet.
I can understand the frustration with the layout errors, but I guess I don't see Poison as being two arbitrary effects, I see it as 2 effects that are too weak to stand on their own and make sense for a poisonous being.
The thing with Filth is that the two effects are both thematically very similar: "When Filth is on a planet, it's too smelly for anyone else to go near it." They even do pretty much the same thing; they're both colony-removing powers that can be described as "When the Filth is/was on a planet and other players are/would be on that planet, those other players go home instead of having a colony there." The Poison's two effects are far more loosely connected. They're not even the same type of power at all - one is a ship/colony-destruction power reminiscent of a more specialized Shadow and the other is a combat power reminiscent of Wild Claw or Calculator. Attack card numbers have previously represented strength, not physical proximity - see Reserve, Fodder, Spiff, Anti-Matter, etc - so having a similar Attack value to the Poison being an instant loss seems extremely random - as does the Poison being toxic to players when it isn't even on the planet with them but being perfectly safe when it's coexisting with them elsewhere.
It's also worth noting that, where the Filth and Pygmy have a soft advantage of nobody sending a large force against them or being very invested in winning battles against them, people are almost as invested in winning battles against the Poison (especially if a few turns have passed since the start of the game so the game won't last long enough for the Poison to eat through the colony there) as they would be against anyone else, and the Poison actually suffers a soft disadvantage of any invaders always sending four ships against it (including offensive allies, who are usually encouraged to send only one ship barring circumstances like Shadow/Bully/Hate being in play or them having the protection of Healer/Masochist/Macron/Zombie/Observer on their side). This extra encouragement toward stronger invasion forces and inviting more offensive allies could cause the Poison to give other players more foreign colonies, not fewer, and will certainly require the Poison to play higher cards to avoid losing as the defense.
I honestly wish they had just brought back the reverse hexes and used them instead of making very reverse hex-esque powers into the Pygmy and the first half of the Poison. It's especially bad because now we essentially can't have reverse hexes in FFG ever - first, because we're already using up a lot of fine reverse-hex ideas, and second, because doing so now would cause rules conflicts (what happens if the Pygmy is also the Gas Giant? Does it have one planet or ten? Does it get to be the Ten-Pact instead of Six-Pact?)
I also don't buy the excuse that the powers were too weak on their own so they needed to be jammed together. First of all, if you're going to combine two half-powers, you could at least choose two half-powers that actually fit together thematically. Second of all, the second half of Poison doesn't need to be combined with anything because it can be scaled to suit any desired power level. If it's underpowered with "within 2" as its range, bump it up to "within 3", or whatever other number is deemed perfect.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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salty53 wrote: The Poison's two effects are far more loosely connected. They're not even the same type of power at all
Agree. While I don't begrudge anybody who wants to look at the power as being thematically spot-on, I'm also confident in saying it's one of the most arbitrarily pasted-together Cosmic Encounter aliens I have ever seen achieve official publication. (Even FFG seems to recognize this in starting the second paragraph with "In addition, ....") But this is probably the least of my issues with Poison.
salty53 wrote: I honestly wish they had just brought back the reverse hexes ... It's especially bad because now we essentially can't have reverse hexes in FFG ever - first, because we're already using up a lot of fine reverse-hex ideas, and second, because doing so now would cause rules conflicts
This is bugging me big-time, especially since I'm just wrapping up a big R&D effort to see how feasible it would be to adapt the reverse hexes to FFG's system. (The answer is, both feasible and potentially pretty cool from a component standpoint.) By taking concepts that really should be special systems and "using them up" on awkwardly constructed alien powers, they are limiting the diversity of the game system. Hopefully even those who happen to like this alien can appreciate the opportunity cost involved here.
Which leads back to the same old $64K question ... did they intentionally decide they are never going to make special systems? Or did they just not think through the implications?
salty53 wrote: I also don't buy the excuse that the powers were too weak on their own so they needed to be jammed together.
Yep. It's a rationalization, not a reason.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Bill Martinson wrote: Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Now that we have a precedent for different "use" clauses, some alien designs might become easier to do. ... Some aliens in this edition that do multiple different things resort to making one of those things unzappable.
