Beating the Vengeful Five

I've done it with many different teams of heroes in a variety of ways. 

In general, Tempest is a good guy to bring with you because of his multi-target damage, and, if you have Wrath of the Cosmos, Sky-Scraper also, for similar reasons. 

If you're drowning in damage consider bringing Tachyon and her Hypersonic Assault. 

Ongoing destruction is useful, especially if you can take out Baron Blade's physique with it. 

Once you're in the game focus on one member to take down first. I usually pick Friction so she doesn't have a chance to build up. Don't ignore Ermine for too long though, the games I lost most often are the ones where I save her for last. 

Unless it's something extremely dangerous I usually don't worry too much about the alterante targets, they're taken care of as soon as you take out their boss. 

So: field a strong team, Tempest and Sky-scraper if you want to make it really easy on yourself, bring some ongoing destruction, and focus your attacks to make them count. 

Insula Primalis is a pretty kind environment, Silver Gulch can be nice too.

ongoing destruction and damage everywhere is generally what's needed. Having someone able to tank shots of two damage at highest hp can also take of the edge. If you want to tackle advanced mode you need to choose between equipment and ongoings to get ahead of the destruction curve that Ermine savagely imposes. their advanced mode is still a really hard fight I can only imagine the pain behind an advanced challenge on this one...

Valuable things in Vengeance format for early games:

1. Quick Damage.  The Vengeance Format is a damage fest, don't bring all slow builds and support heroes, you won't do well.

2.  Focus Damage.  You want to knock someone out of the game early, all target damage is lovely for overall efficiency, but Focused big damage is what turns the tide in your favor.

3.  All target Damage.  Still hitting your focus target, while softening up the rest and taking out little nuisances.  Good all around.

4.  Damage Prevention.  When you stop taking damage you are gaining a lot of ground in the damage race.

5.  Ongoing Destruction.  You don't need a ton of it, but I like to have enough heroes with it that womeone is going to be able to take out a key card when needed.

Heroes that thrive:

Sky-Scraper:  Monolith, Clap, Choke Slam, Left Hook are all Golden, Canister on Fright Train is amazing, so many of her cards are great.

Haka:  No one walks into a brawl better off than Haka.  Rampage away.

Legacy:  Take Down, Galvanize, it's all so good, I actually like Pauline better, but both are just amazing.

Expatriette:  I love her in non-advanced V5, she's got guns for everyone.

Ra:  Damage.  Yep.

Visionary:  Nothing better than TtE on Friction.  Seriously awesome.

Mr. Fixer:  his once per turn redirection is so much better in Vengeance.  Grease Gun is sick, Jackhandle is great.

Wraith:  Is she ever not good?  Is she ever not amazingly good?

Guise:  So many out of turns, Gritty reboot = All the cards.

Everyone does something great vs. Vengeance, notice how many I listed don't have destruction?  Be careful to not take too many of them at once.

Personal favorited:

Sentinels: Full power from the start, decent all target damage and psychic damage to get proletariat straight where it hurts

AZ: not the best choice but I had a real blast going full berserk on Ermine and using fuelled freeze to kick it off even by lessening the damage with TtE I dropped to two before getting back up full before the end of that advanced match. Focused Cold  Snap is painfull for your enemies.

Scholar: scholar thrives on being against overwhelming odds, you get reduction and a blast out of Grace under Fire and Get out of the way

Knyfe: Aggresive focus damage, enough targets to flex her gauntlet

O-X: Ablative coating, game accelerating power a few impressive all damage O-X can and will use a bit of everything in this fight

I second Legacy's Takedown. That really throws the villains for a turn.

Of those not mentioned: This is one of the few battles I don't love Nightmist.  

Scholar, however, can be huge, particularly with another healer.  Argent is useful to get others set up and can do great work tossing his instruments.  If you're good with Unity, this group is excellent with her as well.  Add... Team Leader Tachyon and Knyfe and you should have a party.  

I have actually. We were lucky enough to have tachyon draw all her hypersonic assaults, so we had 3 turns of stall. That plus Legacy managed to start with inspiring presence, so everyone was dealing a very good amount of damage. Ermine was naturally the first to go.

On a side note, The scholar is also really good against the V5. His one card where he deals one target damage equal to the number of villian targets (who's name is escaping me right now) nearly one shot one of the V5 on the first turn.

I've played the V5 three times now - only twice with the full complement of 5 players - with the freedom five each time, and we've beaten them consistently if narrowly. Certain strategies are very different, but so long as you keep a few things in mind it's not too hard.

The combination of Legacy's "Next Evolution" tuned to Melee and "Lead from the Front" is an extremely powerful combination; even better is combining this with Wraith's smoke bombs and Heroic Interception. Legacy almost never actually did direct damage in our most recent game, but managed to keep a fairly consistent lockdown on most damage in the game, especially Fright Train's horrific melee beatdown.

Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece changes from incredibly powerful to nigh-on useless - find better things for her to do, like damage.

Absolute Zero needs to get Cold Snap out ASAP, followed by Focused Apertures - his usual suite of power setups simply takes too long to wrangle for too little benefit, though if you can manage it then Legacy's power boost only makes it better. Sub-zero atmosphere is also useful, giving you a turn's grace on some of the nastier subvillains.

