OK, OK, fortified tiles were never great to begin with. It’s a wasted ability that has probably never impacted the use of a character aside from Green Goblin and 5* Hawkeye. But I used to feel like it meant something. That glowing border meant it was ok to match my own stuff and might be too much trouble getting rid of an opponent’s.
And then the “replacers” came. People who could replace tiles instead of destroying them. Yeah, there had been a few already, outliers who had this odd wording allowing them to sneak inside a fortified tile and change it to something else. I’d see topics with titles like “Fortified tiles aren’t working!” from people who thought fortifying tiles protected them from abilities, not just being matched.
Now it’s reached the point where fortified tiles are meaningless. There are characters who replace so many enemy tiles of all types [cough5Gambitcough!] that your fortify ability might as well be in your opponent’s power description.
I propose the following:
- Fortifications should be a type of “special” tile that overlays other special tiles
- Abilities that destroy multiple specials should resolve each tile sequentially, so they can destroy fortified tiles by destroying the fortification first, and then the tile itself if they still aren’t finished resolving
- Make powers that replace special tiles either “bounce” off of fortifications and go somewhere else, or resolve like destroy abilities above
- If that’s not feasible, have them destroy the fortification before overwriting it, so the enemy doesn’t get a free fortification, punishing you for using a character with fortify
This would balance out powers like the aforementioned coughing fit by making them have to break the fortification first, thus not overwriting as many tiles, or by rewarding people who fortify by actually letting them use their special tiles.
I don’t feel It would overpower fortification, as players would still have to choose to use someone with Fortify instead of another power that might mesh better with their overall strategy. Powers like Spider-Woman’s “To Love and Fear” would still smash through special tiles like wet tissue paper. GRocket wouldn’t suddenly become overpowered (OK, more overpowered) because they would still have to spend turns getting their tiles fortified, leaving a window of vulnerability.
But people who either actively pursued fortification as a strategy or just wound up having it around because of a favorite character wouldn’t feel gypped when their “protected” tiles disappeared and left behind impossible-to-destroy little meta-bombs.
TL;DR: Fortifying tiles should protect against destruction and overwriting like they do against matching.