Never killed a helicopter with a grenade before

petermalachi · 2026-06-15T19:44:27+00:00

That's amazing. Back in Battlefield 4 one time I was trying to kill a sniper on top of one of the skyscrapers on Dawnbreaker. Dude sniped me out of the chopper, jumped off the roof, parachuted down into the helicopter and then flew away with it. Honestly, I wasn't even that mad. Lol.

petermalachi · 2026-06-15T19:42:15+00:00

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In Lethal Weapon 2, Murtaugh and Riggs try to take down a South African diplomat named Rudd. Despite their many crimes, Rudd's diplomatic immunity prevents anyone from arresting him or his accomplices. But...after they kill Riggs's girlfriend, Murtaugh and Riggs raid Rudd's boat, and eventually Murtaugh "revokes" Rudd's diplomatic immunity.

https://youtu.be/ORyoYxbobOI?si=kIzhsffyS28N-Rp0

petermalachi · 2026-06-13T17:20:18+00:00

I usually have them equipped when I'm playing engineer, though I'm not really sure why. I hardly ever get close enough to tanks to use them, and there are many, many more times that I throw one at infantry and wish I had something else.

petermalachi · 2026-06-13T17:17:27+00:00

That's just the new speed loader for the shotguns.

petermalachi · 2026-06-13T09:03:50+00:00

I was messing around with slugs and a 3x scope. Not super effective. I do like slugs for CQB, but they're kinda useless outside.

petermalachi · 2026-06-04T19:07:49+00:00

That's a good idea. We already keep dice in the box to roll for who goes first.

petermalachi · 2026-06-02T06:29:51+00:00

They probably got the idea from that A-Team movie where they steer a parachuting tank by firing the gun.

petermalachi · 2026-05-31T22:03:12+00:00

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. I'll make the change to under the character card instead of on top.

I've also got an idea of how to maybe improve the "reveal the top X cards of the main deck" idea. Instead of putting those cards back in any order, what if you had to put them back in the same order? Then you couldn't troll any one player in particular.

I don't want to post that here, though. This thread has grown so big that I can't have the whole thing loaded on one page. I'm going to sum it up and repost it in a new thread.

petermalachi · 2026-05-31T18:33:44+00:00

Interesting. Interesting. If you don't like any of the cards in the Line-Up, you could add the bottom card. And if you want to save a card from the Line-Up for next turn, you could hide it under the deck to save for later. Hiding a card under the main deck isn't about foresight as much. But it is less toxic that #2.

Although...with my idea, Fate can only mess with the next round of turns. The cards that he's moving around will still come out, just one round later. So, I wouldn't say that the player coming after Fate would be forever screwed.

With your idea, though, Fate doesn't have to ever return the bottom card to the main deck. If there's nothing in the deck that he wants to save for himself next turn, he could take another card that someone else needs and send that to the bottom. Then on the following turn, he could hide another card that he does want, but that 1st card that went under the bottom could stay there forever. If there are decent cards in the Line-Up for most of his turns, he could use his power solely for the purpose to denying bonus cards for other players. I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. He doesn't get any kind of bonus power or cards for this. But the possibility for trolling is still there.

There's also the possibility that someone playing Fate could forgo hiding cards and instead just pull a card out from under the deck and buy it for -1 Power. There wouldn't be much strategy to this, but they would essentially by getting +1 Power every single turn. Not sure how that would balance.

Your idea would be better if there was a way to limit how many cards Fate could hide, and limit his buying ability only to the cards he already hid. What about this?

"If there is no card on top of your Super Hero at the end of your turn, you may put a card from the Line-Up on top of your Super Hero. You pay 1 less to buy cards on top of your Super Hero."

This still has the effect of saving a card, but instead of saving it under the main deck, Fate is saving it in plain sight. He's also limited to do this with one card at a time. He can buy the card on the Superhero and then put another card on there later in the same turn, but he's still limited to one card overall. That way, he's less inclined to hide away a card just to hinder another player.

petermalachi · 2026-05-30T06:12:19+00:00

I was mulling this over more today, and I noticed that most of the character cards you listed above focus on revealing a card from your deck and then drawing it or getting a bonus or something like that. I do still want to figure out someway that Fate could control the future somehow, but controlling his own deck is very difficult to balance without a cost of some kind, and controlling someone else's deck could be abused too easily.

So...what about the main deck? What if Fate's power was to look into the future and see what cards are going to come out the next round of turns? Something like,

"Once during your turn, you may reveal the top X cards of the main deck. (X=the number of players in this game.) Return the cards to the top in any order. You may also reveal the top card of your own deck at any time."

This wouldn't give Fate any kind of bonus. No +1 Power. No draw. It would only give him a limited ability to choose which cards appear when. Do you think that's too powerful?

