Definitive Edition Spoiler Discussion Thread

Since people have been starting to get their copies in the mail, I figured it was time to open a thread for discussion purposes!

What’s your favorite new arts and flavor text, which mechanics changes do you appreciate the most, what things surprised and amazed you?

I am totally here for 70s dork Argent, getting to see Nigel’s face (!), AZ being cozy in his chamber, and all of the podcast characters that made appearances (man Schema is amazingly creepy).

Don’t have my copy yet, but tracking this thread regardless.

Still have to say the biggest shock to me is Space Dad without the mustache and beard. It just seems wrong.

But his Ace Attorney references and copious amounts of artfully ripped clothing do make up for it a little.

Also! Nigel’s face! I realize I already said that but I’m excited about it!

My wife and I have got two games in and have been very pleased with the changes. I am not a fan of the new text (to be fair I write in all caps so I actually had no problem reading the old text) but it is something I noticed and then never was bothered by as the games went on.

I was worried my wife wouldn’t like the changes to her favorite character, Tempest, but she seemed to really enjoy the new feel of controlling the weather. She does, however, miss the cuter version of Raptor Bot.

My favorite thing so far is that Bunker feels much more on brand. The constant reloading of ordinance and the more useful mode cards made me feel like every card was useful. Not to mention, I love that Turret Mode not only kept the BuddaBuddaBudda flavor text but also made that the source of the quote as well!

Okay, I’ve had a chance to look through things, and I have thoughts. Generally good ones.

First, the most-improved deck is definitely Bunker, although this new version is definitely a lot more complicated. Close second, to my surprise, goes to Unity. They’ve toned down a few of her bots, but made it much easier to get them out. I suspect this version will be less abuseable with shenanigans, but much more effective in general.

Absolute Zero, I am definitely going to need to see in play to make a decision. There seem to be a lot more setup-based moving parts where you play so-so cards with the goal of doing something bigger next turn (Haka has something similar, with more cards that provide a small bonus immediately and a big bonus if they last the round.) Fanatic is fascinating, and I feel like she has some wild synergy with our buffed Haka.

Most surprising - Captain Cosmic. His constructs use such a different core mechanic now that I’m curious to see how he operates.

Saddest: Raptor bot. Will never get over that, sorry.

Opening the box up, it was immediately obvious how the expanded staff at >G made their mark, through the graphic design and packaging improvements. (Such as the built-in instructions on how to construct the villain HP spinner.)

I am surprised the box shipped without foam fillers. If you, like me, don’t sleeve, there is extra room in the box for the cards to rattle around. Seems a weird oversight given that C&A both said they don’t sleeve.

The cards are pretty. Really pretty. For those who were worried about the art style, I have to say that I did not notice the variation in style between cards at all, because everything else is so consistent. Actually, this might be a minor drawback, but the combination of a smaller window for the art (I think?) and Adam’s ability to cram in so much more detail to a single image than he used to actually de-emphasize the art a little bit on the table. Which is too bad, because it’s all so good.

Having “START PHASE” and “END PHASE” in bright differentiated colors is like having those “start action” and “end action” tokens built right into the cards, which was brilliant.

I am still not a fan of the move from text to jargon (summon, discover, etc.), especially given that some of the actions cause shuffles or other cascading actions, and some don’t. We had to keep the rulebook handy as a reference. Which made me almost wish that they’d just come up with a symbol language for more lower-level actions, and given us a card with a key. Something like “(reveal cards symbol) 1 Minion, (shuffle symbol).” I’m sure I’ll get the new jargon down eventually, but at first it feels a little clunky.

We played the classic intro (Baron in Insula Primalis – I forgot about peril!) with random heroes (Tachyon, Captain Cosmic, Tempest, Wraith). We used the premade deck, which was funny because we instantly screwed with deck controlling cards. Take that, Baron! It was immediately clear that things that look like minor tweaks could have major cascading effects. For example, Tachyon is largely the same, in that I knew what each card would do just from the name, but one of the little tweaks sprinkled in is that HUD Goggles make her damage irreducible. Hey, that Hypersonic Dash penetrates all the -1s on the table!!! She in general felt just a little more powered-up. I was able to crack off two Lightspeed Barrages in that Baron Blade game, even with that card now shuffling her trash into her deck, without really stretching for it.

I’m sorry to say that, even with all the excellent effort to make the rulebook really explicitly clear, we had a rule debate at the table: Do Reactions on Captain Cosmic’s Constructs trigger when they would be damaged, or when the target they are next to would be damaged? We eventually settled on the latter, given the wording of the definition of Reaction – a change from the way the Constructs previously worked.

We’ll be playing lots more over the weekend, I’m sure!

I got my game two days ago, and I’ve had the chance to play two games. Here are some random thoughts.

• Absolute Zero has always been my favorite and I am so happy to see how much better and smoother he plays.

• Bunker is so much better, I love loading up his weapons and unleashing a barrage.

• Having both Tachyon and Argent Adept in a game means you never want for cards again, feels almost a bit too easy.

• Insula Primalis was really cool and felt more focused and themed around two things: dinos and volcano.

• Tempest is a beast.

• In general the base game characters where strong, but usually ended up playing one card and activating one power and that’s it. Now even basic ones like Bunker and Tempest feels more alive and interactive.

• Wagner Mars base was actually a bit of a let down. Probably down to a quick game and bad pulls.

• Games are soooo much quicker (we got two down at four players in one evening, which is a first).

