SotM Weekend - Event #3 - Around the World in 80 Plays...with Vengeance!

For this game, you job is to play in as many environments as possible. Simple put your name on the left, and add a point every time you play in a specific environment: Around the World in 80 Plays...With Vengeance! 

Here is how the scoring works:

• The first time you play any environment, you get 2 points. After that 1 point.
• Each time you complete every environment in a set, you gain a bonus: 4 points for the core set, and 2 points for the other sets and both mini-expansions.
• Each time you complete all of the environments you have, you get an addtional point per environment. For example, if you only have the core set, Shattered Timelines and SIlver Gulch, and you complete all of them, you get an additional 7 points.

So if you complete every environment once you would have: 48 points.

Here's the big news:

If we have a total of 300 points, one of the Vengeance environments will be revealed.

If each environment has at least 10 points, one of the Vengeance environments will be revealed.

Start time: Friday, November 8th, 12:00 AM CST

End Time: Sunday, November 10th, 11:59 PM CST

Excellent!  I've historically made a point of playing all environments a nearly equal number of times (currently they're all between 4 and 6), so this challenge will come easily to me, and unlike last weekend I have absolutely nothing else to do.  The only sad part is that I can't start until the day after tomorrow.

I keep forgeting the Vengeance Environments have not been revealed!

I am taking side bets here folks! Where do YOU think the Vengeance grudge matches are going to go down?

I believe that we'll see either a "Vengeful Five Headquarters" or "Freedom V HQ" (if not both...though I still could swear that it was confirmed there was only one Environment).  I base this assumption on the Main Computer Room from Time Cataclysm...while its art is taken from the Freedom 4 comic, it has a unique HP canton not found anywhere else in Sentinels, and I think that it's less likely that this was done just for the sake of itself, than that it was a sneaky Vengeance preview.

There are two environments.

Hmm…

1. Legacy's rural home town.  Need to allow flying cows to be a hazard, odd things concealed in corn fields, and crotchety old farmers yelling at heroes to get off their lawn.

2. More time travel - mideval period.  Knights, fair maidens, Viking raiders, peasant communes, robbers with a heart of gold and possibly a dragon to complicate things further.

When it was first announced it was going to only come with one environment, it was later upped to having 2.

Amusing as this is, Legacy is not Superman.  His family have been American heroes for generations; he probably grew up as famous as JFK Jr.  I believe he's explicitly from Chicago, before moving to Megalopolis.

Some poeple already signed up. I am getting excited.

Quite true.  But doing a non-city but otherwise appearing mundane location would still be an option.  I just heaped it with the usual set of comic rural stereotypes. 

I'll give it a shot, but traveling on Sunday will limit play time to just Friday evening and some on Saturday depending on other committments.

Yeah, unfortunately, camping is going prevent me from getting any games in this coming weekend, so I'm not going to be able to support the effort. Sorry, folks! I love this idea, though - thanks, Pydro!

Challenge Accepted, don't worry Rabit, we'll carry you this time.

Any rules about what villains or advanced mode being used, or can we all run Ambuscade in Rook City so it isn't a real threat?

Heroes and villains don’t matter, just the variety of environments.

I'll do what I can. I have the core set + Silver Gulch, so 5 games from me would net 17 points, I think. One of those games shall be Living Campaign 2 chapter 3D, as it's the only game in a while I've been able to contribute to.

If I do all twelve I get 48.

If I do them a second time I would get 12 for doing each one a second time, then an additional point for each environment, for another 12 right?

So I could play 24 games and get 72 points?

I don't think I can pull that off, but it is worth a shot.  Environments must be revealed.

I've been thinking, would it really be fair for me to contribute to these rewards? It seems like these rewards are targeted towards non-playtesters. I'm sure they feel like they should unlock them on their own, without the help of them nasty playtesters…

While I do admit that those rotten playtesters ruin everything, and are dirty cheating know-it-alls, I for one would be willing to forge a temporary alliance, as I'm sure a reduction in the redactions around here would benefit everyone.

Six people doing the 12 match marathon puts us at 276 points, and 12 points on each environment.

So if six of us can run all twelve, and others add in what they can we will get this done.

Just to be clear, if we hit our goals, Christopher will reveal the environments. Sorry playtesters, but this is Christopher’s privilege.

Hmm... Just noticed that is just says playing in an environment. So even games where we lose can be added?

Wouldn't have it any other way!

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: Since you can choose the heroes and villain, if I made it only wins, many people would choose a great team against a weak villain. I didn't want that. To complete the series once (you can do it more than that), you need to play 12 games. I would much rather you played 12 interesting and fun games, than having an auto-win on everyone. As long as people don't purposely lose to input games faster, have fun and enjoy yourself this weekend.

I'm glad you don't have to win all the games, as sometimes you just get screwed.  But maybe to make it more sporting, say that a player can only complete one "set" at each difficulty level.  I doubt that anyone's actually going to play 48 games, but if they do, the last four have to be against IL, The Matriarch or The Chairman, or possibly advanced versions of various 3s.  And if they want to loop a fifth time...

That is good to know, I'll have a lot more fun putting together a theme match for each environment than I would have grinding out wins.

I'll still playing random, only difference is I will check off environments that have already been completed, just to ensure that every environment gets a go.

Ah, foo. I'd been about to count my living campaign game 3D, then caught the Friday start time. Delete the row, I guess.

12 HOURS UNTIL GAME TIME!!!

Oh man, just realized it starts central time, so that's 1am here.  I won't get any in tonight.

IT BEGINS!!!

So I'm doing an idea I had a while ago.

