Bouncer
Alert
Support
Type
Power of Security
Prevents Sponsors from Interfering
As a leader, before rally, you may use this power to prevent commissions this encounter.
As a bystander, before rally, you may use this power to offer your protection to one or both leaders. You may sponsor one leader that accepts your protection to prevent commissions this encounter.
Legacy: During rally, each leader may only commission one sponsor at most.
When attending a major party, conference, or event, you’ll often find a member of the Bouncers joining in. It’s less that they want to attend and more that they want to keep out the rabble. They can stand motionless for three weeks without tiring and will grab you by the throat the second you try to sneak past.
Leader: Rally
Bystander: Rally
Optional
Wild Flare
As a leader, after commission, you may discharge this flare to remove one sponsor from the encounter, rebounding their ships.
Leader: Commission
Super Flare
At any time, when one or more players attempts to revive ships, you may discharge this flare. No ships may be revived for the rest of this encounter.
Any: Any
Modifications
- Original power is named Bulwark.
- Originally has the power is Fortification, resulting in the loss of only one ship when a ship is lost. This power has been retooled for Roach, and it is considered a weaker Zombie on its own.
- Original Wild Bulwark simply gives a leader a once-per-turn use of original Bulwark’s ability, reducing ship loss to one. It is simple and understated, possibly highlighting how weak the original power is that the wild flare is essentially just as useful.
- Original Super Bulwark has control over which cards are lost when its cache is ravaged or it has to pay compensation, mostly a subset of Hacker’s power in most situations. Modified to be more in-theme with Bouncer’s power.
- Bouncer’s legacy allows leaders to only invite one alien maximum, greatly reducing the efficacy of sponsor-based powers like Scholar and Cavalry. Combat aliens greatly benefit from this legacy, since it prevents strategies that allow many aliens to gang up on one. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Consider accepting Bouncer’s help when you expect many aliens to gang up on you.
- As the Bouncer, offering your services to the defense can useful at earning some quick rewards, especially if the defender has a strong combat power. The invader is more likely to receive support, so the defense may be more concerned about losing.
- Avoid letting Bouncer become a makeshift Parasite by accepting its security too often.
Development Notes
- This rework of Bulwark is based on the original idea by Bill Martinson, creator of The Cosmodex. The original keeps the name and theming the same, but I prefer the theming of a bouncer keeping out the riffraff. Bulwark strikes me as more of a defensive power like Citadel.
- Original Bulwark is mostly considered a weaker Zombie. While it does preserve its bases when losing on defense, it gets less compensation as a trade-off, especially compared to my retooled Zombie that gets full compensation. The benefit of ship preservation doesn’t justify having such a major downside, as it should mainly be the opportunity cost of not having a stronger power that limits it. Aside from Zombie, other aliens like Horde and Fungus can take better advantage of having more ships.
- Bouncer is most comparable to Zipper, an alien I made that can either prevent one leader from inviting anyone or force a leader to invite everyone. Zipper’s power is notably sponsor-only. It can act as a makeshift Parasite, only allowing every other sponsor to join along with it. Bouncer has no ability to guarantee participation, but it can incentivize its own participation with its power. Leaders may or may not want to invite Bouncer depending on whether they think the opponent might get more allies, and Bouncer joining one side offers a numerical advantage dependent on the number of ships Bouncer provides.
- To prevent an infinite sword vs. infinite shield situation, I set Bouncer’s power to specifically prevent commissions. This means that special effects like Parasite and Lunatic still work with Bouncer’s protection in-play, as it makes for more interesting scenarios than Bouncer having an ultimate veto on all such powers.
- When Bouncer offers protection to both leaders, it becomes a prisoner’s dilemma. Both have to refuse the offer in order to for either side to get more than one sponsor.
- Bulwark is originally a green alert power, but Bouncer offers a bit more complexity that brings it into yellow alert status. The user has to decide when is the right time to offer security, and the opponents have to decide when is the best time to accept, which can be tricky to navigate when a person is still learning the game.