Of mankind’s many mysteries, the meaning of the content of this card…is surely among them.
Hi everyone, I’m the other Evan on The Fifth Trooper. If you’re anything like me, you scrolled down yesterday’s Shatterpoint article about stat cards and was like “uh huh….alright…sure, yeah, damage changes your stats a bit…powers…ok. Alright well looks like we’re done, it’s Star Wars MCP after all and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.“
Atomic Mass literally just dropped this here, and weary eyed travelers of the internet found ourselves bewildered and befuddled and what in the hell any of this means. They literally showed this to us, mumbled something about stance cards, then went inside for a a cup of cocoa while the rest of us gawked at these…as we are left incredulous and uneducated.
However, I do have some theories as to what it all means.
Theory #1: It’s Choreography
And I don’t mean fight choreography, I mean:
- Throw out your hands
- Stick out your tush
- Hands on your hips!
- Give em a push!
They say that stances are only a few movements short of being dances so this is my top running theory at the moment.
Sorry guys I actually just wanted to make sure that I acknowledged Mel Brooks’ genius which I’m pretty sure I haven’t done before on this blog. A cowboy fight melds into a broadway revue which becomes another cowboy fight after the cowboys literally break the wall between scenes.
Theory #2: It’s a medical algorithm
It’s undeniable, at least one of those symbols is a little healy cross thing.
Actually, it could also represent being god-awful at Tetris. Anyway, in case you’re not buying what I’m selling here, take a look at the algorithm that pretty much every doctor in a hospital needs to know by heart, the basics of what to do with a stopped heart:
Ok now exhibit B
Perhaps this represents the specific game actions you have to take to revive a character when he’s taken enough wounds. If you find a Darth Maul that’s down you should:
First, check a pulse. If Maul has a pulse then follow the top algorithm, SMACK HIM TWICE, LEAVE AN OIL SLICK AND RUN RUN RUN but he’s gonna find you eventually and smack YOU a couple times. If Maul doesn’t have a pulse then follow the bottom algorithm, cut him in half and toss him down a chasm, he’ll be back in time to prove that Lucas could never really help himself, then it’s straight on forward to Clone Wars!
Theory #3: It’s a treasure map
And it leads to another $100 terrain pack
Theory #4: It’s hieroglyphics that contain a secret message
Can’t wait to find out which one of these 4 it will be, probably one of them though!
While you’re here, I did a podcast with the “That’s No Moon” guys, which includes our own “AJST” on a regular basis. We talked about Blizzard Force, accents, fluttercraft, the Payload objective, it was an intercontinental bash of buffoonery. Have a listen!
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I have Legion. I have MCP.
Do I need another skirmish game that looks to be about $200 Canadian for the core set?
Nah, I’m good.
I saw this and figured it was an attempt at copying Guild Ball’s damage flowchart mechanic. Except this time with corporate mandated proprietary dice hieroglyphs.
If you watch Crabbok’s interview with Will Schick from the other day, he explains some of it.
Definitely got a chuckle out of me! For a more serious suggestion, I think these are damage trees, similar to the ones from Arena Rex. Check out their website for their free rules for a detailed explanation, but the gist is that you roll dice looking for successes and (after canceling any thanks to the defender’s dice) you spend those successes by going down the tree. Using Maul’s card as an example, if you got 5 successes you spend them on boxes (presumably left to right judging by the orange box) and the first box is two icons that are probably damage. Then for the second success you’d pick either the top or middle row. In this case, both are the same result, so it only matters for what you can spend later successes on, as you’ll likely need to stick to the same branch.
Let’s say you keep to the middle, you’d get another choice for your 4th success since there’s another branch there. With 5 successes you’d end up with one of three options: All middle, Middle>Top>Top>Top>Middle, or Middle>Middle>Middle>Bottom>Bottom (which is the only branch that let’s you get a 6th result).
There looks to be damage, jump, push and a fourth result that could be a bleed, or could perhaps be a self heal. So, if you take those 5 successes and go all middle results, you’d end up with 7 damage total (assuming I’m right about the explosion symbol) and three pushes.