• Artwork and card layout is on point.

• Spinners made it so much easier to get a read on things like lowest health or highest health, we still accidentally plopped down damage tokens on the villain all the time ^^.

• Wraith seemed almost weaker than usual, but probably just because everyone else was stronger than before.

• It was actually hard to find space for everything in the box even unsleeved (where should I put Villain Character cards???)

• I love this game and I love this edition. The ad for Rook City Renegades 2022 will keep me hyped the rest of the year.

Glad to see folks enjoying DE!

Note that the new cards all say the following (with emphasis added by me).

Play this card next to a Hero character.
They gain this reaction: …

It is a change in how he played previously (because that was often an issue, both thematically and mechanically), but it’s pretty clearly marked on the card. Sounds like this might have been more of an issue with it being a change from what we’re used to? (I had a lot of issues with that kind of thing early in playtesting, so I get it! )

I just for definitive edition and my favorite piece of art is Setback’s absolutely hilarious 80s/90s costume.

@Rabit I think you are right that we were maybe more thrown by the fact that it was a change than the exact wording. We keyed off of the phrase you highlighted, and struggled for a few minutes to match that up with the “a Hero target” and “that Hero target” on the back of the rule book, plus the fact that the Constructs themselves are targets. Then we did a double-take at the interpretation we thought it all left us with, because it wasn’t what we were used to. Anyway, thanks for confirming that we got the change correct!

There were a couple other “oh, dang, wait…” moments associated with some other tweaks, like Tachyon’s base power or Conservation of Energy. Mostly us realizing that our heroes were more powerful than we were used to!

I have to say I love this one. She’s pretty overpowered in EE. I think the way they nerfed her a little while still improving her (e.g., Utility Belt’s power and Inventory Barrage’s overhaul) is just wonderful!

She had some things toned down but I’m a fan of the fact there are more cards in the deck that are more worthwhile. Suture Self and Trust Fund are improved. Utility Belt also has more utlity.

I just played my first Wraith game today and the really funny thing is, I think her deck is strictly better. Impromptu Invention became more unpredictable, but that’s more than made up for by other changes. The only thing that I think got truly nerfed was the Infrared Eyepiece, which was not what I expected – I figured if you’re going to make the Wraith more “strike from the shadows,” change the Targeting Computer to something like making all her projectile damage be fixed.

Maybe the other heroes really just got that much better!

Just played my first game and… I think either Unity is overpowered now or I’ve been playing her wrong for years.

Unity is a “win more” hero, to a certain extent. If her bots aren’t threatened, she can be an absolute juggernaut.

Wraith… I also feel like she’s a little weaker. Infrared Eyepiece got a huge nerf. Stun Bolt is Limited and doesn’t deal Projectile damage. You can’t use Impromptu Invention to immediately grab Utility Belt+Razor Ordnance+Micro-Targeting Computer+Throwing Knives right off the bat; the new Impromptu Invention is fast but it can grab the Sonic Nullifier or Smoke Bombs, which are not so great. She does have the powerful Flashbang Projector, which can be as good as Take Down in some situations, but it costs a play and a power.

Absolute Zero also feels nerfed. Probably because he’s missing literally every card I ever use with him. Especially impale and cold snap which I suppose is because neither of those cards actually played into AZ’s gimmick.

Bunker, meanwhile, I don’t know. We got dealt some really awful RNG in regards to him so we didn’t get to see him at full capacity. Same with Argent Adept.

Edit: Also, I’ve gotta be honest I kind of miss Flying Smash’s old artwork.

My copy should arrive by Thursday! I’m curious, how are the events (critical or otherwise) if anyone has tried them out? Particularly wondering about Citizen Dawn, as I remember Christopher and Adam trying to build a “stealth mission to the Citadel of the Sun” on an episode once.

This is weird to me since I feel AZ is finally fun and playable for the first time ever. I love the DE version.

Yeah, I prefer Enhanced Edition AZ. But to each their own.

Also, shockingly Grand Warlord Voss is now worse than Matriarch (he’s a 9 and Matriarch’s an 8. Or maybe he’s an 8 and Matriarch’s a 7. Can’t remember). And Argent Adept is a 10 on a 10 point difficulty scale. Of course, I haven’t tried him out yet so that might not be entirely true. I do have trouble believing there’s anything worse than Matriarch (even with good crowd control she’s insufferable. At least Iron Legacy only does, like, two types of damage).

The Matriarch has had a few nerfs. Most notably, her retaliation damage has been moved to her cohorts - so once you knock them out you can destroy her birds with impunity - and her cohorts don’t resummon each other so they’re easier to get rid of. She also destroys your stuff less.

She’s still a tough fight, but she’s definitely easier than before, especially if you bring a hero who can tank her ping damage.

Argent Adept was high-complexity in EE, too. And his deck has very few changes, mostly fiddling with the Accompanies his instruments can trigger.

We played Voss the other day…his first card was Forced Deployment, and that went from his weakest first play to probably his strongest. He definitely feels more like a “big event” opponent; he has an easier time popping destroyed Gene-Bound into play and he has a few new tricks up his sleeve. We finally did win (after dinner early and mid game moments where the situation seemed pretty dire) with Tempest down and Wraith, Haka, and Ra in single digits. Definitely a strong, cosmic-level opponent! We were glad we won.

If you mastered playing Argent Adept in EE, you won’t have too much trouble adjusting to his Definitive version. Other than forgetting which instrument does what now. XD

Yeah, I never liked Argent.

