Weekly One-Shot #20, When it Rains

The Freedom Six [minus Golem Unity] vs Advanced Voss in Megalopolis. This'll be a fun one.

This is either gonna be the game where I learn to use Freedom Six Tempest effectively or the one that reinforces why I never use him.

God... I haven't tried it, but i hope gene bound guard isn't one or two of the first minions

Mint.

Rough start but I figured if I could survive the first wave, I could win the war of attrition. I focused on taking out the spaceship and then switched to healing, deck control, and damage mitigation via subzero atmosphere. I managed to avoid forced deployment and the other spaceship as I slowly and methodically took out Voss's HP.

Mint. At the end of the game, Bunker had his entire deck in his hand (minus the cards that were in play). I couldn't get things into the Omni-cannon fast enough.

Near Mint. I made the mistake of taking out all the minions in the first round, and subsequently couldn't keep up with Voss's double cardplays, resulting in a round 4 loss. In my second attempt, I went the slow route of leaving out the Fire Sworns as potentials for hitting Absolute Zero while I had everyone get setup for flipping and killing Voss quickly. It took a while, but eventually I won.

The name for this this week's game is right on you need to use Cleansing Downpour to make up for all the damage inflicted upon the team.   I found after I get Infrared Eyepiece it was safe to use Sub-Zero Atmosphere to lessen some of the damage.  After he flipped I don't think Voss dealt damage due to the Throat Jabs and Hypersonic Assaults I has built up.

I'm at a complete loss as to how to beat this one, even with the ideas you folks have given.  I'm well past "Mint", and at the point of "comic found propping up a shaky table at a particularly greasy diner."

I'm not having much luck, in other words. 

I can't seem to manage to get out any healing/decksearching/lockdown mechanisms before the hostage crisis, and at that point everyone is in low single digit HP. If I switch to raw damage output, then half of my people don't have powers to use during the hostage crisis, and I die on the next turn.  I'm trying to use Isothermic reprisals to whittle down the ship and Targeting Innocents, but its a stopgap at best. I can see how you could use subzero atmosphere and the cleansing rain to do something useful... but by the time I get them half my people are incapped.  I'm clearly doing something wrong here.  

Could some of you with mint give an overview of the first two turns?  I kind of feel like the entire fight is won or lost by the time the 3rd turn Hostage Crisis rolls around- if you aren't set up with some kind of power for Tempest and Bunker, then they are just dead weight, and this is a battle where you really can't have anyone sitting around.  Or maybe you can, and I'm just not seeing it. 

Well, here's what I did in what became my Near Mint:

Round 1

Voss: Ion-Lancer targets Wraith, Shock Infantry targets Bunker

Tempest: Chain Lightning (4 -> TCF Conqueror, 3 -> Frosthound, 2 -> Ion-Lancer), skip power

Wraith: Razor Ordnance Psi-Weaver

Tachyon: Nimble Strike

Bunker: External Combustion, skip power

Absolute Zero: Isothermic Transducer, Elemental Wrath Infantry

Round 2

Voss: Both of Zero's reactions on Targeting Innocents

Tempest: Shielding Winds, Sacrifice

Wraith: Smoke Bombs, Razor Ordnance TCF Conqueror

Tachyon: Fleet of Foot, HUD Goggles, Research Grant, Team Leader

Bunker: Adhesive Foam Grenade, skip power

Absolute Zero: Coolant Blast Targeting Innocents

Megalopolis: Target Absolute Zero first, reaction damage on Targeting Innocents

Round 3

Voss: Destroy Research Grant, Conqueror hits Tempest first, Zero second, reaction damage on TCF Conqueror, Shock Infantry targets Wraith, Soldier targets Tempest

Tempest: Cleansing Downpour, Cleansing Downpour

Wraith: Micro-Targeting Computer, Razor Ordnance Infantry

Tachyon: Quick Insight, discard Accelerated Assault & Sucker Punch, Fleet of Foot, Nimble Strike

Bunker: Recharge Mode

Absolute Zero: Onboard Module Installation x3 (Null-Point, Isothermic, Null-Point), Focused Apertures, Coolant Blast TCF Conqueror

With Conqueror and Targeting Innocents gone and Cleansing Downpour out, you can steadily regain HP while getting your team setup. Don't flip Voss until you're ready to take him out in a round or two; double card plays sucks tremendously if you're not ready for it.

That's some really good advice. I hadn't thought about using the foam grenade- though it makes complete sense, given how by now I know how devastating that hostage crisis could be. 

Thanks!

Mint. I actually flipped Voss as soon as I could - it hurt a little, sure, but it ups your damage output too, so it's maybe a wash. Gods bless Cleansing Downpour.

