Weekly One Shot #136: No Rest For Old Men

Mint, but it was a challenge. I lost Chrono-Ranger because I was dumb and killed Spite on his turn, leaving Hunter and Hunted in play for Gloomy to take advantage of. Also lost Fixer on the round I won. It could have been a lot worse.

I have a feeling i'm going to lose.  I flipped the "return cards to hand" card on the second turn, and the "Damage for Powers" card on turn 1.  I'm pretty screwed.  I forgot how to lock down Spite with CR, and I'm about to lose him.

Lost my first one as I was hoping that we could chain Victims enough to actually keep Spite from flipping all drugs, but no dice. Also flipped the Bounce Cards drug early which kept me from being able to get set up enough to blow through his DR.
 

Spoilers for those that want a clean game below:

Drug order (Unflipped out counting from Spite 1,2,3,4,5) is

1. PL626 (Damages when a hero uses a power)

2. PL602 (Damage reduction on first attack each turn)

3. Mynd-Phyre (Destroys Environment Cards)

4. PL531 (Increase damage, return hero cards to hands)

5. Demon's Kiss (Infernal damage every round)

My strategy for next game I think will be ignore victims, flip 3,5,1,4,2 , get set up and blow him up asap then start wailing on GW with a fully set up team

Update: Strategy above worked, although it turned into a slog by accidentally letting CR die to Hunter and Hunted by GW. Scholar is a god tank though, and slowly whittled him down for a near-mint.

~Komori

Fine. Thanks to Flesh of Iron and the like, the Scholar was his tanky self. Of course, Spite flipped the turn before he died, so everybody else was incapacitated. But all the card plays and powers (especially when you have 2x Mortal Form to Energy, Get Out of the Way, and a screenful of mooks) granted by the four incapacitated--not to mention Weaverwalker Skingloom's own rotting nature--meant I won with the Scholar close to full health.

Mint. Reallyyyyy long game though - most heroes incapacitated near the start of Gloomweaver coming out and the Scholar had to tank his way through both forms while the environment and extra power / card plays slowly chipped away. Finally finished Gloomweaver off with a 25 Card no when to turn loose...

Mint. I took a chance by saving the Good Samaritans and ended up protecting 5 victims while only 4 drugs came out. That meant I stopped all the drugs from being revealed, but it also flipped Spite. Who pulled a lab raid and proceeded to beat down heavily on everyone with his bonus damage.

Chrono-Ranger used Neuro-Toxin and Mr. Fixer used Hoist Chain to keep the damage down. Letting Spite return Bloody Knuckles and Staff of Ra to their respective hands meant less damage for Mr. Fixer and more healing for Ra. Haka went down and I forgot about Bloody Knuckles extra damage one turn and used Strike on Spite and took enough retribution damage to go down. Spite went down shortly thereafter, but everyone was in single digits.

Still, I knew it was a win since Gloomweaver has no ongoing destruction and Scholar could take whatever was thrown at him. Like Spite, Neuro-Toxins kept the damage down and Scholar provided enough healing to everyone that they stayed on their feet. Ra got extra healing each turn by destroying his staff and then having Mr. Fixer bring it back into play. Chrono-Ranger got all his bounties out and then when Scholar pulled Alchemical Redirection, Hunter and Hunter came out and it was all over.

Mint. Ra and Fixer went down, but the other three survived (and would have been able to survive one more round).

I completely sold out for damage against Spite, to the point of near-suicide with Fixer. I abused the fact that Ra was healing for 3 every round (thanks to Spite taking back ongoings/equipment) by having Fixer target Ra first with his Imbued Fire + Grease Monkeyed Crowbars, then hitting Spite with the second iteration. When I had Overdrive come up (twice), I hit Haka first on one of the uses. Fixer went down as soon as Skinwalker flipped, but not before doing a pile of damage to him.

Spite went down without me ever seeing the DR drug; thankfully, that was the only one that didn't get a chance to flip.

Meanwhile, Scholar parked behind Flesh to Iron and kept himself healed in the teens, Chrono-Ranger got eight shades of set up and had a 30+ damage Hunter and Hunted +4 turn protected by Alchemical Redirection, Haka ate 5 Gloomweaver targets and smacked him around with a 10+ card discard on Haka of Battle, and Ra kept using Flesh of the Sun God because I was worried about Challenge of Fire / Cultist damage. Ra saved everyone from two instances of AOE 3 by doing that; Chrono-Ranger survived with 4 and Haka with 5, so that was a pretty good decision! (As it turned out, we won before Challenge of Fire ever showed up.)