Well he has his fans. I’m among them, though he’s not my very favorite or anything. (I’d be far more interested in his fully overpowered version that’s suitable for soloing whole villains.)

No surprises, yet. I’ve thumbed through the decks, but not played, yet. Love the new art. I have to say the “we have got to stop meeting like this” in Tachyon’s deck has a number of feels. I like the new mechanics for Bunker and Tempest, and can’t wait to play a few rounds.

The spinners are awesome. Tracking health was always a pain in the old edition.

Perhaps something like . . .

Power: Play, Draw, and/or Summon up to 3 cards. You may use each Power on an Instrument card now.

Designing solo-hero mechanics is probably going to take more thought than that. If I wanted to try it, I’d grab 2 random Incapacitated Heroes and just have them start the game in play, one before and one after Argent’s turn. But unless his EE deck is radically different, his damage output is so incredibly low that it’d be almost impossible for him to win games that way, so really it would take a whole new deck.

“Solo Mode” sounds interesting… I mean, I’m used to doing solo games on the apps, controlling 3-5 heroes, but having one hero cut loose could be interesting. It would definitely fit better with certain heroes (Legacy, Haka, and Mr Fixer, for instance) than others.

Perhaps taking inspiration from Oblivaeon’s Mission Deck would work for that. Just have the solo mode hero Have a certain number of Mission and/or other hero incap powers, and then adjust the scaling so that H is either 1+([mission/incap cards]/X). X is what would have to be playtested. I think either 1 or 2 (so each extra card is +1H or +.5H) would be a good start.

Another scaling could be having the solo hero start out with certain ongoings or items in play, but with the number of villains that have board wipes, that could be a bit of a gamble. Unless certain hero items are made indestructible (like Legacy’s ring).

Okay, may have to just make a new thread for this… Yeah, I’m used to house ruling stuff. An old gaming group modified D&D 3.5 a LOT… and then 80% of what we did ended up in Pathfinder 1e…

On an unrelated note: Captain Cosmic without a beard is terrifying.

Terrifying is a bit much. It just doesn’t seem right he could be so baby faced.

Edit: I’ll note I’ve gotten more used to it though.

Captain Cosmic with a mustache is awesome, though. Such Dad Power.

I feel like AA is a notch more complex. In EE, you didn’t really have to remember what instruments did what; you could just pull any two songs, and then find the single instrument that triggers the combination of both. Now, all the instruments have weird combinations.

It’s interesting how the villains have changed. I think the least changed is Akash. She was mostly refined and clarified, it seemed. Voss is… well, I guess the intent with him was to up his difficulty to reflect how big a deal he is. He’s nasty, but the general fight seems to be the same (I classified his stuff to an old WoW player as like the boss Patchwork; a beef gate and DPS test, no major swerves). Which is fine. I like the tough but straightforward slug-fest.

Omni’s new works is interesting. Can’t wait to play that one.

I’m looking forward to what the DE version of the Ennead will look like.

This actually blew my mind cause I think AZ is -so- much stronger in DE. Sets up faster, recovers faster, has a built in extra power in his deck so you can thermal shockwave and coolant blast.

The only DE hero i think is weaker then their EE counterpoint is Wraith, whose eyepiece and item acceleration card was OP in EE. And even if she is maybe a little weaker, i think her bag of tricks got much more interesting.

This might be a bad time to point out that Wraith was the first hero I ever played…

Copy just came in today, and I’ve spent a lot of time browsing through the cards but haven’t gotten a game in yet, so this is just a cursory glance.

I think the deck I’m most impressed with the changes is Captain Cosmic. He was my least favorite hero in the old edition, but it looks like all the little things about him that annoyed me have been changed for the better:

Destructive Response activates whenever a construct blows up, instead of just the first time.
Construct Cataclysm doesn’t force you to wipe out all your stuff if it’s played accidently. Its now deals damage based on the constructs in your trash, so you don’t need to feel as bad about your stuff getting destroyed constantly. It’s almost like the old Lightspeed Barrage.
Vitality Conduit and Dynamic Syphon now activate more reliably and don’t need to take damage to be used.
Wounding Buffer won’t hit the target their next to if they hurt themselves (or if their allies hit them).
Conservation of Energy now serves a totally different purpose instead of being a second “blow up all your stuff for some benefit”.

I can’t wait to actually try him out in a match.

Absolute Zero looks more reliable to me, being able to get all his vital equipment out in one turn is a huge boon. The one thing I didn’t like about it was Coolant Blast being nerfed while Thermal Shockwave remained unchanged, since TS was already considered better generally but CB could beat it with teamwork from other heroes using fire damage (especially with Termination AZ - I’ve gotten many 40+ damage CBs with that combo).

However, seeing the full deck now and that AZ can get 2 power uses, TS and CB now feed into each other instead of competing, so I’m not as annoyed by that loss anymore. Also looking forward to trying him out.

Given that X-metal’s preferred cards were Impale and Cold Snap, I get the impression they play AZ differently than you and I play him, which would definitely influence they’re perception of the two versions. Not intending anything negative by saying that, just acknowledging that there are a lot of ways to play the heroes, which I think says a lot about the game!

Yeah, those card’s aren’t what AZ is about to me. But then, neither is Coolant Blast, a card I very rarely use. To me, playing AZ is all about getting all four of his equipment in play, or at least everything but the Cryo Chamber. Then, he just keeps healing and tanking blows until he has enough HP for Thermal Shockwave to be a safe offensive tool. If you know your equipment will be blown up, then either don’t be AZ that game, or be a sad panda and hope that Modular Realignment suffices.

