Weekly One-Shot #75: Can Ya Dig It?

The Chairman wants the alien technology from the Enclave of the Endlings and Mr Fixer, Parse, the Naturalist, and F6 Bunker stand in his way.  Good luck!

Apparently no one can dig it 

I certainly dug it! Put The Operative and The Chairman 6 feet under on my first try with the help of Matchstickman! We had The Naturalist tank a lot of the damage. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAedUAkXsAAYBa8.jpg:large

I dug it!  The environment is very friendly, helping me deal with the first Prison Break in record time.  Parse helped deal with the newly emerged foes, and dogdged the second breakout entirely.  Only spent one round tanking with the Naturalist, but he tanked a great deal of damage in that one turn.  Fixer spent most of his time as a Mantis with a Pipe Wrench.  Bunker was in full DAKKA mode.

Well... my game got a LOT longer than expected since the Chairman RESPAWNED!

I'd taken down the Chairman first, as I generally try to, leaving the Operative alone and at around 3 HP or so when her turn started with an empty deck. She tried to play a card, which of course made her reshuffle... at which point she put the Chairman BACK INTO PLAY, and on his Master of the Underworld side, no less. So yeah, back to square one for me, though I suppose I could argue it should qualify as Extra-Mint when you take down the Chairman twice in the same game! Anyone else ever seen a bug quite like that?

Working as intended, per the Steam FAQ point 7:

• If the Chairman is destroyed before the Operative then the Chairman enters the trash pile (unlike Omnitron who's removed from the the game when defeated), meaning that there can be 26 cards in the villain deck at that point.
  
  It also means that the Chairman can be played after the villain deck is reshuffled effectively undoing your hard work.

Huh, did not know that. Doesn't that create the minor issue of the Chairman's card not having a clearly defined front and back side? Nothing on the card anywhere indicates which side should be up or down when you shuffle him into the deck, and likewise, nothing indicates which side he should come back into play on?

The Chairman like any other villain card does have a clearly defined front and back side.   The setup side is his front side which is how he comes into play to start the game and if he should be played from the deck.   When shuffled in it does not matter too much which side is facing which way because as a double sided card it's going to be obvious he is coming up no matter what.   

It's a weird, or at least unexpected, interaction because it's not something you can do in the physical game if you use the oversized cards. And like, Omnitron's the other villain you can destroy before you win, and he's specifically removed from the game, so you'd think the Chairman would be, too.

Anyway, first try was a dud. I think playing Bloody Knuckles was a mistake (I mean, you get three of them in a row, I figured it was a sign!), and I probably should have waited on Indomitable Force until after Immutus was down. Heck, Indomitable Force with Bloody Knuckles and External Combustion would have made for a great round! I didn't even flip the Chairman though. :(

I think thematically it just adds onto the idea with the Organization that you can beat him but you can't keep him down.   Whereas Omnitron's programming is still inside the devices.  

I think this one is going to be very varied in it's randomness, The Chairman's deck is constantly shuffling, and depending on what you wish out with The Naturalist as your first form the game state is going to change very quickly thanks to the RNG.

Mint. I think the environment probably did more damage than anything else...and almost all of it to the Operative and the Organization, since I got Environmental Allies out and the Naturalist went Gazelle. I was a bit worried when an early major underboss turn got a nasty Contract set up, but I ended up having a few turns to turtle and even heal when Immutus was out and soaking up so much damage thanks to EA and...whichever Endling reduces damage to environment targets. Eventually I clawed back out (Tiger Clawed, you might say, as that and Dual Crowbars turned Fixer into the prime mover of damage). Naturalist using Blend into the Pack also helped him not take any damage on first attack (there were something like ten environmental targets out).

Parse was primarily useful for Extrasensory Awareness--I tossed one Prison Break that way, which definitely helped--and Bunker was mostly extra damage with Flak/Maintenance and Turret Mode.

Started out worried, ended feeling like a slog. Not least just because there were so many environment cards out, and none of them was dealing any damage to anything. (Chairman, EA.)

Near mint.  First game ended quickly and poorly.

