Team Mode: Ambuscade, Greazer, and Sergeant Steel square off against Bunker, Chrono-Ranger, and Expatriette in Silver Gulch.
Mint. Greazer and (after the first round) Ambuscade spent most of the game picking on Expat, but Greazer takes himself out as soon as she goes down. I focused fire on Steel first (because I didn't want to deal with the S6 after taking Ansel to zero) and ended with Bunker at 9 HP and CR at 4.
I did much the same, ending slightly better, with Bunker at 10 and CR at 6.
Mint for me too with the same strategy; Bunker ended on 6 and CR on 3.
I only played my practice game so far, setting up the same game under new game, which of course means things come out differently. It was a surprisingly fun fight and I would have gotten the one hero at one hp achievement if I didn't have it already.
Bunker, being the tactical genius that he is, realized that with his squad down, himself at the brink of defeat, but the enemy hurting pretty badly too, the best course of action was to blow up the explosives wagon and hope it takes out the enemy first!
I don’t know how you guys are getting mints. I’ve tried several times now and lost miserably each time. Steel starts with Battlfield Medic and plays Hold the Line turn 1, so there’s little you can do to damage him until after the Hold the Line expires. Ex-patriette goes down quickly, Greazer leaves, I take down Steele, but by that time Bunker and Chrono Ranger are in single digits, and Ambuscade is still at full health. The environment is helpful early, but once the heroes are the lowest HP targets they get killed by gunmen.
Greazer has a really brutal turn where he plays All the Best Toys and puts 3 Thermobaric Mines on to on hero all at once, doing 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 damage, and pretty much makes it suicide for that hero to play any more cards, since it’s 3 damage per card. Bunker’s always gotten hit by this when I play. He could shrug it off if he had Heavy Plating, but he never gets that card.
I think the problem is largely a weak team. They’re all relatively slow-building heroes who never get time to build, none of them are any good at defense (aside from Heavy Plating, which never shows up), and they don’t deal with ongoing or environment threats well. They can kind of manage it, but it eats time they don’t have. For example, Chrono Ranger has to use a card play and a power just to get rid of Lost in Time (the alternative being a quick loss since the trash is empty when it shows up).
Mint with Bunker at 9 and Chronoranger at 14. Expatriate was down, but Greezer left with her. Greezer took out Expatriate and Bunker finished off Steel straight after that leaving a pretty healthy Chronoranger and Bunker to concentrate on Ambascade. The environment was pretty much entirely helpful - the 2 Hayes boys I saw mainly concentrated on the Frightful 6 (taking out Ray Manta and Desert Eagle before they could do anything) and on the last turn they shot Ambascade down to 5 health for me... Sustain the portal comes out right after lost in the past, so I wouldn’t worry too much about removing it.
Mint.
Similar story to others, I took out the Battle Medic before Steel had a turn, and then focused on him and his agents (letting the environment do some of the work for the heroes). Didn’t worry about Lost in the Past.
Expatriette sacrificed herself to a Thermobaric Mine so that Greazer would leave and Matthew Hayes could turn his attention elsewhere (he would have taken her out anyway if I had double-skipped to avoid the mine). After that, it was a close shave that came down to the wire—Steel was out, Ambuscade at 13HP and Bunker at 4HP, Chrono-Ranger at 2HP.
Seeing that they would not survive the Hayes boys that were out, Bunker Explosively Coumbusted, even at low HP, then Flak Cannoned. Jim played Ultimate Target and Compunded Bow, having dug for his Hat a couple of turns earlier, Then used the bow and did not draw a card because of the Concealed Pitfall that came out on Greazer’s incap turn. Then, Expatriette allowed Jim to use the bow again for the win, with the Hayes boys left disappointed that they didn’t get their final shots in.
Whew! Bunker and Chrono-Ranger at 2HP, Expatriette out.
Easy Mint here with Bunker at 9 and Chrono Ranger at 16 and Expatriette taking one for the team to make Greazer go away. Same route as everyone else here, I expect. Ignore Greazer and the environment entirely and just focus down Sergeant Steel, let Greazer go home with his prize and have Vance and Jim cruise to victory over a lone Ambuscade. Fun little fight :)
Mint with a similar strategy to above. Knew Expat was going to go down fast, so I tended to let things hit her if I had the choice to get rid of Greazer faster. By that point, Sgt. Steel was down a decent amount and with By Any Means and Ultimate Target he went down fast. Bounty Board pulled those back and they promtly went on Ambuscade and the damage race was on.
Ended with Bunker at 6, CR at 8. Ambuscade was taken down by Expat's "Destroy a target at 1 hp" which I thought was kind of funny.
