What we Know about ObliveAn

What we Know

Contents

• 5 heroes - Harpy, Akash, La Comodora, Lifeline, Luminary
• 4 Villain decks - Oblivean, Scions, Aeonmen, and missions decks. Shield cards too
• Comic Book
• Two Environments

Extras

• 27 hero variant cards
• 6 additional heroes - Stunman, Benchmark, The Void Guard

Other Misc Info

• The Void Guard heroes character cards are not intended to be able to be used when using the Sentinels deck. - Art Feed
• The Void Guard will have special instructions included with it explaining how it interacts with the Sentinels deck. - Art Feed
• One or more of the new (ex villain) heroes will have cards with previously villain exclusive keywords i.e. fowl, primieval limb, device - reddit ama
• It's possible that Citizen Dawn is represented somehow within Oblivean - reddit ama
• Luminary Info from Twitter Teaser - Lumniary - 27HP

  Innate Power: "Devise" - Power: Discard the top two cards of your deck. Move any Devices discarded this way into play. [Interesting that it says devices, not equipment]

  The nemesis icon on Luminary's card seems to be OblivAeon (The icon matches Obv's chestplate and the fuzzy filename text corroborates this)

  From the text entry box on one the other screen in the picture, you can also see:

  Lumniary's Incap Abilities: One player may play a card / One player may discard 2 cards. If they do, they may draw 2 cards. / Destroy 1 hero ongoing card. If you so, destroy up to 2 ongoing cards. [From text entry screen]

  Variant Luminary's Innate Power: "Empowered Attack" - Power: Luminary deals 1 target X lighning damage, where X = the number of Devices in play plus 1. [From text entry screen]

• The Harpy seems to involve some sort of flippable tokens. Dark Watch Harpy has 27 HP.

• It appears Harpy and Luminary have the same nemesis icon, but they could be placeholder icons to avoid revealing secrets.

This topic is intended to help keep known info from the Reddit Ama, art feeds and such into one place. I probably missed plenty of things, so feel free to comment and I'll update it. 

I think I might give my left arm to see a "live play" version of the OblivAeon material--just one session of the OblivAeon game, with the >G crew playing their favorite characters.

Man, I agree. I keep waiting for an update to at least show us the the base powers of some of the heroes.

I'd be very happy to receive anything at all about the game and how things function, details on heroes or at least general mechanics. It'd be quite the excitement to see things in action, but I'm not sure if it'll be at that level for a while!

Currently it works like this.

OblivAeon plays cards and kills your team.

QFT (Quoted For Truth)

They also mentioned elsewhere that there have been so few details (gameplay or art) about OblivAeon because it is very spoiler-heavy.

Some should ask Christopher who his favorite character is…

...and if the box holds sleeved cards...

Information like that requires things to be finished.

Things can change drastically during the playtesting process, and frequently do.  It would be very hard for Christopher to take any card or mechanic and say "this will go unchanged", beyond what you already know, which is how the table sets up and what decks are involved and such.

Even what might be considered basic mechanics are being tested and debated.

This is going to be fun, and deadly, but also a lot of work.

As for Spoilers:

I hear Baron Blade has a really cool [REDACTED] mechanic that [REDACTED] Kittens with {Redacted].

It's going to be awesome, as long as you don't let Ronway [REDACTED], that would be bad.

Most importantly, it's called OblivAeon =)

Shhhh....I don't think we can say the name, or is that a different franchise?

See, I disagree here.

Doing a liveplay would require three things:

1. Playable decks

2. A few hours of time committment (an hour or two to play, plus a bit to edit and upload the video)

3. A disclaimer at the front stating that "This material is subject to change before release."

There's no inherent committment made in an alpha/beta 'lets play' that states "This is the way it will be when you get it."  

That said, you're a playtester.  I'm not.  You're obviously privy to information that I'm not.  If basic OblivAeon mechanics are being reworked significantly, then #1 of my criteria isn't possible yet.

The playtesting has only just begun.  OblivAeon is in the most flux right now.

So play testing is already happening? That's at least good news. How long does the playtesting cycle usually last before they finalize the mechanics?

About a day or two. 

(That is a joke. Specific numbers vary from weeks to months, but it's definitely more than a day or two.)

It really does vary, things can change a lot, even right at the end.

I’m surprised that play testing has already started at all!

Yeah, it's amazing that they already have full concepts of gameplay fleshed out enough to playtest already. I expected that down the way a little. Maybe this is best for another post, but Any guesses as to what each hero would be like/any powers or mechanics you'd like to see in the heroes or villains otherwise?

I think the strangest part about OblivAeon is this crazy new mechanic we're working on called the "Meta Deck". It's a thematic deck that's supposed to represent OblivAeon coming to our part of the multiverse and attacking us since we're trying to stop him.