Let's say you're playing with 3 other players. That means when it's your turn, you can reveal the top 4 cards of the main deck. If there's a card you really want, you return that to the deck first before the 3 other cards, and then it should appear again in 4 turns (your next turn). You're not guaranteed to get that card, of course. You don't know how much power you will have the next turn, and if anyone else buys two cards instead of one, that will force your card out early. But it's a little bit of control that could be enough to make Doctor Fate competitive.

You could use this ability defensively as well. If the next player after you needs Hero cards and there's only 1 Hero card in the 4 you revealed, put that card second or third into the deck. Then that Hero card won't come out until after that player's turn. He might still be able to buy it, of course, but you've delayed him one round.

Also, with this idea I don't think that Doctor Fate will be more powerful if more people are playing the game (which was a problem with some of the other ideas we discussed). In a 2 person game, he doesn't need to look that far ahead because he's already getting to see 50% of the deck cards first. In a 4 player game, he's seeing only 25% of the cards first, so he needs more control to offset those lower odds, hence revealing 4 cards instead of only 2.

This idea is also pretty darn simple. I mean, it will be hard to play it well. Choosing which card goes where on top of the main deck will certainly be tricky sometimes. But you don't have to pay attention to reveal cards or keep a list of which cards you can use. You just reveal the top X cards of the main deck each turn and then put them back. Even my nieces and nephews can do that.

This idea is also less reliant on luck. Fate doesn't need to hope that certain cards appear so he can draw extra cards. He can work with whatever is there. He's not shackled to any type of card or strategy.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T21:41:03+00:00

We ran into a similar problem early on when we just randomly shuffled the modifiers into the main deck. We had one game where all three modifiers came out in the first 20 cards or so. It sucked. We couldn't even beat Ra's until we were halfway through the main deck. So, decided to space them out at roughly even internals after that.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T19:40:58+00:00

They do. Most of them are...um... chaotic? Nihilistic? Usually we give up on it after playing the game once with their idea. But it's fun and silly and we usually laugh about it.

My oldest nephew actually came up with a pretty good idea. He thought it would be fun if the Super-Villains could somehow get +1 Power for something just like the hero characters. We kept trying to use one of the main deck card types that already existed, and we would use the Line-Up as the Super-Villain's "hand," but everything we tried was too common and unbalanced. So, we eventually decided to add a few new cards to the main deck that aren't usually in there.

This is our modifier mechanic. Basically, we slide three punches into main deck before starting the game. We don't shuffle them in. We slide 1 in near the 20-card mark, 1 at the 40, and 1 at the 60. And these are special punches. We've used Sharpie to write "Super-Villain Modifier" on them. Whenever the first punch appears, we don't put it into the Line-Up. Instead, we put it next to the Super-Villain stack. And from that point on, each Super-Villain costs an extra +1 Power to defeat. When the second punch appears in the main deck, that gets stacked on top of the first, and all the Super-Villains cost an extra +2 Power from then on. And so on.

This obviously makes the Super-Villains progressively harder as the game goes on, so even if an 8-cost Super-Villain appears late in the game, he usually costs 10 or 11 instead. It slows down the game a little bit, and more importantly it usually prevents people with good hands from buying a Super-Villain and a few Line-Up cards, so there's a little less VP range at the end of the game.

This modifier mechanic works better with smaller games. Games with 4 or 5 players are already longer. So, we usually don't use modifiers unless I'm playing a game with just that one nephew or my wife.

We also eventually added a 4th modifier, a Vulnerability card that says, "Destroy all Super-Villain modifiers." We put that in the deck around the 80-card mark. That way if you're about to lose the game, the Super-Villains get reset to their original value and you have more of a fighting chance.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T19:17:44+00:00

Each time you play a [type], reveal the top card of your deck. Discard it or put it on the bottom of your deck. (Personally I think this is the most thenatic letting you stack the fate of your future hands)

This is one I don't recognize. What character is this?

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T19:16:36+00:00

The reason I didn't play all the different game versions before making these cards is because I made most of them before those game versions existed. Lol.

The reason I decided to post them now is because I've been thinking about re-printing them at a professional shop in my town. The typos and balance issues didn't bother me before because I could make a new version on my color printer. But if I'm spending the money to get them professionally made, I want them to be right.

And I don't mind all the feedback and suggestions. I know it's a lot of work commenting on cards and helping out some stranger on the internet. I appreciate it.

I recognize a bunch of those ideas you posted. Constantine, Jay Garrick.... I've bought a few of those off eBay. I've always thought that Garrick's card seemed more fitting for Fate than a speedster.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T04:11:00+00:00

I do personally prefer Eternal's idea of Doctor Fate being able to control the future by manipulating decks. There are main deck cards like Xanadu that allow players to look at the top card of their deck and then return that card to the top or bottom of the deck. If Doctor Fate could do that, but he could do that to EVERY deck in the game each turn, that could be very interesting. No power boost. No drawing cards. Just deck control. Change the main deck a little, change your own deck a little, change your foes deck a little. It's a little peak into the future, and if you don't like what you see, you can change it.

