Elevators and how to handle them
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:34 pm
I was talking to my brother about the game - he's opted not to back, but he did have some interesting insights. One of them is his suggestion of "Elevator Elves", small, gremlinish things that don't need much room and hang about in elevator cars. They'd be cheap and pretty ineffective as minions, but what they would do is spread heroes out for a little while. Here's the basic game plan as I understood it:
You deploy a trio of these little annoyances to an elevator car of your choice. They hide inside, and as soon as a single hero enters they close the door and hit the 'down' button... metaphorically speaking. There follows a short fight while the lone hero attacks the 'elves', and since it will most likely win, it will go into the next floor as normal. Except that the hero is still alone, while the elevator goes back up to get more. If there are regular minions there, then the hero is probably going to soak up quite a bit of damage while waiting for reinforcements. If not, they'll keep going and probably take the next elevator down solo as well. Of course, in the meanwhile the delayed trip may mean that other heroes have gotten bunched up - you'll have to judge the right time to use the elves.
While the elves themselves aren't strictly essential to the idea, I think that some sort of traps or mini-minions used for literal crowd control may add an intriguing tactical twist to the game. You spend a handful of resources for a strictly temporary effect and hope that it gains you a long-term advantage (for instance, a meat-expensive spider didn't die to this particular wave) to make it worthwhile.
You deploy a trio of these little annoyances to an elevator car of your choice. They hide inside, and as soon as a single hero enters they close the door and hit the 'down' button... metaphorically speaking. There follows a short fight while the lone hero attacks the 'elves', and since it will most likely win, it will go into the next floor as normal. Except that the hero is still alone, while the elevator goes back up to get more. If there are regular minions there, then the hero is probably going to soak up quite a bit of damage while waiting for reinforcements. If not, they'll keep going and probably take the next elevator down solo as well. Of course, in the meanwhile the delayed trip may mean that other heroes have gotten bunched up - you'll have to judge the right time to use the elves.
While the elves themselves aren't strictly essential to the idea, I think that some sort of traps or mini-minions used for literal crowd control may add an intriguing tactical twist to the game. You spend a handful of resources for a strictly temporary effect and hope that it gains you a long-term advantage (for instance, a meat-expensive spider didn't die to this particular wave) to make it worthwhile.