Animal
Alert
Invasion
Type
Power to Ricochet
Always Bounces Back
As an invader or sponsor, after winning in combat with at least two committed ships, use this power to ambush your own system using any or all of your committed ships. Target either a home base, enemy base, or an empty planet. If not targeting an enemy base, land your ships on that planet and end the encounter.
As a defender, after winning in combat with at least two committed ships, use this power to ambush the invader using any or all of your committed ships.
You may not use your power after winning an encounter during an ambush.
Legacy: Whenever an invader wins an encounter, that alien may use any or all of their committed ships to establish a home base.
Ancient creatures of combat, the resilient Boomerangs have survived countless wars through tenacity and resilience. No matter how beaten down they may seem, they always find a way to come back and take revenge.
Invader or Sponsor: Combat
Defender: Combat
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As an actor, at any time, you may discharge this flare. While this flare is in your exhaust, when your ships would be destroyed by any aspect, rebound them instead. If the ships are on a base, rebound them to a different base.
Actor: Any
Super Flare
Each warpfall, you may discharge this flare to revive a ship.
Any: Warpfall
Modifications
- Originally the power to “return.” The name is a better fit for the original power. Changed to match my retool of the power.
- Original Boomerang’s power is an alt-win alien with a setup clause. All but one of its ships on each planet is placed in its nexus. Then, when committing ships, it can commit up to three ships from its nexus. Boomerang automatically wins if all of its ships leave its nexus while it still has its power. I came up with my version of Boomerang based on the idea to satisfy my “no alt-win aliens” edict.
- Original power is optional due to the different mechanics.
- Original Boomerang is red alert due to the different mechanics.
- I added a clause to make it impossible for Boomerang to use its power after winning an encounter through the ambush, preventing its encounter from going on too long.
- I specified that Boomerang needs to win in combat for its power to give Boomerang some more negotiation leverage. It also reflects Boomerang’s nature as a living weapon.
- Original Super Boomerang can move a ship from its nexus to a home base during its own warpfall. I gave Boomerang a similar ability to “bounce back” its ships from the warp instead each warpfall, helping it to fuel its main power of committing more ships.
- Boomerang’s legacy allows invaders to regain home bases after winning an encounter, repurposing their committed ships. While not as simple as Disease’s legacy for regaining home bases, the additional challenge can grant strategic advantage to aliens with invader-only powers or otherwise excel at winning as a leader. Aliens who gain only gain dominion as a sponsor will naturally struggle more if they start losing home bases. In general, this legacy makes it difficult to deactivate alien powers, especially aliens that are winning dominion. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Boomerang enjoys playing as a backward the most. After winning as a backward, it gains boons and then can immediately have an encounter in its own system with all of those ships, since it doesn’t need to save any to remain on the target planet. Boomerang will also want those boons to either revive its lost ships or keep its cache stocked for ambushes.
- Boomerang can only ambush you or your bases if you are the enemy leader. Since that factor is completely determined by destiny, it can’t be fully prevented. However, if Boomerang is not the enemy leader, you can commission it to prevent it from ambushing you. Otherwise, you just have to defeat their fleet.
- Winning two consecutive encounters can seem like a daunting task for Boomerang, but it can be mitigated if you can win the first encounter as a sponsor.
- Since you need at least two ships to use your power, maintaining your ship count is of high priority for the power. Sending one ship can inform the opponent you aren’t looking to ambush them. It can potentially be used to help negotiate.
- Arguably the most valuable encounters for Boomerang to win are as a defender, since they give it an extra ambush in an enemy system and let it protect its home bases.
- Even if you don’t intend to win an ambush, you can use your extra invasions to prune your cache of weak pods or gain compensation for future ambushes.
Development Notes
- Starting with the theme of “bouncing back” like a Boomerang, my first thought was an ambush type of power that functioned similarly to Wild Warrior. When it wins as a defender, it can invade the invader. Of course, that by itself would be strictly worse than Siren, so I had the idea to give it the reverse as well and also let it work as a sponsor. When fighting in its own system, it will invade the enemy system. When fighting in another system, it will return to its own system. Like a boomerang, the ships come back.