Getting Slamara out on the second environment turn was really helpful, though.

How does it figure that the side villains start on is their front side, technically. though? All villain setup card specifies exactly which side they should start the game on, don't they?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.   The rules tell you which side is the front side.   I understand, especially on tabletop, it would not be clear what to do with the Chairman if defeated before the Operative but this is the ruling given and what happens should he get played.  

Mint.  Mine was much more sloggy than most people's, it sounds like.   I got a nasty Prison Break right after I flipped the Chairman, and before I could get out Extrasensory Awareness to stop it.  The Chairman/Contract/Hired Gun combo really knocked me down, and it took a lucky Immutus soon after that to bring me back.  Between that and Naturalist in Gazelle with Environmental Allies, it took quite a while for the Chairman's goons to take down Immutus.   

For the last 3-4 turns of the game, basically every environment card was in play, but couldn't hurt me.  Slowly, I built everybody up -- Naturalist spent the whole rest of the game in Gazelle, healing 3HP per round; the plethora of environment cards meant that Run with the Pack was a -11DR, so because Naturalist had the highest HP, any henchman could be killed without fear of reprisal from the Operative.  Parse had double Exploit Vulnerabilities, plus Extrasensory Awareness, Buffer Overflow and Segmentation Fault, so the Chairman's deck was under control.   Fixer had Pipe Wrench and Driving Mantis, which meant he could hit the Chairman, and redirect the retaliation damage to the Operative (while she lived).  Bunker got hit the hardest by the bad Prison Break.  His first three card plays were Flak Cannon, Maintenance Unit and Turret Mode, and he spent the entire rest of the game healing 2 and dealing 3 damage.  

In a slow, painful, careful grind, The Operative went down first, then Fixer switched to Dual Crowbars, and took out the Chairman on a Parse/Between-the-Lines-induced out-of-turn hit.  Final HP:  Fixer-7 Parse-7 Naturalist-18 Bunker-12

Near mint.  Despite Parse's best efforts, two poorly-timed Prison Breaks were just... yuck.  It was pretty close, but these guys have some useless incap abilities, so once it starts going south, it's just a downward spiral.

As an aside, has The Operative been errata'ed multiple times now?  I happened to play against the Chairman this last weekend, and her Oversized card says, "When the Operative is destroyed..." (I forget the rest, I don't have it in front of me right now.)  However, her digital version says, "When the Operative would be destroyed, her character card flips instead" and the full cards breakdowns spreadsheet says, "When The Operative is reduced to 0 or fewer HP, flip The Operative's Character card."  The video game version is correct, of course (per a Fireside Chat), but man, that's a mess.  Since we were playing with Haka and the Temple of Zhu Long, the difference was highly pertinent.

And another comment: If the Chairman is oversized, clearly he physically can't get shuffled into the villain deck, so you have to haul out his normal-sized cards.  But he has two of those!  I guess the canonical way to play is that one card goes in the villain trash and the other just floats around?  Having both go in would be totally unplayable.  But only one card goes in the trash, the other would remain on his Chairman Pike side!  Do you just pretend it doesn't exist?  That's really confusing.

With some minor variations, that's exactly what happened to me.

There have been at least 4 printings of The Operative: original Rook City printing, original oversized villain card, Rook City reprint with various errata, and the new oversized villain card. There will also be a foil version coming up.

On the tabletop if this situation comes up, I put one of his character cards in the trash and the other is just off to the side until/unless it returns to play. It's not hard to deal with.

Mint.

I hate the Chairman, so I wasn't looking forward to this, and it started like my usual Chairman games--poorly. I also didn't play Extrasensory Awareness soon enough, and was punished for it.

However, things turned around when the Endlings turned into my "allies."  Parse went down at the end, but the heroes prevailed. The game ended when Naturalist used Cornered Beast on the Chairman at 3HP, so that was fun.

A highlight was timing Bloody Knuckles for when Bloogo was on Mr. Fixer. It happened a couple of times. Those were some big, harmonious, Crowbar blows to the Chairman!

I don't know how you could possibly mint this. I can't even flip the Chairman. Everything I do seems to be the wrong thing at the wrong time. Tried switching things up, still lost.