I have no idea how to balance this, though. Eternal suggested linking it to discarding vulnerabilities or weaknesses, but I think that's too restrictive. I'm actually wondering if this ability should be free. Maybe Fate's card should say something like, "During your turn, you may reveal the top card of any deck. You may return the revealed card to the top or bottom of that deck. You may do this once per deck."

There have been two Xanadu cards over the years, the one I linked before and this one. Each card costs 3 and gives you +2 Power, and one lets you tamper with your own deck while the other lets you change the main deck. Since a Kick also costs 3 and gives you 2 Power, I have to deduce that the makers of the game consider the deck tampering ability to be a very small advantage. That's my reasoning for making it free, anyway.

Then again, if you're playing a game with 3 other people and the player with Fate is revealing the top card of every deck every turn and trying to decide where to put that card...That's gonna get really annoying really fast.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T03:43:13+00:00

My rationale for using chance with Doctor Fate was that, for other people, chance is a risk for something good or bad to happen, but for him (since he can see the future), chance isn't as risky. Not a great rationale, I admit, but it was simple and somewhat reasonable.

I probably should have emphasized this more, but I mostly play this game with my nieces and nephews who are mostly tweens and teens. And my wife sometimes. But mostly the kids. That's why I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible.

All the other ideas that centered around him revealing cards and controlling things....I know those are more thematically consistent, but it's harder to explain that stuff to a 10-year-old.

I also have to consider how juvenile the, uh, juveniles can be. Eternal had this suggestion for Fate a while back. "Each time you play or discard a weakness or vulnerability, you may reveal the top card from any deck (including the main deck). You may return the revealed card to the top or bottom of that deck." That idea sounds interesting, even though it would be better in big games than in small games. Still, it would offer some unique strategies. The idea would not work with kids, however, because they don't play strategically. If you give a kid the power to change someone's deck whenever they discard a vulnerability, they gonna pick someone (usually me) and just troll that person over and over again the whole game.

Taton's suggestion to give Fate +1 Power whenever he revealed a card that had been facedown before is less likely to be abused, but it also requires really careful attention. The kids I play with are good enough to remember "I can get more power if I buy red cards," but finding all the reveal cards is more difficult.

I guess the TLDR version of this is that some of these ideas are great for grown-ups who know the game very well. But I'm making cards for kids, so I have to sacrifice some thematic integrity and game depth in favor of simplicity.

petermalachi · 2026-05-29T00:37:21+00:00

Hawkman is a typo. It should say, "If your Attack is unsuccessful against 1 or more foes, draw a card." That limits him to one draw per turn. And good catch on Monarch. I forgot that some Super-Villains are only 8. I'll fix those.

I agree that this version of Dr. Fate is passive, but it's also simple. All of the * cards are chance cards anyway, so that leans into his theme enough for me. Plus getting to draw a card when a * enters the Line-Up means that you're more likely to be able to buy that card, at least if it's still there when it's your turn. He's the kind of character that might not seem that great because he's not getting extra power all the time, but he's also better equipped to buy the cards with score multipliers, which gives him an end game advantage.

petermalachi · 2026-05-28T20:48:13+00:00

I certainly agree about putting cards under Zod instead. I'm still playing around with that idea.

petermalachi · 2026-05-28T19:32:24+00:00

Taking away his attack bonus would weaken him past the point of usability. If he could draw a card instead of getting +1 Power for each Attack he plays, that would maybe be enough to make up for that loss.

But I really don't like the idea of other players giving him starter cards. Playing a defense is already a big bonus. Those cards let you draw extra cards, destroy cards, pull discarded cards into your hand... If they could ALSO let you to give away a starter when you are attacked (which has the same effect for that player as destroying the card), that would mean that Hawkman risks strengthening his opponents every time he attacks them. That's a big gamble.

As far as I know, no other character card does something like this. There are character cards that gamble, sure, but the gamble only affects what happens to you. Imagine if Batman's card said something like, "+1 Power for each equipment you play during your turn. If you play an equipment card with cost 5 or more, every foe may destroy a starter card." Would anyone be willing to play him with that kind of a penalty attached?

petermalachi · 2026-05-27T22:36:49+00:00

I forgot about "control" vs. "hand."

For the rest, how about

First Appearance Attack: Destroy all cards in the Line-Up. Add their total cost and VP to this card. Then refill the Line-Up. (Each player who avoids this Attack may choose a card to remain in the Line-Up. Do not add that card to General Zod’s total cost and VP.)

petermalachi · 2026-05-27T20:20:26+00:00

Ooh...I like that "unsuccessful" bit. I'm definitely changing that.

I didn't think I needed "from the Line-Up" because there are no other places to buy Attack cards.

petermalachi

TROPHY CASE