With the help of Dolphin's excellent opener, and the general advice of the others here, I finally managed to beat it. 

Once the ship was down and people were a bit more set up, the fight felt a LOT more equal. I focused on healing with Tempest, bolstered by one-shots for direct damage and some control.

Wraith scouted for forced deployments and kept surprises to a minimum (and did damage where surprise was unavoidable). 

Tach kept everyone in cards, destroyed pesky monorails, hypersoniced, and generally was a jack of all trades.

Bunker tanked with Smoke Bombs and Plating, doing a lot of grenade launching and combusting when a Forced Deployment brought out minions. 

AZ did a lot of Isothermic retribution in the early game, and in the mid to late game did a lot of cleaning up stragglers and focusing on Voss.

I wished I'd been a bit more careful about SubZero atmosphere though- there were a couple of turns where a Voss's end (start of turn) card play brought out a deployment, which then popped and brought out all minions, who then all went.  Given that he had only a few cards left and I'd been relentlessly putting the Deployments at the bottom of the deck, it shouldn't have been such a surprise!  Still, we weathered the onslaught and managed to take them all out... and prepare better for the next time. 

I'm glad I finally beat it. I've got some new respect for Advanced Voss... and a bit more for F6 Tempest as well. 

Near Mint.

I'd prefer not to talk about my first attempt.  It wasn't pretty. At least it was short!

Second time, like others here, I let him flip, and used Cleansing Downpour, Infrared Eyepiece, and Subzero Atmosphere to their maximum potential.

With Voss at 17hp, F6 Wraith played a 16 damage Inventory Barrage, and then finished him with a pop from her innate power. It was kind of like a poor woman's Sucker Punch. I felt great satisfaction from Wraith taking out the Galactic Warlord with her fist.

Got Near Mint by using LewdDolphin's strategy above. Once you get through those first three turns, it's actually not too hard to build up to a one-turn finish on Voss. (Smoke Bombs + Frost Hounds = Pure Genius) Between Lightspeed Barrage and Omni-Cannon, it was amazing how quickly I was able to take him down once he flipped.

Mint.

Just about survived the initial storm, as for some reason known only to myself I kept Targeting Innocents out for a third round. Anyway, with everyone around 5hp I slowly got everyone setup as everyone enjoyed the rain. When I flipped Voss it wasn't fair as Bunker locked down Megalopolis, while between Tachyon and The Wraith Voss never dealt damage.

Just be careful if the game goes on too long as Forced Deployments come thick and fast.

Near Mint.  My first game, I didn't stabalize fast enough, and everyone died.  In the second game, Wraith was incapped, but everyone else made it through killing the ship and most of the minions.  I left Voss with one Fire minion, who would then target and heal AZ every turn.  Wraith was incapped, which was helpful for dealing with rogue environments, and then everyone else stalled and plinked until a few Lightspeed Barrages and an Omnicannon blasted Voss to bits.

Mint.

The start of the game was very touch and go, but despite the giant spaceship, two hostage situations, and a rather poorly timed targeting innocents, the team perservered. Tempest used cleansing downpour to rain on Voss' parade, Wraith spent most of her time infared-eyepiecing (And good thing too. She buried the Stalwart and two forced deployments) and pinging problem targets, Team Leader Tachyon gave everybody cards and punched Voss really hard a couple of times, Bunker went into turret mode and shot all the things, and Absolute Zero got a good thing going where he would damage Voss for 12 damage every turn while healing himself for 5-6. Voss was pretty much a popsicle after 3 rounds of that.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/263835074989515255/EF03C98A87D02A0365C7C05AFDCAE6FEEE2907F8/

I followed Dolphin's setup to clear out Targetting innocents and the Conquerer, and everything was going well.  Then I decided to flip Voss with a Sub Zero Atmosphere in play and knocked him down to 3 HP.  Voss dropped Forced Deployment with his bonus card play, putting 12 Minions into play, including BOTH Gene-Bound Guards.  Oh, and his normal play was the TCF Stalwart.  Needless to say, I panicked.  Thankfully, Tempest's Lightning Slash cleared the first Guard, then Wraith's Targetting Computer-boosted Razor Ordinance cleared the second Guard, allowing Throwing Knives to kill two more Minions and the Quark Drive Translocator, letting Tachyon get the finishing blow with a 19-point Lightspeed Barrage, knocked down to 8 damage thanks to the 11 minions still in play.  Bit of a nailbiter ending thanks to that.