There are already plenty of aliens that have two distinct use clauses
Different as in "use" and "may use." I thought that was clear from the context. Sorry.
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Here's another question: why was it deemed necessary for the Poison to have one clause be use and one clause be may use? Would the Poison be too strong if it had the option of not eating through ships in its own system and thus avoiding triggering the Vacuum's wrath or letting the Zombie redistribute? Would the Poison be too weak without the option of not using its autowin effect to autolose against the Loser? And if the theme is really supposed to be that "being near the Poison is toxic", why is the Poison's toxicity sometimes something it can control and sometimes not?
I really don't mind use and may use appearing in the same power on principle, but when I step back and ask why FFG decided it needed to overturn its ninety-power precedent of nothing having both appear on one card in order to print Poison, I can't come up with any answers.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Different as in "use" and "may use." I thought that was clear from the context. Sorry.
Ah, sorry. I thought you were comparing this to the aliens that have a use clause as well as a separate non-zappable effect.
If they were indeed trying to expand the design space, they sure botched it. But I suspect there may be a more mundane explanation ...
salty53 wrote: why was it deemed necessary for the Poison to have one clause be use and one clause be may use? ... when I step back and ask why FFG decided it needed to overturn its ninety-power precedent of nothing having both appear on one card in order to print Poison, I can't come up with any answers.
Theory: The whole thing was mandatory through most of the development process. At the eleventh hour somebody said "oh crap, what about Loser?" and the second effect was made optional, without considering the implications or fixing the icon.
I've seen this happen in real life several times, in both software development and game publishing: a last-minute design change that seemed minor creating a bigger problem than the one it was trying to fix.
Hmm, in writing this I just noticed another embarrassing capitalization screwup on the sheet: "Has HAzardous Home System." So sloppy.
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Bill Martinson wrote: Theory: The whole thing was mandatory through most of the development process. At the eleventh hour somebody said "oh crap, what about Loser?" and the second effect was made optional, without considering the implications or fixing the icon.
That seems a likely explanation. (No matter when the change was made, it being optional rather annoys me - it's a disguised version of all the combat powers that have "or subtract" tacked on just so that Loser and Anti-Matter aren't allowed to hose them.)
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Poison is yet another power that hoses Macron.
And frankly, I thought Sting was fine in its original form. Giving someone else deck draws for the ships it loses is a pretty big benefit to the victim.
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Phil Fleischmann wrote: Poison is yet another power that hoses Macron.
At this point, I think Macron needs a self-Bully ability tacked on to allow it to decide which ships it loses at all times. Poison's not even the worst; with Shadow in the game, the Macron's best bet is to lose three home colonies as quickly as possible so that it can finally start actually acquiring colonies with no power late in the game. At least Macron is fine against everyone except Poison; the Shadow/Bully/Hate family can normally murder it for the entire game.
Phil Fleischmann wrote: Giving someone else deck draws for the ships it loses is a pretty big benefit to the victim.
Indeed - I'm usually quite happy to trade one ship for one card (isn't that the whole point of Grief, Negotiate, taking things other than ships as Rewards, etc?), and Sting doesn't eat ships fast enough to make them too scarce for that trade to be a good thing. But on the other hand, having almost a full Zombie power on top of a mini-Vacuum and an ability to potentially rid its own hand of junk (use up your good cards, then let your opponents take the rest in pseudo-compensation) isn't too bad. I don't really mind the new version.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Phil Fleischmann wrote: And frankly, I thought Sting was fine in its original form. Giving someone else deck draws for the ships it loses is a pretty big benefit to the victim.
Yeah, I'm not really getting Sting. Initial thoughts:
* It's a little odd choosing a power that makes everyone else the Healer, a strong alien in its own right. (Yes, I realize Sting gets to choose when it happens; it's just a rough comparison.)
* The theme is kinda blurry. I'm a vampire who "stings" you and makes you die in my place, but then I give a sack of money to your widow?
* It's ambiguous whether my ships actually go to the warp and then come back (you can read it both ways). How does this affect my compensation, or any other benefits/penalties associated with lost ships?
* Assuming my ships do go to the warp and return, Sting will generally get trumped by Fungus, Void, Healer, and similar effects.
