Now that the videos are up, I suppose it's time to actually write about the event, even though I'm going to post before I watch the vids. So, I'm Pat of the Gatecrashers, the 'leader' in that I found info on the event first, and was serious about getting teammates who were willing and able to practice most days in the lead up to the event. Barry and Colin were champs at getting time to play and talk strategy in the two weeks we had to practice.
With the scenario being set at 50 minutes, first to 3 incaps, we quickly eliminated any character that was vulnerable to a lucky shot or just a couple of small hits. Honestly, my first questions I sent through our communications guy (Barry) were 'Are villains available?' followed promptly by 'Citizen Dawn can actually take a Citizen card into a scramble?' After we played a few games our 'perfect team' became apparent; Citizen Dawn for a solid hitter with a good selection of effects (movement, healing, Truth/other citizen), Baron Blade for superior hitting power & maneuverability, and a third to problem solve. Legacy with his buffs was a primary go-to, but Wraith and Ambuscade were each serious secondaries if the other team had a good target for them.
Once we had our 'perfect team' we spent the rest of the time we had playing against it. Solving for 'the Truth problem' quickly became a thing with us. Given the time constraint, we never really thought of Absolute Zero as a serious choice; without mobility, he just doesn't participate enough at all on tiles that have lots of elevation changes. The Operative was considered as well, but we found she really only shines against 1 opponent at a time, and that costs her an active power slot. We felt she had too many restrictions to work well. Omnitron is the easiest answer for Truth with a no-roll auto push.
That covers most of our prep. As for event day, it was really a good time. As Andy already gave a great overview, I'll just say that I was surprised at the lengths GtG went for this event. The cash prizes were more than tempting, but at the same time I don't think we had a bad play experience over the entire day with any player or staff. Before I watch the videos, I'm prone to saying I'm probably the one who got the most testy about our last game. Because of how the tourney worked, the Gatecrashers only played 3 teams, despite our playing 6 games. That was a little unfortunate, but at the same time, meeting Andy's 'Happy To Be Here' team twice was a pleasure.
So, the only game that I have anything to say on is our last. We were obviously aware of Blade and had a strategy to deal with it... but things did not go well. I take nothing away from the Chronorangers at all – they played very well and their Ambuscade combo was powerful. From memory though, our offensive dice went ice cold very quickly that game. The biggest hit I remember our team getting was 3 damage on Ambuscade (who promptly used his camo-suit to get off the board for a turn, appear in a safe area, and use his Heal 3 one-shot to clear the damage).
Again, Greater Than Games put in a lot of effort and money to promote this organized play and it really shows. They seemed excited about how the finals went and have plans to continue this style of event through 2015's convention season at the PAX events filtering to an invitational at GenCon. I do have some thoughts on the event though; while we practiced on both city and jungle maps at home, it would have been nice to have maps change up, even if just for the semi-finals/finals. Secondly, the scenario being set as it is …. is rough. Sentinels: Tactics is an amazing scenario game. The heroes play like you expect them to from SotM, as do most of the villains; however, with a 'first to 3 incap' scenario, the villains have a seem to strong lead on power. I like the concept of a single-character ban, but I could also see something like 'one villain per side' or marking certain characters as especially powerful and limit those to one per side. A more sweeping idea like 'you cannot choose any character played previously in the same event until you have played every available character' or for less restriction, 'you can't play any character your team played in the last round you played in' would really force some varied play. Those types of restrictions could also reset on Semi-finals and/or Finals games to allow for a little more choice at the top tables... or could not, forcing a choice on playing your best team early or hoping you'll get to a later round to use them.
Well, there's my wall of rambling text. I'll watch some videos now and see if I remember anything correctly about the games I played in, as well as get a chance to watch all the video of games I didn't get a chance to see.
1. I think having the game end at 3 incaps is a huge limiting factor on the characters and teams that can be selected. Characters like Visionary and Tachyon are just too much of a liability in a 3 incap game when other characters (like the pervasive Baron) can 1 shot them from across the map, and with only 3 incaps they don't have a chance to really impact the games since they are likely over so quickly after that point. Upping the incap goal to 5 would help this and create more dynamic games and also offset the advantae of first incap by a slight margin.
2.A The idea of selected character bans on a per match basis should be explored. A lot of gaming tournement formats do this to great effect. This would open up the meta game for more diversity.
