I am curious: who here has beaten Bugbear, and how did you do it?
I've played I think 4 games against him now and won just once, and that was using the Unhallowed Halls / Twist the Ether exploit that felt like cheating. Of the 3 definitely legitimate games, I only managed to incapacitate him once and I was still not at all close to winning the game, having left the other villains free to wreak havoc.
The HP gain he has on every attack (along with his high starting HP) and the damage increase via incapacitated cards, I feel, should make him a level 4 on the difficulty scale. Plus, Quetzalcoatl is brutal—
or have I just been unlucky/missing the right strategy?
There's a few options.
1. Get rid of his blood crystal. It's an ongoing. Blow it up.
2. Reduce how much damage he deals. Just like Spite, if he can't deal damage, he can't heal.
3. Either take him down first, or deny him until last and concentrate everything on him.
He does okay damage, but it's usually single target. Get a tanky character to take the shots and you can wait him out until the end (somewhat, remember his damage increases based on the number of incapacitated characters!).
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
I used a combo of rebounding debilitator and a Guise combo to abuse the autonomous blades I had on him. Quetzacoatl was likewise discarded by a gimmicky character play or fumbling fool. We happened to get ridof a lot of nemesis by forcing discards with Guise, Setback or Sky-Scraper.
I've seen two victories against Bugbear, both were because of a huge (and lucky) Wrathful Retribution from Fanatic. Both times, Bugbear was one of the last characters standing because he was always at full hp. The problem comes when you get villains that mess with your setup or provide Bugbear some DR so you have no choice but to focus on them first. And he gets so much healing each turn that his 30 hp feels more like double that.
Focus firing on Bugbear means letting the other villains run wild, and doing that is not a guarantee that Bugbear goes down before the heroes get overwhelmed, if Bugbear goes down at all. I do concur that he is on the high edge of difficulty 3, if not low 4. Any game he's in, it's going to be a bad time.
Yeah, this.
The amount of focus he requires, plus the the need to take him out first or second (because his damage increases with every incap) offers quite a challenge, especially with tricky villains on his team.
I am so glad this thread exists.
He was no where near as threatening (read: not at all) during the first round of playtesting.
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 love Bugbear a lot.
And yes, you need a tank, damage denial or some serious focus.
Bugbear + Anvil & Hammer I haven't done since playtesting, and only won that once, it involved Fanatic, Nightmist, Expat and Mr. Fixer.
Still want to try Bugbear, H&A, Biomancer all on advanced some day, but my group that playtested with me won't do it.
On Sunday at the London meet we came up against Bugbear, Proletariat, Hammer and Anvil, La Capitan, and Miss Information (in that order) and we won, taking out Bugbear second (after Miss Info). At least he is actually a threat now, unlike before when he was still in playtesting and didn't really do very much, I don't think (he came up once at one of the London meets). He didn't really do any damage to anyone and didn't have the "damage is incrased based on incaps" thing.
I am the Wordweaver...
Basically, I like writing stuff ;)
Funny... I think all three of them are in the currently ongoing PBF at the Geek.
It's interesting to me that this mechanic was a later addition. It's fits very well thematically, and seems like it would be mostly inconsequential until you start playing. If it wasn't implemented I would probably just ignore/manage Bugbear in every game, until he's the last standing, like an easier Biomancer.
It's a sneaky mechanic.
I was thinking the same thing. I've been following that game, and it's a blast! (Mostly thanks to Sergeant Steel.)
We just beat him tonght, with Greazer, The Operative, and La Capitan. (We were Santa Guise, Omnitronx, Mister Fixer, and Chrono Ranger.)
We floundered for a couple turns, but a well-timed Grease Gun turned the tide. In my experience job #1 is finding ways to mitigate his damage. Do that, and you've got him.
This is a Greater than Games forum signature virus. Copy this text, add one to the generation, and replace your signature with this one so that this may take over the multiverse of forum signatures.
Generation: 1