Each game will be 2 heroes and a support deck at (H)=3.  Each match is based around a nemesis pairing, the main Hero gets to bring a friend, and then I pick a support deck that isn't overpowered and has thematically solid character cards.  (the support deck is 5 Hero Character cards on their incap side, they count as the third hero, on the support deck turn each hero picks an incap from the top card, then discard it, when the deck is empty it gets reshuffled)  I'll do one for each environment.

I imagine these events to be part of an "Alternate Destiny" line of one-shots that don't affect canon.

I'll log them all here if anyone wants to look and see how they go.

#1.  The Block:  Vengeful Baron Blade (adv) vs. Legacy and Bunker (AZ, F6tempest, Tachyon, AZ, Waith)

The freedom 5 assembles, Baron Blade has gotten loose in the Block and they need help containing him.  Little do they know they are walking into a trap.  The rest of the team is seperated from them as Baron Blade springs his trap, and his chance at vengence is at hand.

Result:  Blade wins. Probably shouldn't have played him on advanced.

#2.  The Final Wasteland:  Akash'Bhuta vs. The Argent Adept and Ra (Fanatic, EHaka, Tempest, The Scholar, Visionary)

The Argent Adept woke up, and looked around him.  "Quiet my friend, it hunts us still."  Blake was gone from the face of his ally, the being before him burned with the power of a god.  "We have to face it, it's the only way to end this."  Anthony replied, "I am ready."  Ra thought of the friends they had lost since falling through the portal into this cursed land.

"Then let us face this destiny together."

Result:  Easy win for heroes, Akash at (H)=3 is weak, esp. non-advanced.

#3.  Insula Primalis:  Ambuscade (adv) vs. Haka and Bunker EOW (Tachyon, TempestF6, Fanatic, Ra, Adept)

Haka stepped off the plane with Stephen Graves.

"Thank you for helping me, we cannot allow the hunter to kill these animals, they are the last of their kind."  Haka said to the one man who could stand toe to toe with him.

"It's the least I can do, I must atone for the wrongs of my life."

Result:  Ambuscade wins.  3 quick Obsidian fields made it a quick match a last turn chain of cards for Ambuscade won him the match, he was dead if we lived.

#4.  Megalopolis:  Omnitron (adv) vs. Omnitron-X and Unity (Expat, RCWraith, Legacy, Visionary, Tempest {no play a card abilities})

"Where are you taking me?"  Unity asked the robot from the future.

"You must follow.  You must help." was the reply she got.

He led her to the Entrance of a large warehouse that had all sorts of warning signs on it.  When the doors opened she could see why they were there.

"I thought it was destroyed. . ."

"Intruders must not survive." The massive machine rose up, the building folding and twisting into the sides of the robot.

Result:  Omnitron wins.  No equipment for Unity and 2 EPE's early on for Omni made it a quick game.  Crappy game all around.

#5.  Pike Industrial Complex:  Friend of My BiL was over, we played a game in Pike vs. the rat, didn't follow the nemesis mode, but we won.  Fanatic Legacy Visionary and Adv. Rat had Fanatic at +4 before TtE, she did 40 damage to Rat round two. (16 self damage)

#6.  Realm of discord:  People still over, did Gloomy (adv) in Realm of Discord with Nightmist, Fixer and RC Wraith, win by knocking out Gloomy's health, Nightmist redirecting portal fiend while Wraith fed the environment trash.

#7.  Rook City:  Tried my Spite remake, really liked it, was a nasty match, but quick.

Er…was this information you were supposed to keep to yourself for a few more months?  O_o

I think phantaskippy meant Bomber Blade, not Vengeful.

But man oh man is her advanced flip side ever so painful at H=3

@Envisioner

You get 2 points the first time you play each environment. I changed the number for you.

Vengeful Baron Blade is the name I keep getting for the Promo.  Mad Bomber is just his first side.

Yeah, I was remembering that, so I decided to go normal, but normal that side is weak.  I flooded the field with cards and took so little damage.

Of course Adept getting off two power chains each round is a bit sick, he benefits more from support decks than other heroes.

Vengeance Environments:

First one I'm thinking another structure, like a base or something.

Second one will be outside, we don't have a frozen Environment yet.

well the freedom 6 variants of Bunker and Wraith teamed up with Mr. Fixer to take on Advanced Akash Bhuta in the Realm of Discord. it was a very close and painful game, and despite being ensnared for much of the game Mr. Fixer was by far the mvp. Poor Wraith failed to make it to the end. It was a strange game as none of my opening strategies came to fruition and I ended up using a few card combinations for the first time ever. It's great that i'm still finding new stuff to surprise me after gawd knows how many games!

I'll try to log the game and hopefully get a couple more in this weekend :-)

What was a strange card combination that you havn't used before?

I wouldn't say that the combos were strange, they were just things that I had never done before or had the need to consider. For example, whilst Fixer was caught in the brambles I was making heavy use of Toolbox - I've always considered him a very versatile character but had never truly seen that in action until I spammed Toolbox for a couple of turns. He turned into a real powerhouse whilst allowing the other characters to keep their weapons in action.

The most fun moment was when Bunker dropped into turret mode then ran out of cards to power the gatling gun. I figured I would let it go and make a tough choice between continuing to heap on the damage as we were suffering from the -1 to Villain targets, or to drop out of turret mode to recharge cards with no guarantee of getting back there again. Wraith peeked into the villain deck and we were going to be hit with losing either Ongoings or Equipment, either of which would have been disasterous. Then a lightbulb went off and for the first time ever I made good use of Salvage Yard. Akash trashed Bunkers gat which was going to go anyway, Wraith trashed her stuff to make up the balance. Fixer put a heap of cards into Bunkers hand solving two problems for him at once, and also put some useful weapons back into Fixers hands at just the point that he was able to start doing some really effective damage again. I calculated that I could put Wraith into the brambles to free up Fixer and between Fixer and Bunker they would be able to wipe all of the Villain targets in one round so it made sense for the Wraith to indulge in a little self sacrifice.