2.B I don't really have an issue with Truth and the way he was used, but it greatly limits the other teams options as how they choose their team to deal with it. You can make the argument that the meta will sort itself out and I think thats valid, however I think promoting team/character diversity is important and if there are low impact solutions to do that I think they should be considered. A tourney wide ban of just Truth could very well be a low impact option to promote diversity. Dawn would still be a very viable and popular team option without Truth due to her solid damage and utility. Also if character bans ever get implimented (like I firmly believe they should be), she would be an auto-ban by one of the teams in every single game due to Truth. I think the pros would outweigh the cons here.
3. I really want to play in one of these! They looked like a blast and a lot of credit goes to >G for making the first one really memorable and interesting. I could see this catching steam going forward. They really set the bar high from the start.
I really like the idea of a cycle of characters selected as will as a potential one ban system. I am also ok with banning Truth. I'm looking forward to seing this in acton at PAX South next month
I want Truth _not_ to be banned, so that opposing teams will try to use Truth and we can win.
Same thought here.
Was a bit surprised to see no one try Visionary and Unity with Dawn, since +3 to attack rolls with Turret bot, Truth, Foresight and Psychic Maelstrom in play would have crushed several of those teams.
The only rule change I would make was one I proposed in playtesting, and that is not allowing Ambuscade to place multiple traps on one space. It turns a completely viable character into a gimmick, which is sad.
I want Truth _not_ to be banned, so that opposing teams will try to use Truth and we can win.
Was a bit surprised to see no one try Visionary and Unity with Dawn, since +3 to attack rolls with Turret bot, Truth, Foresight and Psychic Maelstrom in play would have crushed several of those teams. The only rule change I would make was one I proposed in playtesting, and that is not allowing Ambuscade to place multiple traps on one space. It turns a completely viable character into a gimmick, which is sad.
I did not see all of the other teams, but the sense I got was that the tournament consisted of two teams that had significantly prepared, who ended up in the finals, and six teams that didn't (including my own).
I think it was just the two teams that had prepared that new about the Truth strategy at the beginning of the day, so for the other six teams, until they faced one of those teams or someone else who'd already lost to one of those two more prepared teams, they didn't even know about Truth, much less had put any time into trying to figure out how to counter Truth. We were lucky in that respect. After getting blown out in our first match by the Truth strategy, we used it to blow out our second round opponent, and when faced with Truth in the 3rd round we at least knew we needed to counter Truth, even if we didn't have the broad understanding of the characters to be able to come up with all the ways we might counter Truth.
It's hard for me to be too proud about making it to the semis, as I suspect that if we had ended up in a different part of the draw we could have easily lost a squeaker in the first round and then been blown out by the Truth strategy in the second, knocking us out of the tournament with no wins.
I have since been looking through the characters, learning more about their abilities. I have been focusing on figuring out how I would counter Baron Blade's strengths. Modulo anything different in the scenario used in the next tournament, I expect that we are going to see a lot of Baron Blade chosen first.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
I expect that we are going to see a lot of Baron Blade chosen first.
I expect this too. A character ban part can fix this, though I strongly feel that unless you have a great counter to Baron, he will be a lock for one of the teams ban picks.
Omnitron and Wraith provide crucial debuffs that I think are the key to dealing with Baron though. I think Omnitron is a great counter pick to Baron and Dawn.
What Baron Blade brings is a solution to every problem. He can't solve them all at once, but find the biggest one at the moment and he has a way to remove it. It made abd makes him a primary candidate for games.
I don't have much experience with Citizen Dawn, Omnitron, or Ambuscade.
I found Tachyon able to take out any one target but often at the cost of herself. Use her to take out the biggest power-based threat.
The Operative was good single-target damage and a great hunter. Find the weak character, pull them from their friends and take them down. Or pull the tank away and run.
Visionary was amazing support for ranged characters, but get her too close to the fight and she drops fast.
Unity is also great if the fights don't get too close. I was sad to see her strongest strategies used her promo card.
I found Ra to have lots of attacks but too few dice. I could reliably deal damage, but never enough to incap. Probably due to having only 2 actions and a miss on 5's.
Wraith was middle ground. Good defense and good offense but not crazy strong. A great skirmisher.
Bunker is tanky and has a ranged solution to lots of problems (more damage based vs. Baron Blade's crazy utility stuff).
Beacon and Legacy filled similar roles with Beacon being a bit less tanky an Legacy being less ranged.
Proletariat is melee and has two actions a round. This makes him very slow to engage and he definitely doesn't get many chances to aim and attack.
Absolute Zero has great tankiness and survivability, and good utility. However, his attacks seemed to suffer similarly to Ra's.