For example, one of the cards is "None More Grand Than I" where each player attacks the tallest player with wet pool noodles.

Getting people to playtest that has been difficult...

It's not very fun trying play solo with that "meta deck" let me tell ya

I haven't enjoyed the card which says the game ends if the older player ever needs to use the restroom. "No, Grandpa, we have to beat OblivAeon! Just hold it!"

Yeah.  "Catheter or Die" is horrible.

This would all have to be considered information subject to change, but Christopher posted a picture on Twitter of his computer screens while he was working on Lumniary (Hero-Blade) and there's a bunch of tidbits that can be read on it if you zoom in.  Among the items that can be made out are:

Lumniary - 27HP

Innate Power: "Devise" - Power: Discard the top two cards of your deck. Move any Devices discarded this way into play. [Interesting that it says devices, not equipment]

The nemesis icon on Luminary's card seems to be OblivAeon (The icon matches Obv's chestplate and the fuzzy filename text corroborates this)

From the text entry box on one the other screen in the picture, you can also see:

Lumniary's Incap Abilities: One player may play a card / One player may discard 2 cards. If they do, they may draw 2 cards. / Destroy 1 hero ongoing card. If you so, destroy up to 2 ongoing cards. [From text entry screen]

Variant Luminary's Innate Power: "Empowered Attack" - Power: Luminary deals 1 target X lighning damage, where X = the number of Devices in play plus 1. [From text entry screen]

“Devise” - awesome!

That's really exciting. :D

That's what I'm talking about :)

From the latest update on KS it looks like Lillian uses "control tokens" and has the same hero icon as Baron Blade maybe they deal damage to each other because of distrust

Another dose of new info, the new art for the Dark Watch has been revealed in a KS update, this includes the Harpy's variant, which seems to have "control tokens" which could end up functioning like Setback's tokens. Her nemesis token looks to be the same as Luminary's so Oblivaeon might just end up with many nemeses.

EDIT: Ninja'd

It bothers me that she is "Darkwatch the Harpy"

I think it's just filler for right now

So now, for the first time in the canonical game (i.e. not using multiple Legacy decks), we could have heroes doing nemesis damage to each other, huh?

Also, whatever a control token is, it has to be different on its obverse and reverse so that we can “flip” it meaningfully. That just be something different from an unlucky token.

> Secondly, here's the main event! This week, we're going to be sending off the new Hero variant cards off to the printer so that we can get foils sent out to you all before Gen Con. Christopher and Adam have been working really hard on these, and we can't wait for you to see the results. Just as a little teaser, here's some of what you might expect. Maybe... Dark Watch?

That doesn't sound like filler to me.

The Sentinels can already do nemesis damage to each other. 

I'd be surprised if the control tokens worked like Setback's tokens, given that they can be flipped. My guess is that her Equipment/Ongoing cards have different effects depending on whether they are "Under Control" or "Out of Control".

I believe VisforYoshi is suggesting that Luminary and The Harpy will have different Nemesis icons in the final product.

And my point is that the "Final Product" is going off to the printer in less than a week.  It seems unlikely to me that there are any changes left to be made.

I updated with additional information. 

I'm curious about the nemesis icons being the same on The Harpy and Luminary. I wonder if the others have the same icon too. 

I'd imagine all the new Villains-turned-heroes might have the same nemesis in OblivAeon for the expansion. They all turned sides temporarily just to put him down, after all.

Such little things like Harpy's alt power or seeing a little bit of what Luminary could be is more than enough to keep me high on Sentinels curiosity for a few days at the very least! It's little things that I want to see, just to keep my craziness invested through the coming months before the explosion of intrigue once the promos hit, and then, of course, the End of Days, with OblivAeon's final release. I vaguely recall there being more mechanical and/or story updates in the past projects, but the extremely high volume of backers and cash-monies seemed to shove all of that information into baby paragraphs all at once instead of spread out over the weeks. Hopefully those blurbs will be expanded upon in due time?

Wait, where is everybody seeing Luminary's card?

https://twitter.com/gtgchristopher/status/716899795160293377

Oh, for some reason I was thinking not. But I guess if they do that would be consistent with the Ennead, etc.

Oh, if only that  were true!

Sooooo how do people feel about potentially having up to 11 character cards (& 11 variants) with the same nemesis icon?

Personally, I feel a bit wary of that prospect, as

1) It seems silly and arbitrary that a bunch of unrelated heros could all do nemesis damage to each other (I've always used the "from different decks" house rule for Ennead, Sentinels, & Chairman/Operative silliness, but now that's not quite enough to cover it).