It was a seamless and beautiful moment for the heroes.

Initializing...

nope, Locomotion, I was playing the variant.

Scholar Vs. Ennead. Dear gods, that was a painful one... It just went on and on, you know?

2 games completed:

1) Kismet at Wagner Mars Base vs.  Young Legacy, Ra, and Omnitron-X

Hero victory in 7 Rounds.  First two pounded away while Omnitron handled Environment Deck and chipped in.

2) La Capitan at The Block vs. Absolute Zero, Fanatic, and Ra

Hero victory in a tightly contested 19 Rounds.  First time I've beaten La Capitan!  Abzolute Zero never really got started and was out by Round 7.  Fanatic played End of Days in Round 3 to clear out a clot of crew right after the ship was shot down.  Key after that was Fanatic having Zealous Offense and play and being able to keep La Capitan herself and a crew or Environment card inmate in check.  Ra pounded away in the meantime.  By the last round there were 6-7 crew back in play (damn Boarding Parties) and Fanatic was down to 3 HP or so.  Ra kept getting hit by a "cannot use powers" effect, but made due by playing Scorched Earth and using the stack of Lockdown and FILTER guard cards in play to cause havoc.

On to the next environment.  (Will get these into the database later tonight.)

So you know, Oak tree, Zealous Offense doesn’t work against character cards–you can’t stop La Capitan’s damage with it. Her crew, yes, but not her.

Well after the kids were in bed, I finally pulled out to box & ran what I thought would be a quick 3-hero game of Legacy/Ra/Unity against Baron Blade. Since Atlantis was low on the point board, I used it. Big mistake.

Legacy started with a respectable hand that included both Inspiring Presence and Motivational Charge, but struggled to get going after that. Ra performed well, but ate lots of Backlash Field damage, including right after causing the Baron to flip, with the retaliation damage incapacitating him. Unity had been mercilessly pummeled by a Kraken for a couple of turns (although I think after the fact it's possible one of the Baron's Turrets might have been lower than she was when the Kraken finally knocked her out). I was suprised by the number of cards in the Baron's trash - 10, I think, although his end-of-turn damage immediately after flipping was enough to take out Legacy in one fell swoop.

D'oh!  That probably would have made a difference!

So if there's five of us playing in G+ games, we only get the points once, right? ;)

I would think since each of you is a player, you would each count that you had played in that environment.

This isn't about total number of games, but about each person playing in different environments.  Just like they avoided you having to win to count the game, I doubt they would want to encourage solo games over multi-player games.

More games completed before bedtime...

3) Baron Blade (adv) at Insula Primalis vs Unity Golem, Tempest, and Chrono-Ranger.

8 Round hero victory.  Good mix of heroes interacting.  Main thing was CR getting some bounties on Baron Blade and just plinking him to pieces with one-shots and Compound Bow.

4) Voss & Friends at The Final Wasteland vs Ra, Team Leader Tachyon, and Chrono-Ranger.

Another 8 round hero victory.  Voss went down right before his first Forced Deployment would have activated.  (Though Ra had a Scorched Earth waiting for it, plus others had cards ready as well once they rode out the damage.)  Again, Chrono-Ranger got equipment and bounties out and went to town.  Ra laughed at Jersey Devil attacks, and one of the latter ate one of Voss' minions as well.  Due to TLT power all the heroes had massive hands of cards to work from.

5) La Capitan seeks revenge! at the Ruins of Atlantis vs. Redeemer Fanatic, Legacy, and Unity.

A 12 Round fight that the heroes eked out.  No Zealous Offense played incorrectly this time.  End of Days used again in Round 3 to clear out a pile of crew (5) and some annoying Environment stuff.  Legacy had trouble getting a hand built and eventually discarded it twice to get rid of Toxic Seaweed.  La Capitan flipped with a stack of cards under her and things looked grim.  Fanatic chipped away at that along with some Unity one-shots and eventually La Capitan got flipped back over.  Legacy got a Take Down in and that slowed things enough for Unity to get a bot swarm going.   That and Kraken tentacles kept the crew sort of in check while La Capitan's HP got whittled away.  The turn before La Capitan was ready to flip again while having three crew out Fanatic got a Wrathful Retribution in for 25 HP damage.  Followed by a one-shot Thokk finish from Legacy, who had 1 HP remaining.  Unity's bots were almost gone at that point, and she had limited equipment for getting more out - though her swarm going down did noticable damage due to Cryobot and Volatile Parts doing damage.  At game end Legacy at 1 HP, Fanatic at 6 HP, and Unity at 5 HP. 

Three victories today, two of them without casualties, although only one was easy.  All solo games, even though I was at a friend's house...two were before anyone else showed up (the friend in question was still doing housework and snack runs and such), and one was later while everyone else was tied up playing Stone Age.  Along with the forum game that wrapped up this morning, that means I've played in four environments today, and I have 2 days left in which to try and cover the other 8 (possibly I'll start a second loop but there's no hope of me finishing it).