I can see the potentials of Ra, AZ, and Proletariat, but it seems much harder to pull off that potential than with other characters. I suspect these characters will take more work and study with team selections to really shine. Until then, they'll likely not show up often in tournaments, IMO.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
I don't use Pro to swarm usually. I don't think that strat works. I like spreading him all over the board so he can be anywhere you need him. Pro has incredible board control and presence and is very hard to kill if positioning keeps him away from AoE. Pair him with other board control style characters like Ambuscade and AbZero and really dictate your opponents movement. That compensates all melee attacks.
I expect that we are going to see a lot of Baron Blade chosen first.
I expect this too. A character ban part can fix this, though I strongly feel that unless you have a great counter to Baron, he will be a lock for one of the teams ban picks.Omnitron and Wraith provide crucial debuffs that I think are the key to dealing with Baron though. I think Omnitron is a great counter pick to Baron and Dawn.
I like Operative vs. Blade a lot, pull him away from your allies, or bitter spiral to double up on his redistributor. Either way it is fun to be able to just focus him down. (Poisons are also really good vs. Baron)
I like Operative vs. Blade a lot, pull him away from your allies, or bitter spiral to double up on his redistributor. Either way it is fun to be able to just focus him down. (Poisons are also really good vs. Baron)
Agreed. Anytime you can debuff Blade is going to be huge. Make all his attacks melee so you take away his biggest weapon, the arm cannon. You force him into his armor suit, but then he can't teleport effectivly due to the push. Making him one dimensional instead of multi-faceted is a great strat against him.
Wow. I'm glad my txtwall generated character discussion... that I'm really wanting to have.
First off, looking over the cards it's quickly apparent that the base character card is pretty close to standardized; mostly characters have 5 hit points, 3 actions, 3 defense, and 2(up) movement. Innate powers are almost always a basic attack that isn't super bad or super good, and mobility, if the character flies or something. Stats over or under the norm are very noticible; anyone with 2 actions often makes up for that with powerful active power cards - hazards or team buffs seem to be a common thing. Low hit points often point to powers that effect enemies w/out the character being actually involved (Unity) or far enough away to stay safe (Tachyon / Visionary).
Blade is possibly the most powerful singular released character in S:T at the moment; he has nearly ultimate battlefield mobility with his t-port card, the ability to gain +1 tokens on his own, and some of the biggest guns in the game. There's just not a downside to him.
Dawn is a very solid character at her base - mobility, 3 actions, good attacks, and gets +1 tokens for seeing allies fall. The fact that for the price of 1 of her active powers she can take an entirely seperate Citizen(s) ally card that activates independantly blows my mind. Truth is awesome for absorbing at least 1 big attack. That alone makes him worth taking, but if the opponents are hoping for the death of a thousand cuts - getting 1 or 2 pts of damage in... Truth just kicks that strategy in the teeth. On the other hand, look through those Citizens; the combat team of Assault & Battery is brutal: 8 wounds and big attacks, Citizen Spring for healing (Dawn w/Spring and Legacy w/motivational charge heal all teammates they can see for 3 each round), Blood Sweat & Tears for being a pain in the ass. The scramble scenario is what makes Truth a huge problem; Dawn bringing a second character into the game is the real imbalance. Look at any 'good guy' active power and show me one that's close to bringing those Citizen cards to the game, I dare you. I'll even argue the Citizen add on is better than Tachyon's extra turn card, in that for Tachyon to use it, she gives up 1/4 of her hits, vs Dawn giving up nothing at all except the active power slot.
Ambuscade... is nasty alone, but stupid on a team. The all the bombs at once trick is cute, but getting to take your playing piece off the board and return it anywhere you like every other activation is almost better than the Baron's t-port card. Gaining +1 Attack tokens on his own is sweet too.
Proletariate might be the villain that breaks the mold for me. He's got nice powers, even cute ones, and if the opponent lets himself get massed on by Proletariates, it IS a problem. The thing is, Proletariate is just too vunerable - he has no defense powers, just a power that lets him take less damage by loosing a body, but that doesn't help much against a serious area attack that can hit 3 or 4 of him at once.
Whoops; one hero to be mentioned is Wraith - her card 'Slip into Shadow,' played well, makes her nearly immune to attack when playing in the cityscape, and pretty close if cover is nearby on the jungle. It really is almost not worth attacking her if the opponent knows how to position her.
Allright. Babble done on a handful of cards. Basically, there was a reason the top 2 teams at this event ran with Blade, Dawn, & someone. Without some amount of forced change I don't see how the first pick in each list isn't one of those characters until we see a new release.
It isn't just solo characters, you want a team that can use each other's best moves to their advantage.
We saw Ambuscade-Omnitron used well.
My favorite is Beacon-Operative. Beacon with focused blast and Team up, Operative with Kusarigama.
