There is a great thread about the strongest 4-hero team, and what better way to test them out then with a brand new set of villains. You will choose you best 4-hero team, which promo version you are using, and the order of the heroes. Then, you will play against each new villain, scoring points based on the difficulty rating. If you have never seen the villain before playing them, you can play on normal. If you did see that particular villain, you have to play them on advanced. You can also take the Playtester Challenge. This is for those people that know the villains really well. In this case, you won't get to choose your team until everyone else does. Once everyone else is done, you can select your team based on the heroes that were chosen the least. If you wish to participate (even for the playtester challenge), please sign up now, preferably before WotC is released. Just use the form below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1J92xiXL24edt-hQoKmj5HsqLYnXcEFUpG779A_NYKAM/viewform
EDIT: The form is now set for PLAYTESTER CHALLENGE games.
EDIT2: Here are the matches:
Deadline at MDP
Infinitor at Enclave of Endlings
Progeny at the Final Wasteland
Kaargra Warfang at the Realm of Discord
Wager Master at Omnitron-IV
Here is the form to submit your games. Good luck!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Just a reminder to sign up before WotC comes out!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Will the playtester challenge be treating each promo as a different hero? I'd rather not run the F6 minus TLT.
It will be decked based (so you don't get a team of three Bunkers), and you will get to pick from a selection of the least picked heroes.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
I will name my team once I know who they are.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Not a problem. There will be another form to setup your team when WotC is released.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
I just registered my team, should we keep our team secret or do we reveal it?
Keeping it a secret until things start, then I will post the teams.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
My team is Guise. Or should that say Guise is my Guise? Guise is Guise's Guise?
Guise guises Guise's Guise.
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
Guise Guise Guise Guise Buffalo Guise Guise Guise
Chimichanga Chimichanga Chimichanga Chimichanga Chimichanga Chimichanga Chimichanga
Another reminder to sign up!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Now that challenge mode has been revealed shouldn't it be taken into account as far as strongest 4 man teams go? I'd like to see how we can adapt this challenge to account for that what are you guys suggestion: Advanced Challenge for Playtesters? An then what for regular players?
Another reminder to sign up!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Pydro, your first post is a little vague, can you illustrate how this one works a little better?
Here is how it works: you pick what you think is the strongest 4-hero team, and sign up with the form. When WCos comes out, you will put that team up against villains you haven't seen before, and score points based on their difficuly. If you have seen one or two of them, you will need to play those on advanced. You can also take the playtester challenge, where you will only get to pick your heroes from a list of heroes that weren't chosen by anyone else.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Here is the list of 9 heroes that weren't picked by anybody. Just re-fill out the original form with your team. Have fun!
Absolute Zero
Bunker
Chrono-Ranger
Expatriette
Mr. Fixer
Naturalist
Omnitron-X
Ra
Setback
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Good luck everyone!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
There are some strong heroes available that werent picked
Agreed. I'm actually having trouble picking from the remainder because of it.
The the point where I submitted a team I can't recall and almost want to abandon it in favor of a playtester challenge team. Even though I'm not a playtester.
I can send you your team, or just resubmit a new team now, using the playteater challenge heroes.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Does that mean you'll be posting the team names & lineups that people selected sometime soon?
Yep. Will have a nice spreadsheet that will be keeping score with all of the teams on them. Just waiting for some people doing the playtester challenge to send in there teams.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
That was tough choice. I knew 2 of the ones I wanted right off the bat but there were valid arguments for all of the others. I feel that my team has a pretty big glass jaw so we'll see how I do
Also, how are the environments being chosen? Because that can make a difference
As soon as the last team is in, I will randomize it and post the matches.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Just waiting for Humble-Knight and possibly jffdougan if he wants to do a playtester challenge instead.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
I dont have my copy for at least a bit so ill take OmniX fixer AZ and CR
I will put you down for it. Matches with environments coming up.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Deadline at MDP
Infinitor at Enclave of Endlings
Progeny at the Final Wasteland
Kaargra Warfang at the Realm of Discord
Wager Master at Omnitron-IV
Here is the form to submit your games. Good luck!
I will be posting everyones team a little later.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Kaargra in the Realm of Discord is going to be crazy.
Edited to add: Thank goodness Propulsion System was changed in playtesting to be a loss when it was reduced to 0HP, or thats pretty much an auto-loss vs Deadline
I will get to this but it likely won't be until next week due to recent events.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
There is absolutely no rush on this.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
I like the idea that Deadline has the Heroes trapped in an MDP high in the atmosphere and is destroying the MDP around them as they fight.
Also Why no Dok'Thorok?
Did pure random, and it came out like this.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Played all 5 matches solo, but not advanced. Here were the results (already submitted):
Setback, Omnitron-X, Mr. Fixer, and Chrono Ranger
vs.