Today was the first time I defeated Iron Legacy, and the first time I played against The Chairman on Advanced.  Both of those games were major workouts, while beating Plague Rat up proved to be just as much of a cakewalk with 5 heroes as with 4 (scaling the value of H on "destroy an InfectioN" damage doesn't do much, since the heroes can just stay infected and not worry about it).  I should have played on Advanced, but very likely if I had, the bonus to infected heroes' damage would have just made the game even shorter.  I have yet to lose even one hero to PR, despite him supposedly being ultra-violent, and I've never seen him flip.  Next time, definitely going for three heroes on Advanced; if that doesn't do the trick I don't know what will.

The Chairman game was simply incredible.  Being Advanced isn't entirely an advantage for him; he flips and becomes vulnerable to damage much sooner, and the huge bonus to Thugs' damage only came up once, when Bunker ran out of cards to pay the Enforcers.  Bunker died that game, but it wasn't all bad - Chrono-Ranger drew By Any Means, and you could just imagine him turning to Bunker's player and saying "Give me a card play!  Give me a card play NOW!"  Legacy started off pretty useless, apart from Galvanize, but by the end he was a ridiculous melee-immune powerhouse with about 8 ongoings in play (plus the Legacy Ring); Chrono-Ranger put three bounties on The Operative (all of which remained in play after she was incapped, since she didn't "leave play"), and quickly tore her to pieces with his compounded bow dealing 8 damage a turn.  Unfortunately he got greedy and played Hunter & Hunted to add 6 more to that, finishing her off the same turn, and then having a +3 to damage against him when the Chairman went...since he was clearly doomed anyway, he nova'ed out and beat the Chairman up some more before dying, and then came the absolute most priceless play of the game.

Undivided Attention had Mr. Pike dealing, with the bonuses from the dead Operative and two Villainous Weaponries, a total of 6 damage to the highest-HP hero, who was Nightmist - and she had The Amulet (along with the other amulet, but whenever someone says The Amulet in reference to her, they don't mean that one).  So Chairman Pike, instead of dealing 6 damage to her, dealt 6 damage to himself - and then retaliated against himself for 7!!!  Even after that hilarity, the game could still have ended in disaster if he'd ever gotten a Prison Break, but between Mistbound and Take Down, he'd skipped his card play three times (both copies of Mistbound - Misty was doing a LOT of discarding, even by her standards, this game), and the rest was just luck.  Also in the vein of luck was the turn-1 Meteor Storm which kept the heroes from getting torn up too bad by The Muscle and The Contract at the beginning of the game...the last environment plays included a Self-Destruct sequence which the heroes completely ignored, since they had the Chairman (of Mars, apparently) on the ropes at that point anyway.  All told, an awesome game, and if we weren't having a "blitz" this weekend, I'd probably rest on my laurels for a few days before playing again.

Now THAT was a frustrating game.

6) Citizen Dawn at Megalopolis vs Young Legacy, Tachyon, and Bunker.

Heroes conceded in Round 6.

Game started with Citizens Spring and Sweat in play.  Truth (of course) is drawn and things will be a bit slower. 

Heroes spend Round 1 blasting Truth into the trash.  Though that will let Sweat cause more discards.  The Environment Deck now joins the fun by playing Papparazi.  (yay)

Citizen Tears comes into play in Round 2 and essentially allows Sweat to nuke even more cards.  The heroes manage to kill off Citizen Sweat, but also are almost totally out of cards due to getting Papparazi trashed.  The Environment Deck retaliates with Impending Casualty.

Citizen Dawn rolls out Return With the Dawn and gets Sweat back out of the trash. etc. etc. Environment Deck play Hostage Situation just for giggles.

Round 6 starts with THAT CARD.  Heroes have zero cards in play, zero cards in hand. 

Citizen Dawn has the following in play:  Citizens Tears, Sweat, Spring, and Truth.  Ongoing cards "Return With the Dawn" and "Channel the Eclipse".

With only Young Legacy able to deal damage by default the heroes are going to get nowhere fast.  Even if they skip actions to draw two Citizen Sweat will force a total discard.  And it will take 7 rounds at least for Young Legacy to kill Citizen Truth out unless Citizen Dare rolls out and does it for her.  Not a lot of damage being dished out yet, but that will escalate at some point given that two villain cards will be drawn per turn along with Truth coming back from the trash a turn later.

GAH.  I've seen 4-5 Round stomps of villains due to good hero draws, but this is the first time I've seen a hero team completely steamrollered* like this. *(Well, less steamrollered than effectively neutered and staked out to be nibbled to death over a extended run of rounds.)

Time to quit playing for a while… (though I did finish a run through all eight environments I have.)

7. Baron Blade at Silver Gulch, 1883 vs. Sleuth (Rook City?) Wraith, Fanatic, and Ra

Hero loss in 6 rounds.  Basically a shoot-out with the Environment Deck joining in.  Baron Blade got flipped in Round 4, but the heroes went down in Rounds 5 (Wraith) and the rest in Round 6.   Ra was finished off by a gunman from the Environment Deck.

8. Iron Legacy at Time Cataclysm vs. Absolute Zero, Legacy (!), and Unity

Hero group TPK'd in Round 4.  IL started with two Demoralizing Presences in play and added a Galvanized to it soon afterwards.  Beyond that he drew one-shots and simply beat the heroes to pieces.  Demoralizing Presences made Legacy's Galvanize a bit less useful; Absolute Zero never got started (I think Impale was the only offensive card play he made), and Unity only got two bots out - and they got leveled on the next round.  (Though it is sort of interesting to see Iron Legacy, Legacy, and Champion Bot all on the field at the same time.  )

Perhaps more solo games this evening.  Off to run errands after I enter these games in the spreadsheet.