My favorite cards used to be Impale and Cold Snap, too, but it was because AZ’s intended style of play was slow and fragile. Now that he actually works as intended, he doesn’t need them.

The weird thing is: I like playing AZ (or, at least, I did in EE) but I hate characters that have to damaged themselves to be useful which is part of the reason I hate playing Nightmist.

I don’t hate playing AZ or Fanatic, but I used to be really bad at it, because I was always mis-estimating how much risk I could handle before getting myself killed. More practice has made me better with Zero, but not as much with Fanny, who I still usually have Incapacitated well before a game ends. Nightmist, however, rarely actually damages herself all that much, since she can hide behind the Amulet and send all her self-damage at someone else’s face (which is why I always equate her to John Constantine). She’s the closest to invincible of any hero in the game IMO.

Finally opened mine and setup the pieces last night! Taking a cursory look through the decks has me pumped to try them all out!

One question from someone who has yet to play the physical game: do you just stack the 1/5/10 tokens on a non-character target to represent the damage it’s taken, then destroy it once they meet the max HP? I didn’t see that addressed in the rulebook. I can only foresee a little difficulty with this method when looking for lowest HP target. Seems like a pile of tokens for their current HP would have to be changed much more often.

Speaking from my immense experience with playing SOTM at the table, we started out by placing the tokens on a target to represent damage, but it didn’t take long for us to figure out that this made it very hard to determine highest/lowest HP status quickly and repeatedly. So we decided that putting in the extra effort up front, of counting HP onto each target and then taking it away when damage is dealt, pays off big time and is totally worth it.

Yeah, I don’t know why they insist on telling people to put the tokens on to represent damage instead of taking them off to represent HP. It’s so much easier to do everything that way.

Yeah. I usually use them to count hp, then take them off as damage is taken. But if you do it this way and say bring Captain Cosmic to fight against Voss, you may run out of the 1 hp tokens. This did make me wonder if they were intended to be used as damage.

It does sound much better for quick HP at a glance without doing math. Only drawback would be making “change” in the token bank every time damage is dealt.

Oh man! I bet CC and Unity vs. Voss or Dawn in Insula Primalis makes you break out the coin jar for extra tokens!

Whatever my gripes about AZ in DE are his flavor text is still hilarious. I particularly like the new Isothermic Transducer quote.

CC’s constructs, at least in early game before you have certain cards out, seem to be quite fragile, especially if there’s any global damage boosts (like in Atlantis). they tend to either be full health or dead. But, yeah, in general having both minion maker heroes in there could be a bookkeeping nightmare…

You’re definitely meant to take HP tokens off as things get damaged. That’s why HP can’t drop below 0 in DE. It remains to be seen if anything will be able to gain HP beyond its max in DE, like Akash’Flora did, but it’s possible to represent using tokens this way.

Well, six games in, we’ve tried all the heroes, most of the villains and environments, and an event, and I think I have a pretty good handle on my impressions of the Definitive Edition.

What I like

• Overall smoothness with which the game runs. The clear breakdown into phases and elimination of some annoying concepts we used to have to keep track of (like making sure there are no effects from cards no longer in play).

• Overall production values are terrific.

• The art. Wow, fantastic, they/Adam could definitely publish an art book based just on his work from this game and it would serve as an excellent showcase, and probably sell pretty well. (Some of it’s also really funny. I love Baron Blade surreptitiously bringing up a welding torch on Platform Bot.)

• The recalibration of the villain decks is fantastic. Voss actually feels like the epic event he was supposed to, but it’s well-gauged to the heroes so that the game still feel achievable. (And indeed, we did win!) Omnitron got an excellent thematic upgrade; battling it really feels like going up against a machine - and you can use its programming against it, by looking at which set of effects the next round will trigger! Baron Blade has some extra minions and devices in his bag of tricks. And overall, scaling back some of the “that card” effects that would eliminate all the players’ tableaus was a good choice, so you can hang on just enough to keep feeling useful.

• Same with the environments. The “peril” really does feel more like peril to everybody than the environment trying to hit the heroes just as much as the villain does.

• Some of the heroes got major revamps that make playing them feel like you get to really lean in to their theme. I love that there’s a way to build Haka out now where he just gets in there (Defender + Sudden Utu + throw in Dance in the Fray and a Haka for good measure). Bunker feels much more focused on setting up and firing his guns. Tempest looks really interesting, but I haven’t had a game last long enough to get a payoff from him yet!

• Making concepts like Reactions operate consistently between heroes (and cards).

• The lore ties into each character’s deck so much more strongly now. We actually see Tachyon’s wife, and get a glimpse of how that story went. Captain Cosmic and Galactra actually seem like a recurring thing in his deck.

• The events! I don’t particularly feel like having the Event cards or the Critical Event alternate character cards is a better or worse way to achieve the effect than the old method of character card variants, but I like that now we have all the lore tie-ins laid out explicitly. And everybody has been clamoring for a set of definitive campaign games!

What I don’t like

Okay, first of all, I feel extremely weird that there is a thing about the Definitive Edition that I don’t like. And I also feel like the specific thing I don’t like is quite unexpected, given where GTG is both as a company in general and as game designers. It kind of bugs me that, with all the improvements made, there is something that I like better in the old edition. It boils down to this: overall legibility on the table.