* Again assuming the above, when Sting reclaims his lost ship(s) does this trigger effects such as Glutton and Remora?
* What if the player I choose is Zombie, or Observer, or one of Observer's protected allies? Is he prevented from taking cards from my hand since he didn't lose any ships?
* Do the lost ships of the delegated player count as "opposing" ships for effects like Ghoul? Does it matter whether the delegated player was or was not an actual opponent of the Ghoul?
* I'm wondering why there isn't a Do Not Use with Sadist stamp; this will be almost as rough on that power as Zombie.
Sting is another preview that makes me hope the rest of the set is better than what we've seen up to this point.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Bill Martinson wrote: * It's a little odd choosing a power that makes everyone else the Healer, a strong alien in its own right. (Yes, I realize Sting gets to choose when it happens; it's just a rough comparison.)
It actually sort of makes everyone else the Kamikaze.
Quote: * The theme is kinda blurry. I'm a vampire who "stings" you and makes you die in my place, but then I give a sack of money to your widow?
The theme was a little clearer in Mayfair's edition. The "insect sting" was probably originally just a play on words. The real meaning of "sting" was as in a con game, a "sting operation", a bait-and-switch move. I set myself up to lose, and then at the last minute switch things around so that you lose and I get away free (well, except for the cards).
Quote: * It's ambiguous whether my ships actually go to the warp and then come back (you can read it both ways). How does this affect my compensation, or any other benefits/penalties associated with lost ships?
I'd say they don't go to the warp, but they still get compensation - as the Zombie should. And they should get compensation before the victim draws the cards from Sting. EDIT: Just to be clear, this is how I say it *should* be, not necessarily the "official" or "literal" position.
Quote: * Assuming my ships do go to the warp and return, Sting will generally get trumped by Fungus, Void, Healer, and similar effects.
No. Fungus will adhere to the victim's ships instead. Void will eradicate the victim's ships. Healer can heal the victim's ships (and since Sting still has to lose half of his own ships, Healer can heal them both for two cards).
Quote: * Again assuming the above, when Sting reclaims his lost ship(s) does this trigger effects such as Glutton and Remora?
No. They don't go to the warp in the first place, so Remora is not triggered. And Glutton wouldn't be triggered anyway - though if Sting doesn't have enough cards to give Glutton as his victim, Glutton will get two extra cards from the deck.
Quote: * What if the player I choose is Zombie, or Observer, or one of Observer's protected allies? Is he prevented from taking cards from my hand since he didn't lose any ships?
I'd say no. But his ships are still saved by the power in question, analogously to the Zombie getting compensation.
Quote: * Do the lost ships of the delegated player count as "opposing" ships for effects like Ghoul? Does it matter whether the delegated player was or was not an actual opponent of the Ghoul?
Yes. Perhaps not for other powers, but the Ghoul, yes.
Quote: * I'm wondering why there isn't a Do Not Use with Sadist stamp; this will be almost as rough on that power as Zombie.
How so? The same number of ships are going to the warp.
Quote: Sting is another preview that makes me hope the rest of the set is better than what we've seen up to this point.
Agreed.
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Phil Fleischmann wrote: How so? The same number of ships are going to the warp.
But the Sadist doesn't win when the sum total of other players' lost ships reaches a certain fixed value; it wins when each and every opponent has lost at least 8 ships. But since the Sting only suffers half of its losses, getting the Sting down below that threshold is like making any other player lose 16 ships - which would be a nigh-impossible task even were the Sadist not also preoccupied with knocking all the other players down too. (The Masochist is rarely able to lose 16 of its own ships even though it wants to; taking one specific opponent and making them lose 16 ships is not a feasible task.) In fact, it's even harder than that, since the Sting emptying its own hand makes it easier for it to draw into Mobius Tubes, and each individual ship the Sting retrieves from the Warp counts as two of those "sixteen" ships (so negative progress is made much more quickly).
Oh, and the same number of total opposing ships aren't necessarily lost because the Sting can always target the Sadist if it wants to.
If I were the Sadist and I saw that one of my opponents was the Sting, I would immediately resign myself to not even attempting to fulfill my alternate win condition and would proceed to play the entire game from Turn 1 onwards without a power. That to me seems like grounds for a Do Not Use With.
