After publishing the game last night and giving a few plays to make sure nothing was broken I went to bed and woke up the next morning with new ideas.
...well, I want to work on a different project, but I can't help but to think how the game would be better if there were more enemy types that occasionally appear who's gimmick responds to the player multi-targeting enemies.
Hitting multiple enemies at once is always just a strong strategy with little downside, so I figured it might be appropriate to add new enemies that respond to the player doing that.
For example, I could add an enemy that doesn't start attacking until hit, meaning the player would have hold back on targeting groups. In keeping with the theme I could make this a "Kobold Bandogge", which refers to an archaic breed group of guard dogs that were bound during the day and released to prowl estates a night. I would probably make it continuously block and have health naturally deplete every turn only switching to offense if the player hits through its block.
Another option could be a Kobold based on Asian Spitz breeds, which are known to be standoffish and independent. I could give it a passive ability that makes it so attacks that target multiple enemies deal no damage to it. The only way to defeat it would be to target only it.
Edit: I feel like this would make more sense if the name/dog group referenced was instead Kobold Lurcher. I would prefer if Spitz was just used for the name of the idea in the paragraph below as Spitz is a European term not used in Asia anyway. Unfortunately there isn't really a good term for Asian dog groups that isn't explicitly referencing real-world cultures (which I don't think is appropriate for fantasy settings, admittedly we do have Kobold Spaniels, but I think the nomenclature isn't as obvious as just outright saying "Asian" or as awkward as choosing a specific Asian culture and then anglicizing a word from their language). "Lurcher" obviously works for this concept because lurchers, also called poacher's dogs, were used for stealth hunts and act avoidant by nature.
On the flip side, we could add an opposite gimmicks to complement the ideas above by adding a Nordic Spitz (pack-forming by nature, sled dogs) based Kobold. It could appear in groups and have a gimmick where if the player doesn't kill them all at the same time, defeated ones will resurrect next turn at 1 hp. Having them resurrect at the same health naturally works well with the game as it makes tied votes that target lowest hp hit all enemies with tied HP. Adding this type of enemy in complements the two concepts above since it leaves a door open for the would be weakened "target-many" strategy.
I wish I thought of this before publishing the update...
Other enemy ideas I had include...
A Kobold Setter that obscures the face of some of your tokens so you can't see what they are while simultaneously giving you a curse token that damages you a lot if selected which also has an obscured face. Interestingly, this gameplay concept combines the effects of pointers (modifying the player's pool of tokens) and spaniels (giving curse tokens). Thematically this makes sense because setter dogs in the real world were bred from those two groups.
A Kobold Doodle that does a random action each turn from a different enemy type without showing you the intended action it will do above its head. This concept is more of a joke regarding the "doodle" group of breeds, but the idea with both it and the setter is that gambling is exciting as a gimmick. Giving the player the option to gamble on their turn would make the game more fun.
Edit: I've also considered potentially adding another enemy that joins the fight late with the justification being rounds tend to become easier the fight continues. The dog group "tumbler" works for this as they hunted by laying and pretending to be uninterested to lower their prey's guard (allegedly they would "tumble" on the ground and act aloof) only to suddenly spring into action and attack. The Kobold Scenthound's gameplay concept somewhat covers the joining late idea, but the Kobold Tumbler could do other actions like contribute curses to the board as those appear less often as rounds drag on.
I could also add a heeler, as in the cattle dogs that are named that because they bite heels to spur cows into moving. He could attack the teammate in front of him causing them to move to the front of the pack and receive a attack power buff. Could make him Australian; that's fun.
Maybe a livestock dog (yes, there are multiple dog breeds that are used for human consumption) that heals and/or buffs teammates when it dies. That kind of ties into the whole idea of adding enemies that limit the power of multi-hit attacks. Not sure if players would like the concept though.
Honestly dogs have so much potential. It's so easy to come up with new gameplay concepts just be researching historic dog roles.