~A-Kat
This is a move I don’t understand. Ray Manta’s a much bigger threat on turn 1, since he destroys equipment, and they’re both 6 HP. Actually, I don’t see how it’s possible to take out Battlefield Medic before Steel has a turn, since you can’t really do more than 5 HP damage (3 from Bunker, 2 from Chrono Ranger). The only way I see to do more damage is if you use Sudden Contract to put Ultimate Target or By Any Means on the medic, and that doesn’t seem wise.
I did put By Any Means on the Battlefiled Medic. CR starts with a Bounty Board IIRC, so I knew I’d get it back. I think Bunker starts with a Decommissioned Hardware too, so I knew I could retrieve equipment that Ray Manta destroyed as well. I didn’t want Agents cycling out of the trash, particularly since the Espionagent started out there, and I knew that Silver Gulch could be helpful if he was gone.
Maybe it wasn’t optimal....it did end up very close at the end.
Seems to me that the easier method is just to kill the espionage agent. He has only 4 HP, and the battlefield medic kills himself reviving the espionage agent. The main drawback is that the medic spends Steel’s turn alive before trading himself in, but since it’s turn 1 and you haven’t injured Steel or any other agents, it doesn’t matter. You end up in the same place, and you can put the bounty somewhere else, or play something else.
Of course, I’ve yet to win this one-shot, so you played better than I did overall.
EDIT: Finished it, finally. Fine, naturally.
Turn 1 I took out Espionage Agent instead of Ray Manta, play Sudden Contract to put The Ultimate Target on Steel. Battle Medic takes himself out to replace the Espionage Agent. I used Ex-Patriette’s assault rifle to whittle down Ray Manta to 4 HP, so when Matthew Hayes came out, he took out Ray Manta. Which is a typical bit of foresight from having lost the match before.
Next priority target was the Espionage Agent so Hayes could shoot Steel’s minions in the future. After that, I just focused on doing damage, Steel first. Screw “Hold The Line,” I shot Steel anyway. When Lost in the Past came out I ignored it, and never wasted an action on pulling out a Temporal Grenade.
Ex Patriette went down quickly, but I stopped worrying about things like the Envenomed Bolts on her and Greazer’s hair, and played things like Shock Rounds. By the time she went Steel was down to single digits, and when I took down Steel, Bunker and Chrono Ranger still were in the mid-teens.
Bounty Board brought back Ultimate Target and By Any Means, which I put on Ambuscade. With Chrono Ranger set up with a couple of the damage boosts he needs to make all his 1 point shots effective, Ambuscade’s health quickly dropped.
Final round had Bunker hitting Ambuscade with the Omni Cannon for 8 points of damage, and Chrono Ranger finishing him off. Both heroes were at about 7-8 HP.
I apparently went through the first round quite differently. I targeted Ray Manta, but put The Whole Gang on him since you start with it to take out Espionagent at the same time. That allowed Sniper Hayes to do damage to something else, I dont remember what.
~A-Kat
That’s exactly what I did the first time I played and lost. Killed Ray Manta, and took out the Espionage Agent via The Whole Gang. That left only Greazer’s hair as a target for Matthew Hayes.
If your plan is to ignore Greazer and let him leave after taking down Ex Patriette, this is a waste of an action, since shooting Greazer’s hair’s only positive benefit is some damage to Greazer’s ego when he smooths it out.
I dislike letting Greazer win this way, presumably carting Ex Patriette off to some nefarious end, but it’s often a reasonable strategy. His target is doomed, but they get to damage other villains in the meantime.
So how are people dealing with Steel? Are we talking about a super gunblaze on the guy or is there something else going on there?
i just targeted him with everything, ignoring hold the line.
All. Guns. Blazing. I think I threw By Any Means on him.
Edit: with the exception of Flakkng Ray Manta on turn 1, Every. Single. Damage instance. had the following priority: Enticing Target (Can’t kill Steel with it out) > Sargent Steel > Ambuscade > Any other Villain Target.
I never damaged the envionment.
Basically, just shoot him a lot. Once the epsionagent and battle medics are eliminated, shoot Steel every time you have an opportunity. Put By Any Means or the Ultimate Target on him (eventually both) so you’re still doing damage even if he’s got -1 DR. The only exception is when it’s completely pointless because Enticing Target is in play and it’s a 1 point attack.
It’s worth doing damage to him with Ex Patriette even if doing so injures her. For example, playing a card while she has Envenomed Bolts on her, or using Shock Rounds even though that results in retaliation from Greazer’s hair. She’s simply not going to last no matter what you do, so trading damage for damage is worthwhile, and gets rid of Greazer earlier.