Really I'm surprised people didn't use Beacon's team-up more, or at least for more than Galvanize.
Team-up is crazy good with a good number of Characters.
Proletariat with Overwhelm and Beacon with Team up is amazing, getting that much action (nearly) for free? Awesome.
Ambuscade-Beacon-Omnitron is a hoot. (as in prepare for table flips) since Beacon can let Ambuscade refresh his traps with Team-up, and move, then collision someone into the bombs. It doesn't work if you don't get the knockback, but when you do, and you pull off bombing people 2 times a round it is table-flip inducing.
There are many more combos. Beacon is almost universally first pick in our games.
I think a ban on Truth will be unnecessary based on the last tournament, which showed only limited variation in the chosen heroes. I was surprised that Return with the Dawn was not used with more offensive citizens. However, if Truth really proves too powerful in this format, what I would suggest is to have him shield only "Citizens" rather than "Allies", so that he'll have less impact on the board.
Proletariate might be the villain that breaks the mold for me. He's got nice powers, even cute ones, and if the opponent lets himself get massed on by Proletariates, it IS a problem. The thing is, Proletariate is just too vunerable - he has no defense powers, just a power that lets him take less damage by loosing a body, but that doesn't help much against a serious area attack that can hit 3 or 4 of him at once.
He really isn't that vunerable though. He only thing that really takes him down is the "death by a thousand cuts" of many 1 damage hits. He has 2 of the best defensive powers in the game that totally reduce hits over 2 damage down to 1 or 0 AND he can heal himself for two by sacking a body. You can overwhelm a dodge action to get as many dodge tokens as bodies. Unless the player makes the huge mistake of clumping them up in a small area, he is rediculously hard to incap and requires a lot of action econemy from the other team to try and do so. Pro should be played spread out over the map, maybe only swarming with 2 bodies to get the extra attack die on Peoples Hammer. So I dissagree with your assesment on that front.
The issue for Pro is that he can't get much damage done at all without leaving himself wide open to be one-shot (or at least in a position where he has to spend a round just healing/duplicating instead of attacking and positioning). He is very squishy because of his multiple bodies. If he keeps one of the two main defense cards in play, he can't have both overwhelm and Tac flanking. If he makes use of Tac Flanking, he sets himself up for AoE. If he Overwhelms Peoples Hammer for burst and Tac Flanking, he cant Overwhelm Dodge. If you try and Peoples Hammer without Tac Flanking, it is really lackluster. Then take into account its all melee attacks and 1 action always has to go to movement to get in range, so you are forced to decide betwen 2 hammer attacks or 1 aimed hammer.
Pro is really good at exerting board pressure and presence, being able to be in many places at once no matter where the opponent is. But he doesn't serve as a major threat to score incaps on his own unless he sheds any and all defensive mechanisms. This leaves him best served as a kinda "cleanup crew", fighting for those last 1-2 HP points to get an incap since he is hard to run from. Opposing teams will be wise to ignore Pro for the most part (due to the reasorce econemy it takes to incap him), and focus fire your other teamates. Bunker and Omnitron make great teamates because they are hard to focus fire effeciently and bring a lot of damage and utility from range (plus they are great picks because Pro really struggles vs both). Beacon or Ambuscade can make a well rounded 3rd to give high damage threats and utility.
Pro has some bad down sides, and if you want to use him effectivly you have to build your team around his strengths. But he is really well served for a defensive/control type of gameplan.
Look at any 'good guy' active power and show me one that's close to bringing those Citizen cards to the game, I dare you.
Unity.
Citizens having their own turn and action points really put them in another league however. Unity has to use her own action economy with her bots where Dawn's is effectivly doubled. Citizens are also stronger powerwise on average and have much higher health and defense.
Given all of that, it might be worth looking into counting a Citizen incap as a scenario point in skirmishes for this reason.
Proletariat is great on teams that can force-move targets. Omnitron, Operative, Baron all give you some great potential. The big thing is his knockback.
It doesn't require dealing damage to gain the push, so you can overwhelm-Hammer to move their team around.
Operative with Kusarigama+Hidden Blade and Prole with overwhelm is a great way to bludgeon someone. Pull them next to Prole and hit them, then Prole gets to Duplicate, Overwhelm-Hammer for two hits and two activations of Hidden Blade Strike, and then can have one of them sprint to get seperation.
Also Duplicate Overwhelm-Hammer with Sacrifice in play is a great way to trigger Ambuscade's traps. you push someone 2 onto the traps, and the prole that gets hit just leaves play.
