Termi-Nation Unity, Freedom Five Bunker, Freedom Five Tachyon, Freedom Five Absolute Zero and Freedom Five Wraith take on Advanced Ambuscade in Silver Gulch. Oy!
Mint at 12/14/15/8/13.
Ambuscade's Advanced advantage of "reduce damage to villain targets by 1" was a pain, as was Ambuscade's initial set of devices. It took most of the game to clear the board of all of Ambuscade's devices. But once the heroes did that, I believe they took Ambuscade from full health to incapacitated in under one round.
Setup took a while. Early on Wraith gave lots of extra card draws to Unity and about midgame Unity got a good bot engine going. The final round they were deadly.
Bunker was in support mode much of the game, using his innate power much of the game to help his teammates get set up faster. But a lucky play near the end of "Turret Mode" made him a powerhouse the last round.
Absolute Zero sacrificed himself with his innate power to get some important cards into play early on ("Sub-Zero Atmosphere", "Cold Snap" and two "Impale" cards on "Reactive Plating"), and then just hung on for the rest of the game.
Wraith used "Infrared Eyepiece" to avoid some of Ambuscade's bad cards, and by the end had a great damage engine going. It just took a while to get set up but was worth it.
The environment wasn't too bad. "Matthew Hayes" was actually very helpful early on, focusing his attacks on Ambuscade's devices. I wish he had lasted a bit longer, but "Cold Snap" was harder on him than it was on the devices.
This was fun, and not quite as dangerous as it appeared at first blush. I mean, Tachyon had a rough time and basically did nothing but build Burst and occasionally deal with the environment. But Wraith with Infrared Eyepiece meant I avoided the worst of everything, Bunker was fantastic support, and Absolute Zero finished things off with a 16-point Thermal Shockwave because he's the best. :)
TakeWalker, to paraphrase Hawkeye, you and I play Absolute Zero very differently. ;-)
I enjoy playing Absolute Zero, but find him very swing-y. In some games he takes on all comers. In this fight he exhausted himself using his innate power every round the first half of the game to put several cards into play ("Cold Blast", "Sub-Zero Atmosphere", "Impale"x2) and could never heal. How did you play him, TakeWalker?
My Tachyon was also hampered. I don't think she used her innate power at all. However, she did have fun, taking out a couple of "Reactive Plating" cards with "Sucker Punch" cards, and landing a powerful "LIghtspeed Barrage" on Ambuscade the final round that put him on the ropes. Good times, good times.
Mint with everyone somewhere above 10 hp.
Slow start with the DR on everything, so I burned through his deck with Infra-Red until I found a Vanish. I let him flip then just tanked the damage while I cleared out all of the devices (Smoke Bombs helped prevent Ambuscade from whittling down the lowest HP). Once he flipped back, he dropped pretty quickly to a Unity Bot Swarm of Doom (TM)
As for AZ, I actually used his innate power to find a Shockwave then pretty much never used it again. Once Ambuscade was flipped, AZ would hit 3 devices, then heal himself up. I didn't want to get out Impale due to the Platings, and I didn't want to get Cold Snap in case a Sonic Mine came out. He still did decent damage, and once Ambuscade flipped back he was doing ~10 cold a round, so could bounce out 20 if he wanted to not heal himself.
Bunker was indirectly useful with his innate power and Wraith used the Eyepiece to keep Ambuscade under control, but it was really Unity's bots that did most of the work in this one.
~A-Kat
Mint at 12/11/8/3/11, with Tachyon and Aboslute Zero being lower so they could continue their mega-turns as the pair finished off Ambuscade.
I lucked into an early Modular Installation from Bunker's Tactical Uplink, allowing me to prepare AZ with both his Modules, so I was able to maintain his health throughout the game. If FV AZ's power is used beforehand, the shuffling may mean you have a harder time finding cards that find his Modules. Subzero Atmoshpere helped keep Ambuscade from using his toys as effectively. I'm used to running his Advanced and Challenge sides from my efforts to complete my variant unlocks.
By the end, two Explosives Wagons were out and it was an explosion of Volatile Parts Golems, Tachyon Blitzing and AZ crashing ice and fire in Ambuscade's face. The team provided is very capable in this setup.
As I recall, I started by using Bunker's power to get him set up early, getting both Modules out within the first turn, and focused on dropping Impales on Ambuscade. They didn't do damage for a long time, but it was better than putting out Cold Snap, which also wouldn't do damage, except to things in the environment I might want to keep around.
I spent a turn playing and using Glacial Structures, which finally got me Focused Apertures and turned his life around.
Also, I generally focused on dealing damage rather than healing until his HP was down around 10, then it went back and forth depending on what I was doing. The first ice blast from Hoarfire, for instance, always goes to him, but otherwise I'm turning that self-damage into other-people-damage. Good Shockwave use requires careful focus on how much damage you've dealt in a turn, which thankfully the digital game makes easy.
Mint with 17/18/16/20/16. As TakeWalker noted with using Bunker's power on Absolute Zero you can get him set up with both modules in the first turn. So I did that and then got out "Impale", "Sub-Zero Atmosphere", "Focused Apatures", "Thermal Shockwave" by his third turn and I was all set up to tank with him from then on. As long as you remember to hit himself with one of the 3 blasts from Shockwave he heals 3 a turn from it, and that was enough to negate a lot of Abascade's damage, and all I had to do from there is wait for Unity to build up a bot army to take him out.
Physicswizzard
Mint at 18/21/17/28/19.
Unity and Absolute Zero were the stars of the show here, aided by extra card plays from Bunker. On her third turn, Unity had two Platform Bots and two Raptor Bots out, which did quite the number on the Reactive Platings. By then, Absolute Zero had both Modules, Focused Apertures, and Thermal Shockwave out, so he was doing piles of damage and healing up.
Once I got the second Reactive Plating dead, consecutive turns of Hastily Augmenting Thermal Shockwave on top of the 'bot army going to town and Tachyon having two 10 damage Barrages ready... well, Ambuscade didn't like that very much, and I won in round 5.
Wraith didn't do much but pass card draws to Tachyon and take out that pesky Charged Attacks. A Throat Jab on her last turn was timely but unnecessary.
The environment was nothing but helpful; I stopped its card plays twice, so all I got was Matt Hayes picking off the lowest HP device for me every round.
I had a pretty stable mint, although I had a much rougher time with AZ. The trick is that because Bunker can give him Onboard Module Installation in the first turn, after that his deck is entirely different for everyone. It took me funneling about nine cards from the Wraith to AZ to get Focused Apertures out.
But in general, not too bad. I weathered some hits until Ambuscade vanished, and then wiped out his devices and just kept everything utterly destroyed while Bunker and AZ healed up and Smoke Bombs redirected damage from Unity's bots, and when he finally flipped back (it took three turns, because he Vanished twice in a row) Unity did 40 damage to him in one go, and Bunker finished him off.