I found it helpful to play Kill On Sight early on something that was going away for the extra cards. That’s what got me the second Sudden Contract, which gave me the 2nd damage booster. Use Displaced Armory to get the hat. The hat can destroy The Ultimate Target after Steel is gone, and Bounty Board can get both important bounties back.
Note that I played Kill On Sight after the first Sudden Contract, which means a shuffle. There’s no guarantee that you’ll draw another Sudden Contract with Kill On Sight.
Got my mint, same plan ignore enviroment and greazer, focus Steel then Ambushcade. Only changed focus to get ray manta out but mathew did most of the work.
I am somewhat appalled at how well the "focus down Sgt. Steel, let Expatriette die" strategy works. c.c Near Mint with Bunker and Chrono over 10 each.
I didn't even do anything extra like taking down the Espionagent so the Hayes Brothers could do my work for me. Just remember, damage dealt to Greazer's targets is damage wasted!
Yeah, I find it kind of disturbing that the best strategy for dealing with Greazer is to let him win.
in my replay, not a single Agent was killed, and they were complete nonentities.
That’s surprising.
We start with Battle Medic, who makes it more difficult to kill Steel since he heals Steel every turn. I seem to recall the order was Infiltrator, Sharpshooter, Bomb Specialist. WIth Battle Medic still around, Infiltrator adds another card play for Steel, Sharpshooter does little, and Bomb Specialist adds 2 fire damage to Steel’s attacks.
2 healing per turn for Steel is somewhat important. Infilitrator’s going to turn up at least one additional negative card, though I don’t recall his one-shots in this game. If you kill Steel fast enough Bomb Specialist won’t come out, so I can see her not qualifying.
Mint, 10, 10, and 0. The nice thing about this game is that it's easy to prioritize. I almost always let Greazer "win" in one-shots, and with Expat (my least favorite character) being his chosen victim, it's a no-brainer. And it's usually best to let Ambuscade be last so you don't have to deal with the nemesis dump.
I led with Kill on Sight to get more options, which let me dig for Jim's Hat and keep him busy. I saved By Any Means for Steel and then moved it to Ambuscade, and of course The Whole Gang to help with agents. The Thermobaric Minefield was nasty but it got wiped immediately with Expat's defeat. Bunker did nothing but Flak Cannon the whole game, except for a 7-point Omni-Cannon to bring Steel to zero exactly. Game ended on Bunker's 4th turn.
Mint at 10/15/0. I went in mostly all guns blazing on Steel, though on turn 1 I had Expat sacrifice Pride to Ray Manta and on turn 2 Chrono Ranger took 2 potshots at him to get him into snipe territory. I also had the first bit of Hunter Tech take the first sniper shot so I could have Chrono draw with Kill on Sight.
Other moves I made include putting two things in the omni-cannon to nuke the enticing target, having Expat hairiside when Grazer threw out way too much tech, and putting every net on Plinkmaster Chrono. Eventually though, it was a whisky crazed big man that took down ol-amby.
i didn’t worry about the agents either. Battle medic couldn’t keep up with the damage I was doing. A bunch went down from an Environment AOE / Expatriate’s shock rounds, but I never focused on taking them out. Steel went down the turn Bomb Specialist came out, so she had no impact. It’s kind of a waste to bother with them when you can kill Steel so quickly.
I also got a Mint without dealing with agents. Instead I just burned Steel like everyone else, and let Greazer kill Expatriette. Ended with Bunker at 1, and Chrono-Ranger at 3 (in my practice game, I ended with Bunker at 1 and Chron-Ranger at 2).
Yeah, 2hp of healing, when I’m doing 6+ damage a turn to him, isn’t really having an impact.
The most Medic did in my game was let Steel live for an additional turn and he didn't do that much with it. Honestly the Espionagist was more problemaic in stopping the sniper from killing agents and that wasn't much of a problem.
Near Mint. My biggest mistake in the first game was not taking out Espionagent with Whole Gang first turn. Sure, he comes back from Battle Medic, but after Hold the Line is gone, he’s easy enough to get rid of again, then Matt Hayes can start picking off agents with impunity. Once I corrected that in the 2nd game, things went a lot more smoothly.
Ouch. A fine, because of bad planning on my part.
Often with Greazer, I try to do a damage race and take him down before he takes his target down. Wrong strategy for this game. You have to let Expatriette die. It took me two games to figure that out.
The third game, I was slow getting rid of the agents, because I didn't use The Whole Gang. I ended up getting Steel down and then Ambuscade to single digits before he healed off of doubleteams and took me down.
Finally the fourth game I triumphed, but by then I just wanted to be done.