2) Several heros will have an icon design that has nothing to do with the hero, but reference OblivAeon instead, which feels off, and kind of boring.

3) I was hoping the new heros would find nemeses in specific Scion cards, rather than just OblivAeon itself, and now that seems unlikely.

Maybe there's more to this than it seems? I hope there is more to this than it seems.

The Harpy didn't.

Anyway, I'm with Voob Gooblin. I really don't want to see lots of Heroes having the same Nemesis icon.

I personally don't think they're doing that. Harpy and Luminary might have some special unique relationship, but I don't think all of them have the same icon. I think it's more likely that they are keeping the nemeses icons a secret until closer to distribution time.

Why?

I'd expect the Villain turned Heroes because of Oblivaeon to have him as Nemesis. I don't think the Void Guard will though. Dunno about Benchmark and Stuntman, probably Scions as Nemesis.

I don't have much to say on the rest, but for this; most of the new Heroes (as in the game mechanic term to refer to playable decks) are not heroes (as in people who want to do good and help), they're villains who, thematically, are choosing to co-operate only because of this huge threat. It makes a lot of sense to me that they wouldn't be very good team players. Whether by ego, lack of experience working with others, or just because they feel collateral damage is nothing if they can stop this huge threat, they're bound to get in each other's way and not caring about hurting the others.

Meanwhile, the existing heroes are both used to working in a team, and aware that these characters, while the enemy of their enemy, aren't actually their friends. As such, they're doing a better job of keeping out of the way and letting the villains heroes do their thing, which is why they're not taking any more damage from them than the usual accidentaly friendly fire that happens from time to time.

If Baron Blade turned Hero has a nemesis outside of OblivAeon it is Legacy.  There's really no other option for Luminary, OblivAeon or Legacy.  That's it.

And the Harpy?  really, who is she against?

And the ones who come to this reality just to fight OblivAeon, who should their nemesis be if not OblivAeon?

I understand the resistance to a whole bunch of heroes having the same nemesis, but there are a lot of characters who are only joining the fight to stop OblivAeon, they wouldn't even be hero decks except that OblivAeon came and they want to stop him.

At that point how does any other nemesis Icon work?

Deadline becomes lifeline, willing to sacrifice everything to stop OblivAeon, but the whole time he's thinking "Man, I really hate that Omnitron, I hope we save the universe so I can go punch that robot."

I just don't see that making sense for many of these characters.

I would guess that their "regular nemesis" is back in their own reality. So they could have a nemesis icon of something that they would never face in this game, or they could have a nemesis icon that would actually do something =)

For Deadline, at least, OblivAeon makes TOTAL SENSE as a nemesis.

But I am kind of hung up on Luminary, just because, yeah, he’s still gonna hate Legacy’s guts. Maybe he wants to get OblivAeon dealt with as soon as possible so he can go back to plotting Legacy’s demise. Or maybe he’ll have some ongoing card that confers a benefit but also states that Legacy is his nemesis.

I don't really have a problem with the new villains-turned-heroes sharing a single nemesis in OblivAeon. That makes sense, narratively. I take issue with the way this would work mechanically, and with the seeming lack of creativity in handling this mechanic (and graphics) for the final hero decks (although I admit this is going off very little information, and there may be more to it than we know).

Theoretically, you could build the same narrative thread by having unique icons for each new hero and just putting each of those icons on OblivAeon's cards (e.g. Iron Legacy), allowing each hero character card to have a unique, character-relevant icon and preventing any arbitrary friendly-fire shenanigans in future games (the apologetics for why this makes sense just don't work for me). I guess the only downside is the amount of real estate that would be taken up on OblivAeon's cards.

Either way, this still just feels a bit boring to me—I'd rather that they keep the nemeses they had in current heroes, or find new nemeses in Scions, with whom they either have past relationships or newly developed emnity; either would be more interesting to me, narratively and mechanically.

I guess the only downside is the amount of real estate that would be taken up on OblivAeon's cards.

Actually, now that I think about it, the idea of OblivAeon considering these mortals "nemeses" at all seems petty for the omnipotent being—so I see why it makes sense in this case to flip the icon design, and not have any hero icons on its cards. OblivAeon dgaf.

Also this:

The fact that The Harpy, even in team Dark Watch costume, still has OblivAeon art on her card, looks wrong.

The turning point in the artwork we saw prior to the ARG was Reveal the Flaws in which the Harpy was being held by Progeny.   I also believe we were told her make has ties to OblivAeon.  I don't have any issue with her having OblivAeon as her nemesis.  

