Card idea: Cold Andy (Hunter)

It's rushing ally that cost less than Ossian (just as much as Ossian with magnum), deal ranged damage with his .44 and will be decent addition for gun decks and dbr weenie decks.

Interesting, yes. Partly because I just like allies, partly because his ability to fetch a weapon gives more possibility for interaction with the rest of your deck than current similar allies.

Balanced, difficult to say. I think it's probably a bit cheap, but 2 pool would be too expensive.

Compare Cold Andy with a .44 magnum to Wendell Delburton (I think that's the fairest comparison).
Same cost, maneuver, ranged damage. Andy is less durable and his rush is more restrictive, but he doesn't try to kill your own vampires. On balance, I'd normally prefer Andy here.

His main advantage though over similar allies is probably his versatility, which is what makes him hard to accurately price. (ie he can be as above, or can be a 1 pool cost ally who hits for 2 in melee, or various others depending on the situation). The fact that you can move his weapon to another minion is probably not quite balanced by the fact that it can be destroyed.

I don't think adding a straight capacity restriction on recruiting him is a good idea as this makes him less useful in ally decks, and unplayable in Imbued decks. It would work ok if you phrased it as 'cannot be recruited by a vampire with capacity below X', or 'requires an ally or a vampire of capacity X or more' (or possibly '...requires a mortal ally or ...').

Other ways you could nerf him slightly would be to restrict his fetching ability to exclude the ash heap, to restrict what actions he can take (eg cannot take D actions that aren't actions to enter combat), or to prevent your own effects from moving a weapon on him to another minion.

Ankha wrote:

Mael wrote:

or to prevent your own effects from moving a weapon on him to another minion.

It's not a big concern since he's unique so he can't be used as a "weapon fetcher" more than once (that costs 1 pool).

I'd like to fix the DBR issue quite explicitely:

Name: Cold Andy (Hunter)
Cardtype: Ally
Cost: 1 pool
Unique mortal with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed.
When Cold Andy enters play, you may equip him with a non-unique weapon that costs 3 pool or less from your hand, ash heap or library (shuffle afterward) (requirements must be met; pay cost as normal). He can enter combat with a tapped minion as a action. He can't play Dragon's Breath Rounds.

Such specific hoser is not gentle. 'he cant play ammo cards' would be better. Perhaps 'action directed at him cost vampires an additional blood' would solve most of 'weapon feach' problems.