Deadline:
End health:
Deadline: -1
Setback: 19
Omnitron-X: 20
Mr. Fixer: 23
Chrono Ranger: 21
Mr. Fixer ran Dual Crowbars and Mantis ftw here. He would use his second Dual Crowbars attack on himself to get 6 damage/round or more on Deadline. Chrono Ranger also dropped both his damage boosters. Setback played an early Cause and Effect to prevent the first Deadline environment destruction and the last one was going to be the round right after we won. Total environment cards gone: 3
vs.
Infinitor
End health:
Infinitor: -2
SetbacK: 18
Omnitron-X: 17
Mr. Fixer: 15
Chrono Ranger: 17
Dual Crowbars and Mantis here, too. MVP goes to Immunatus (or whatever his name was). The one round we were going to take a ton of damage (second round of the game) he took most of it and died. Then the guy who hits the lowest health target and prevents damage the person hit deals attacked Mr. Fixer for half the game. Mr. Fixer of course redirected it to Infinitor.
vs.
Progeny
End health:
Progeny: 0 - Eaten by the Final Wasteland
Setback: 5
Omnitron-X: 0
Mr. Fixer: 16
Chrono Ranger: 8
MVP for this game was Setback with a Wrong Time and Place the round after Omnitron-X died. He also had 12 tokens with which to slowly beat down Progeny. Progeny loved the Flame and Storm scions.
vs.
Kaagra
End health:
Kaagra: 0 (20H to 17V crowd score, had to kill Kaagra to win)
Title: Reckless (granted by a villain card, not earned)
Setback: 13 - No titles
Omnitron-X: 13 - No titles
Mr. Fixer: 11 - Living Weapon, Seeker (Worked to get Living Weapon on him. Seeker just came naturally.)
Chrono Ranger: 15 - Chaos Lord, Unbreakable, Death Caller, Champion
Mr. Fixer with Living Weapon, Seeker, Jack Handle, and Grease Monkey Fist was MVP. He hit everyone for 4 damage and then boosted damage against them by 2. Very scary when he used Overdrive. Setback tanked all the lowest target can't deal damage attacks. He even healed to the highest health one round to avoid it and got knocked back down in time to take it that round, too. Poor guy.
vs.
Wager Master
End health:
Wager Master: 0
Setback: 7
Omnitron-X: 12
Mr. Fixer: 17
Chrono Ranger: 8
Wager Master had x2 What Do You Really Know? and made Setback cry on the last round. Everyone dealt pretty steady damage to Wager Master and the game went fast, but it was also pretty scary for the heroes.
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Nearly defeated all the villains but Kaarga foiled me. When I had an awesome Guise he couldn't deal damage due to the Etheral Bonds and thus even with 20 favor I lost because I couldn't get Kaarga flipped back before they hit 20 favor.
Team order was Captain Cosmic, The Sentinels, Sky-Scraper, and Guise.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
The score sheet.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Some remarks on the villains now that the score sheet is out.
Team: Legacy, Team Leader Tachyon, Haka, Tempest
Settled on Legacy and TLT right off since I thought they would provide support, some tanking capability, and TLT having some big hit capability in the later rounds. Beyond that I finally settled on Haka and Tempest for steady ability to inflict damage plus their additional cards that could help with villain control (Lightning Ball, Savage Mana, Ground Pound) as well as a TLT-fueled Haka of Battle being available. No direct villain deck manipulation capability beyond Take Down, but otherwise some pretty broad capabilities.
All games were played on Normal since it was my first exposure to the villains, and even a few of the environments, beyond seeing some of the cards as I unpacked them.
Game #1 - Deadline
Never felt the heroes were threatened that much in this game. Catastrophe cards were generally kept in check by Tempest or TLT using cards such as Lightning Ball. Legacy got Inspired Presence out and then played Fortitude and one-shots while using Galvanize to support the other heroes. TLT facilitated card draw for the most part while chipping away with minor attack cards (which adds up with +2 damage dealt). Haka used Crush, Mere, or Taiaha and simply pounded away on the villain. Tempest played one-shots and used his base power a lot since Hail Storm wasn't drawn until late.
3 Environment cards were removed, but little threat of more.
Deadline never flipped, so his second side remains unseen. From the mix of weapons and catastrophes I expect that he could push a weaker team who doesn't have the right cards or powers available. I also expect that in advanced play he would prove much more obstinate as well.
