Start of game setup

Yes put two Power Cards into play and roll your first movement roll before the game begins.

Before the first turn.

I usually start with defensive powers, then switch to an offensive power when it comes to my turn and I'm able to reach someone. Especially against Tachyon, she can reach you in no time.

Playtesters - when you were doing skirmishes, was there ever an issue of who chose powers first?  I can imagine a scenario where it matters, because my optimal choice of power might depend on which power you choose, and vice versa.

I can tell you how I do it, because it makes sense.

teams select characters.

Decide which team goes first (I do this by rolling a die for each character and adding the team scores and comparing)

Then Team A chooses who will go first, that character selects powers and rolls movement.

Team B chooses who will go second, that character selects powers and rolls movement.

repeat till all characters have 2 powers and movement rolled.

Then starting back at the first character, start placing characters.

Since the order is the same as in game the first player's disadvantage at having everyone know their  starting placement and powers offsets their geting to change powers and act first.

Select them and then place them 'face down' on the character panel.

I do it the way match described. Everyone picks the ones they want and places them face down, then all are revealed at once. That way nobody has an advantage over anyone else.

Same. Except we put cards down face up, and don't usually bother looking at each other's. No-one's memorised the cards (or has more than the vaguest idea of what each character can do) just yet anyway.

Also in general although we're competitive we tend to help each other and we'll warn each other about things, even when it benefits the other team. Like don't stand all in a line when Tachyon or Unity are around, don't stockpile tokens if Blade's in the game, that kind of stuff, so it would seem weird to us to play a kind of second-guessing meta game before we even start in order to get an advantage.

So people decide what power they want to start with. Sometimes they change their mind based on some criteria which may or may not include assessing other players' starting power or board position or turn order or whatever, and we're fine with that.

The two things aren't actually mutually exclusive. If you're not in a tournament, or at least there's nothing on the line for winning, the more competitive thing to do is to help your opponent. It ensures that when you win, you won while your opponent was at their best. It's more satisying because you know your opponent was at least pretty close to your play level in most moves and you essentially bested an equal at that point. It can also help that player get better quicker, which then makes that player more of a challenge for you, and playing against that player helps you grow as a player and get better.

I don't see competitive play as "Just wanting to win," I see it as wanting to be as good as you can, and wanting to prove how good you are. Anything that helps you accomplish those goals in the long run seems pretty competitive to me.

We've let people change powers after they realized powers someone else had available, we just let everyone after them change powers to react if they want.

We don't get competetive about he start, but I have a few players that get a bit feisty at times, so I always make sure I run things tournament style, just to make sure.

Excellent, this also answers my question.

For some reason, the rulebook doesn't seem to have a setup section (that I could find), so the first time we played this game, we assumed, just the card game, that we would have to build up our powers and movement slowly over time.

Would it be possible to put this in the FAQ?