I need to find more people to play Tactics with. So many ideas I need to throw down.
But yeah, Prole-Operative-Ambuscade is fun. Uprising Scenario #4 is just wicked.
Pretty sure that's The Visionary losing her mind and going all Dark again (check the colour scheme and costume on her Dark Visionary alternate card).
Stop lurking, it makes you look like a villain target
When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all
Miststorm = Nightmist. There's no denying it.
That could be the exact issue. Nightmist IS the miststorm.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
I am denying it. The only thing we know NightMist has in common with Miststorm is they deal with mist.
Pretty sure it's not.
*smoke bombs*
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pretty sure I'm wrong then.
Perhaps it is Nightmist.
Stop lurking, it makes you look like a villain target
When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all
I've got a really good feeling Setback in the next expansion, so I'm thinking that it's Dark Watch.
Captain of the good ship/Sentinel Tactics team Mighty Morphin Chrono Rangers.
That would be awesome. :D. It has two of my favorite characters.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
YouTube videos have been posted: https://www.youtube.com/user/GreaterThanGames
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
Yaaay videos! Now to watch and learn. . .
Now that the videos are up, I suppose it's time to actually write about the event, even though I'm going to post before I watch the vids. So, I'm Pat of the Gatecrashers, the 'leader' in that I found info on the event first, and was serious about getting teammates who were willing and able to practice most days in the lead up to the event. Barry and Colin were champs at getting time to play and talk strategy in the two weeks we had to practice.
With the scenario being set at 50 minutes, first to 3 incaps, we quickly eliminated any character that was vulnerable to a lucky shot or just a couple of small hits. Honestly, my first questions I sent through our communications guy (Barry) were 'Are villains available?' followed promptly by 'Citizen Dawn can actually take a Citizen card into a scramble?' After we played a few games our 'perfect team' became apparent; Citizen Dawn for a solid hitter with a good selection of effects (movement, healing, Truth/other citizen), Baron Blade for superior hitting power & maneuverability, and a third to problem solve. Legacy with his buffs was a primary go-to, but Wraith and Ambuscade were each serious secondaries if the other team had a good target for them.
Once we had our 'perfect team' we spent the rest of the time we had playing against it. Solving for 'the Truth problem' quickly became a thing with us. Given the time constraint, we never really thought of Absolute Zero as a serious choice; without mobility, he just doesn't participate enough at all on tiles that have lots of elevation changes. The Operative was considered as well, but we found she really only shines against 1 opponent at a time, and that costs her an active power slot. We felt she had too many restrictions to work well. Omnitron is the easiest answer for Truth with a no-roll auto push.
That covers most of our prep. As for event day, it was really a good time. As Andy already gave a great overview, I'll just say that I was surprised at the lengths GtG went for this event. The cash prizes were more than tempting, but at the same time I don't think we had a bad play experience over the entire day with any player or staff. Before I watch the videos, I'm prone to saying I'm probably the one who got the most testy about our last game. Because of how the tourney worked, the Gatecrashers only played 3 teams, despite our playing 6 games. That was a little unfortunate, but at the same time, meeting Andy's 'Happy To Be Here' team twice was a pleasure.
So, the only game that I have anything to say on is our last. We were obviously aware of Blade and had a strategy to deal with it... but things did not go well. I take nothing away from the Chronorangers at all – they played very well and their Ambuscade combo was powerful. From memory though, our offensive dice went ice cold very quickly that game. The biggest hit I remember our team getting was 3 damage on Ambuscade (who promptly used his camo-suit to get off the board for a turn, appear in a safe area, and use his Heal 3 one-shot to clear the damage).
Again, Greater Than Games put in a lot of effort and money to promote this organized play and it really shows. They seemed excited about how the finals went and have plans to continue this style of event through 2015's convention season at the PAX events filtering to an invitational at GenCon. I do have some thoughts on the event though; while we practiced on both city and jungle maps at home, it would have been nice to have maps change up, even if just for the semi-finals/finals. Secondly, the scenario being set as it is …. is rough. Sentinels: Tactics is an amazing scenario game. The heroes play like you expect them to from SotM, as do most of the villains; however, with a 'first to 3 incap' scenario, the villains have a seem to strong lead on power. I like the concept of a single-character ban, but I could also see something like 'one villain per side' or marking certain characters as especially powerful and limit those to one per side. A more sweeping idea like 'you cannot choose any character played previously in the same event until you have played every available character' or for less restriction, 'you can't play any character your team played in the last round you played in' would really force some varied play. Those types of restrictions could also reset on Semi-finals and/or Finals games to allow for a little more choice at the top tables... or could not, forcing a choice on playing your best team early or hoping you'll get to a later round to use them.
