All hell breaks loose: a Sentinels Marathon

I mentioned in another thread that I was participating in the Extra-Life charity gaming marathon to raise money for Children's Miracle Network hospitals, and that within that 24 hours I planned on taking on all 15 SotM villains in succession. With the help of Koutrou and a few "guest-star" friends, we did just that in a total session spanning from about 9am to just after 9pm. Here are the results, as well as any details I can still remember.

For starters, we always chose out heroes first, then randomly determined the environment (eliminating each one from future games until we played all eight, then re-eliminating them as they came up a second time). The oversized villain cards were shuffled up and kept hidden, then we would pull the top one out and get to business. We tried to avoid repeating the same team-ups whenever possible.

1. Legacy (me) / Tachyon (me) / Bunker (Koutrou) / Rook City Wraith (Koutrou) defeated The Ennead in the Tomb of Anubis (~55 min).

We intentionally made the decision to start off with the Freedom Four, although there would be no Baron Blade to make it a re-enactment of F4 Annual #1. As soon as we saw our actual villain draw we immediately began to fear the possibility that Shu would show up, as the F4 have a hard time dealing non-melee/projectile damage (maybe that's why they recruited AZ? :P); Bunker's Omni-Cannon was thus protected at all costs as a precaution. Fortunately that was never an issue, as our actual opponents were Atum, Nuit, Set, and Nepthys (Geb would show up later). Of course you can't visit the Tomb without the landlord showing up, and the interaction between him and the Ennead provided some amusing benefits. Nothing special to mention here, as the F4 are a solid team and worked well together to handle whatever problems came up without too much hassle.

2. Redeemer Fanatic (me) / Haka (me) / Tempest (Koutrou) / Argent Adept (Koutrou) defeated Spite in the Ruins of Atlantis (~90 min, but see below)

Figured the Prime Wardens deserved some team time next. The storyline here was that Spite was apparently being held in Atlantis because he was too dangerous to NOT be imprisoned at the bottom of the ocean. Doesn't explain all of the victims, but hey. We had to restart this one due to my somehow horribly mis-reading Spite's EOT effect so that it damaged all of us intead of just the highest; yeah, he's kind of impossible to beat when he's regenerating at least 12 hp a turn. Once we cleared that up, however, we still had a crazy uphill climb. I don't think there is any worse hero/villain match-up than Fanatic versus Spite (being in Atlantis doesn't help either, since all of the targets there are basically immune to Final Dive); the entire time I just kept drawing cards that were utterly useless against him, so I focused on living up to the Angel image and saving victims whenever possible. I had Wrathful Retribution in my opening hand, which was clearly Plan A, but getting there would be tough. Spite went on an early Lab Raid that put us on the back foot almost immediately, and was even able to break into the Safe House to undo our victim-saving; we had five rescued and were able to re-tuck the four suvivors quickly, but it still looked bad. Once he flipped things just got worse, as it was incredibly difficult for this group to punch past his DR2 while having to return stuff and constatnly getting pinged. Eventually both Tempest and Fanatic fell (not before getting of a large Retribution, thankfully) and it was up to Haka and the Adept.

We needed a plan, and there was really only one chance: Haka of Battle. I used Fanatic's incapacitated power to draw Haka a card whenever possible, but her healing came in useful as well. Tempest was locked on making us immune to the Toxic damage being dealt by one of the drugs, which saved huge amounts of pain (the milling was a nuisance, but not really an issue). DR and healing carried the day for a while here, and eventually were were somehow able to settle into a loop: Argent Adept would play Counterpart Bulwark and throw up some DR on our end while gaining HP, and Haka would play Punish the Weak and then Crush Spite for a whole point of damage. Those would be the two cards we returned at the start of his turn, repeating this process until Haka had enough to charge up Haka of Battle for exactsies. This was a slog, but we got there.

3. Absolute Zero (me) / Nightmist (me) / Visionary (Koutrou) / Mr Fixer (Koutrou) defeated Citizen Dawn in Megalopolis (~50 mins)

When we saw the villain draw on this one we just assumed we were going to be destroyed. But it turns out that Visionary and Nightmist can do a frightening job of keeping Dawn's deck under control thanks to Suggestions and Nightmist's spell that prevents cards from being played from a deck, leaving AZ and Fixer to clean up the Citizens. We got a little lucky with an early Aurora of Devastation that was mostly harmless, but Dawn never flipped and once Visionary found a Twist the Ether for AZ it was basically over. Amusingly, I was never able to find AZ's Isothermic Transducer, so this was all cold damage all the time.

4. Expatriette (me) /  Unity (me) / Young Legacy (Koutrou) / Ra (Koutrou) were defeated by The Organization in Rook City (~60 min)

Yeah. This... did not go well. Rook City was just backbreaking here, as usual, and we never even really got going. An untimely Prison Break late in the game sealed our fate as we were overwhelmed and crushed. Apparently we put up a fight, since the game took about an hour, and there was a glimmer of hope once they reshuffled, but The Contract quickly put an end to that.