I guess I'm just really bad at this game. :(

It just wasn’t your turn this time.

For the record, I think I was the first person to discover the whole Chairman respawning thing. Several years ago, back when Christopher was holding a Google Plus hangout to pitch the idea of Galactic Strike Force to us playtesters (so JUST after Shattered Timelines, I guess?) I kept him after to ask some rule clarifications, and that was one I asked about.

According to him, even HE hadn’t realized that that interaction could happen, but he confirmed that it was, in fact, how it worked.

So, yeah. I found that! Just something I’m proud of.

Relatively stress-free Mint with Mr. Fixer at 5, Parse at 2, The Naturalist at 21, and Bunker at 1.

Mr. Fixer - Pipe Wrench and waited forever for Meditation to come up. Probably was a mistake top-decking the Crowbars, I never had a good chance to use them. Mostly spent time picking off 2 HP Thugs and punching his nemeses in the face. Got a good smack in with Bloody Knuckles when I knew I was redirecting to Naturalist that round anyway.

Parse - Co-MVP with Naturalist. Dodged both Prison Breaks with her deck control, teamed up with Naturalist to make sure Contract/Hired Gun did 0 damage, Targeting Arrow helped us burn down each of Operative and Chairman, took out Immutus when he came out with Operative at 1 HP and Bloogo covering her with 2, and Exploit Vulnerability let the environment AOE go to town on the villains.

The Naturalist - Rhino for most of the match, then swap to Gazelle / Environmental Allies when the environment became far more dangerous than the villains. Didn't do a whole lot of damage, but he soaked dozens of damage throughout the match. 

Bunker - No thinky, just shooty. Would have been nice to see Ammo Drop, but eh, it's hard to argue the turns where he did 9 to Operative and 9 to Chairman.

Environment - Got to play all but one card, did a pile of damage, then twiddled its thumbs while Chairman and I punched each other.

I failed numerous times. I don't know how to use Parse properly in this game. I really do suck at playing that long game. 

Not it for me . 

It's okay. The only person I know how to play Parse well against is Apostate.

It's a cool setup, I do dig it! It's not impossible, or boring. it's just hard. I just don't know which deck to stack, and how. 

The Chairman's, every chance you get. Neutralize Prison Break, get the Underbosses into the trash, anything you can do to stop the bum rush.

I stacked the Environment deck until Slamara was on top, and then focused on the Chairman.

SPOILER:

Here's how I did it. The first three turns are basically devoted to (a) killing the Crooked Cops first so you can kill the rest of the henchmen/underbosses more easily, with crucial help from the environment; (b) keeping the underboss/henchman population under control until Parse can play Extrasensory Awareness and control the Chairman's deck; (c) trying to keep Naturalist in Rhino Form/Resilient Hide/Blend With the Pack as the highest HP hero, so he can tank the Operative's retaliation damage when henchmen are killed, as well as absorbing any other damage directed at the highest HP hero:

Turn 1:

Chairman:  Undivided Attention, Deputy, Crooked Cop

Fixer:  Play: Pipe Wrench  Power: Strike (Crooked Cop,2HP) Draw: Overdrive

Parse:  Play: Exploit Vunerability; Power: Shot (Crooked Cop-2HP).  Draw: Targeting Arrow

Naturalist:  Play:  Resilient Hide.  Power:  Transform (Rhino). Draw: Blend Into The Pack

Bunker: Play:  Grenade Launcher. Power: Same (kill Crooked Cop, Deputy-2HP, Operative-1HP)

Environment: Korrupton (1+1 AOE damage)

Turn 2:

Chairman:  Fence, Muscle, Thief (destroy Rhino); Enforcers (Bunker discard Maint. Unit); Crooked Cop.