Game #2 - Progeny
The heroes saw more pressure in this game, but things never appeared to be spiraling out of control. The normal rules on Scions never allowed them to get out of control - and actually allowed choice in which ones to deal with as more came out. Three of the four heroes got DR -1 early on, and thus one of the Scions had little effect. Villain play was also slowed by Take Down being played twice by Legacy. This allowed the heroes to get organized for pushing out damage; all with a +2 damage dealt bonus courtesy of Legacy. Game was ended by a 14-card discard to power a Haka of Battle.
This is a villain I want to see played in advanced mode. With the Scions staying out and building up I expect such a game to be short and frantic - sort of like playing against PlagueRat. A race to inflict enough damage before the Scions become overwhelming.
Game #3 - Kaagra Warfang
A curveball style game with different winning conditions than usual. The heroes mainly rolled out DR early to allow another gladiator or two to come out. A round of pounding on gladiators got the heroes an early favor lead, and TLT the Death Dealer title as she finished off a gladiator using Sucker Punch. Things actually looked fairly easy for the heroes to maintain a favor lead and win.
The tide turned as a Fickle Crowd stole most of the hero favor and gave it to the Bloodsworn. Villain one-shots were taking on-goings and equipment (mainly DR), and Kaagra Warfang also entered the combat. Followed quickly by more gladiators and the Bloodsworn were quickly well ahead in favor. The heroes were inflicting damage, but facing an uphill battle. Legacy was using Motivational Charge, Legacy Ring, and Galvanize; TLT via small damage burst cards; Haka using Taiaha; and Tempest with Electrical Storm, one-shots, and Grevious Hailstorm.
The game turned with TLT neutralizing most gladiator damage for a turn with a Hypersonic Assault. The heroes spread their other damage around to set up a big next round against a bunch of gladiators with low HP including Kaagra Warfang down to 4 HP. The favor at that time stood 17-10 with the Bloodsworn close to winning. Two more gladiators came into play on the villain turn, but netted no additional favor. The environment kicked in Imbued Fraility to help with damage even more. Legacy led off the heroes turns with setting up Galvanize again.
Team Leader Tachyon then unleased a simple Accelerated Assault. However, with +3 damage dealt this was 4 melee damage per gladiator in addition to Death Dealer allowing her to destroy gladiators with up to 7 HP. TLT proceeded to take out Kaagra Warfang and four other gladiators completely in addition to wounding two more for 4 HP and gaining at least 1 more colosseum title. An impressive 14 points of favor to push the heroes to a 24-17 win.
This is another villain I expect to hit the table more often with players who have played the game a few times. It's a very good game to go against a non-standard set of victory conditions, a combat environment that is changable, a bit fickle, but will provide entertainment.
Game #4 - Infinitor
A game full of targets rolling out between Infinitor and the environment (Enclave of the Endlings). The heroes were kept hopping for a bit to deal with them, but settled down to form pretty quickly with getting DR cards out, Legacy getting the Legacy Ring - Motivational Charge - Galvanize combo going, and the rest of the team pounding away with one-shots and powers getting enhanced damge thanks to Legacy. Finished off by TLT dropping two 10-point Lightning Barrages on Infinitor's head.
Should have played Infinitor first to get more of a rise in threat from him to Deadline to Progeny. In any case, this villain needs some further plays in order to see if he remains interesting and how his advanced side works out.
I also want to see the Enclave of the Endlings environment more. Only saw 4-5 cards from it, and it looked target heavy and pretty interesting in how it helped or hindered the heroes. The one environment card that played a card from each deck did not complete a cycle because TLT's top card was an environment/on-going destruction card. Oops.
Game #5 - Wager Master
I figured this game was going to be odd due to a few factors; villain art, 51 HP, and some forum discussion. (Low villain HP generally indicate something special in terms of victory conditions of villain ability to avoid or heal from damage.)
The game started out with Conditions rolling out, including multiple Wagelings. Heroes were putting out defense cards, building up, and being wary of how the multiple condition cards were affecting play and victory conditions. Including desirability of flipping conditions face-down or not. Eventually enough Condition cards built up and Wager Master flipped.
So now it was a random condition up, a set down that set X for some effects, and Wager Master putting out more cards. With occassionally the Condition being that if Wager Master hit 0 HP the heroes would lose. While this was going on the Omnitron-IV environment was being mildly annoying with drones and destroying a piece of equipment now and then.
However, the hero response once Wager Master flipped was pretty blase' - they simply pounded the heck out of him. AOE attacks did enough damage to stop the drones, and there was no reason to kill Wagelings since they were simply going to be re-shuffled. Wager Master was purposefully kept at around 15 HP when the one condition was out. A Take Down kept any more Conditions from coming out. And once the heroes could win simply by finishing off Wager Master they did so with Haka of Battle enhanced Crush.
I was actually a bit disappointed by this and thought there would be a little more to it.
Will have to see how he plays again to see if this was a one-off. And also see how advanced play affects this as well.