For me the only weird part is this: If say Deadline and Blade are nemesis why is this only the case when they’re both Heroes? Wouldn’t they be more at odds if 1 was a hero and the other wasn’t or if they were both Villains with different aims. But, then again why were The Sentinels nemeses of each other? I guess there will never be prefect logic to any of this. I’m good with it as long as it works out gameplaywise.

the explanation Christopher gave somewhere on the forums is that hero/villain teams with the same nemesis symbol aren't actually against one another, they just don't expect attacks from their "allies", so when something redirects the attack they are left wide open (and take extra damage).

I can totally see Baron Blade being all watchful of Legacy in a fight where they're on the same side, but of his fellow villains-turned-temporary-heroes? What possible reason would they have for hitting him? He's the best villain out there, for them it must be like meeting their idol, of course they aren't go to dare strike him!

True, but then why not have the upgraded Scion Progeny as her nemesis?

Eh. This just feels like very flimsy apologetics to me. I could never buy into the justification for the Ennead/Sentinels nemesis damage silliness, since there are so many allies and teams that don't do extra damage to each other—and now we have several heros who are completely unrelated (other than the fact that they used to be villains) potentially doing extra damage to each other because of a mechanical fluke. I get that it's just a flawed minor mechanic, but I do feel it could be utilized more creatively.

Anyway I'll stop nattering on about this now.

My guess is that she will have the new Progeny as a nemesis as well.

But then Progeny will have to be a nemesis of every other new hero, and OblivAeon as well...

stopping for real now

I totally expect most if not all of Scion have no love for OblivAeon

Is there somewhere that says the nemesis icon works against fellow heroes as well? I mean, it could work that the nemesis icon doesn't work between heroes, just as when a hero is forced to attack themselves, they don't take extra damage even though they own their nemesis icon (which was clarified somewhere in the rules). However, if that were the case, it would be a lot more boring. Somehow, I kinda like the theory of the villain guard being left wide open to fellow villains turned hero. It's funnier thematically.

The base rulebook talks about any target sharing a nemesis icon increases damage by one.

In the digital game, members of the Ennead and the Operative and Chairman do the bonus damage to one another if you redirect their attacks.

I like the villains turned heroes sharing an icon.  After all they aren't used to working together.  Heroes can cover for that, but Deadline trying to work with The Harpy when one has always been alone and the other is trying to learn how to control the power from a mask she can't take off, and is used to fighting with allies that she controls with her mind.

I don't think them dealing damage to each other is an issue.  And Baron, he knows Legacy isn't turning on him mid-fight, he can use that sap.  But Ambuscade?  Baron might be better off if that guy didn't survive the battle.

I agree.  I kind of like it.

I just don't see all 11 new heroes having the same icon. Maybe the five included in the game, but I kinda hope not. 

I would expect the five OblviAeon villains, as well as Benchmark and Stuntman, to all have the OblvAeon icon.  They are all villains turned hero (well, technically Benchmark was never a villain, but RevoCorp was, so he counts) specifically to deal with OblivAeon.  The Void Guard, I expect will have their own icons.  I could see them sharing an Icon with the Sentinels, but I wouldn't make a guess either way.  If they have their own individual icons, then I give good odds that those icons are the four icons that make up the current Sentinels Icon, or icons that reference their Oblivion Shards.

The Void Guard are particularly unlikely to have OblivAeon as their nemeses because so far, no hero promo has had a different icon from it's original, and the Void Guard promos are from after the OblivAeon events.  So it would be nonsensical for them to be OblivAeon nemeses, and therefore it's unlikely that their regular forms will be OblivAeon nemeses.

Anyone else ready to play Oblivaeon?  :)

A long wait yet - thankfully the hero pack will spice things up a bit for a little while.

I am so ready.

I will continue to be ready for another eight months.

I am very excited to see the art, the flavor text and all the hidden lore. I am blown away the 5 years ago there had aeon men shown with the first set. I can't wait for FotNote to spend all his time doing all the work and me just reading his lore theories. Hmm fun times.

And for Freedom Five Annual #30, hmm comic is going to be read so much. I wonder if we can get them to print #1 too. I really just want Darkwatch #7.

Also I want a Framed full size ¿Quando? ¡Ahorra!, or maybe i should just frame the one i do have.

So hopefull those play tester are not tired of cuting up serval hundered pages of cards, and find time to accualy play the game. It would sure suck if they just finish cutting only to have a new version out. . . And pray that Fixer, Greazer and Fixed Point do not break the game again. For beign a "useless" hero, Mr. Fixer sure does break the game a lot. 

EXCLUSIVE PLAYTESTER INFORMATION REVEAL: That's happened to people at least twice

Wich is why i only print decks I'm just about to use and usually will only print 2 for a full night gaming as interaction with old decks as you mentionned is important too.

I should do this!