Ugh.  Fine.  It took me way too many resets to figure out that keeping the fire-damage cards out there allowed AZ to rechannel damage all over the place.  Once I did that, the heroes got down to about 4-7 HP each before Cleansing Downpour came out and the tide began to turn.  Infrared Eyepiece removed the threat of Voss' bad cards.   Sub-Zero Atmosphere gave me an entire round to take out minions before they could do damage.   Once Rooftop Combat came out, the environment stopped playing cards altogether, and I the damage boost allowed me to take out anything as soon as it came out, the game was all over except for the shouting.  I healed all of the heroes back up to about 20HP each before finishing off Voss with 3X Lightspeed Barrages and a fully-charged Omni-Cannon.  

Bleh. That was the black hole from which Fun did not escape. Gonna pass on these one-shots for a while, they just make me feel stupid.

I dunno if it makes you feel any better, but Advanced Voss and Advanced Dawn are in the half-dozen hardest fights in the game.

Little bit, thank you :)

Managed to get Mint, but I really shouldn’t have!
I knew when I saw it was this team that I should have done some big card draw but I decided to go another route. I left the ship and Targeting Innocents out and applied shenanigans with a first round Smoke Bombs to both mitigate damage and direct as much flame as possible to Absolute Zero who had used his Transducer. On round two AZ placed and used Coolant Blast to destroy the ship, and unfortunately that was about the sum of his damage-dealing. Soon after, he seemed to forget about the Cramped Quarters and punched himself to death.
The rest of the game went like so:
Tempest killed one or two things per turn and used Cleansing Downpour. Never used his innate power once. He saved Into the Stratosphere for the Forced Deployments so only one of those actually went off.
Wraith focused on damage, using Throwing Knives and Razor Ordinance every turn. When Tempest put the first Forced Deployment back, Wraith used the Eyepiece (one turn too late, because the other top card was also Forced Deployment.)
Tachy Sucker-Punched those pesky Soldiers that were immune to projectile and threw cards at everyone. She also shut down damage twice, and very timely.
Bunker dealt and soaked damage. A lot of damage. No Omni-cannon for me, but Turret Mode with Flak Cannon + Grenade Launcher with the occasional Maintenance.
Incapsolute Zero shut down the environment because that’s what he does.
With the final card (the first Forced Deployment back for a third time) of Voss’s deck imminent and everyone under 5hp Bunker and Tempest cleared the table so Wraith could sacrifice her tech and Tachion could double Barrage for 49 points between them.

And right before that the game glitched (see attached.) It’s actually the second time I saw this happen in a game, and on that character’s turn they didn’t actually have the card. Fun though

…and the villain/environment deck were stacked to make the fight harder than it should have been.  Two Hostage Situations in the first five rounds?  C'mon!  I played this same scenario as a custom game (i.e. picking Advanced Voss/Freedom Five/Megalopolis) five times after finishing the one-shot, and wiped the floor with Advanced Voss every time.  

AZ is the key–once he has his two modules, you make sure he's the highest HP hero, then kill all of the minions except the one that does 2 fire damage to the highest HP hero.  Now you're essentially immune to damage from Voss, because the minion will whack AZ for 2 fire damage…which AZ will redirect into cold damage aimed at himself, thus healing himself from the fire damage.  From that point, you're free to build your hands/setups (using the insane amounts of card draw these heroes have) and kill Voss at your leisure.

Dang. I thought I'd managed to survive the initial onslaught. My heroes were all in low single digits, but Tempest had Cleansing Rain out, so I thought, as long as I can stall, it'll all be okay. I even had the Infrared Eyepiece in play, so I thought I was well on my way to controlling the board.

I forgot about the Translocator.

Voss played a Gene-bound Guard. Fine. But that spurred another play . . . the TCF Stalwart. Suddenly I wished I'd played Sub-Zero Atmosphere already (not that I could have killed it in one round.) Bam, most of my heroes down.

Oh well, who needs mints anyhow? They'll be devalued from all these collectors anyhow. 

Next week's One-Shot will be determined by your votes! Go here to find out more: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/handelabra/sentinels-of-the-multiverse-the-video-game-season/posts/1567531

Mint, and definitely a slow-burn game. Voss was down to 5 cards in his deck by the time I was finished, Wraith's deck and trash were both empty and my computer nearly froze when I was picking out which cards to load the Omni-Cannon with. Absolute Zero was MVP, as I'm getting is expected with this one, and this is the first game I got real mileage out of Coolant Blast.

I actually really liked having a long game -- most games I have are over quick enough that AZ only manages to get out his basic equipment, and it was nice to have more of his stuff out for longer.

Both the Forced Deployments I saw came out with Voss flipped, which made them easy to deal with (one set fell to Grappling Hook, Razor Ordnance to deal with the Gene-Bound Guard, and a Sonic Vortex to wipe out everyone else; the second went down to a Fueled Freeze, with a pair of Synaptic Interruptions going down to boost it to 3+Focused Apertures).