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[Showdown35]

Well, since the mini-set contest seems to be on a 2nd pause, I might as well throw up a couple more cards for critiquing.

Brute Squad
$4 - Action-Attack
+1 Card, +$2
Each other player reveals his hand and discards an Attack card
(or reveals a hand with no such card).

A Militia variant that fits the theme of my fan set.  I added the +1 Card to make up for the fact that this will likely whiff more than Militia, but it seemed too powerful at $3.  I realize this will be much stronger in certain Kingdoms with powerful attack cards, but then, Moat's and Lighthouse's power level is ridiculously dependent on the Kingdom too. At least Brute Squad can make players discard other Brute Squads.


Hired Assassin
$6 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
If it is a Treasure, reveal a card from your hand that is not a Victory card.
Each other player looks through his discard pile and trashes a copy of the revealed card from it
(or reveals a discard pile without a copy).

Attacking the discard pile of opponents is something I've wanted to work into a card for a while.  I think it adds something new to the game, and makes the rule about discard piles being hidden (except the top card of course) actually matter.  Since discard piles are in a constant state of change, it adds strategy to the play, and makes paying attention pay off.

[Warfreak2]

Hired assassin is just so much swingier and more annoying than swindler, saboteur or knights. The first player to line up two of them when the opponent has one in the discard is likely the winner.

[soulnet]

I think Hired Assassin may be too powerful. But a chain of them would probably shut you down similarly to a chain of Torturers. I really dislike the fact that you need to remember other player's discard, but maybe that is just personal taste.

What I do think is that it does not scale nicely for several players, as it may affect some players a lot more than others. The other trashing attacks can also do that, and even discarding and deck inspection, but to a much lesser extent. This trashing one opponent's Gold and nothing to the other seems way more likely than Knights doing that. And being a Smitty variant, it makes it more likely to chain, and therefore, to end-up in a state where no real progress is done. I would put the attack on a terminal Silver if you really like it. And maybe have opponent's discard their decks first, to reduce swingyness in multiplayer.

[Showdown35]

After I posted it, I realized that I wanted the Assassin to only be able to "kill" Action cards, not Golds or other Treasures. I think that would help stabilize it a bit.  As for the swinginess, the idea of the set kind of lends intself to swinginess. High risk high reward cards that do inherently rely on luck. Its more of a "fun" set for casual players than an ultra balanced set for adbanced gamers.  My play group tends to shoot for high action games with shinanegans rather than caring too much about winning.

We all try to win, of course. We don't make bad plays just for fun or anything, but cards that can backfire but can also change the course of the game if they get lucky are usually the kind of fun we like.  The skill comes in the form of calculated risks and probabilities rather than pure strategy plays.  We have all played lots of strategy heavy games, and are looking forcards to spice up the repetition.

[Showdown35]

I think Hired Assassin may be too powerful. But a chain of them would probably shut you down similarly to a chain of Torturers. I really dislike the fact that you need to remember other player's discard, but maybe that is just personal taste.

What I do think is that it does not scale nicely for several players, as it may affect some players a lot more than others. The other trashing attacks can also do that, and even discarding and deck inspection, but to a much lesser extent. This trashing one opponent's Gold and nothing to the other seems way more likely than Knights doing that. And being a Smitty variant, it makes it more likely to chain, and therefore, to end-up in a state where no real progress is done. I would put the attack on a terminal Silver if you really like it. And maybe have opponent's discard their decks first, to reduce swingyness in multiplayer.

I'm considering changing it to "reveal an Action card other than Hired Assassin" or perhaps even have a "Hired Goons" pile similar to Knights, with 10 unique Hired Attackers, each requiring you to discard treasure. That way there will be only one Assassin in the game.

[Tables]

Brute Squad is probably too strong. +1 card, +$2 is likely fairly strong at $4, and adding an often potent attack on top seems like overkill. This is more swingy than Militia, but when it hits it's usually much more damaging too. So I doubt it'd need the +1 card to compare reasonably with Militia and Cutpurse and the like.

[eHalcyon]

Brute Squad -- For some reason, +1 Card on a terminal just feels wrong to me, like it's more of a penalty than a bonus.  It's such little draw, but it still means you can draw an action dead.  Just feels weird.  That's a personal thing though.