Summary
An interesting set of villains to face "fresh" with a solid hero team. Will have to get more games in with a variety of hero teams to see how I rank these set of expansion heroes as compared to the others.
If I submit any more games does it have to be in advanced to count?
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
No. You only have to use advance if you saw the villain before assembling your team. The idea was to go in blind, but i knew people would want to look at the cards. So, i just didn't want you to assemble a team around them.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
For this event I figured that Legacy and Wraith were obvious choices for uberness. I went with Rook City Wraith for the possibility of minimal environmental deck manipulation and the expectation of replacing her base power quickly anyway. Parse for villain deck manipulation and irreducible damage, and the Scholar for being a damage sponge. I tend to play fairly conservatively so I went with a possibly excessive capability for damage reduction and redirection. I suspect that if I'd been playing Advanced, I'd have lacked enough firepower in a couple cases.
I wanted to play the villains in roughly ascending order of difficulty, so I started out with Infinitor. It began rather painfully, but the heroes got set up (partly thanks to Slamara) and took control pretty easily. I think it would've been significantly more difficult without Parse helping make damage irreducible a few times. The environment targets that came out didn't do anything really bad (partly thanks to Mega Computer) and overall it felt like a nice warmup game.
Wager Master was a bit trickier. Between frequent destruction of ongoings/equipment, AOE damage, a few environment targets focusing on the lowest health hero, and absolutely nothing coming up to redirect damage to either hero capable of soaking it more effectively, Parse finished the game with 2 health (and that was probably thanks solely to the Wraith using Stun Bolt the last few rounds.) The game felt a lot easier to deal with after Wager Master flipped, which I didn't expect. That may have just been unfortunate card draw by the heroes. This fight was probably the one that was the most stressful out of all of the new villains.
Deadline was a nice quick fight. Buffer Overflow never got used, but Extrasensory Awareness allowed Parse to mitigate the effect of catastrophes. The biggest health hits to the heroes were from themselves - Heroic Interception and Proverbs and Axioms both done while hero damage was boosted by Legacy. The irreducible damage that Deadline dealt was manageable, though this might be the first game in which I've deliberately used Suture Self. The environment deck was down to 5 cards when Deadline was killed (I wasn't drawing into ongoing destruction to get rid of Catastrophes, so he'd flip about every other round) and if Wraith and the Scholar hadn't been so buffed I'd have been worried. After looking through the rest of his deck, I got rather lucky that some of his devices never showed up. This was probably my favorite battle out of the new villains. Also, I kind of want to take him to Rook City just to see that place wrecked...
Kaargra was a step up in difficulty, though I had a stroke of luck to start - of the two Bloodsworn Judgements that showed up, the first was on the first turn (nothing to destroy) and the other was Buffer Overflowed. Without setups being destroyed, Wraith + Legacy = 7 projectile damage from Razor Ordnance and three instances of 5 damage from Throwing Knives, which meant 5 crowd favor a turn. An early Flesh to Iron on the Scholar meant that the heavy hits from Kaargra weren't getting favor for 4+ damage at once, and the gladiator that dealt two hero targets 3 damage each wasn't getting the favor for 2+ damage to multiple targets. Kaargra was still getting that, of course, but by the time I flipped her back, the favor was something like 30 for the heroes to half that for the villains. Titles didn't get much play in this game. Wraith got Death-caller via grappling hook, Parse got Living Weapon toward the end of the game, and Kaargra and a couple gladiators had some other titles that never seriously mattered.
Progeny was...weird. I never got much set up. If he'd lived another turn he'd have flipped, as Parse went below 10 on his last turn. The scions and ongoings that came out looked nasty. When one-shots came out that had cards revealed until a scion or ongoing was found, the one-shots that kept getting skipped over looked horrendous. Despite all that...he felt underwhelming and just got beat down. I want to play him some more because I can't help but think that I should've been in a lot more pain. Yeah, there was some good timing on a Heroic Interception + Proverbs and Axioms + Targetting Arrow, with an Offensive Transmutation the next turn, but it still seemed unexpectedly stress-free.
Yes, watching Deadline destroy Rook City (only 5 cards left in the deck at the end) was oddly enjoyable. Having a Scum and Villainy help trigger part of the destruction only to get removed itself made me smile. Falling Statuary doing 3 damage to Deadline on the last environment turn was just icing on the cake.
So I beat Deadline and Infinitor, but both were close games. I had Progeny down to a few HP with 2 or my heros incapped, but I forgot that it had Scion of Frost in play, despite me plinking it to death. So it really had 3 hp instead of 0 when I put my cards away. I'll repay that one and the last 2 soon
So, going over the results, there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between top picked teams and the leftovers (at within the confines of this event).
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"