Fixer: Play Overdrive, (kill Crooked Cop);

Parse: Play Snap Decision, Power-Shot (kill Thief), Draw-Ex. Awareness

Naturalist:  Play-Blend Into the Pack, Power-Transform (Rhino), Draw Natural-Born Vigor

Bunker: Play Flak Cannon, power-Grenade Launcher (Fence-2, Enforcers-2, Deputy-1) draw-Flak Cannon

Environment: play Venox (Venox/Korrupton will kill all henchmen/underbosses except Muscle)

Turn 3:

Chairman:  Prison Break+The Contract. Enforcers (Bunker discard Flak Cannon); Thief (destroy Rhino) Lots of damage spread all around -- HP: Fixer-18, Parse-15, Naturalist-18,Bunker-14

Fixer:  Play/Power: Overdrive (kill Crooked Cop) Draw-Meditation

Parse: (skip Snap Decision), Play Ex Awareness, Power-ExAw (discard Broker, Human Specimens on top)

Naturalist:  Play IndomitableForce, Power-Transform (Rhino), Draw-Blend Into The Pack

Bunker: Play:  MaintUnit, Power:  Grenade Launcher (2-Deputy, 2-Contract, 1-Fence. This is important; you want the Contract and the Fence low enough so the environnment will kill them.)

Environment: Hall of the Terminarch;**IMPT**--assign all Environment damage to the Contract first when possible.  That way, once he is killed, his +1 damage buff goes away, and all of the Operative’s retaliation damage can be safely tanked by Naturalist with Rhino/Resilient Hide. Environment should kill everything except the Deputy and Enforcers, who will have about 2HP apiece. Bloogo will then come out; put him next to Enforcers.

You’ve now survived the first Prison Break, Parse has ExAw out so you can avoid the other one, and the Chairman will flip once you kill the Deputy .  It should be more or less straightforward from here.  What you’re shooting for now is the following setup:

• Fixer with Pipe Wrench and Driving Mantis -- this will allow him to hit the Chairman, and redirect the retaliation damage to the Operative. Once the Operative is dead, switch to whatever weapon/style combo you want.

• Keep Naturalist in Rhino Form and keep using his power to draw cards (playing Indomitable Force when necessary), building towards the following setup:  Gazelle Form, Natural Born Vigor, Natural Form’s Power, Blend Into the Pack, Resilient Hide, and Environmental Allies.  Naturalist will now heal 3 HP per turn, and let someone else draw two cards.  He’ll always be the highest HP hero, and given the number of environment targets, BlendWTP will make him more or less immune to damage, even from Undivided Attention.  EnvAllies will mean that all of the environment cards damage the Operative, but not your heroes.  

• Parse:  Do whatever you like, but once you have gotten rid of the second Prison Break, DON’T use ExAw any more, since it churns through the Chairman’s deck faster, and with the underbosses and Prison Breaks gone, there are no cards left that can really hurt you, and the longer you can put off putting Underbosses and Henchmen back into the deck, the better. You should have 3-4 turns to kill the Operative before the trash is shuffled back into the deck and she can start pulling Underbosses again.  Just make sure you have Buffer Overflow in play before the Chairman shuffles the trash back into the deck.

• Bunker with Grenade Launcher, Flak Cannon, Maintenance Unit, and Turret Mode.  

  From this point, it’s all mathematical.  Fixer can hit the Chairman every round with impunity, redirecting the retaliation damage to the Operative.  Bunker can hit Operative 2X, or hit the Chairman and heal the retaliation damage with his second power use. Regardless of whether you killed the Operative before the deck reshuffle, Parse's ExAw and Buffer Overflow should keep the Chairman under control.   You never need to kill the Endlings, since they can't hurt you (and will damage the Operative every round) although you'll need to save a Data-Mining to get rid of Immutus when he becomes inconvenient. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I just replayed it again to test and ended up with no heroes incapped, and the Operative dead before the deck reshuffle; Fixer-11HP, Parse-11HP, Naturalist-28HP, Bunker-11HP.   YMMV.

Mid-game I swapped the Naturalist to Gazelle form with Environmental Allies and that really helped.

The key for me was combining Updated Intel (putting the Contract on top of the Chairman's deck) with Resilient Hide + Rhino + Indomitable Force. Contract, Hired Gun, and the environment all whiffed at our team that round, while the environment did plenty of damage to the enemies.