Well, there's my wall of rambling text. I'll watch some videos now and see if I remember anything correctly about the games I played in, as well as get a chance to watch all the video of games I didn't get a chance to see.
Happy to see your thoughts here, Pat.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
1. I think having the game end at 3 incaps is a huge limiting factor on the characters and teams that can be selected. Characters like Visionary and Tachyon are just too much of a liability in a 3 incap game when other characters (like the pervasive Baron) can 1 shot them from across the map, and with only 3 incaps they don't have a chance to really impact the games since they are likely over so quickly after that point. Upping the incap goal to 5 would help this and create more dynamic games and also offset the advantae of first incap by a slight margin.
2.A The idea of selected character bans on a per match basis should be explored. A lot of gaming tournement formats do this to great effect. This would open up the meta game for more diversity.
2.B I don't really have an issue with Truth and the way he was used, but it greatly limits the other teams options as how they choose their team to deal with it. You can make the argument that the meta will sort itself out and I think thats valid, however I think promoting team/character diversity is important and if there are low impact solutions to do that I think they should be considered. A tourney wide ban of just Truth could very well be a low impact option to promote diversity. Dawn would still be a very viable and popular team option without Truth due to her solid damage and utility. Also if character bans ever get implimented (like I firmly believe they should be), she would be an auto-ban by one of the teams in every single game due to Truth. I think the pros would outweigh the cons here.
3. I really want to play in one of these! They looked like a blast and a lot of credit goes to >G for making the first one really memorable and interesting. I could see this catching steam going forward. They really set the bar high from the start.
I really like the idea of a cycle of characters selected as will as a potential one ban system. I am also ok with banning Truth. I'm looking forward to seing this in acton at PAX South next month
I want Truth _not_ to be banned, so that opposing teams will try to use Truth and we can win.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
Same thought here.
Was a bit surprised to see no one try Visionary and Unity with Dawn, since +3 to attack rolls with Turret bot, Truth, Foresight and Psychic Maelstrom in play would have crushed several of those teams.
The only rule change I would make was one I proposed in playtesting, and that is not allowing Ambuscade to place multiple traps on one space. It turns a completely viable character into a gimmick, which is sad.
I did not see all of the other teams, but the sense I got was that the tournament consisted of two teams that had significantly prepared, who ended up in the finals, and six teams that didn't (including my own).
I think it was just the two teams that had prepared that new about the Truth strategy at the beginning of the day, so for the other six teams, until they faced one of those teams or someone else who'd already lost to one of those two more prepared teams, they didn't even know about Truth, much less had put any time into trying to figure out how to counter Truth. We were lucky in that respect. After getting blown out in our first match by the Truth strategy, we used it to blow out our second round opponent, and when faced with Truth in the 3rd round we at least knew we needed to counter Truth, even if we didn't have the broad understanding of the characters to be able to come up with all the ways we might counter Truth.
It's hard for me to be too proud about making it to the semis, as I suspect that if we had ended up in a different part of the draw we could have easily lost a squeaker in the first round and then been blown out by the Truth strategy in the second, knocking us out of the tournament with no wins.
I have since been looking through the characters, learning more about their abilities. I have been focusing on figuring out how I would counter Baron Blade's strengths. Modulo anything different in the scenario used in the next tournament, I expect that we are going to see a lot of Baron Blade chosen first.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
I expect this too. A character ban part can fix this, though I strongly feel that unless you have a great counter to Baron, he will be a lock for one of the teams ban picks.
Omnitron and Wraith provide crucial debuffs that I think are the key to dealing with Baron though. I think Omnitron is a great counter pick to Baron and Dawn.
What Baron Blade brings is a solution to every problem. He can't solve them all at once, but find the biggest one at the moment and he has a way to remove it. It made abd makes him a primary candidate for games.
I don't have much experience with Citizen Dawn, Omnitron, or Ambuscade.
I found Tachyon able to take out any one target but often at the cost of herself. Use her to take out the biggest power-based threat.
The Operative was good single-target damage and a great hunter. Find the weak character, pull them from their friends and take them down. Or pull the tank away and run.
Visionary was amazing support for ranged characters, but get her too close to the fight and she drops fast.
Unity is also great if the fights don't get too close. I was sad to see her strongest strategies used her promo card.
I found Ra to have lots of attacks but too few dice. I could reliably deal damage, but never enough to incap. Probably due to having only 2 actions and a miss on 5's.
Wraith was middle ground. Good defense and good offense but not crazy strong. A great skirmisher.
