Help Celebrate Sentinels and Greater Than Games

Sentinels of the Multiverse is one of the most played games among my local gaming group simply because it has such an engrossing theme. I absolutely detest role playing games, but this game allows me to feel like I am actually a super hero and that we are all actively contributing to the fight without all of the other fluff that RPGs require. If you like super thematic games but hate random dice rolling or role playing, this is certainly the game for you.

My favorite heroes are Haka, Ra, Chrono Ranger, and the Argent Adept because they all have mechanics perfectly matched to their character. My favorite villains are Ambuscade and Plague Rat because they play casually and don't break your stuff!

(Sorry if I was a little long winded; I tried to fit everything in there. Also, I don't own a decent camera, so thanks for allowing me to just wrote it out. Hope it helps your video!)

Since this is an alternative to a video here I go:

Sentinels of the Multiverse is certainly one of one of my favorites games and there are lots of reasons I like bringing it to the table.  First, it has a very good thematic theme and I do feel like I'm fighting super villains as a costumed hero.   Second, there is a lot variety between the heroes, environments, and villains and even when using the same combination of those decks one game is not identical to another.  Third, I like playing a cooperative game that at the same time has competitive edge to it in that games can reach a point where a delicate balance has to be met by the players to achieve victory. Lastly, this is probably one of the few games that a terrible loss only wants me to keep playing.  

As to my favorite hero I would like to say Guise but I don't enough about how he plays to know for sure.   AZ is my favorite hero currently.  I'm a fan of frost based heroes and I feel he has the best built in combos.  You don't always get to that point with but I feel he can always be effective.   When he does get his combos running the Villain is shaking in their boots for sure.   Though in all honesty all the heroes are good and each have interesting back stories to them.  They all have their own unique set of mechanics that make them fun to play.  

My friends and I play cooperative games.  Mostly these are RPGs, but also Arkham Horror and Sentinels of the Multiverse.  We don't play the versus games because inevitably one person will be attacked first and then sit out the rest of the game with nothing to do but watch.  Arkham and Sentinels are our go-to games when we don't have the right people for our current RPG.  And Sentinels wins out the most because it doesn't take 15 minutes to set up and take down.

My favorite hero is Setback.  I enjoy the challenge of minimizing the negatives of his cards and maximizing the positive.  Setback really has a solution to most problems...for a price.  I also really like his positive upbeat attitude.  It makes Dark Watch Setback one of our least played promos (not as upbeat and can really hurt for tokens).

Whether I'm playing in a group or setting up a solo round, I can't get enough Sentinels of the Multiverse.  I absolutely love cooperative games because they are presented to the players as a puzzle just waiting to be solved.  Completing the task before you comes down to communicating with your team and deciding your best course of action, even in situations where the best course might not be so clear.  But unlike a lot of cooperative games, SotM creates an environment where everyone can find the role that suits them; for every playstyle, there is a hero deck out there with your name written all over it.

Sentinels sets itself apart from other cooperative games through the dense theme and wildly diverse cast of heroes and villains, ensuring that the "puzzle" is different every time you experience it.  While most roles in a cooperative adventure involve minor differences (one character might get more movement while another gets to do X as a free action), each hero in Sentinels of the Multiverse changes the way you need to approach a situation.  Every deck you pick up needs to be piloted differently and perfectly suits the hero you're representing.  Expatriette is a gun-toting freedom fighter that uses different ammo types depending on the situation.  The Visionary is a psychic that uses her precognitive abilities to manipulate the gameboard and slate the future in favor of her teammates.  Half of the fun of Sentinels is finding that amazing team combination that can feed off of each other while realizing that some heroes just don't play well together.  Legacy boosting Fanatic's or Nightmist's damage can cause more harm than help, while Visionary changing damage types can feed Ra or Absolute Zero some awesome kills.

My favorite hero is Nightmist, who uses both her health and extra cards in her hand as resources for her insanely powerful spells.  She is a high risk, high reward character that is always exciting to wield.  Nightmist is definitely a "game changer" as her wild damage can completely shift the balance of the fight, however, like all heroes, she is useless without the help of her teammates.

The award for Best Villain goes to Iron Legacy, hands down.  The age-old, "Just how screwed would we be if the most powerful hero went bonkers" scenario has always intrigued me and the gameplay through the Iron Legacy fight reflects this perfectly.  He gives you no breathers and crushes you into the ground before you even realize what's happening.  It's a challenging battle that's extremely rewarding to beat when you finally assemble that perfect team of heroes.

Sentinels biggest strength, for me personally, is the engrossing story it tells through its cards, mechanics, and artwork.  From the battle depicted on each card to the flavor text, it only takes a single glance to realize that there is a bigger story happening, and it's exciting to watch it unravel.  The artstyle, overall, is warm and welcoming, usually paying homages to comic book classics.  As a comic book fan who has been disappointed for years at the lack of decent super hero table top games, Sentinels of the Multiverse was an instant favorite and has remained so purely on its thematic merits alone.

I could say so much more, but I'll just end it by saying I'll be a lifelong fan of what Greater than Games has created and look forward to where the Multiverse is headed.

Cool, sounds like you're getting lots of contributions from people :). Will you be posting a link to the finished video on here when it's done?

The real brilliance of SotM lies in the sparse, economical design.

Each game involves five to seven decks of cards.

That's it. One Villain deck, one Environment deck and three to five Hero decks.

No board. No dice. No charts or tables.

Villain and Environemnt decks have three phases in their turns; Heroes have five.

Each game represents one climactic battle between good and evil. Choose your decks, do Villain set up, and GO!

This simple framework supports a rich, complex and colorful game of superhero clashes. Each game is a unique eperience; even using the same selection of decks will yield a different game, every time. All this variety is achieved without bulky rulebooks or fiddly components.

In short, SotM never gets in its own way. Players are immersed in their character, their only concern somehow surviving long enough to wring out a victory.

And this process is just unbelievably fun.

I like how the game allows you to get to know a character's character, strengths and limitations through playing several games with him/her. In that sense it is very much like reading a comic book, except that you can choose your team of heroes, villain and setting.