• Fonts are small, and headline fonts have bubble letters that reduce contrast. I have a hard time reading any cards that aren’t in my play area; often I end up standing up to lean over the table to read villain and environment stuff. I’m 37, I’m not old!

• There are a lot of walls of text, and I think a few more line-breaks or a set of icons or something could have gone a long way, in the way Spirit Island cards can get across quite a lot with an economy of ink. One simple example: Argent Adept’s reworked Lyra, which I had to read several times to get. Line breaks before and after that “or” would have made it much clearer what was going on.

• Especially on the characters with mostly art from older eras, and especially in medium to low light conditions, the ‘busier’ art and largely desaturated color palettes make it hard to spot which cards are out on the table at a glance. I used to be able to glance across at a hero’s tableau or the villain’s minions and identify cards by a distinctive predominant color and shape. This comes up when, for example, you can throw a power use to another player and are trying to figure out your best option, or when you’re prioritizing targets for the next round, or when you are collecting/summoning. I just have to get closer to the cards to tell what they are (or ask someone who is closer to them to tell me).

• Until I get the colors memorized, the only difference between the “+/-1 damage dealt” and “+/-1 damage taken” tokens is the word “by” vs. “to,” again in a low-contrast font/color combo against a busy background. I would have liked those tokens better if they were different shapes or had different background motifs. I may just play with the EE tokens, because those had a really big “DEALT” or “TAKEN” that I could read across the table.

One thing I do want to be absolutely clear about is that I definitely like the things I like much more than I dislike the things I dislike. (And I can live with the dislikes - I just feel like sharing and discussing.) Especially seeing the lore thread its way through all the characters’ decks much more strongly. It’s great to see, after hundreds of Letters Page episodes to build out all that background, it finally appears on my game table. I will play a lot of this game and I will buy the next round, for sure!

That actually reminds me of the biggest problem I have: all the new terms. Like, when I first started playing the Enhanced Edition I had to read the manual all of once and then I got it easily. But while playing Definitive Edition I’m constantly going back to the manual to check what things mean. Summon and Discover are particularly hard to keep straight and when my mom played Arcane Cadence it took a full minute to figure out what to do with what. I’m sure I’ll get used to it as I play more games but still.

Equipment cards being called Items now was a little weird at first too but I got used to that quickly.

I’d argue the EE version overall was harder to read.

I dunno about font size, but the 1’s do all too often look like 2’s, which is a big problem in EE. :B

I haven’t found the new keywords overly difficult. When to shuffle is pretty obvious, you shuffle when you just looked at some or all of the deck. There’s a little learning curve to it, but it’s not awful.

In Wayward Sun (cue rock wails), there’s a cosmic thing hanging out over Insula Primalis, empowering the Citizens of the Sun until it learns enough about how powered humans fight. What?! I don’t remember that thing. What do you all think it was?

Gathering information to find out about human conflicts could be a number of beings, including Voss or the Celestial Tribunal. But powering them first? That does not sound like a Voss thing to do. Maybe Wager Master, but again, I think he would just jump in there and start with the havoc.

That’s fascinating, I can’t think of any cosmic entities that go around powering people up like that. Not quite Voss’ style, nor Jansa, definitely not Oblivaeon…so who could it be?

Sounds like the kind of thing the Bloodsworn Force might do, or perhaps The Fervor.

Yeah, I’ve had to keep looking at the back cover of the rule book, especially the collect vs discover bit.

Could just be random aliens. Comics used to do that all the time and still do occasionally.

I’ve only played a few fights so far, but one of them was Akash, and I feel like I have to disagree. I was using Haka, Ra and AZ and I could not clear her field of Primeval Limbs. I couldn’t get rid of Harsh Renewal which I think was part of it, but I generally had three limbs out by the end of every single turn. And that is with three heroes who can generally output a lot of damage.

Then again, I also had an oopsie with AZ, who just struggled in that game. Part of it was those freaking Brambles which nerfed everything he could do, but I also completely missed that the Modules now give you an extra card play, which likely made a big difference. Entropic Fungi also kept eating all his equipment.

In terms of biggest changes. Bunker is a big one, but even after two games with him (both against Blade, one of which I’m sad to say I lost) I don’t feel like I’ve seen him firing on all cylinders. Maybe it was bad card draw? I’m not sure. It wasn’t till the end of the second game that I felt like things were working properly.

But, man, absolute props to the changes on Cosmic. So many of his cards I used to consider bad plays are now excellent, he has a lot of ways to mitigate damage which is excellent and overall I LIKE playing him, which is a new feeling.

My last hero played was Unity (Yeah, another reason I might have struggled with my first game against blade was bringing Unity, Bunker and Cosmic, and not bringing people with less set-up) and again, there were some major changes. Modular Workbench in particular blew my mind, and I generally was playing enough cards that I never even felt the need for Swift Bot when I drew her. I will say though, I’m a bit sad about the nerf to Stealth Bot. Instead of protecting everyone, it is only Unity and her team, which is fine, but still a nerf.

Planning on playing more on Tuesday and Thursday, due to complicated reasons I have to stay after work for an extra few hours, with no work to actually do, so I’m planning on bringing this to pass the time. Looks like next on my list is…

Dawn

0_0

Fought good old Omnitron yesterday and it turns out the whole fabricate/exterminate thing makes him way easier so long as you have enough ongoing destruction cards.