Good thing loses count, we've been on a huge losing binge for these games. We'll get our revenge soon!

I saw the loss coming in the Iron Legacy match.  Two heroes who generally need time to build up and Legacy didn't have the right card draw to get something like a (Next Evolution - Lead From the Front) combo going to mitigate damage. 

Would have probably needed Absolute Zero having or drawing Fueled Freeze right off for ongoing control as well.  Possible to win I guess, but you need luck with that combo of heroes in order to hold out and get established.

The loss to Baron Blade was actually a little surprising.  Not an advanced game either.  Just watched the heroes drain out of HP faster than they could knock Blade and the gunmen from the Environment Deck down.  I think Blade played "Slash and Burn" twice and that definitely had some effect. 

Just called a mulligan on my first game of the day...it seemed like the Prime Wardens Minus Fanatic were handing Spite a royal beatdown, with Tempest having his Shackles in play and dealing three damage instances per turn while Adept granted him extra card plays with Subdominant.  But then I noticed that, since the very beginning of the game, I had failed to have Spite regain HP whenever the heroes chose to take damage (and mill cards, which was helping a lot with Argent's Vernal Sonatas) in order to use a Power, since he had the Drug in play which has this effect.  So since there was no way of determining what Spite's HP should have been, I'm just going to scratch the whole game and call it a tie (which means it will appear as a loss on the statistics thread, as did my previous "called off due to my screwing up" game).  Still, I'm assuming it counts toward today's challenge - I did play for almost five full rounds, and saw a lot of neat card interactions (this might be the first time I've ever seriously worried about being Lost in the Past, and it was a lot of fun to have Tempest throw one of two Good Samaritans that had come out Into The Stratosphere, ensuring that the other one would escape without any risk of a new villain card killing him, since the next villain card was the other Samaritan, who could immediately also be rescued as long as the top villain card didn't destroy a Victim).

Oooof!  I just finished my full set of environments, over the course of yesterday and today.  Hardest game was probably Apostate in Wagner Mars Base, though some well timed Meteor Storms managed to save my bacon in that one.  

From what it looks like right now, we're getting pretty close.  We need 2 more points in Tomb of Anubis and The Block to finish the "10 per Environment" challenge, and we're only 78 total points away from victory in general!

Losing streak broken as I started back through the environments.

9) Ambuscade at Time Cataclysm vs. Tempest, Young Legacy, and Unity

Hero win in 8 Rounds.  Unity never really got going while Ambuscade started with Reactive Shielding and the Cloaking Device.   Once those went down Legacy and Tempest locked him down with a Take Down - Salvage From the Deep Cycle combo that essentially strangled Villain Deck draws.  With few distractions from shooting Ambuscade directly he did not last long.

10) Ambuscade (seeking revenge!) at The Final Wasteland vs. Chrono-Ranger, Wraith, and Unity.

Hero win in 5 Rounds.  Initial Ambuscade devices were Sonic Mine and Personal Hand Cannon.  Chrono-Ranger rolled out bounties, and Wraith had a fistful of hair dryers and 5-6 pieces of equipment out by Round 3 including a weapon and Utility Belt on Round 1.  Steamrolling commenced.  And Unity got Stealth and a Platform bot operational on Round 2 - plus a nice sacrifical Bee Bot play later that cleared out a troublesome Environmental beast as well as blasting the last few points of the Cloaking Device.

Edit: Corrected spelling error. 

(Nitpick at Oaktree:  It's Ambuscade, no "h".  'E is, 'ow you say, Francais, oui?  I know, I'm a terrible person.  Who also can't figure out how to do mini-text on this forum.)

It seems to be a good day for me bungling games...I did manage not to concede this one (which is good since I've conceded two games in the Realm of Discord already, and this is just sad given that it's my favorite environment overall), but after The Dreamer flipped, I completely forgot that I was playing on Advanced against her, and I had no hope whatsoever of being able to fix the error.  Why, you ask?  Because the error in question involved the heroes having a lot of Equipment including Smoke Bombs in play, and The Dreamer dealing 1 damage to every non-villain target (which, on Advanced, becomes 2 damage), with Imbued Vitality in play.  The Equipments were all 6-HP non-villain targets, so Dreamer dealt 1 damage to each of them, all of which was reduced by 1 and redirected to the hero with the highest HP.  The first time this happened, Dreamy had a +1 to damage from Dark Hero, so the highest-HP hero had taken a bunch of 1-damage hits, which under the proper rules would have been 2-damage hits and quite possibly changed his highest-hero status, so that some of the hits would go to other heroes.  The second instance of damage lacked the Dark Hero bonus and thus didn't happen at all, but would have if the Advanced text applied.

So, entirely by accident, I have now played a "half-Advanced" game, something which isn't strictly legal but which appears to have been done in some of the early Statistics Thread games (sadly, I can no longer enter a game that way even though earlier results of the sort are in the database).  At some point, I will have to fight Dreamy with only Side B getting advanced text (I must remember to have H = 3 in that game, as was the case here), and then after that fight her on Advanced on both sides (probably with H = 4 that time).

At the moment, I see both of those on the spreadsheet as being at or above 10, but Time Cataclysm is only 9, so I'll play there for my last game today (was planning to anyway, actually, just because of the way I pick settings for battles).  This will leave me at only 6 games for the weekend so far, so it's unlikely I'll complete a loop of 12 before midnight tomorrow (esp. given that I have plans for the early afternoon).  But it sounds like you guys can probably live without my providing the full-completion bonus (+34 points over my current 14, 2 of which will happen after I play in TC) …I can probably at least sneak in two more games tomorrow and get a couple expansion bonuses, contributing probably 10 more points, so if one or two more players are closer to a full loop and can finish it, we'll have this thing in the bag - we only have like 66 points to go as of the last time I looked.

