Mutant Shenaningans with Hunted Naturalist

Since Naturalist now has the ability to have one of his forms out AND select an icon as well, does this mean he can activate any and all icons on a single one-shot, as well as anything else in play?

If you're counted as being in multiple forms at once, you can activate all relevant icons on any cards you play (or powers, if you have enough power uses to be able to do so), in the order listed on the card. This was the case prior to this promo too, with much fun ensuing during a Fixed Point :).

Per previous Fixed Point shenanigans discussions, that's how I've been playing him, so I hope the official / playtested-questioned-and-answered response is "Yes".  Having a form out and choosing two different aspects in consecutive turns to allow for activation of all three icons on one-shots or power cards has been quite enjoyable.

Yes, that is how is works.  This promo is absolutely nuts when you can get a form out (it's pretty great without one as well)

Awesome, thanks!

I think his best starting hand is one with the crocodile in it. Because then you have the +1 Damage, whick makes for some really fun times

My first game with Hunted Naturalist was with Rhino form in hand, and I got Resilient hide and Natural Born Vigor out shortly after. So, two powers + two forms + two plays each turn. It was a good time.

On the flip side, if for whatever reason a form is replaced or destroyed, you've gotta fish it out of the trash with another hero, but even then you're guaranteed a form use, and still have two plays each turn.

That mimics my first game with Hunted Naturalist - I loved it! It was a Vengeance-style game, and he started with the Crocodile in hand. I played it and started using his base power to double-form with the +1 damage modifier. Only a few rounds in, though, I drew the Rhinoceros. Since I had Resilient Hide in play already, I turned into a rhino and got some Rhinodile Indomitable Force action going on to protect Young Legacy from Greazer’s contract. I stayed a Rhino for the rest of that game and used both my double-form options for Crafty Assaults and various croc effects.

Hunted Naturalist was definitely MVP of that game. He was hard to hit and hard-hitting.

Remember it is end of next turn, so you can have a form in play, activate another form, then for your next turn power activate the third form and play a one-shot.  Then if you have the second power use throw down Natural Form's Power for all three effects.

With 2 of Croc, Powe and Vigor in play and the other one and Primal Charge in hand and a banked form active from the last turn you can deal 2 targets 2 damage, 1 target 3 damage one target 4 damage, draw 6 cards and regain 2hp.

It is a good time.

I find Bestial Shift less good, and Natural Form's Power much better with this version of Naturalist.

This promo also turned Naturalist from a Hero I viewed as really strong, but not as fun to a really fun hero who goes crazy if he has a form in play.

Judas Priest, that makes him even better. I may have a new favorite.

Same here. I can't see myself playing the base Naturalist any more, because I like his promo that much

He’s a complete badass. And pretty similar to the promo that I came up with myself a couple years ago, when we were all speculating on future promos!

We’ve started throwing a 1, 5, or 10 HP counter on top of his card to track what form he picked with his power use for next turn - the colors corresponding to Gazelle, Crocodile, and Rhinoceros.

I created little 3-sided counters (like what Spiff has done in the past) with scanned images of the icons. I used those for a while, but they kept getting crushed.

I switched to a sheet I use with some glass tokens, now.

Both are in this file, if anyone is interested.

I have an index card with the 3 forms written in pen that I put a token next to when they are active.  Real high class.

Hey, if it works, that's all that matters! That's what I started with. Then one day I was avoiding doing work…

Oh, and I have to say (and I don't think I'm the first to come up with this, but I'll mention it here because it hasn't come up, yet) I refer to Naturalist having all three icons available as "Platupus Form".

I use 10-sided dice. One of each color, to represent the symbols, and when I use the power I set it to 2. At the end of his turns, the numbers tick down one. So, 2 becomes 1, and goes to 0. That way I can tell which one I activated this turn and which I activated last turn, and they expire at the right time. If a form is out, I set it to 8 and turn it sideways.

I like the HP counter idea. I usually just use them for unlucky tokens for Setback, but I'm all for having multi-use purposes!

Just to make sure I understand how it goes (in case I want to make a tracker), is this correct:

Turn 1:

• There are no forms in effect.
• The player chooses a form (croc) on their Power phase.  Croc is in effect during their turn and until the end of their next turn.

Turn 2:

• Croc is still in effect from last round.
• The player chooses a form (rhino) on their Power phase.  During the player's turn, both croc and rhino are in effect.
• At the end of their turn, croc goes away but rhino stays in effect until the end of their next turn.

This means that Naturalist will only ever have two forms in effect from the Desperate Prey power (not counting anything they'd get from an actual form card in play) while it's their turn, and when it's not their turn they can only ever have one form in effect.

Do I have it surrounded?

With just the base power yes.  If he has any form out he could have three forms active during his power use.  

Out of turn powers work too.

Yeah, you got it, Spiff.

If he wants to use any other power than his base power on his turn, he loses the cycle. Makes for very interesting choices! 

Here's what I'm going to use to track this:

It has two dials to show which form you chose this turn (top) and what form you chose last turn (bottom).  When your turn's over, you clear the "chosen last turn" dial (one of the choices on the dial is blank) and rotate the tracker so that your current choice (the top dial) becomes your previous choice (the bottom dial).  Rinse and repeat.

It's card sized for easy storage and will look good sitting next to your other cards on the table.  It lamentably uses placeholder art because... you know why, but I'll update that to the good stuff if/when I ever get it.

I'll have the PDF file up on http://www.spiffworld.com/sotm/printable.cfm in just a couple of minutes.

That is awesome! Thanks for making and sharing it, Spiff.

Some days that's the only way to get anything done 

Platypus form rocks!

And mnay Thanks Spiff for the Tracker!

The way I was thinking of doing a tracker is to have three double-sided tokens for each form, with one side saying “last turn.” The wheels are a great idea, too: I guess you must have lots of templates for wheels, Spiff!

P.S., I grabbed an Aim token out of my Tactics box to represent the object of Jim’s True Purpose!

Ha! That's awesome.

I actually have a collection of glass beads, dice, etc. with my Sentinels stuff that I use for stuff like this. Comes in handy for a lot of situations…

Clever, clever... You'd need like 2 of them, though, to allow for out of turn powers. Unless you want to just tell them to turn it sideways if they use the power an additional time.

You got it, I love spinners.  They don't take much table space and they're hard to screw up with a misplaced table bump.  Plus, they're fun to build, which is half the attraction for me.