The last game I played had a really bad run of luck for Bunker, who achieved nearly nothing beyond being a tank the whole game. Damage reduction and Ammo Drop are critical, and Omnicannon/Gatling gun if you can get them are useful, but if you can manage to get into turret mode with a couple of nice powers - or a bit of external combustion - he should be set to share out some pain.

Either Ermine or Friction has the incapacitated power of clearing out the hero trash with the most cards in it, which will cripple Tachyon's high-end powers; do not save burst card runs, use them if they're coming close.

The F5 aren't great - okay, but not great - at ongoing removal - Tachyon, AZ and Wraith each have a single method by memory - so make it count. I don't think I ever actually saw AZ's ongoing killer last game I played.

And naturally, any turn where you can get Take Down or Hypersonic Assault out is a good turn. Make the most of them. 

I love F5 vs V5, Bunker's external combustion is awesome, and Legacy is beastly in that format.  Sonic Vortex is just so good at +2 damage, and Wraith's ability to control friction with Stun bolts is awesome.

One of the first two V6 games runs at BGG was the Freedom Five vs. the Vengeful Five; the other used all the new heroes from Vengeance. You could go peruse that thread if you wanted.

(We've since run two games there with special rules wherein the Freedom Five were unavailable, and heroes were picked & decks stacked so that everybody was guaranteed to face a nemesis.)

The first time I cracked open the Vengeful five I played a game with the Freedom Five. It was very rough and we about got overwhelmed a few times except I had an External Combustion card as Bunker that let me board wipe some. Also after getting wraith set up with Utility Belt, Microtargeting Computer, Razor Ordnance, and Throwing Knives, we were able to control the number of villain targets pretty well.

When my group of freind did it, we had legacy with next eveloution (melee) and lead from the front. Most of the villians were doing melee damage so we have about 5 or 6 rounds with no hero's really taking damage. It allowed us to mope up and narrow down targets before the ongoing's got wiped out,

I actually beat them for the first time this weekend. Legacy and Expatriate went a long way to winning, but chronoranger did a good job of finishing alot of them off. Actually, i'm convinced that chronoranger is just good in most situations.

People keep mentioning Take Down as a great card against the V5.  I thought that it would only prevent one of them from playing cards for a turn.  I thought the rule was that anything that effected a villain only effected 1 of them.  That way an enviornment playing the top card of a villain deck wouldn't let all of them go nuts.

Am I mistaken?

I'm pretty sure the text for Take Down reads "Villain cards cannot be played", which would be a general thing covering all villain cards. Unlike Mistbound, Take Down isn't played on a specific deck - it just goes into play and its effect covers all villain cards, which in the case of the Vengeance Five (even if you're only fighting three of them), is quite a lot ;).

I didn't even bother to read it I just posted to prove my ignorance real fast like.  Lol ty.

The V5 all have a weakness (except Ermine). The clones damage Proletariat, Fright Train takes more damage, Friction can destroy herself fast if you destroy her lightning damage protection, Blade without his Physique ongoing will hurt himself turn after turn.

Take advantage of this : destroy as fast as possible Friction's and Blade's protections. You may want to leave Proletariat alone, so that he will hurt himself at the start of each turn (especially if he has a damage bonus...) but it is dangerous.

Ermine is their "controller" - get rid of her fast. Most games I lost she was the last one standing.

So you could say that my main modus operandi is to first destroy the protection cards, then concentrate on Hermine while Fric and Blade hurt themselves, then get rid of Proletariat/FT and finish the others. But it depends a lot of what cards are in play.

Take a look at their Incap side before chosing a first target, like you would with the Ennead. You want to be ready.

Remember that killing the villain is often more important than killing his minions / devices. But some of these must be destroyed as fast as possible.

You need a LOT of planning with these villains. And re-planning each time one adds a card. Communicate a lot with your fellow players, try to determine your priorities, and who should do what. It's even more important than with a normal villain.

I like playing the Freedom Five against them, but have won with many different teams. The only thing you "need" is a way to get rid of Baron's physique and some of Proletariat's ongoings (especially the one that enhance his damage). So ongoing destruction is very welcome - but you can win without.

They are beatable - but expect to see some of your heroes fall. In a lot of the games I played, there is only one or two characters still standing at the end, be they heroes or villains...

My group used to have trouble against the V5 but now we win 90% of the time regardless of hero or villain choice following one tactical rule.  At the the beginning of the game, decide which villain is the most problematic, then second, then third, etc.  For the rest of the game ignore every other villain, target, card or ongoing and just focus fire on the most problematic villain still standing.  Every time you defeat one of them the game gets easier so if you can kill one or two quickly you are in very good shape.

that very question came up during one of the first BGG play-by-forum matches against the V5. it was confirmed over here that Take Down does, in fact, stop all the villain decks.

Another thing to remember is that cards like Tachyon's hypersonic assault is a godsend against the V5. If you can stop them from hurting an entire cycle, you have a lot of oppurtunity to wail on them without worrying about any back lash. Anything that damages a group works just as well, so Tachyon and Tempest make great choices.