Thanks for the corection, I will fix the post.  I hate it when other people butcher the spelling on my name, so I do not get upset when others point out that I am the one doing the butchering. 

So me and Nielzabub just played a G+ game that got us to 10 points in each environment! Wooo!

Plague Rat died at -20HP thanks to Fixed Point. And we made the reveal of one of the new envronments happen, so I'm happy. :)

Just played the most spectacularly absurd game of my career, which is saying something.  Twenty-two turns!  For a difficulty 2 villain, and not even on Advanced!  Nightmist had 20 cards in hand at the start of her turn, just before killing the villain on an incap turn.  And the whole reason the game went down the way it did was that she was reckless and endangered her comrades on turn 1, eventually resulting in their deaths in a Marsquake.  Incredible.

Last game of the night (and possibly the event since I have to pack and then travel tomorrow.)

11)  Grand Warlord Voss at Wagner Mars Base vs. Omnitron-X, Dark Visionary, and Tachyon.

Hero win in 22 rounds.  DV is keeping the villain deck in check by burying Forced Deployments, but the group is just not getting anywhere in killing Voss himself while they get weakened by minions and the Environment Deck.  A Forced Deployment does get into play, but the heroes trigger it on purpose and let a left intact Oxygen Leak kill the minion pile.  OX loses his components and that weakens the group and things look grim.   Tachyon burns out her cards and a couple of Lightspeed Barrages to do some damage, but is then taken out in Round 16.  OX has gotten some effective plating out and that is keeping a growing pile of components intact.  DV is at very low HP and generally not doing much more than Turmoil every turn to have some control over the villain deck. 

A Previously buried Forced Deployment comes up and OX triggers it on purpose at the start of its turn and proceeds to devastate the minion pile using a judicious pile of components* and a well-timed Defensive Blast.

A few rounds later of being pounded alone and Voss becomes fatally demoralized before DV finishes him off with a psychic blast.

*- At game end OX had roughly 12 cards in play including 7 components.

Cripes, you too?  There must be something in the air tonight.  Usually a "long" game goes 9-12 rounds.

I played in Megaopolis and Final Wasteland today. Add the points please!

See how much I love you guys? I played a solo game earlier, and I plan to play more after I finish eating this yummy chocolate muffin.

And I very rarely play solo games. I think before today I've done that once or twice compared to my hundreds of G+ games. Be grateful, people. ;)

You can do it yourself next time; I typed in your username (capitalize it yourself if you wish, I couldn't remember) and entered the 2 points each for those two Environments.  (If you played in one of them again you would gain only 1 more point.  If you have Silver Gulch and play your next game there, you'll enter 2 points in that Environment's column, plus 2 points in the "all mini-expansions bonus" column.)

Your tremendous sacrifice shall be commemmorated in the annals of our people. 

I'm far too lazy and lack the concentration necessary to like solo games anywhere near as much as I like games with people.

I know it's be good for me to force myself to solo a bit, to help me learn the decks better and such, but it feels like work to a person with a condition that affects her cognitive ability a lot of the time. Solo games would be much better if I had my own personal Ronway to keep track of everything for me and correct me when I get things wrong and remind me of stuff that I've forgotten and kill off my heroes.

Oh wait, I'd prefer it didn't do that last one...

Well. Gloomweaver certainly is more of a challenge when you have a few Irradiated Cyclohexane Vats and a Supercooled Trisolvent Vat out, along with a few mutated rats.

A now bot-less Unity let Expatriette use a hugely boosted Pride and Prejudice (the Supercooled vat killing Unity in the process). Expat and Visionary hit as hard as they could leaving Gloomy on 9HP to be finished off by the Vat at the end of the environment turn, which would have killed off the two remaining heroes as well. It was pretty damned awesome, and certainly the most fun I've had with him.

23 points left to go...

If you don't have environment destruction that supercooled trisolvent vat can kill you pretty quickly.

Yeah, tell me about it. And I'd used all my Bee Bots on previous vats!

just updated the rest of my games, looks like we are only 19 points away now! I had hoped to complete a set of base game enviros last night but took my wife to see Gravity instead (I ended up seeing it twice in one day - it's just amazing) but I squeezed in a drubbing from La Capitan in the tomb of Anubis to get the Infernal Relics bonus. Thankful that losing games still count as it was not pretty for the heroes! She stole our cards then ordered her swarthy crewmen to toss us overboard 

I could certainly use such a thing as well.  It need not come in Ronway form though…it'd simply need to be a completely or partially computerized form of the game.  Unfortunately, >G doesn't seem to have much interest in such a thing, even though I feel confident that it's existence would have a minimal impact on sales of the physical cards.

Ummm…they are making one: SotM for tablets.

I see.  Now if only they'll make one for real computers.  (Preferably rather antiquated ones.)

19 points to go as I pack up and head out to catch the train to the airport.

I will be disappointed if my current total holds up as 3rd highest for the event. 

Mine will have to remain at 8 due to lack of sleep. Shame, because I was actually enjoying the solo thing. But realistically, being awake for 24 hours means I'll make far too many mistakes and not notice them until it's far too late. Games like that are bad games.

But I'm sure we'll get to 19 points in the next however-many hours, I have faith in the forum. Go Team! Don't make me have to come over there…

Honestly can't see that one happening - tablets are where the audience is. I can't see enough people wanting to play exclusively on PC (and not on some kind of portable device) to make it worthwhile developing something like that. In general, people who buy digital board games have tablets and/or smartphones.

