Player Controlled Villains

I'm sure this has appeared somewhere before, but I can't find it anywhere. I'm going to be playing SotM this weekend with 5 buddies. Now we could just have two 3-player games, but I was wondering if anyone had any homebrew rules for having the Villain be hero controlled as well. I have an idea of what may work, but if someone has an idea that is tried and true, I'd prefer that. 

My thoughts:

• Villain starts with H-1 cards in hand
• Whenever the Villain would play the top card of the Villain deck, they instead play a card from their hand, then draw a card once that card is resolved
• If the played card asks that the Villain play the top card of the Villain deck as a resolution effect (i.e. One-shots/When this card enters play), then play the top card of the Villain deck rather than a card from your hand (To both avoid fearsome pre-planned combos and ensure that the hand doesn't empty)
• The Villain decides ties when dealing damage to the Heroes (Heroes still determine environment damage)
• Damage from Environment cards is decided by the Heroes in the case of a tie between Hero and Villain, but the Villain may choose which of his cards are injured in the case of a tie. (i.e. Scholar is at 21, and GloomWeaver has 2 relics at 21. Damage is dealt to the lowest health target by the Environment. The Heroes decide the damage is dealt to the Villains relic, but the Villain chooses which relic is the target)
• Hero cards that manipulate the top of the Villain deck still affect the Villain deck itself, not the Villains hand

I anticipate this will certainly provide more of a challenge to the heroes too, since the villain is essentially picking from the top 2-4 cards of his deck

Does anyone have a better system than this? Mine is still untested as of right now, but if I get the chance to try it out I will be happy to post the results here.

Play the Freedom Six against Angry Paul. :)

That makes a whole bunch of powers a lot less useful. Like Wraith's Infra-Red Eyepiece.

Playing against Iron Legacy with 6 people means that we can only do that one boss though. Kinda gets old fast especially with the fastest boss fight available (IMHO). 

As far as the powers thing goes, I thought about that, but wasn't sure how to properly translate it to hands....maybe if it became a thing where the hero looking at the top cards picked random cards from the Villains hand instead?

Oh dear...

We did a thing like this before, only 2 cards in the villain hand instead of one.

It was still vicious.

Bah, I knew this must have been tried before. Guess two 3-player games it is. Thankee for the input!

Just play a six player game. It won't be balanced, but that way you can all play together.

Honestly, you could just do a 6-hero game. I've done it a bunch of times, and it usually works out. Just don't pick someone like Spite or Plague Rat.

Another option is to play 6 heroes at H=5 and add a Vengeance Villain. Or for that matter, play against 6 vengeance villains.

Two 3-hero games is the best bang for your buck at 6 players.

The second best is (H)=5 with a tough Vengeance-style hero added in at the halfway point.

Five vs. a played villain can work like you prescribed, I would stick to the easier villains and make sure the person running the villain isn't looking for a good time.  It isn't fun being the Villain.

We've done this a few times, but we let H=6. If that goes too well, we add a second V.Villain.

Without using Vengeance villains (which are probably the best solution), I've tried six heroes with H=7.  That can be a beating.  Sure, the heroes get a silly number of actions, but any villain with any kind of H-based all-target damage is an order of magnitude worse.  I've beaten Akash'Bhuta with three heroes, but played this way, she was a nightmare.

I’ve played 6 player, and we have done it in the simplest way possible. The sixth person plays the villain and environment decks. They’re not on the villain team, and no rules are changed. They are just the single person responsible for flipping those cards, adjusting hp totals, making decisions for the targeting of those deck’s cards, etc.

Admittedly it isn’t the same experience, but they get at least as much play time and interaction as every other player. And there’s always been more than one volunteer to do it.

This makes me want to do 15 heroes vs all 15 Vengeance/Villains decks.

Do the Vengeance/Villains decks have (H) on their cards, or are they self-balancing?

As there are (H) of them, they don't really use the (H) mechanic in their decks.

If you're still in London on Sunday, come down to the meetup and we can demonstrate.

Oh, god.  Why did you say that?  Now I have to try it.

I would really love to, but I’m going to be in Paris! Thanks though!

I think with 15/15, you’d have to use 3+ environments as well…

They had H on their cards in version 1, and they were BRUTALLY overpowered. Like, with 5 of them, they were basically unbeatable.

Oh, did the reprint remove that?  Sad.

No, playtesting removed it.

Believe me, this is for the better…