Mint.

I think all versions of Spite are poorly designed for the theme, because it’s almost always in your best interests to ignore the victims. At least Agent of Gloom Spite gives you a real incentive to save victims. Too bad the rules are written such that you still shouldn’t, because Spite normally turns over drugs faster than you can save victims. The mechanism only really works if there’s some way to force Spite to get (drugs + 2) victims in play.

Good Samaritan is one way to get that extra victim out, but that only works if Good Samaritan is one of the first 2 cards in play. In this game a Samaritan comes out on Spite’s 2nd turn... but that’s still too late, because trying for a save gets 5 victims under the safe house and a flipped Spite, which is bad.

I turned over the drugs in order, which meant I got the “take damage when your heroes use a power” drug immediately, and the -3 DR drug next. This severely cramped my ability to do damage, since most of the time my heroes would just get hurt while doing little or no damage themselves if they used a power. I did a fair number of “skip entire turn” plays to draw cards, which is never fun.

I did get a few hits in early via Fixer’s Driving Mantis, which meant Fixer would hit for nothing, but then he’d re-direct Spite’s retribution to himself for damage (since the DR only affects the 1st damage Spite takes per turn).

Eventually what turned the tide for me was Imbued Fire + By Any Means, which gave +2 damage to Spite. Chrono Ranger was doing +3 because of The Ultimate Target, and wasn’t having a problem with DR because he was using the Masada.

The deck-milling effect of the “hurt yourself” drug was highly beneficial. It put everyone’s equipment into the trash quickly, which Mr. Fixer turned into mass card draw via Salvage Yard. Chrono Ranger got all of his bounty cards early via Bounty Board.

Liberal use of Grease Gun, Ground Pound, and Alchemical Redirection were vital to keeping everyone alive. Ra was down to 6 at one point, but recovered via Staff plays.

Gloomweaver was easy, because Chrono Ranger was completely set up by that point. I refused to risk Hunter and Hunted until I could get some cover via Grease Guns etc., but once I had it, he did a preposterous amount of damage. Things like “Eye on the Prize” became ridiculously powerful, letting me hit several targets for 6-8 damage each.

It helped that the Trial of FIre came out and Ra made everyone immune to fire while adding +1 damage to all fire attacks. Since Trial of Fire isn’t a target, it wasn’t turned off by Grease Gun.

If anything, spraying a bunch of grease on a fire should make MORE FIRE! :D

~Komori

A belated comment on the theme:

The Scholar is old. Ra doesn’t look old, but presumably he’s 3000 years old, if he’s the original Ra. Mr. Fixer is sorta old. Chrono Ranger doesn’t appear to be old, but I guess if he time travels a lot, maybe he’s older than he looks? Which leaves Haka. Since when is Haka an old man?

Haka is several hundred years old.

Haka is over 600 years old. Ra, however, is in the body of a human in his early middle years. His original form was born thousands of years ago, but he doesn't have memories of all that.

Is Jim Brooks really that old? He's mature, but I didn't get the impression he's any more than middle-aged, if that.

I would agree that he is more middle aged than truly old, but I think he fits the theme in that he’s a man from the past (and also people back then didn’t live as long). I’m fairly sure no one in the film ‘No Country for Old Men’ is really that old either.

Near mint.

First game was close, but Gloomweaver played a seemingly endless string of cultists and Vast Followings and the heroes were overwhelmed.

Second game went much better.  Mr. Fixer had Dual Crowbars and Riveting Crane, which made the Profane Zealots irrelevant, and made everyone deal massive mega damage. Each hero was dealing *at least* 10 damage to Gloomweaver every turn. Haka found Punish the Weak combover with Rampage particularly helpful when damage to Gloomweaver was irreducible.

Gloomweaver did himself in at the end.

Haka was lowest at 2HP, Chrono-Ranger about 6HP, Fixer and Ra right around 10HP, and Scholar near full.

Hey! Autocorrect turned combo into combover!