Personally, if I'm playing a digital game I want pass-and-play with people in the same room as well as online play, and the first one is only really possible with a portable device.

Thankfully I'm lucky enough to have access to an Android tablet - let's hope there's a 'droid app as well as the iPad one!

I'm just back from a Boardgame weekender. Managed to get two games of Sentinels in (apparently, "you can't play the same game over and over again", otherwise it would have been more). Wasn't going to participate in this, but seeing as this is a community spirit thing, you are welcome to my meagre 4 points (and I hope I filled the thing out right).

First game was Chrono Ranger, The Scholar, and Freedom Six Tachyon (love her) against Apostate in the Final Wasteland. We won, and Apostate never got to flip.

Second game was Tempest, Young Legacy, The Scholar, Mr. Fixer and Fanatic against Miss Information (who hired that woman anyway?) in the Realms of Discord. We won, but Fanatic had to bring the End of Days once, and by the end only The Scholar and Tempest were left standing.

I'll get in a game to put us over the top tonight; it just has to wait for the kids to go to bed.

Thanks for saving the final game for me.

We Stomped Iron Legacy in Ruins of Atlantis, didn't expect that result, but hey, it worked out.  Crono Ranger kind of dominated the fight, Jim's hat, contracts, compound Bow, just a wicked (and fast) fight.

So 300 points and 10 in each environment.  Yeah!

So now I'll just spam refresh on the multiverse page till the new environments show up.

Mazel tov, gang!  Well done!

Now, could we maybe take next weekend off?  My eyes hurt after playing so many games of Sentinels!

Yeah, agreed.  I already pencilled today in to play Sentinels instead of doing anything else, but next weekend I should probably actually go out and do things instead of staying home by the card table all day.

Great Job everyone!  I'm excited to see these environments...   I am glad to have contributed with 4 solo games this weekend.  I never get a chance to play solo anymore.  I bought Sentinels originally to play solo but my friends love it so much, we've replaced our Poker nights with Sentinels nights.  I think the fact that everyone is involved at all times is what makes it so fun to play with groups.

It's the unfortunate advantage of being unemployed right now--in between applying for jobs and working on my book, I play games of solo SotM.  Hence why I was able to run the environmental gauntlet this weekend.

Yay! We are awesome. :)

Patience, people. I plan on running other events that aren’t based on the number of games played.

It seems as though people are still contributing to this sheet even though we hit the goal.  Do we want to try to go further into negatives?  I'm planning to play H-2 more games today, and it costs me little enough to input them.

Just had an awesome game against The Chairman in the Tomb of Anubis. The game-ending turn, Legacy had played Take Down to slow things down, and Akana, the mummy who plays environment cards when villains are destroyed, was in play. The Ra busted out Scorched Earth, hitting all the small villains first and thus boosting his damage against the big bads.

(I entered this, even though we already beat the goal!)

Is one of the events going to be, guess what Ronway's new avatar is supposed to be a picture of?

The Scholar. What do I win?

He appears to be a dude with long hair and a tie....

He's wearing a white lab coat...

http://xkcd.com/699/

I'm not as good as that guy, I can't add all those fancy little details and doo das.

Not comparing you to him at all, just parroting the joke about lab coats.

Also I think the difference between people who can do art of that level and people who can't is just thousands of hours of practice.  It might take a certain inborn genius to work in some of the more sophisticated art media, but even at his best, Randal is just "pretty good" with his drawing (if he possesses an irreplaceable talent, it's more in the vein of writing I believe; some of the ideas behind his cartoons could be regarded as masterpiece-level, but on the visual art side he's not anything spectacular, not when compared to literally hundreds of other artists I could name with a few hours of thought), and it's likely that anyone (barring individuals with a specific impairment, such as a disease that makes their hands tremble so they can barely hold a pencil) could learn that degree of skill with enough dogged persistence.  (And willingness to fail dozens of times before each new threshold of success they reach, which is what rules me out...I can draw rather terribly, but don't want to spend large amounts of time being bad in order to eventually get slightly better, so I just accept that I'm a doodler and do it only for the sake of amusing myself.)

I would guess at Baron Blade.

The hair is vaguely correct, but Blade's shirt (or whatever you call the thing he wears under his lab coat - I think it's supposed to be body armor but I can't be sure) is purple, not blue.  And of course there's no scar on his eye, although the detail level makes that unsurprising.

Victory!

Me being someone who is partially color blind and drew it without comparing colors, I consider it close enough. I can't even tell you how many times in elementary school people would ask "why are you coloring the ocean purple?"

Edit: Another funny color blindness story that the wife likes telling. I have this alarm clock, that I had owned for roughly 13 years now. The first 8 years of owning it, I had thought the color was Silver, which I thought made it look quite nice. However at some point after meeting the misses and my alarm clock was brought up, she revealed it to be green… Oh the horror!

Infact the scar is there, it's just really small because the picture is really small, he even has a grayish pupil.

On the topic of the event, I did get in the solo game to finish the core set cycle of environments, but my wife & I did some Christmas gift planning for family members, so I didn't get to Silver Gulch.