- Boomerangs are a popular Australian weapon known for their unusual property that allows them to be thrown through the air and return to the person that threw it. There are also boomerangs that are designed to not return to the thrower, but the concept is so well known that “boomerang” has become a verb used to refer to something returning to where it came from, usually with a negative connotation. Naturally, that would be the focus of this theme, so I used “ricochet” as the power name, which refers to something rebounding off a surface one or more times. It’s a synonym for the verb “boomerang”, and it references how boomerang’s ships bounce back from where they were. Super Boomerang reviving ships exaggerates the concept to an extreme, making Boomerang’s ricochet problem powerful enough to come back from the dead.
- 3 out of 4 of Boomerang’s wins will result in it returning to its own system, to either attack an enemy invader or restock its home bases. In FFG Cosmic, this power would be rather lackluster, since any alien can choose to encounter themselves. However, my Cosmic gives the power a rare opportunity to shine, since invading yourself cannot normally be done so freely. It doesn’t even require Boomerang to burn its own invasions to do so, making it something like a combination of Siren and Grump.
- When it comes to invading your own planet, it is important that you cannot just bypass enemy bases to take back your home planet. It makes it too easy to regain a home base and trivializes the whole point of the planet being conquered. If it were that easy, aliens could just freely jump their ships between bases regardless of who is on them.
- I wanted to make sure the power is not strictly better or worse than any existing ambush-style aliens. Those would be Invader, Lightning, Siren, and Tortoise. Invader has a finite number of ambushes it gets based on its destiny charges, usually 6 in a destiny cycle. The other aliens have their own limitations when it comes to how many ambushes they get. Lighting is based on the number of other aliens who win their first invasion, Tortoise is based on how many cycles occur before the game ends, and Siren is based on how many times it successfully uses its power when not a leader. Boomerang is limited by the number of times it wins an encounter as an actor with 2+ ships. Unlike Invader, Lightning or Tortoise, Boomerang cannot gain ambushes passively. It must risk at least two ships just for the chance to use its power, and then its fleet has to win. The follow-up will naturally have fewer ships unless it uses all of its previously committed ships, but the extra ambush can potentially destroy an enemy base in Boomerang’s system. If not, Boomerang can get a home base back, making it harder to deactivate Boomerang’s power. Similar to Grump, gaining dominion in Boomerang’s system is naturally riskier, since it can be attacked if Boomerang later invades you.
- Given the nature of boomerangs to always come back, I knew I needed to change this power to be mandatory. However, I didn’t want to lock in Boomerang to always having an extra invasion when it wins. I think the decision to base it on ship count is an elegant solution that also telegraphs if Boomerang is gunning for an ambush or not. The exception is when Boomerang is the defender, as it doesn’t choose how many ships to commit. However, this is also the one time when Boomerang will get an ambush in a foreign system instead of its own
- Since Boomerang’s power is win-based like Siren’s, I can’t imagine it being too overpowered despite getting more chances to activate. If other aliens don’t want it to keep activating, they can stop commissioning Boomerang.
- One minor issue I have with the design is when Boomerang wins as the defender. It’s not coming “back” to the invader’s system like it is after sending its ships from its system through the gate. It’s like it is acting as the enemy’s flagship and returning to their system in its stead after destroying it. However, it’s another reason I went with “ricochet” as a power term. It captures the idea of it bouncing off one system and going to another, with the boomerang theme linking it to the idea of “return to sender”.
- I like the idea of Boomerang being based around winning consecutive encounters. It doesn’t necessarily to win two in a row as a leader, and maybe the second one is just a free home colony, but it captures the feeling of a projectile weapon bouncing around and dealing damage, rather than something like a sword that hits one target once from its attack.
- I considered the design that allows Boomerang to perpetually ping back and forth between its own system and the invading system if it chains together several wins. I decided against it to prevent a similar issue as Machine, where other aliens don’t get to play because Boomerang’s turns take too long.
- Originally my Zombie had the power to “come back”. I decided to give that a name that better matches my naming convention, after realizing “come back” would also work for this power. I went with “ricochet” instead, to fit my one-word edict for power names.