5. Horus Ra (me) / Wraith (me) / Fanatic (Koutrou) / Argent Adept (Koutrou) defeated Grand Warlord Voss in Insula Primalis (~60 min)

Wraith did a lot of Minion disposal with Throwing Blades + Micro-Targeting Computer, Ra spewed fire, Fanatic was in her element, and AA did his support thing. Nothing really notweorthy here that I can recall.

6. Unity (Matt) / Tachyon (Koutrou) / Mr. Fixer (me) defeated Cosmic Omnitron in Wagner Mars Base (~30 min)

I don't think Omnitron found a single Drone after flipping to Dropship mode. We just drilled him over and over until he stopped moving.

7. Nightmist (Matt) / Absolute Zero (Koutrou) / Bunker (me) defeated Mad Bomber Blade in Pike Industries (~40 min)

This one was weird. We took out his bomber side thanks to Nightmist redirecting large blasts with the Amulet of the Elder Gods, but lost most of our stuff on the flip (as usual). Then Nightmist entered Mistform and, as the highest HP, kept absorbing his death ray shots while Koutrou and I did what we could (with the Ammo Drop I'd been holding all day finally paying off), but Blade found like three Hasten Dooms in a row that helped to incapacitate AZ (I think a Rat actually took him down, which was sad) and things got ugly. AZ allowed Bunker to use an additional power, which translated to gaining 2 HP off a Maintainance Unit while charging up the Omni-Cannon, but it didn't look like it would be enough. We lost Mistform somehow (probably a Devastating Disruption) but he had a second in his hand after a Mist-Fueled Recovery helped to put him back to highest HP. Eventually the Omni-Cannon got there, thanks to a little help from vats, but it was close.

8. Haka (Koutrou) / Argent Adept (Matt) / Visionary (me) defeated Akash'Bhuta in the Realm of Discord (~65 min)

How we won this one with two non-damaging heroes I'll never quite understand. Oh wait, yes I do: Savage Mana is stupid against A'B when you stick Limbs underneath it. I believe Haka did a total of about 56 damage in one blast to finish her off. It took FOREVER to get there, but a win is a win.

9. Tempest (me) / Fanatic (me) / Expatriette (Koutrou) / Legacy (Koutrou) defeated Gloomweaver in the Realm of Discord (~25 min)

What a joke. Galvanize + Tempest = dead zombies, and then we just rained down a world of pain on GW. It might have been a little different if he had found any Relics early on, but by the time one finally showed up it was all over but the shouting.

10. Absolute Zero (me) / Argent Adept (me) / Wraith (Koutrou) / Unity (Koutrou) defeated The Matriarch in Megalopolis (~50 min)

We thought for sure this would be our second loss. And then Unity found Stealth Bot. Huh. That's... kind of dumb. Huginn and Muninn were their usual nuisances, but we were able to hold them off until Matriarch reshuffled (with all 15 Fowl in play) and flipped, then we took them down and whomped her.

11. Haka (me) / Rook City Wraith (me) / Nightmist (Koutrou) / Horus Ra (Koutrou) defeated Apostate in Wagner Mars Base (~50 min)

Once again, Mistform absorbed a lot of damage while the rest of us worked on relic control. Those relics are kind of a pain to actually destroy (especially when they come back),  but we got there with little trouble.

12. Young Legacy (me) / Redeemer Fanatic (Koutrou) / Argent Adept (Brett) defeated Ambuscade in the Tomb of Anubis (~35 min)

The only part of this I really remember is a Pit Trap doing a lot of work to make Ambuscade's life miserable before we took him down.

13. Tempest (Koutrou) / Ra (me) / Tachyon (Brett) / Wraith (Joe) defeated Plague Rat in the Ruins of Atlantis (~50 min)

Man, what is it with mutated Rook City freaks and Atlantis? Must be something in the water. Some loophole abuse really saved the day here, as following a Throat Jab we were able to pick off Infections without punishment which kept Plague Rat from ever flipping. In fact, between Wraith and Tachyon we were able to keep his damage output under control, although controlling the Kraken was another matter and Ra would fall before Tachyon does what she does (multiple Light-speed Barrages) to finish things.

14. Visionary (Koutrou) / Expatriette (me) / Tachyon (Brett) / Nightmist (Joe) defeated Omnitron in Pike Industries (~40 min)

15. Young Legacy (Koutrou) / Unity (Brett) / Redeemer Fanatic (me) / Mister Fixer (Duy) defeated Baron Blade in Rook City (~30 min)

Nothing special here as we wound down the marathon. Having Omnitron and Baron Blade be the last two villains in the shuffle was kind of a blessing as Koutrou and I were really starting to feel fatigue by this point.

14-1 was a much better record than I was expecting going in, and while close calls against Spite and Bomber Blade could have easily resulted in 12-3 we were never really in much danger outside of that.

Final hero tallies:

Legacy 2 / Young Legacy 3 (Legacy deck 5)

Bunker 2

Tachyon 4

Wraith 3 / Rook City Wraith 2 (Wraith deck 5)

Fanatic 2 / Redeemer Fanatic 3 (Fanatic deck 5)

Tempest 3

Argent Adept 5

Haka 3

Absolute Zero 3

Visionary 3

Nightmist 4

Mister Fixer 3

Expatriette 3

Unity 4

Ra 2 / Horus Ra 2 (Ra deck 4)

(Poor Bunker...)