Legacy, Unity, and Haka took on Ambuscade in Insula Primalis, and started out with a rough go of it. Ambuscade pulled a Vanish on his first turn, and Haka deemed it necessary to wipe the starting Sonic Mine in order to keep it from becoming dino chow, but then promptly became a T-Rex snack himself. I became convinced of the utility of Flash Forge through being able to use it (after skipping Unity's play & power phases on her first turn due to lack of a way to get bots into play) to find a Construction Pylon, Workbench, and Swift Bot, which then collectively fueled getting two Platform Bots, a Champion Bot, and pair of Raptor Bots (the latter in succession) out. The first Raptor Bot didn't survive a full round thanks to getting pummeled by Ambuscade, but his successor helped make a big difference. Once Ambuscade came out of hiding, Unity's bots and Haka just tore him apart.

That's usually how it works.  Makes him a very annoying and silly villain, usually an utter putz, but immensely frustrating on occasions.  It's weird, he has Vanish and Traps that want him to play a slow waiting game, and he has all those "shuffle and play a card" tricks that make him super-fast, so on balance he's neither fast nor slow, just schizophrenic.  Probably no other villain so badly wishes he could stack his own deck instead of having to be random…and yet, he's even more random than most villains because he keeps shuffling.  (This is probably based on the same logic that gave Expatriette the "Play a card" power, which every single other hero wants more than she does.)

Wow, Ronway. Who'd have a deliberately-badly drawn Paint avatar of a villain? ;)

Are there any more of you?  I'd love to see someone manage to cram all nine of the Ennead into a 75x75 square while leaving them vaguely recognizeable....

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Good luck with that. They were one I was dreading to do in my barrage of "every other day villain avatar changes that were created by me in MS paint in <5 minutes"

Well I wasn't going to, but someone kind of demanded I make it my avatar after I drew it. (can't remember why I did…)

BEHOLD.

So, when do we get the new environments? :D

I need a way of thumbing posts, words do not mean as much as an upturned thumb.

Meerkat, that's awesome. :)

We totally need a Paint in <5 mins thread.

Magnificent!  The only one that I didn't instantly recognize was Isis (a bit hard to do justice to wings in a 25-pixel square, I should imagine).  And of course, at avatar size Shu is invisible, which is just the way he likes it.

(Nintendo in 1985 should totally hire you to do sprites for the NES, by the way.)

Make one! Though obviously this one took rather a lot longer than five minutes…

EDIT: Oh, wait, you did. Never mind then.

New environments, you say?

HERE you GO!

Can Akash'Bhuta be an environment in the future?

Woohoo!

Thanks, Christopher!

And a hero too please! Then Akash'Bhuta can fight Akash'Bhuta in Akash'Bhuta.

Honestly can't say how excited I am.  One of the environments I made myself (only slightly tested) was a rent-a-lair for evil villains, it had volcano power and security teams, very james bond villain hideout.

So excited for Mobile Defense Platform I can hardly stand it.

Freedom tower might be cool too, but Mobile Defense Platform?  Awesome.

Two perfect locations given the theme of the expansion. I am as excited as you.

MDP will have you tearing through every inch of that fortress and its crew. Hopefully you won't go down with the ship…

Freedom Tower should be a safe haven for our heros, but someone is knocking on the door…

Gah! This is so good

Oh dear. Does this mean that we finally have an environment that is mostly good to our heroes? Huzzah!

Whenever a new expansion comes out, the heroes are always the most exciting thing to me, followed by the villains. The environments are usually not as impressive; 15 cards compared with 27 and 41 with which to wow me, not to mention the degree of interactivity involved, but I'm always pleasantly surprised. I'm still amazed at how thematically AWESOME the Time Cataclysm is.

As for this one, Setback and the Sentinels are in my top 5 favorite heroes OF ALL TIME (kthnxKanye), the villains are a fun challenge with a surprising amount of variety to to them from game to game, and AT LEAST one of the environments is pretty cool.

I know, you said no playtesters, but I don't care.

twitch  "stop hitting yourself"

(edit – my post is mostly nonsense, but slightly less so with the quote I meant to attach…)

I was right!  I said that at least one of the environments would be either a villain HQ or a hero HQ - and they're BOTH!  Very excited to see Freedom Tower.

But I have to ask - if you fight Baron Blade on the Mobile Defense Platform, and you destroy the Mobile Defense Platform he starts the game with, does the Environment deck go away?

Really?  I've always thought it makes no sense at all - it's not a place where the battle is happening, but a series of events happening in different places, with no rhyme or reason connecting them.

Of course not. That would be silly

No Baron Blade at Mobile Defense platform with a Mobile Defense platform in play just means. . . umm. . . 

He has a decoy MDP?  and the 10 damage is the heroes dealing with that decoy one, finding out which one Blade is actually on?

Does that work?

You could think of the 10HP target as the "sheilds" you gotta take offline before getting to the creamy villain center

but you're already inside....

A little imagination and abstract thought can go a long way haha

(rarely do the thematics of whats happening in the card game translate into the narrative in a literal way. I played Miss Info in Pike Industral last night, her first diversion was Lab Explosion, so the narrative became that Miss Info was hiding chemical vats in the basement of the V5 HQ instead of having the heros just fight miss info at the pike complex itself. Just an example)

Sometimes having to stretch the narrative like that becomes awesome (The Chairman in the Final Wasteland?  He's basically Lord Humungus, ruling with an iron fist over the last enclave of humanity).  But other times, it's lame (The Chairman in Insula Primalis?  What the hell?  I picture the Crooked Cops trying to direct stegosaur traffic.)

Don't forget Unity's Platform bot, you can have the MDP destroy an MDP while on the MDP. Recursion bot to the resue!

Yo, dawg!  I heard you like Mobile Defense Platforms...

*ahem*

Savage Mana + MDP + Baron Blade's MDP = ?

Also, posted that first comment on the wrong topic. Whoops!