Bunker is tanky and has a ranged solution to lots of problems (more damage based vs. Baron Blade's crazy utility stuff).
Beacon and Legacy filled similar roles with Beacon being a bit less tanky an Legacy being less ranged.
Proletariat is melee and has two actions a round. This makes him very slow to engage and he definitely doesn't get many chances to aim and attack.
Absolute Zero has great tankiness and survivability, and good utility. However, his attacks seemed to suffer similarly to Ra's.
I can see the potentials of Ra, AZ, and Proletariat, but it seems much harder to pull off that potential than with other characters. I suspect these characters will take more work and study with team selections to really shine. Until then, they'll likely not show up often in tournaments, IMO.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Proletariat has 3 actions per round + Overwhelm.
I don't use Pro to swarm usually. I don't think that strat works. I like spreading him all over the board so he can be anywhere you need him. Pro has incredible board control and presence and is very hard to kill if positioning keeps him away from AoE. Pair him with other board control style characters like Ambuscade and AbZero and really dictate your opponents movement. That compensates all melee attacks.
Well. Then I may need more games with him. But he still didn't show at the tournament, which means there's something there to be studied.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
I like Operative vs. Blade a lot, pull him away from your allies, or bitter spiral to double up on his redistributor. Either way it is fun to be able to just focus him down. (Poisons are also really good vs. Baron)
Agreed. Anytime you can debuff Blade is going to be huge. Make all his attacks melee so you take away his biggest weapon, the arm cannon. You force him into his armor suit, but then he can't teleport effectivly due to the push. Making him one dimensional instead of multi-faceted is a great strat against him.
Wow. I'm glad my txtwall generated character discussion... that I'm really wanting to have.
First off, looking over the cards it's quickly apparent that the base character card is pretty close to standardized; mostly characters have 5 hit points, 3 actions, 3 defense, and 2(up) movement. Innate powers are almost always a basic attack that isn't super bad or super good, and mobility, if the character flies or something. Stats over or under the norm are very noticible; anyone with 2 actions often makes up for that with powerful active power cards - hazards or team buffs seem to be a common thing. Low hit points often point to powers that effect enemies w/out the character being actually involved (Unity) or far enough away to stay safe (Tachyon / Visionary).
Blade is possibly the most powerful singular released character in S:T at the moment; he has nearly ultimate battlefield mobility with his t-port card, the ability to gain +1 tokens on his own, and some of the biggest guns in the game. There's just not a downside to him.
Dawn is a very solid character at her base - mobility, 3 actions, good attacks, and gets +1 tokens for seeing allies fall. The fact that for the price of 1 of her active powers she can take an entirely seperate Citizen(s) ally card that activates independantly blows my mind. Truth is awesome for absorbing at least 1 big attack. That alone makes him worth taking, but if the opponents are hoping for the death of a thousand cuts - getting 1 or 2 pts of damage in... Truth just kicks that strategy in the teeth. On the other hand, look through those Citizens; the combat team of Assault & Battery is brutal: 8 wounds and big attacks, Citizen Spring for healing (Dawn w/Spring and Legacy w/motivational charge heal all teammates they can see for 3 each round), Blood Sweat & Tears for being a pain in the ass. The scramble scenario is what makes Truth a huge problem; Dawn bringing a second character into the game is the real imbalance. Look at any 'good guy' active power and show me one that's close to bringing those Citizen cards to the game, I dare you. I'll even argue the Citizen add on is better than Tachyon's extra turn card, in that for Tachyon to use it, she gives up 1/4 of her hits, vs Dawn giving up nothing at all except the active power slot.
Ambuscade... is nasty alone, but stupid on a team. The all the bombs at once trick is cute, but getting to take your playing piece off the board and return it anywhere you like every other activation is almost better than the Baron's t-port card. Gaining +1 Attack tokens on his own is sweet too.
Proletariate might be the villain that breaks the mold for me. He's got nice powers, even cute ones, and if the opponent lets himself get massed on by Proletariates, it IS a problem. The thing is, Proletariate is just too vunerable - he has no defense powers, just a power that lets him take less damage by loosing a body, but that doesn't help much against a serious area attack that can hit 3 or 4 of him at once.
Whoops; one hero to be mentioned is Wraith - her card 'Slip into Shadow,' played well, makes her nearly immune to attack when playing in the cityscape, and pretty close if cover is nearby on the jungle. It really is almost not worth attacking her if the opponent knows how to position her.
Allright. Babble done on a handful of cards. Basically, there was a reason the top 2 teams at this event ran with Blade, Dawn, & someone. Without some amount of forced change I don't see how the first pick in each list isn't one of those characters until we see a new release.