@X-metal That is kind of what I meant when I said earlier that Omnitron feels more like fighting a machine, and you can take advantage of its programming to defeat it. You can time your destruction of its ongoing cards to avoid whichever effect (fabricate or exterminate) you like least, or let the cards ride if the effect doesn’t bother you too much this turn.

@Chaosmancer I think you’re on to a funny downside of the way games are so much faster: you see much less of any given deck within the span of a game. I likewise feel that I’ve never got Tempest going; he seems to really want the Storm-blade and several weather effects out in play but I’ve never managed to get more than the blade and one weather card. I’ll keep trying, but sometimes I just wish these games were longer so I could try out more combinations with the heroes as I get into them!

I can agree to that, I’m also feeling a bit chicken about playing the harder villains until I get a better feel for some of the heroes, so I’ll likely end up playing a LOT of Blade and Akash til I get that good sense for them.

I just tried out Captain Cosmic’s First Appearance variant, and I loved it. I haven’t tried all the FA variants yet, but I suspect this is going to be a favorite!

So, did Dawn and WOW, this was so different than I expected.

Played Legacy, Tachyon and Tempest, in the Freedom Tower.

Legacy felt fairly similar. Some extra support cards and powers which were nice. Tachyon felt just crazy good, and Tempest was Monstrously good it felt like.

But, part of that was me trying to strategize and waiting to unleash on Dawn after she flipped back. So I had a lot of things I was specifically not playing and not using, because they would have wiped the board and just made life more difficult.

Best play of the game though? I had slightly miscalculated and spent an extra turn with invincible Dawn, but through a lucky draw Legacy had gotten Takedown. So, just as a precaution I played it while Tachyon had an empty deck and Tempest was just nastily set-up.

And yes, you guessed correctly. When Dawn flipped back, the card that I used Takedown to discard was Devastating Aurora. XD

That turn Tachyone unleashed a 30 pt Lightspeed barrage, and by the time the Environment turn came around, Dawn had taken 60 damage and had only 4 hp left… just in time for me to realize that “ally” includes the Tower Guards, meaning Legacy was boosting them +2… and Dawn is taken out by Security.

Immediate Edit before I cleared the game: Legacy boosts Ally characters. Not ally targets. So, he can only boost main heroes, not any other hero targets. Dawn survived with 2 hp

And played Truth… I still win, but man, that was so close to be hilarious.

///////////////////

I’m feeling arrogant from beating Dawn so easily (Yes, I was playing in the Tower). So, doing Omnitron in Atlantis with…

Fanatic, Argent Adept, and Wraith, since they are the only one’s I haven’t tried yet.

BTW, things that I’ve figured out. I’ve been taking the deck dividers out of the box, and placing the hero hp spinners on those, then, as the hp changes, I rearrange those cards. This makes it very easy for solo play on seeing who is the most hp and least hp, because I just need to look for who is top and bottom on the chart. Then, since I was having troubles distinguishing +1 damage taken from +1 damage dealt, I started putting any modifiers to the hero’s taken damage (armor or breach? I don’t know a good term for anti-armor) next to those dividers instead of in the play area, since all the hp tracking is done over there.

It makes it much easier to parse, IMO.

Updating while I play

Omnitron is mean. Got hit hard round 1, thought Fanatic using End of Days would help… then Atlantis destroyed it before I could use it. This is bad.

Okay, few rounds of getting my teeth kicked in and things are looking like they will end in a victory. However, it all hinged on a specific thing that I might have gotten wrong. Atlantis’s Ritual Room. It says “after any hero does [various elemental damages] put 1 token on this card.” I have Fanatic, and I had Holy Nova. I think this card adds 1 token for each instance of radiant damage, and so I was able to get the 10 tokens I needed very quickly, which led to a bunch of card draw and extra powers, which I turned into a set-up that has let me claw my way from defeat.

But I’ve spent most of the game with 10 hp or less on all heroes (Argent is keeping them alive, along with some timely damage reductions and Fanatic’s self-healing with Righteousness) so I feel like if I was wrong on that card, this victory I feel I am going to get would be false.

Did win. Wraith kept being the best for Argent’s card plays because Fanatic didn’t have much of a hand. So I got multiple cards like leverage and grappling hook played per turn, and eventually had most of my deck in my hand, then Inventory Barrage. Then Leverage and get the items back… Yeah, burnt the robot down FAST once I got out from under his endless parade of devices.

Well, I did ask this question for the Definitive Edition episode of the podcast, and they didn’t answer it. Maybe it was cut for “time will tell” reasons…

That does sort of seem like the thing that’s building to something later on, i.e. it was just whatever and then a writer some years down the line was like, “Hey, remember that thing? Let’s do something with that.”

I’m curious why it looks like the “UFOs” from the first Writer’s Room.

Played against Akash and followed lore by having Argent, looking more handsome than ever, get absolutely thrashed. The rest of us also got thrashed because we had bad luck with cards and the fudging primeval limbs are so punishing.

So I looked through Tachyon’s deck for kicks and… is Lightspeed Barrage really based on how many cards are in your trash period instead of the no-longer-existent Burst Cards? In a deck mostly made of one-shots? That’s gonna make things much easier, hopefully.

Yep! But then you shuffle your trash into your deck. So you use it more often, but it’s not as crazy powerful.

Just tried my first game against a villain other than Blade today - also used Akash. Thought, “Oh, difficulty 4 can’t be that much worse than 1!” It was.