Attacking other attacks is really weird.  If Brute Squad is the only attack around, there's very little point in going for it.  Might as well just get Silver.  But if there is a strong attack on the board like Goons or Margrave, Brute Squad gets powerful and also extremely swingy.  Unfortunately, what may happen is that people just decide to skip attack cards entirely because of the threat of Brute Squad, and then nobody gets Brute Squad either because nobody bought any attacks.

Hired Assassin -- Seems way too swingy to me.  It's swingy on more than one level -- you have to draw it with a good target card, and your opponents  have to have that card in their discard.  Like, your opponent draws his Assassin with a King's Court and trashes your KC.  You draw your assassin with nothing but Coppers and Estates, or you draw it right after your opponents have all reshuffled.  It's just such a big gap.

A suggestion to fix that is that you have to discard the card you are targetting.  So if you want to trash everybody's Gold, you have to discard a Gold from your hand.  That also means you can't play KC-HA and reveal the same strong card three times.

Swinginess is not necessarily a deal breaker, but a bigger issue for me is that this becomes political.  Say you draw Hired Assassin with two different good cards.  Gold and Margrave, maybe.  You've kept track of your opponents' discards and you know that one has discarded Gold but not Margrave and the other has discarded Margrave but not Gold.  Now you can choose who to attack.

If you are OK with potential politics and high swinginess, then it still works.  It's not my cup of tea though.  Still, the most important thing is that you and you gaming group enjoy it.

[Showdown35]

Exactly! I like your point about the politics, which I try to avoid with my cards. I figured the situation for it would be so rare that it would be ok... also, I think having it only target Actions will help, and discarding the card as well, very good suggestion.
The more I think about it, the more I want to do a "Hired" pile, maybe with 2 copies of each of 5 different strong and risky attackers. Each will draw you 3 cards, and force a discard, and will activate its attack if you discard a Treasure. Any thoughts on that?  The pile would play like Knights. Only the top card is gainable.

As for Brute Squad, I was aware of the possible, "no one buys attacks or Brute Squad" situation, as mentioned in the guide. Since, even though its not a "hurt the attacker" reaction, it kind of plays like one. I figured it would have to have a strong bonus to be worth playing even with no strong attacks on the board, but I guess I see why its so hard to target attacks.  Maybe I'll just make it Actions cards, but then I think its too strong... I wanted more of a limitation to what it could make people discard so there would be more risk involved... maybe it only discards Actions costing $4 or more...

[matste]

The problem I see about Brute Squad is that it increases the third player's disadvantage more than Militia does. The +2$ +Card bonus looks like a very reliable method of hitting 5$, so the Silver+BS opening will be strong in many kingdoms, but the third player should better forget about it and open Silver, Silver instead, excluding himself from the fight.

Each other player reveals his hand and discards an Attack card
(or reveals a hand with no such card).

Why should you reveal your hand when you have a card to discard? That is inconsistent with similar effects on Bureaucrat, Taxman, Mountebank and Cutpurse.

[Showdown35]

The problem I see about Brute Squad is that it increases the third player's disadvantage more than Militia does. The +2$ +Card bonus looks like a very reliable method of hitting 5$, so the Silver+BS opening will be strong in many kingdoms, but the third player should better forget about it and open Silver, Silver instead, excluding himself from the fight.

Each other player reveals his hand and discards an Attack card
(or reveals a hand with no such card).

Why should you reveal your hand when you have a card to discard? That is inconsistent with similar effects on Bureaucrat, Taxman, Mountebank and Cutpurse.

Because one theme of the fan set is revealing hands.  I wanted it to be different than similar discard attacks in that even if you do have a card to discard, the Brute Squad makes you reveal your hand as well.  Flavor wise, they are invading your house and searching for suspicious activity, which is why you reveal first, then if they find anything, they make you stop.

[soulnet]

The problem I see about Brute Squad is that it increases the third player's disadvantage more than Militia does. The +2$ +Card bonus looks like a very reliable method of hitting 5$, so the Silver+BS opening will be strong in many kingdoms, but the third player should better forget about it and open Silver, Silver instead, excluding himself from the fight.

Actually, in that case P1 and P2 will discard each other's BS a couple of times, while P3 will retain his Silver, so I would say there is a bit of 3rd player advantage. It is similar to have multiple opponents buy Witch while you buy Moat and use those 5s or 6s to buy better things.