On the other hand, it also seems clear to me that this is a problem inherent in the Sadist, and that the Sting is merely the latest manifestation of that. Which is why I no longer play with any alt-win aliens other than the Tick-Tock (and even that I use sparingly).
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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An alien that makes another alien's life very difficult isn't quite enough to warrant the "tramp stamp," as Bill calls it. (I'll never be able to think of it any other way, somehow.) Very difficult does not equate to unplayable. Unplayable is when you slap the tramp stamp on the alien.
I think that the alt-win aliens are mainly traps for the unwary. Nearly all of them are more trouble than the regular victory conditions, and I wouldn't bother playing them more than once in my life.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: I think that the alt-win aliens are mainly traps for the unwary.
Sermon received. Choir approves.
salty53 wrote: If I were the Sadist and I saw that one of my opponents was the Sting, I would immediately resign myself to not even attempting to fulfill my alternate win condition
(Fixed.) To be fair, this isn't exactly Sting's fault. My first PBF game made it clear to me how fragile the alt-win track is. Rob Burns was Sadist and, even without any of the power's arch nemeses in play, all it took was my one Mobius Tubes and all his progress was shot, never to return. I actually felt a little uncomfortable playing it, because I knew it meant I was retroactively making him have essentially no power* for the entire game.
* Well, there is the potential psychological effect of making people worry about your power and the possible decisions this might influence ... but I couldn't see that it really had an appreciable effect in that game.
I think some people probably enjoy the risk/challenge of making it work, and that's great. For me, it's just too fragile. If I did make it work, I would probably feel like I got lucky on the Mobius Tubes(es) coming up way too early or way too late. Powers with a big luck factor just aren't very fun.
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: An alien that makes another alien's life very difficult isn't quite enough to warrant the "tramp stamp," as Bill calls it. (I'll never be able to think of it any other way, somehow.) Very difficult does not equate to unplayable. Unplayable is when you slap the tramp stamp on the alien.
But what is unplayable and what is merely difficult? Sadist versus Zombie isn't unplayable; all Sadist needs to do is make the Zombie lose its power, and while it's doing that the Sadist can still make progress toward knocking out all of its other opponents' ships, so it's not even wasting that time. It may be a bit more difficult, but it's certainly not impossible. Despite this, Sadist still says Do Not Use With Zombie, and I haven't seen anyone call that unreasonable.
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James Albright
United States
DeLand
Florida
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Bill Martinson wrote: I don't think I want any more previews ... they are too discouraging.
Poison is two completely unrelated and arbitrary effects jammed together on one sheet, FFG is achieving new heights of violating their own conventions, and Poison is a MANDATORY power with a may use clause ... WTH?!?
For crap's sake FFG, do a freaking professional job, would you? We can already download all the sloppy-ass homebrews we want for free. We're paying you real money for this stuff. Earn it.
Thanks for that reaction, Bill. I agree 100%. I thought everyone would naturally love it just because FFG made it, but let's be honest: these new powers seem so lame. Poison's second ability is so arbitrary it's stupid. If I ever buy this set, I'm definitely going to homebrew Poison's second ability to be something better and more thematic, but looking at the set so far, I'm not too sure. I mean I wouldn't mind buying the set just for the color white, but at the same time, we're voting with our money. If I don't like the majority of the aliens in the expansion, well, would I want to support an expansion that looks mediocre design-wise just because of a new color, and more importantly, that would increase sales for a bunch of aliens that don't look special. Shouldn't the revealed aliens be the most exciting ones? If Animal and General were the the best they have to offer, then this looks like it's going down hill. Maybe they're running out of ideas...time to add lucre? 
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Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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Bill Martinson wrote: Poison is two completely unrelated and arbitrary effects jammed together on one sheet,
Hmm, no, they're totally related. Poison's first ability punishes you and your allies for attacking it (and therefore landing with) too few ships, encouraging you to attack with a larger force. But then, as you send more ships, Poison's second ability allows Poison to win encounters even though you brought more ships. This is classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" power design.
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Posted Mon Jan 30, 2012 11:15 pm