I was AZ, second player had played Enhanced Edition before and went with Captain Cosmic, third was new and picked Haka. We got pummeled. Right off the bat, two limbs that deal damage and destroy Ongoing & Items. More kept coming that dealt a set 2 damage (not scaled with ) to either lowest HP or everything, so Constructs couldn’t stay out. I didn’t get my Isothermic Transducer for several rounds, and never saw Null-point Calibration Unit (if that’s still the name) so I couldn’t heal at all.

All that to say that I agree with the sentiment of others asking where are the difficulty 2 and 3 villains to slowly ramp up for new players? Baron Blade is only fun for so long, but it looks like Rook City Renegades is jumping right in with more difficulty 4’s as the floor.

If you look back over the EE Rook City it had some of the harder villains in it as the first expansion. There’s also still plenty of time by the end to have villains rated as easier. Overall, the difficulty is just a guide and everyone’s experience may vary depending upon what your heroes draw and what the villain pulls. Additionally, you’ll have more heroes to mix and match in that might fit your playstyle better. Basically, I’d say don’t let the difficulty stop you from playing villains in the core box and eventual Rook City Renegades as they’re all good challenges.

I would recommend trying her again, but definitely with different heroes (besides Haka). The difficulty scale is a very rough outline (which I’ve personally found to be mostly accurate), and although any grouping can theoretically win you a fight, the makeup of your team adds to the overall difficulty of the fight.

Requiring multiple rounds to get a key Item in play is also very rare for AZ in DE, so that seems like a very bad start for him. At the very least, you’d think you’d get one of his Ongoings, which could have been very helpful (and helps speed up setup).

Did another Akash fight. Beat her this time because we actually got good card draws and I learned how to use Tempest.

Build up to Shielding Winds and spam it whenever you can?

Yep, basically. The first time was on purpose, the second time was a complete accident.

I once had a game against Cosmic Omnitron where I had Shielding Winds out every turn beginning on turn 2… Maerynian Aquaculturalist and Alien Weather Patterns can draw out your deck real quickly (and I got quite lucky).

(And Cosmic Omnitron can neuter himself quite successfully if he starts with the Ongoings that destroy his other Ongoings)

I probably had poor shuffles, because AZ started with two pairs of one-shots: Destroy Ongoing, and deal himself 3 fire + 1 cold to all enemies. Was definitely wondering when I would see some items.

Likewise with Akash, the first two limbs were a new one, I think. Target area with most cards and deal 2 to everything there, plus destroy Ongoing & Item. You can imagine we struggled to get any kind of setup as more limbs kept coming out.

My biggest problem so far is just finding people to play with. I’ve tried a game or two myself, Citizen Dawn for one, but got a few rounds in when I realized I’d just been totally ignoring Truth and scrapped it all from there. Seems to be too many parts for one to keep track of by themselves.

It’s definitely not for everyone. I’ve been playing SOTM for quite a while, and so I’ve become quite familiar with most cards, so I’ve actually gotten to the point that I enjoy playing solo (3 heroes) more, because otherwise I feel like I’m controlling the game too much (if someone asks me what to play, it’s essentially the same as me just playing alone but with more steps). And I still miss effects sometimes, but sometimes I just accept that and move on. Other times, I backtrack if possible and try to remember not to miss that again.

Oh dear. Do you suppose that Mayorovd had their phone hacked and taken over by a virus bot? Or was this user always a virus bot, and they’re getting worrisomely good at pretending to be actual humans with their opening post, before later reverting to the usual ineffectively blatant suspicious-linking?

Probably always a bot because a quick Control + F reveals that their first post is just a copy-past of this post.

Wow, spam bots are way more advanced than I thought. That’s concerning.

They’ve been doing that for a while: copy a good post, then, when it hasn’t been immediately reported, edit it to be spam

Unfortunately, they’re not just bots. There are (off-shore) companies that are hired to do this kind of work. It’s infuriating.

Someone actually pays them to render this “service”? The mind boggles.

So, I was recently given the DE corset as a gift, and have played two games so far—an introductory one with the preset Baron Blade deck, which we won, and then a Citizen Dawn game, which we failed miserably at.

It was in Magmaria, and the Heroes were Ra, Unity, and Bunker, with no Variants or Events. The opening two Citizens were Anvil and Truth, so we had to deal with -2 to all our damage. We eventually defeated Truth, and things were going fine for a bit after that.

I don’t remember exactly in what order it happened, but Dawn got out 2 copies each of Channel the Eclipse and Luminous Leadership, and then she flipped. We did not have any Ongoing-destruction in sight (Unity had already used the one Bee-Bot that she’d seen all game to destroy Return with the Dawn and prevent Truth from returning), and so Dawn was effectively playing four cards and dealing us all 8 damage every turn. And of course, Hammer and Battery were also there, both with +2 damage dealt from the Leaderships.

Suffice it to say that we were swiftly vanquished.

So, what happened? Did we just get bad draws? Or are we just less experienced then we thought? We were getting acclimated to new DE Heroes and Villains all at once, so that could be a part of it.

I’d say a combination of all of it. Bunker and Unity can sometimes take just a bit longer to ramp up. Out of that team only Unity can destroy Ongoings and that can hamper things against Dawn. The high DR early on is also rough even with Ra.

But does this corset flatter your hips, @Fjur?

Thanks for the advice, Powerhound. Next time we’ll bring Heroes that set up quicker and have more Ongoing-destruction, and hope that we don’t have such a bad start.

Since I’m new to DE, I’d appreciate a list of which core Heroes can and can’t destroy Ongoings, if anyone would be willing to provide that?