It isn't just solo characters, you want a team that can use each other's best moves to their advantage.
We saw Ambuscade-Omnitron used well.
My favorite is Beacon-Operative. Beacon with focused blast and Team up, Operative with Kusarigama.
Really I'm surprised people didn't use Beacon's team-up more, or at least for more than Galvanize.
Team-up is crazy good with a good number of Characters.
Proletariat with Overwhelm and Beacon with Team up is amazing, getting that much action (nearly) for free? Awesome.
Ambuscade-Beacon-Omnitron is a hoot. (as in prepare for table flips) since Beacon can let Ambuscade refresh his traps with Team-up, and move, then collision someone into the bombs. It doesn't work if you don't get the knockback, but when you do, and you pull off bombing people 2 times a round it is table-flip inducing.
There are many more combos. Beacon is almost universally first pick in our games.
I think a ban on Truth will be unnecessary based on the last tournament, which showed only limited variation in the chosen heroes. I was surprised that Return with the Dawn was not used with more offensive citizens. However, if Truth really proves too powerful in this format, what I would suggest is to have him shield only "Citizens" rather than "Allies", so that he'll have less impact on the board.
Unity.
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
Also Bolstering Team Up.
Because that power is insanely good.
He really isn't that vunerable though. He only thing that really takes him down is the "death by a thousand cuts" of many 1 damage hits. He has 2 of the best defensive powers in the game that totally reduce hits over 2 damage down to 1 or 0 AND he can heal himself for two by sacking a body. You can overwhelm a dodge action to get as many dodge tokens as bodies. Unless the player makes the huge mistake of clumping them up in a small area, he is rediculously hard to incap and requires a lot of action econemy from the other team to try and do so. Pro should be played spread out over the map, maybe only swarming with 2 bodies to get the extra attack die on Peoples Hammer. So I dissagree with your assesment on that front.
The issue for Pro is that he can't get much damage done at all without leaving himself wide open to be one-shot (or at least in a position where he has to spend a round just healing/duplicating instead of attacking and positioning). He is very squishy because of his multiple bodies. If he keeps one of the two main defense cards in play, he can't have both overwhelm and Tac flanking. If he makes use of Tac Flanking, he sets himself up for AoE. If he Overwhelms Peoples Hammer for burst and Tac Flanking, he cant Overwhelm Dodge. If you try and Peoples Hammer without Tac Flanking, it is really lackluster. Then take into account its all melee attacks and 1 action always has to go to movement to get in range, so you are forced to decide betwen 2 hammer attacks or 1 aimed hammer.
Pro is really good at exerting board pressure and presence, being able to be in many places at once no matter where the opponent is. But he doesn't serve as a major threat to score incaps on his own unless he sheds any and all defensive mechanisms. This leaves him best served as a kinda "cleanup crew", fighting for those last 1-2 HP points to get an incap since he is hard to run from. Opposing teams will be wise to ignore Pro for the most part (due to the reasorce econemy it takes to incap him), and focus fire your other teamates. Bunker and Omnitron make great teamates because they are hard to focus fire effeciently and bring a lot of damage and utility from range (plus they are great picks because Pro really struggles vs both). Beacon or Ambuscade can make a well rounded 3rd to give high damage threats and utility.
Pro has some bad down sides, and if you want to use him effectivly you have to build your team around his strengths. But he is really well served for a defensive/control type of gameplan.
Citizens having their own turn and action points really put them in another league however. Unity has to use her own action economy with her bots where Dawn's is effectivly doubled. Citizens are also stronger powerwise on average and have much higher health and defense.
Given all of that, it might be worth looking into counting a Citizen incap as a scenario point in skirmishes for this reason.
Proletariat is great on teams that can force-move targets. Omnitron, Operative, Baron all give you some great potential. The big thing is his knockback.
It doesn't require dealing damage to gain the push, so you can overwhelm-Hammer to move their team around.
Operative with Kusarigama+Hidden Blade and Prole with overwhelm is a great way to bludgeon someone. Pull them next to Prole and hit them, then Prole gets to Duplicate, Overwhelm-Hammer for two hits and two activations of Hidden Blade Strike, and then can have one of them sprint to get seperation.
Also Duplicate Overwhelm-Hammer with Sacrifice in play is a great way to trigger Ambuscade's traps. you push someone 2 onto the traps, and the prole that gets hit just leaves play.
I need to find more people to play Tactics with. So many ideas I need to throw down.
But yeah, Prole-Operative-Ambuscade is fun. Uprising Scenario #4 is just wicked.
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