Number of Heroes?

Does the number of heroes you bring have any effect on gameplay?

Yes, whenever you see  it means the number of heroes. This allows for different amounts of damage, card plays, etc depending on how many heroes there are.

In terms of the app, whenever you see a number surrounded by asterisks, that number is context-dependent, whixh usually means the physical card uses H and the app is calculatin that for you.

Some villains can be easier or harder with a certain number of heroes. Miss Information, for example, can be a relatively challenging and unique experience with three players. Four to five, however? It can take an hour or so to just get her to flip!

In general, more heroes tend to make the game easier.  There are, of course, exceptions to this rule - the main ones being Miss Information and the Dreamer.  The straight up damage racing villains like Plague Rat, and Infinitor tend to get much easier with more heroes - their damage output is increased, but the heros get a boost in total HP and damage, so they have the advantage.

I'd also like to add Advanced Ennead to the list. Regular Ennead is debatable, but Advanced Ennead is definitely harder with more heroes, since it takes less time to get the main card to flip. And once that card flips… Ugh…

Honestly I totally disagree. I think the general rule is less heros = easier (and yes there are some exceptions). 

Omnitron is a big exception to that (since the damage required to destroy components doesn’t change), and disabling effects or skip-a-turn-to-destroy environment cards are worse, but mostly I agree with Foote.

Spite is certainly a villain that playing with three heroes is often better than with five.  

I think I disagree with this, but I think you have to take team build into consideration as well. One of the advantages of 5 vs. 3 is that you have a higher chance of diversity in the team. Some people will get going quick, and others won't. I don't find Tempest, AZ, and Bunker to be a good team, at least against Voss. You just end up relying on Tempest too much while Bunker and AZ get set up, but add Ra and Haka to the mix, you now have some characters to help Tempest control the tide while Bunker and AZ prepare for the long game.

I'm with Arcanist Lupus, not because of total HP or total damage ability, but just because more heroes get to do more things. They get to play more cards and use more powers. That gives the player team more oportunities to zap an environment card, destroy a villain ongoing card, set up a redirection ability, and so on. The penalty is (generally) increased damage form the villain, but I think that's a good trade for the heroes in the end.

For similar reasons, I think the Atlantean Font of Power dramatically favors the heroes!

Pillars of Hercules generally sucks, though. I've used it to good effect a couple of times, but the villain getting a free play at the start of every turn just increases the chance of Devastating Auroras or Sedative Flechettes being played.

Gray's Difficulty Scores (which were determined using data from the Sentinels Statisics Project) indicate that more heroes is generally easier.  That doesn't necessarily mean that they are, of course, but it does lend support to the argument.

The biggest reason why 3 heros is generally easier has a lot to do with how damage numbers scale down while damage mitigation stays consistent. In addition to that, damage mitigation is far more valuable with lower damage numbers than higher ones. For example, the difference between taking 0 or 1 damage is more significant than the difference between taking 6 or 7. Damage reduction of 1 is fairly common, even in random groups of 3 heros. With H-2 being by far and large the average instance of damage Villains generally deal, it's a lot more common to completely nullify damage instead of just mitigating it a little bit.

3 Hero games tend to be much longer on average as well compared to 5 hero games because of the lower damage output on both Hero and Villain side while Health Points stay consistent (which works very much in favor of the heavier setup reliant heros such as Absolute Zero).

Because of all of these things, group composition doesn't suffer nearly as much for having some holes as it does in 5 player games. You can get away with not having Ongoing Destruction against Iron Legacy with Bunker, Sentinels, and Legacy (for example), because the sheer amount of damage mitigation they all bring to the table is far more valuable with less heros. You can play AbZero more consistently against more Villains because games are longer and one board wipe does not hurt as much.

It also lists Megaopolis as one of the easier environments in the game. Setback as one of the most difficult heros to win with. Ranks Omnitron more difficult than Progeny. Take that list with a large grain of salt. I wouldn't use that to back up an argument with any degree of certainty.

But Progeny is more likely to be fought by experienced players than by Omnitron, though, and often with hand-picked teams. The fact that the Dark Watch is four of the top five suggests that there's a similar phenomenon at work there, and as for Megalopolis... well, I can't really explain that one, but cherry-picking individual anomalies as an excuse to discount a large bank of data is questionable practice.

In any case, looking at the underlying statistics from the Statistics Project, 'number of heroes' is likely a factor that is primarily determined by number of players, so villain victories by number of players should be fairly reliable, and only four villains of twenty-seven* (The Dreamer, Miss Information, The Ennead and Gloom-Spite) have a higher win-rate with three players than with five.  And as for heroes, with the exception of Prime Warden Tempest (who has equal win rate with 3 and 5 heroes), every hero has a higher win rate with 5. All of them.That's... pretty conclusive.

Trust me, I just listed a quick few things that I find very wrong about the numbers on that spreadsheet. I could list a lot more (Advanced Chairman is easier than normal if going by those numbers and you want me to trust that sheet? Not a chance). Picking out things that dont make sense in a bank of data is a fine practice because it calls into question how reliable that data actually is.

It's fine for a rough guide, but I wouldn't put much stock into it as far as using it to back up an argument. 

True, but the # of heroes scores should be more accurate than average, because they have the largest sample size and are probably less subject to experienced player biases.

Fair enough. The first time we finally beat the Matriarch, we did it by playing with H = 2 for exactly that reason.

I've defeated Matty pretty handily with four to five heroes. It depends on your team. Probably the easiest game with her invovled one where H was four. Maka got a turn one Savage Mana and ate the mask. That combined with damage prevention, everyone was in their twenties by the time that game ended.

And with that out early, he could drop a rampage and just eat the birds.

I'm now imagining Matriarch standing there looking annoyed while Haka grins with feathers in his teeth.

Unless you immediately follow that rampage with unleashing the birds back at Matriarch, you'll probably lose Savage Mana to an ongoing wipe. She powers through her deck with fowls there or not.

That is one thing to watch out for with Lilian, true. It's a matter of hoping the group as a whole can get out enough spare ongoings to be able to ditch them when Cacophonies start coming out so that you don't have to give up Savage Mana and give all the birdies and stuff back.

Unforgiving Wasteland is the best, though of course :D.