Why yes, it does indeed.

Core set heroes that can destroy Ongoings:
Argent Adept
Fanatic
Haka
Tachyon
Tempest
Unity
Wraith

All of the RCR heroes are capable of destroying Ongoings but I’d note Alpha and Setback have some stipulations regarding theirs. Argent Adept and Harpy have Ongoing cards with repeatable instances of destroying Ongoings. Overall, I wouldn’t say you need lots of Ongoing destruction but Unity’s Ongoing destruction requires playing a Bee Bot then having it destroyed. Which makes it less accessible and not the best when you have two other heroes with no means of doing so. Just not having the high DR early could’ve made the Ongoing destruction moot.

And it’s not like the game is necessary a failure as an entertainment experience. To quote my favorite player of Sentinels from back in the day, "I’m a Dwarf Fortress player; losing is fun!

Not a dwarf fortress player, but a similar attitude drove me away from 99% of multiplayer games (especially StarCraft).

In short: I don’t care if I win or lose, if I get a chance to do the awesome thing (whatever that is).

Yeah, what matters is the experience you have. It’s debatable whether a spectacular loss is better than a mediocre win, but a mediocre loss is definitely better than a totally lame win, where the players are left crying “hax!” on themselves.

Anyway, while some heroes have SOME ongoing destruction, few have a LOT of it…I don’t know DE, but if it’s similar to EE, then Argent Adept is the only one who has repeatable O/E destruction which doesn’t require drawing multiple cards.

I disagree there. I like finding “creative exploits”, especially when they lead to a win that comes off like “IDK, but we pulled it off somehow!”

Of course, Sentinels is the game that mostly engendered my love for co-op, even though the vast majority of my experience has been solo in the app. There’s something about all winning or losing together that makes it more fun for me.

Mind you, I’ll also enjoy competitive games from time to time but don’t usually play aggressively to win. It’s like a happy little accident when I do. On the other hand, when I see it’s impossible for me to win I like to switch to Chaos Agent and wreck the rest of the game to my ability. That’s why I don’t care as much for “multiplayer solitaire” games with little to no interaction.

Finding a creative exploit wouldn’t be totally lame. I’m talking about things like how the original Gloomweaver was way weaker than he was supposed to be; imagine if your first game with Infernal Relics just had Argent Adept play Cedistic Dissonant, Omnitron-X forcing Gloomy to play an extra card that happens to be a Relic, and Grandpa Legacy gave Argent a power to use the Dissonant to pop an Instrument and destroy the Relic, then do that two more times and beat Gloomy without him ever doing anything notable. All while Nightmist just sits there drawing cards and never actually interacts with her archenemy. I for one would definitely call 'hax" on the Dissonant’s potency in this scenario, but only a little bit. I would call even more “hax” if Setback and Guise just accidentally happen to hit all three Relics with Fumbling Fool and Gimmicky Character, since there’s NO WAY it should be possible to win this way, just because of a ridiculously unlikely shuffle. The ability to win this way is just reflective of the card game format, and in many cases of the limited design skills the team had earlier in their career.

Haka. Savage Mana.
vs
Chairman, Citizen Dawn, or Voss…

There is no Savage Mana in DE for Haka.

Close. In all cases I’d call that just good strategy. A better example is that Brain Burn is designed to shut down Baron Blade just before he wins, but it also screws over the Chairman if played on turn 1. Similarly, the various Device and Minion synergies in Luminary, Mordengrad, and the Mobile Defense Platform are all intended for BB, and they work great in that case, but have some odd interactions with other villains like Omnitron and Voss (my favorite being that Voss apparently can Gene-Bind humans, but only when he’s neither on the ground nor in space). And Savage Mana devastates the Matriarch to an extent that’s borderline unfair, but even worse is Legacy using Final Evolution: Projectile to just completely ignore the birds forever. The worst example however was when Expatriette’s Hair-Trigger Reflexes could stop more Fowl from being played… that was one of the relatively few cases of a situation being so obviously hax that they actually changed the rules to fix it.

Now when a villain and hero who are each other’s nemesis have interactions with each other that are really outside of what’s normally possible, that’s probably not hax because it’s intended to work that way… Omnitron-X being able to Self-Sabotage the Components of normal/Cosmic Omnitron, for instance. That’s weird, but it makes perfect sense in fluff and crunch. An example that works in crunch but not so much in fluff: probably the single most hax thing Savage Mana can do is keep the Personal Cloaking Device away from Ambuscade forever, so that Vanish becomes a blank card and Ansel is even more pathetic than he usually is (Challenge mode excepted). And the ultimate example of the fluff not being supported by crunch is Dreamer vs Visionary, where Vizh ought to have a Savage Mana effect that works on the Projections, but instead it’s a purely one sided battle.

If you do get a chance at RCR I recommend trying it, because Ambuscade is not a pushover anymore. No more Cloaking Device, but he flips on every villain one-shot. His immune side allows you to search for him at the start of each hero turn by revealing his top card, but a one-shot played then will have a worse effect than on his turn (stealing the spotlight and all that!). And yeah, as mentioned no more Haka eating things. However, I did play with a newbie using the Werewolf variant and he was able to use the new Haka of Battle (I may have the wrong name, but basically a single turn Ongoing that allows Haka to discard up to his entire hand at the start of next turn for massive single target damage). That with Wraith’s new Inventory Barrage (discard, not destroy Items) were able to knock Ansel down quickly once we got him to stay on the vulnerable front side for a few turns.